What could have been

by son-goku5

In this story, Penny meets Leonard in a bar before she moves in next to him. Things happen. STORY IS RATED M FOR A REASON, MATURE CONTENT INSIDE. Please R&R. Chapter 90 is up :)

34. Chapter 34

Hello there. I know it had been a while since my last update but after spending New Years Eve sick at home, I thought I deserved a little vacation once my flu was over. The Caribbean is really nice when it's cold in Germany :D

Hope you enjoy :)

Disclaimer: I don't own anything of the franchise. I write here only for my own pleasure and that of others who read the story and I don't make any money. Any similarities to song titles or lyrics are absolutely coincidental and unintended. Some dialog is verbatim from different episodes and are there to keep the story going.

Disclaimer 2: A big thank you to TerribleWaitress for letting me use her characters Meryl, Bridget and Scott that she created. You're still the greatest. I hope, I got her sister right :)

---

After several minutes of not bothering to stop her tears from flowing, Penny finally composed herself and took several breaths to calm her nerves. Leonard was gone. There was nothing she could do to prevent something happen to Leonard, should the worst really come to pass. Until she read his letter, especially the last sentence, it didn't even occur to her that he was going to one a very dangerous place for three months.

With a last sob, she got up and went into her bathroom to do her morning routine. As she sat on the toilet, she felt the twang in her behind, a testament of what she did last night. Doing it anal was a spur of the moment decision on her part, especially without the condoms she still had some of and in her haze, she had ridden him harder than she planned and it showed.

After showering and putting on makeup, she put on some underwear and walked into her living room to brew some coffee. A look at the clock told her that it was almost noon, making her smile with the memory of why she slept that long, even though she had wanted Leonard to wake her before he left.

He did write that he had been unable to wake her up, which means she had been so worn out from their almost desperate lovemaking that she fell asleep like a stone. Even more incredible was the fact that he managed to wake up, despite having been awake as long as her and doing similar amounts of work.

That thought made her smile again. Finding Leonard had been one hell of a stroke of luck, because with her being a person who loved expressing her feelings in a more direct fashion through sex, having the man she loved capable to match her and sometimes even surpass her in carnal endurance, despite him being asthmatic, was something she could still barely wrap her head around.

As she drank her coffee, she thought about what to do during the summer, now that she was alone. Going out every night was out of the question, she had no interest in meeting guys whatsoever and she also didn't want to get into the situation to get drunk on a night out and ending up in someone else's bed. That left trying to get as many shifts as possible, which let her earn money while using up time, and after coming home, going to bed early. If she slept eight to twelve hours, the time should pass quickly.

It also reminded her that she had to tell her parents that she would come alone. She got her laptop and started it up, waiting for the operating system to load and once that was done, she started Skype, hoping her parents were online. To her surprise, their contact was in fact online and she wasted no time in calling them.

"Hey sweetie, what a surprise." her mother greeted her.

"Hey mom." Penny replied. "How come you're online?"

"I learned a bit about computers and now I find it quite useful for getting information. Cooking recipes especially."

"Is dad around?" Penny asked her mother.

"Yeah, he's sitting in his chair."

"Hey slugger." she could hear her father yell from off-screen before he sat down next to her mom.

"Hey daddy."

"Penny, I have some recipes I want to try out for when you guys are visiting, I wanted to make sure that it's nothing Leonard is allergic against or something."

"Yeah, that won't be a problem." Penny said morose.

"Why? What's that tone, sweetheart?" Meryl asked her daughter. "You're still going to visit us, aren't you?"

"Yes, but Leonard won't be coming with me."

"What?" her father practically shouted. "Penny, did you guys break up?"

"Daddy..."

"Young lady, you march over there and ask for his forgiveness so you can get back together with the father of my future grandchildren."

"What? Dad, what makes you think I did something?"

"Sweetheart, that young man worships the ground you are walking on, he wouldn't do anything to risk losing you." her mother piped in. "And given your track record, you doing something stupid is more likely."

"Mom, please..." Penny started but her father interrupted her again.

"No. You go over to him right now and don't call us before you haven't..."

"DADDY, STOP!" she shouted. "Leonard had to go to the North Pole during the summer."

"Is that some euphemism for 'You sent him packing'?" Wyatt asked.

"Huh? No, I mean it literally." Penny explained. "His roommate had concocted some experiment and wrote a grant proposal to get it. The president of the university they are working for fast-tracked this proposal to get rid of Sheldon and since Sheldon didn't ask for Leonard's approval, he didn't know. But Leonard couldn't get out of it in that short amount of time and therefore he had to go too. They left this morning."

"Did you at least tell him that you love him before he left?" Meryl asked.

"We professed our love a while ago, on our first anniversary. Didn't I tell you already?"

"If you start talking about feelings and stuff, I go back to my baseball game." Wyatt threw in and left the couch, walking out of the frame.

"No, you told us that he had some surprise planned for it and that you tell us later. But you didn't tell us in any of the calls you made." her mother continued.

"Oh. Well, he took me to the Bed and Breakfast where we became a couple. We went with another nice couple we met a while ago, they happened to spend a weekend at the same place. Leonard learned to ride a Harley for me and he rented one for the trip. It was amazing. And although I got food poisoning the first day, we had a romantic dinner on the second night. Come to think of it, you called me, remember?"

"I did, right." Meryl confirmed. "I asked about the anniversary and you said you were having it right now."

"Correct. We professed our love after that in our room." Penny said dreamily, remembering that evening while blocking out Clarice's hand on Leonard's arm.

"That's so sweet. How did it happen?"

"I had some bouts of insecurity. Then Leonard hugged me from behind in front of the mirror and said some very beautiful words to me." Penny told her mom, omitting the part where they had sex in front of said mirror before the magic words were spoken. "And then we told each other at the same time."

"That is perfect." her mother agreed.

"Okay, back to the topic. While Leonard won't come with me this time, I will come visit for two weeks. But this time I will come by plane, so one of you will have to pick me up."

"That shouldn't be a problem. Just tell us the exact time and we will be there."

After about an hour of more conversation, mostly about her relatives and events in Omaha, which weren't a lot, Penny ended the call and put her head back on the back of the couch. The nerve of her parents to assume that if there was a breakup between her and Leonard that she was the one responsible. Although she had to admit, given her past, it wasn't a far fetched assumption.

As she lay there, resting her eyes, she heard the distinctive ringing sound of an incoming Skype call. She opened her eyes and saw her screen black due to the screensaver and sighed, since the only other people who would call her on Skype were Cheryl or Kim or both or her parents if they forgot something important. She was pleasantly surprised and more than excited when she saw the face of her sweetie instead, prompting her to hit the accept button with almost indecent haste.

"Leonard?" she practically squealed.

"Hey Penny." he greeted her with a smile, having heard her squeal.

"Ugh, shut up." she pouted.

"All I said was hey Penny." he grinned.

"Yeah and I noticed that you noticed me squeal." she huffed. "So, how is the North Pole? I thought communication would be impossible."

"It will be once we're there. Or mostly."

"What do you mean mostly? And once you're there? Where are you?" she asked.

"Right now I'm sitting in a lonely hotel room in Reykjavik. Sheldon wanted us to share a room again but I wanted him to leave me alone."

"Why are you on Iceland?"

"It's the layover. We landed half an hour ago, checked into the hotel and tomorrow morning, the NSF teams have the last instruction meeting before we depart for our respective areas."

"I thought only you and the guys are at the North Pole." Penny said. "How many people will be there with you?"

"Only us four. I told you, we're part of a larger NSF expedition. Me and the guys are heading to the North Pole while other teams go to other areas of the arctic and Greenland."

"Ah, now I understand."

"And as for your other question regarding the communication, I have some good news, if you look at it that way. I couldn't include them in my note because I thought they didn't belong in there."

"What?" she asked, hopeful.

"While it's true that there isn't really any possibility of calling you or anyone else, since we only have CB radio that can reach the coast, there is a commercial communication satellite orbiting the northern hemisphere and occasionally its overlay covers the North Pole, if only for seconds or sometimes minutes and only if the weather allows it. That won't be long or strong enough for a phone call but it will make it possible for us to communicate using WhatsApp."

"How?"

"Well, when you write a message in WhatsApp and it can't be sent due to lack of network access, the program saves the message and continuously attempts to send it until it's done, as long as the phone has power. And once it's sent, it gets saved on the server until it can be transferred to the receiver. So, I can write a message to you and as soon as the satellite gets in range, it sends the message."

"I hear a but in there." she said.

"Yeah, since we never know when the satellite is covering us and how long, a message I write tomorrow could only be reaching you several days later and your answer to me could take the same amount of time. So I could tell you we are in a snowstorm and you learn that a week later and once I get your answer, we had sunshine for a week."

"Wow, that sucks. But I take occasional messages any day if the alternative is silence." Penny sighed.

"That's what I thought." Leonard replied and both stayed silent for a while. "I'm going to miss you."

"I will too. I will write you every day." Penny said, her voice cracking.

"That's not a good idea. If you write me every day and I get them all at once after two weeks, I might not be able to send out an answer quickly enough or some messages could be lost if the connection breaks in that moment. We should write when we get a message from the other and other than that, only if it's an emergency."

"Fine." Penny agreed sadly.

"What will you do over the summer? Mine will be filled with being in a very cold environment surround by friends and Sheldon."

"Well, Marie still throws that party and I'm going to my parents for two weeks. That's all I have planned. Everything else, I don't know. I guess I will sleep a lot. The more I sleep, the faster the time goes by until you return."

"Well, if you want to do that, you can. But I don't want you to put your life on hold just because I'm not there. If your friends ask you to go out, do it if you want." he said. "As long as you don't pick up another guy." he added with a wink but Penny could hear the fear in his voice.

"Leonard, we went over this. I love you and nobody else will see me naked or be allowed to touch me. Except my doctor of course, I have to renew the IUD in a few weeks. And that doctor is female."

"Good, just wanted to make sure." he said and sighed. "But as much as I want to continue to talk to you, I have to go to bed now."

"Already? It's not even four in the afternoon."

"Yeah, where you are. Here's almost midnight, we have an eight hour time difference."

"Crap. Okay, I'll let you head to bed. Sleep well."

"If I dream of you, then I will sleep well. Bye Penny. Love you."

"Love you too." she replied and kissed her fingers before pressing them onto the camera.

Leonard ended the call and she saw his contact go offline, making her sigh again. The call had been a nice surprise and the fact that they could have contact, even if only every now and then, was better than sitting at home every day and worrying about him. Since she still had the day off, she decided to hit the gym to power herself out.

After exhausting herself at the gym, wearing no makeup, wide pants and shirts to prevent guys ogling her or her body, she came back home and put her sweaty sports clothes into her laundry basket for the next day.

She went to her cabinet and counted her DVD collection, seeing enough to make it through a month with watching one per evening. Since she loved she show, she put in the first DVD of the first season of Sex and the City and watched the entire disc, getting her three hour closer to the return of Leonard.

Shortly before ten, she turned off her TV and laptop and went into her bathroom. Since she had already showered at the gym and didn't wear any makeup, she only needed to brush her teeth. Afterwards, she changed into her usual pajama bottoms and tank top and headed into bed, shutting off her light.

But even after an hour of tossing and turning, sleep wouldn't come. She terribly missed Leonard beside her, his warm arms enveloping her and his body pressed against hers. With a defeated sigh, she sat up again, walking around inside her apartment and looking around for something that could help her sleep.

Suddenly, an idea formed in her head. And since no one was home, nobody would stop her. She put on her slippers and grabbed her keys and those to Leonard's apartment. After checking in the hallway if someone comes up or down the stairs, since she was only in her pajama shorts and tank top, she hurried across the hall and entered 4A.

She walked towards the bedroom area and entered Leonard's room, seeing his empty bed, neatly made. She opened his closet and right in front hung the shirt she had seen him pack when she first learned about their trip. With a smile, she grabbed it and took off her top before donning the shirt and buttoning it up. Lastly, she got into his bed and put the comforter over her, deeply inhaling his scent that was in the sheets. She fell asleep almost immediately.

---

After her waking up energized and rested, that night set the standard for the first week. She would finish her shift, watch a DVD of Sex and the City and then head over to spend the night in Leonard's bed dressed in his shirt.

But so far, despite his assurance, no message from him had arrived on her phone. She was worrying constantly that something might have happened to her and she regularly checked news sites and the NSF homepage to see if there had been some accident. But apart from a woman scientist on some other team breaking her leg in an accident, nothing about the other teams was written.

But at least she had already managed a week. Only five more until she would spend two more with her parents and after that only four more until Leonard returned. Right now she was sitting in the employee lounge of the Cheesecake Factory and rested her feet, looking at the NSF homepage for information with her phone.

"Hey Penny." a voice disturbed her, making Penny look up.

"Hey Bernadette." she replied to the short blonde who was about to start her own shift.

"Are you looking for something in particular?" Bernadette asked, pointing at her phone.

"Information if something might have happened to my boyfriend. He's at the North Pole with his friends for some experiment."

"You're boyfriend is that guy with the glasses who often comes here with his friends, right?"

"Yeah."

"I find one of his friends cute."

"Who?"

"The one who always wears those tight pants."

"Ah..." Penny started, wanting to tell her about Howard when her phone buzzed with a message. She looked at the screen and saw that she had gotten a WhatsApp message and with shaking fingers she opened the app.

Hey, my love. Arrived four days ago and got situated. Sheldon even claimed the left side of the couch as his spot, even though there's no draft from any open window here. Howard is already building a crossbow. First days of experiments yielded nothing. Sheldon already gets agitated and if he keeps that up, the next weeks will be even more hell.

I'm missing you terribly. The nights are cold, even with the heater system working fine but I miss your body pressed against mine. We work twelve to fourteen hours a day and I volunteered to crunch the data so my mind is distracted with work.

And I looked at some of the pictures you gave me. If they continue to get sexier the farther along I get, I might explode from overpressure ;) Okay, right now the numbers are ready and I need to get working again. Day 4 of 92. Leonard

She almost got tears in her eyes when reading the text. So far he was okay, even if that message was three days old already. And he wasn't kidding when he said that the communication would be tough to do.

"Penny, what is it?" Bernadette asked her.

"A text from my boyfriend."

"He can text you from the North Pole?"

"Sometimes. Apparently, there is a communication satellite covering the Pole for a few seconds from time to time, making it possible to send messages." Penny said and started typing a reply. Bernadette wisely left her alone doing it, not wanting to disturb her.

Hey sweetie. I'm glad to read that you're okay so far and I hope and pray that it remains that way. Sheldon being a dick is nothing new but since you're cooped up with him in an enclosed space with no way of escape, it must really suck.

I'm missing you too, even more. I have taken to sleep in your bed to feel closer to you because I couldn't fall asleep in my own. I'm spending my days working and watching DVDs to waste time and I always head to bed early. I find myself unable to have much fun without you with me, as sappy as that sounds. Listen to me. Sleeping in your bed and depressed without you here. Look what you turned me into :)

I hope that when you're getting to the hotter pictures, you watch them without others in the room. And you better not explode, I need you back in one piece :)

I love you. Please come back to me. Day 8 of 92 of your absence. Penny

She hit the send button and saw the one check mark, indicating that the message had been received by the server but not by Leonard's phone. This was a nice way to check if and when the message had been delivered to him. She put down her phone and leaned back with a sigh. At least he was okay so far. And one week was already over, so only eleven more to go. With another sigh, she stood up again and went back out for her shift.

---

Another week went by rather quickly, much to her surprise, although she spent it the same way she did the first. She did as many hours as she could at the Cheesecake Factory, went to acting class and the gym, went grocery shopping once and slept in Leonard's bed wearing his blue shirt.

What had been missing those last seven days was a message from Leonard. She knew from the two check signs in her WhatsApp that the message had been delivered to his phone so either the satellite hadn't picked up his reply yet or, and she didn't want that, something had happened to him.

Now she was on her way home and when she pulled up on her block and parked her car, she noticed the firetrucks in front of her building. With a lot of worry, she closed in on the block and went to the fire chief who was standing next to the truck.

"Excuse me." she said to get his attention.

"Yes?"

"I live in that building, what's going on?"

"Somebody put a firecracker or something similar into one of the mailboxes and the mail caught fire, spreading to the other boxes. One of the other tenants heard a loud bang and investigated, seeing the fire and calling us."

"How long will you be in there? I really looked forward to crashing on my couch." she said, noticing his look at her Cheesecake Factory uniform.

"The fire is out and we're clearing out our equipment. In a few minutes you will be able to go in and up the stairs again. The fire inspector and the police detectives are still checking the boxes to find the one that the perpetrators put the firecracker in, or whatever they used."

"Thank you." Penny said and walked towards the building.

She waited until the last firemen were out and entered the foyer, seeing three men in civilian clothes, who were probably the fire inspector and two arson detectives, standing in front of the mailboxes, pointing at one of them before turning and noticing her presence.

"Can we help you, miss?" one of the men asked.

"I live on the fourth floor. I just wanted to pass through and maybe see if the fire started in my mailbox or close to it."

"Which one is yours?"

"4B." she replied.

"No, as far as we can determine, the fire started in the box of 6A."

"Really? But the woman living there is so nice. Who would set fire to her mailbox?"

"It was most likely an act of vandalism. But since your box is really close to them, any mail in there is probably either burned or ruined by the water."

"May I check? I also have to empty the box of 4A, my neighbors, since they are out of the country, work related."

"Sure, miss. We're done anyway." one of the detectives said and they made room.

Penny moved towards the mailboxes and put the key into hers, having a little difficulty opening it since the heat had warped the metal. With a little effort, she pulled it open and took out her singed and wet mail. Next she opened the guys' box and took out several pieces of ads and a few letters, most of which were ruined.

As she walked up the stairs, she saw one letter addressed to Leonard that caught her eyes. The letter itself was ruined but the back of the envelope is still readable if barely. The return address was the MGM Grand Casino in Las Vegas. Penny remembered their two visits in that particular establishment, during the first stay Leonard had cheated at a poker tournament and during the second, he had used math to predict the correct number at roulette.

But if he had done something illegal, they would have gotten mail earlier, wouldn't they? Penny shrugged her shoulders and if it was something really important, they would send another letter soon. She entered her apartment and threw away the ads and looked at her own letters, seeing nothing important, so she threw them away too. She headed into her bathroom and instead of an after-work shower, she decided to run herself a bubble bath. As the water filled the tub, she went back into the living room and took out her phone.

Hey sweetie. I'm getting worried because I haven't heard from you in a week. I miss you more every day. Thanks to work, time goes faster than anticipated although the nights are still too lonely for comfort, even in your bed :)

Today I came home and there had been a fire in our mailboxes! Somebody must have set fire to them. Our mail today was ruined but I should tell you that you received a letter from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Unfortunately, the letter itself was ruined, only parts of the envelope were still readable.

I love you. I hope you are okay and are back in my arms soon. Day 15 of 92 of your absence. Penny

With a sigh, she put down the phone and headed into her bathroom. She shut off the tap and undressed before stepping into the tub, letting the water soak her skin. She hummed and grabbed her headphones, turning on her mp3 player and listening to music as she enjoyed her bath.

She stayed in there almost an hour and after the water had turned too cold to stay in, she got out and dried herself off, putting on her pajama shorts and Leonard's shirt before donning her robe. She went back into her living room and turned on the TV, putting in yet another DVD of Sex and the City.

She mindlessly took her phone and checked her messages, her eyes almost bulging out when she saw two messages from Leonard. With shaking fingers, she opened the first one.

So, you're sleeping in my bed? I hope that will continue once I'm back home ;) But I hope you're not stopping your social life just because I'm not there. I don't want you to sit in your apartment and put your life on hold if you want to go out. Don't feel guilty to have some fun.

And I have reached the hotter pictures. Watched them in the bathroom and almost fell from the toilet (don't worry, I was sitting on the lid with my pants up). I hope the same poses await me once I'm back home and I promise you, we will make up for all the nights we missed. Day 9 of 92. Leonard :-x

She grinned and noticed the day Leonard wrote the message, six days ago. Still smiling, she opened the second message.

I noticed for a few days now that my last message hadn't been sent out, so either the satellite must not have covered us or the bad weather at some days blocked out the connection. I hope this one is faster than the last. We had a particular bad snow storm three days ago that lasted until yesterday, so we were cooped up in the cabin with barely anything to do. I miss having internet but not as much as I miss you. :)

And as for the letter from Vegas. I have no idea what it could be. We have won some money, sure, but that's not a crime. If it's something bad, they most likely send another letter in a few days, so here's hoping for the best. And if they want to send goons after me to beat me up, they are welcome to journey out here :D

I love you too. And I miss you to the extreme. I can't believe only two weeks have gone by since we parted. Day 16 of 92. Leonard :-x

She smiled at his joke about the goons from Vegas going to the North Pole to beat him up. But he was right. They hadn't done anything illegal while there and if they really want something from him, they will send another letter soon. If not, then it most likely wasn't something bad. She hit the reply button and typed in her message. As she looked at what he wrote last, she wondered why he wrote that it was day 16. Then she remembered the time difference.

So glad to know you're okay. Not knowing is worse than imagining you sitting up there and freezing. And why are you up at two in the morning? I hope nothing bad is going on.

Being without you sucks. Never thought I look forward to the begin of my shift and I dread a day off. I have to manage another two weeks before I go to the party at Marie's and two more after that before I head to my parents. Then it's only four more weeks until you return. I will somehow manage to survive them before you're back in my arms.

And don't think we will leave my bedroom for the first week ;) Still day 15 of 92 of your absence. Penny :-x

She hit the send button and hoped that this message reached him soon and that an answer wasn't long in coming. Whenever she had to spend days without hearing from him, she started worrying more and more that the worst had happened. And that was a thing she could barely imagine.

---

"Penny, just to clarify, will you sleep at my place tonight?" her friend Marie asked her after she picked up the phone.

"What?" Penny returned, confused for a moment.

"My party is tonight, remember? Kim mentioned that your boyfriend is out of the country because of work and that you might sleep here."

"Wait, your party is tonight?"

"Yeah, it's July 2nd. Exams are over."

Penny's eyes went wide. It was already July? That meant that she had managed to get over two more weeks rather quickly, doing her usual stuff of work, gym, acting classes and sleeping after watching a DVD. If that continued, Leonard would be back in no time. It also reminded her that she hadn't heard anything from him in all this time, bringing back her worry.

"Um... yeah, I'll sleep there. I will pick up Kim and Cheryl and they probably will sleep there too."

"Good." Marie answered. "And for your information, this will be a girls night. Only Eric and Jess' boyfriend expressed interest in participating, although Eric wasn't thrilled. So I decided to let him have his guys night and we have our own party."

"Great." Penny exclaimed, tremendously relieved. She knew from experience, that boyfriends at parties meant that at some point, several couples would engage in drunken make-out sessions, something she wasn't sure she could look at, knowing that her man was out of reach.

"Okay, I'll see you tonight. Party starts at seven, open ended." Marie said. "Bye."

"Bye." Penny replied and hung up before pocketing her phone again and returning to the restaurant to continue her shift.

Luckily she had the day off tomorrow, knowing that an open-ended party would seriously hamper her ability to do one the next day. Come to think of it, she had taken that day off a while ago, and had wondered why, having completely forgotten Marie's party.

She kept herself busy for the remainder of her shift and headed home ninety minutes before the party. She parked her car in a way that made it easy to head out again and went up the stairs after emptying the mailboxes. She deposited the letters for the guys in their piles after taking out anything that was advertisements and headed into her bedroom where she undressed and continued on into the shower.

She cleaned the stress of work off her and dried herself off, applying a fresh coat of makeup before heading out into her bedroom to get dressed. She chose plain underwear and knee-length denim pants plus a modest shirt that showed a little cleavage. One look at her watch showed it to be thirty minutes before the start of the party so she grabbed her keys and headed back out, pausing to put some of Leonard's extra strong painkillers into her purse so she was covered should the need arise.

She got into her car and took out her phone, sending a quick message to Cheryl that she was on her way. She knew that Kim was already there since her friends were practically living together, or so it seemed, and drove to her friend's block. When she arrived, Kim and Cheryl were already standing on the sidewalk, basking in the looks they got from passing males.

Penny shook her head when seeing her friends. They had dressed in the shortest of skirts and shirts that could be considered sports bras given their shortness. If she didn't know that they were all headed to a party only with girls, Penny could have sworn these two would go to a club with the intent of picking up a guy. Although it would go against their desire to get a real boyfriend, since they needed to meet someone who saw one of them first instead of their clothing or lack thereof.

"Hey girls." she greeted them as she stopped at the curb. "Get in and lets get going."

After saying a few words of hello, the girls piled into a car and they proceeded to do nothing more than meaningless chitchat, which consisted mostly of the other two asking Penny about Leonard, while Penny drove to Marie's. After a merciful short drive, they parked behind another apartment block, heading into the building and using the elevator to get to the top floor where Marie's apartment was located.

"Hey you guys, come on in." the hostess greeted them after opening the door.

The girls went into and hugged their host before continuing on and greeting all the others that were already present. There were twelve women in total, from which Penny knew about nine, mostly from work. The others she didn't recognize since they were probably fellow students of Marie's. Once the introductions were done, the party got going.

As usual, Marie had served up a vast assortment of food and drinks. From cold cuts over different kinds of salads, bread, meat, fruit and vegetables over to water, juice, beer and hard liquor. Everybody took what they wanted and Penny sat down on the couch with her plate in one hand and a fork in the other.

"Penny, I thought you are a vegetarian." Kim said after eyeing her plate. "Why are you eating chicken?"

"Because I can't help myself." Penny almost whined. "I feel completely guilty but I can't stop myself. I see chicken and I want to eat it."

"Hey, you get no objection from me. I love meat." Kim countered and took a big bite out of her self-made hot dog.

"I haven't seen you say no to any kind of sausage." Penny laughed and continued eating.

The food part went on for another three hours, with Penny mostly keeping to the non-meat stuff after her first filling of chicken, except for a helping of fish she had eyed while filling her second plate with salad.

Of course, since it was a girls night and the choice was immense, the girls didn't stay sober for long. While it started innocent with several beers, it quickly turned to harder liquor, with several bottles of baileys and other creamy drinks. To top it off, Marie got out a large pot that was filled with red wine and a large amount of fruit that had soaked in the alcohol for a day.

"What is that for?" Penny asked.

"This is a German specialty. The original name is Feuerzangenbowle." Marie replied while placing two bottles of rum and three sugar loafs, shaped like a cone, on the table.

"What does that mean?" Cheryl then inquired.

"It doesn't really have a translation. The most direct one is fire tongs punch but like I said, it doesn't have a proper name in English."

"How do we drink that?" came from Jennifer, one of Marie's student friends.

"I cut several apples and pears into small pieces and made melon balls which I put into the pot and covered that with eight bottles of dry red wine." Marie started to explain while she placed a long and flat metal rod with a wooden handle over the pot. "The sugar loafs are placed on this thing, which is the Feuerzange or fire tongs and rum is poured on it, soaking it." she continued and did as she explained, pouring a generous amount of rum on the loaf until it was soaked through.

"And then?" Cheryl put in.

"Now the finale." Marie grinned and lit the sugar on fire, the strength of the alcohol making it easy to burn.

As it burned, Marie continued to pour rum on it using a ladle until the loaf had completely melted and fallen into the pot. She then stirred the pot and placed a second loaf on the tongs, repeating the process until that too was completely melted. After a second stirring, she tasted the finished beverage and hummed her approval before filling several glasses with it.

"Okay, everybody bottoms up. Remember the fruit in there, don't choke on it. Use those wooden sticks or small spoons to eat it."

Penny took her glass and waited for the others to take theirs. Then all toasted and downed the liquid. Penny moaned in delight when she tasted that stuff, the fruit and sugar almost completely covering the taste of the alcohol. She used one of the oversized toothpicks to eat the pieces of fruit and had to admit that they tasted great after soaking in alcohol for a day.

After a second glass for everyone, Marie soaked a third sugar loaf and let it melt into the pot to get rid of the last rum. Everybody drank more of that punch which tasted sweeter than cola after the third loaf was in it. She didn't count but Penny drank at least ten glasses, along with the beers she had in between and a glass of vodka that someone had put into her hand.

"Excuse me?" one of the students asked her.

"Yes? You're Janine, right?" Penny asked back, trying not to embarrass herself with having forgotten the girls name, although after such a large amount of alcohol, who would judge her.

"Right." came the reply. "You're Doctor Hofstadter's girlfriend, aren't you?"

"Yes." Penny said suspiciously. She hoped that this girl wouldn't start gushing about how cute Leonard was or ask her how she manged to land him.

"I was wondering where he was? He was supposed to give us a few physics lectures before the exams but Professor Talman did them himself and said that Doctor Hofstadter was away for the summer." the girl asked, making Penny breath out relief, knowing that she didn't have yet another competition.

"He's at the North Pole. His roommate, Doctor Cooper, had managed to get a grant for some experiment and simply added Leonard's name to the proposal." Penny replied, proud of herself to have remembered that and managed to say it out loud with all her inebriation.

"Oh, that's so cool." Janine exclaimed.

"Yeah, maybe. I'm not so thrilled that I can't be with my boyfriend for three months."

"Oh yeah, that sucks." Janine admitted. "But I have read about the expedition to the arctic, if Doctor Coopers experiment is a success, it could change mankind's understanding of the universe."

"Are you always this lucid while drunk?" Penny giggled, not having understood a word the girl said.

"Oh, I don't drink that much alcohol, don't like the taste."

"Well, I had a lot so I hope you excuse me if I said that I don't really understand anything if you start to go all science-y." Penny grinned.

"It's okay. Have fun drinking." Janine said and left her to go back to the other student friends of Marie.

The evening continued deep into the night and Penny kept drinking the punch. She was pretty sure that Cheryl or Kim or maybe both had goaded her into telling them more about Leonard's abilities in bed but she couldn't really remember. The last thing she still could remember was her trying to get off the couch to use the bathroom after emptying the pot of punch and falling flat on her face, the rum and wine in the punch too much for her, especially since they didn't taste like alcohol.

She woke up again and noticed daylight coming into the window. She found herself draped across two armchairs that somebody had pushed together to make a makeshift bed. The next thing she realized was a hangover headache of monstrous proportions and the first thing her body made her do was hurry into the bathroom to vomit.

Once she had expelled her stomach contents, she sat on the toilet to empty her bladder which had almost released itself while she was kneeling in front of the bowl. She dragged herself into the living room, seeing Kim and Cheryl spooning on the fold-out couch and several other girls in sleeping bags on the floor or on air mattresses.

She grabbed her purse and took one of Leonard's extra strong painkillers out of it, downing one with a glass of water before laying back down and putting the blanket over her eyes to keep the annoying light out of her eyes. She knew that the pill took about thirty minutes to start working and tried to block out the still pounding pain.

Slowly but surely the pain receded from hammer blows to a gentle pressure inside her head. As that happened, the churning inside her stomach turned into rumbling, making Penny get up again and moving into the kitchen to forage for food.

She took a pan and some eggs and started make herself some scrambled eggs while the others still slept. After finishing, she cleaned the pan and took the plate out into the living room to eat it plus some of the leftover food on the buffet plates in silence while the other guests kept sleeping.

After a few minutes, they started to stir, whether because of some noise, the smell of food or just like that but one after the other they sat up, the ones who drank as much as Penny collapsing back or running to the nearest sink or bowl to mirror Penny's first action after waking up.

"Geez, how can you eat right now." Cheryl asked and held her head.

"Painkillers are working already." Penny replied and burped slightly, feeling filled for the moment but the pain pill started to work its side effect and she became tired again. "You want to stay here or head home?"

"Home is good." Kim said as Marie exited her bedroom, yawning. "If you promise to drive slowly and avoid any speed bump or pothole."

"I can do that." Penny agreed and got up, pulling the armchairs apart again and folding the blanket.

They said their goodbyes and headed out, Penny skipping down the stairs and waiting by the car while her two friends gingerly followed her, taking each step slowly to avoid any excess vibration. They got into the backseats with plastic bags in hand in case of emergency and Penny started driving, keeping her promise to drive as slowly as possible and avoiding potholes where she could, hoping that her friends wouldn't vomit into her car when she inevitable hit one.

The return drive took twice as long as the first but she managed to get her friends home, just in time because they ran to the bushes and vomited again after getting out of her car. She waited until they were done and escorted them up the stairs to make sure they got home okay and after she had put them to bed, she left them alone and headed home.

As soon as she was in her apartment, she took off her clothes except her panties, drank several glasses of water and put on Leonard's shirt before heading to bed for some more sleep. As bad as her hangover had been before the painkiller, last night had been a lot of fun. And as an added bonus, a third of Leonard's absence was done.

---

For the next seven days, Penny worked double shifts, working hours to make up for those she would miss during the next fourteen days. As she looked at the clock and counted down the last few minutes before her shift would end, she smiled giddily at the thought of going to her parents, even if it was without Leonard this time. She looked forward to riding her horses, going shopping and generally just enjoying spending time with her parents.

Still, worry nagged at the back of her head because she hadn't had any contact with Leonard for several weeks now. A check of the NSF and several weather websites told her that there was solid overcast at the North Pole with frequent storms, so she knew that communication was impossible but she couldn't help but worry about him and by extent the others.

"Penny, your shift is over." Mike, her manager, told her as she came to the bar after collected another bill from one of her tables.

"Oh great." she sighed and placed her notebook behind the bar.

"So, you have two weeks off now. Any big plans?"

"Yeah, going home and change, then to my doctor, tomorrow I head to Nebraska and spend the next two weeks with my parents."

"To the doctor? Is there a problem?"

"No, just a regular checkup." she said, not wanting to tell him that she had to go to get her IUD replaced.

"Okay, have fun then."

"Will do, bye." she said and moved towards the exit, saying goodbye to her colleagues on the way.

She drove home and took a quick shower before getting dressed again and heading out after a quick bite to eat. She drove to her gynecologist and waited for a few minutes before being called into the room and getting her old IUD taken out and the new put in. Luckily, since the entire process only takes a few minutes, Penny was out of the building after less than half an hour.

After returning home, she got her suitcases and started packing using a checklist, a habit she had taken up from Leonard. It took her an hour but eventually she had everything packed, except for sexy underwear or sexy boots since she wouldn't need them. Since her plane left on early afternoon the next day, she decided to grab a science fiction DVD from the guys and watching it until it was late enough for her to get into Leonard's bed. She took her phone out and set her alarm for ten in the morning, just in case and opened WhatsApp.

Hey sweetie. I hope you're okay since we haven't heard from each other in almost three weeks. Tomorrow I'm heading out to my parents to spend two weeks there without you. Think about it, I'm going to sleep in my bed and you won't be there. I will ride horses and you won't be there. And I will go shopping and buy really sexy underwear but you won't be there. Think about it ;) Love you. Day 34 of 92 of your absence. Penny

She put the phone down again and shut off the display. She closed her eyes soon fell asleep, the comfort of Leonard's bed still having a calming effect on her. She dreamed a disconcerting dream that revolved around her getting a singing strippogram about Leonard's death and woke up with a hammering heartbeat, trying to calm herself down and stopping herself from crying.

She took her phone again to check the time and after seeing the big 3:04 on the display, she noticed the symbol of a received WhatsApp message, making her open the program immediately and seeing that she had two. She clicked the older one first.

I look forward to our week in your bedroom, just make sure to stock up on food and water so we won't have to go out and pay your bills so they won't shut off your water during that time :D

As for your question about being awake at two in the morning, Sheldon wouldn't let us sleep after getting yet another negative result. He is determined to prove his theory but so far I don't see it happening. If there really were magnetic monopoles up here, we would have found them by now. We're trying to placate him by rebuilding the equipment because he believes that Howard did it wrong but it took longer than we thought because Sheldon kept bugging us. If he keeps that up, we will throw him out and lock the door.

Hope you have fun at the party. Not too much fun of course, if there are other guys ;) I'm pretty sure this message won't reach you for a while because the weather is bad right now, even the radio is barely able to reach the coast. But so far, everyone here is okay. Love you. Day 18 of 92. Leonard.

She grinned at the message and could almost imagine Sheldon being a complete jackass, knowing he became one when things didn't go his way, making her remember the clothes-on-the-telephone-wires situation. She quickly clicked on the second message.

Just checked if my message got out and lo and behold I get a current one from you :) First of all, are you crazy? :-O You can't tell me you'll buy sexy underwear and ride horses when you could be riding me :( Now I'm sitting here in the bathroom with a painful bulge in my pants which I can't take care of because it's too cold thanks to a problem with our heating system. It keeps spluttering.

We're officially making plans to kill Sheldon. He's turned into a complete dick since we still haven't found any monopols and therefore not proven String Theory. We have rebuilt the equipment four times now and every time the result is the same. And of course he keeps blaming us for the failure.

Well, I need to head out. We need to do another test run before the weather changes again. According to the reports, a blizzard is rolling in this afternoon. Love you. Day 35 of 92. Leonard

Penny grinned at his reaction to her message and she made a mental note to take pictures of herself in the underwear she would buy and to wear it when he got back. But she also needed to type in a reply, hoping that it might reach him immediately but since his contact was marked as offline, she hadn't much hope.

Well, if you hadn't gone to the North Pole, we would be flying to my parents and you could ride horses with me before I would ride you for hours on end ;) My parents would probably banish you from their home because I would scream so much but screw them :D

Before you kill Sheldon, think of something else to maybe placate him. Although him dying up there could be explained by the cold, I don't think it would have a good impact on your career if you lose a member of your expedition :) Love you. Day 36 of 92 of your absence. Penny

Penny shut off her display again and put the phone down. She laid back on the bed and closed her eyes, smiling at the knowledge that her sweetie was still fine, even though he seemed to be freezing up there. She took a few deep breaths and soon was asleep again.

---

"Daddy!" Penny shouted excited as she came out of the gate, seeing her father waiting for her.

"Hey there slugger." her father smiled and took her into his arms, hugging her tightly and leading her to the baggage claim where they grabbed Penny's suitcases and bags.

They walked out of the airport and to his car, playing her luggage into the trunk and driving to her parent's farm. She talked excitedly about what she was planning during those two weeks while Wyatt only smiled at his daughters excitement. He also noticed a melancholy undertone, knowing that Leonard wasn't with her. After a few more minutes, they drove under the carport and Penny bounded out of the car and into the house, leaving her father to get the luggage.

"Mom!" Penny yelled and hugged her mother, who was busy making dinner.

"Hey sweetheart." Meryl said and hugged Penny back. "How are you."

"I'm great. Except, you know..."

"Leonard isn't here." Meryl grinned knowingly as Penny nodded.

"Yeah. So, what have you been up to?"

"Well, go out the back and you'll see." her mother smiled and Penny walked out of the kitchen and towards the back of the house.

"Hold on there slugger." Wyatt stopped her.

"What is it?"

"You might want to give me a hand with these." he said and pointed his head towards the luggage he held in his hands.

"Oh sorry." she laughed embarrassed and grabbed one of the bags and one suitcase to carry it into her old room. "Mom said, you had some new stuff in the back."

"Yeah, let me show you." Wyatt said and led her out the back of the house.

Penny stopped dead when she saw what her parents had done. The cow barn was still there but the stables seemed bigger somehow. Adjacent to the cow barn was a new small shed, right where the well used to be, making her wonder what was in there.

What caught her eyes were the two massive wind turbines standing on the cow pasture. Her father had told her that he had rented the space out to a local energy company but seeing them was another thing. To her, they were gigantic, at least five hundred feet high and they were rotating fast in the wind that was blowing up there.

"Wow." she breathed.

"I know." her father agreed, placing his arm over her shoulder. "Come on, let me show you the rest."

He led her to the small shed next to the cow barn and opened it. Inside was a mechanical contraption that looked like a pump and an array of pipes going into the ground. Other pipes led outside left and right and the pump was bigger than before.

"What is that?" Penny asked.

"That's what is saving the money that I now use to do more on the farm. Remember Leonard's idea about saving on heating costs? This is the thing, it lets water run deep down where it gets warmed and pumps it back up and circulates it around the house and the barns to warm us and the animals." Wyatt explained.

"Oh cool. Now the cows and calves have it warm." she grinned.

"Not just them, come on." he told her and led her to the stables where the horses were.

When they got in, Penny squealed in delight. The size of the stable had almost doubled, something she didn't see from the outside since the extra space had been blocked by the original building, and apart from the horses her parents usually had, several foals were standing with their mothers.

"Oh, they're so cute." she said in a high-pitched voice. "When did you get into horse breeding?"

"Since Leonard tamed Tornado." her father said and pointed to the window at the back of the stable where Penny could see Tornado running on the pasture. "I caught him decking one of the mares once and she didn't fight him and his offspring are amazing horses, strong even in their youth."

"Really? Wow."

"Yeah. Selling horses will make me more money than the cows ever will. And this is where the saved money from the heating comes in, without it I'd never have thought of breeding horses. And Tornado is one busy guy, he got six mares pregnant already."

"He's a wild one." Penny grinned, wondering if that's the reason Leonard was able to tame him. One wild-in-bed human and one wild-in-bed horse.

"Not anymore, at least when it comes to his behavior. Since Leonard, it is a blast to own him. But we still don't use him for the classes your mother gives."

"Can I ride him?" she asked.

"Sure. But not today. He should be coming back soon and dinner will be ready by then." her father said. "But you can clean him."

"Will do."

On a call from Meryl, they headed back inside and into the kitchen where they proceeded to eat the stew her mother had made. After that she excused herself into her room to unpack, checking her phone for messages before remembering that there were no wireless connections possible in the house.

After placing her clothes into the cabinets and drawers and changing into some work clothes, she went back into the stable and saw Tornado standing in his booth. She went over to him and he immediately came closer, nuzzling against her head while she ran her hand over his head. She took the tools and started cleaning him, taking care to do it properly the way she learned and enjoying the work she had done numerous times as a kid.

Once that was done, she headed back into the house for a shower and joined her parents in the living room for a movie. Although she had slept rather long in the morning, flying had always made her tired so she excused herself to bed even before her parents went.

---

For the first week, Penny almost exclusively stayed in the house and on the property, riding Tornado and sometimes the other horses and caring for the foals. She also used the fact that it was summer for some nude sunbathing, making sure to tell her father that she was doing it so he wouldn't suddenly come into the enclosed garden she was using. She wanted to surprise Leonard with her flawless tan when he came back.

In the last seven days, no message had come from Leonard despite her going on the hill every day where wireless connections were possible. But checks at weather channels and websites had shown her that the weather at the North Pole was constantly bad, so the lack of communication was not surprising if annoying.

"So, I see you're going the extra mile for your boyfriend who I still haven't met." a female voice ripped her out of her reverie, making her sit up straight and scramble for her towel.

"Bridget!" Penny exclaimed when she saw who had disturbed her and hugged her older sister as soon as the towel was around her. "What are you doing here? Mom said you were traveling with your boss."

"Yeah, we're on a layover. Tomorrow morning we're on the move again, this time to San Francisco." Bridget told her. "So, tell me everything."

"About?"

"What do you think? Your boyfriend of course."

"What do you want to know?"

"As I said, everything. How did you meet, when did you start dating, the works."

"Fine. But would you come shopping with me? I'll tell you while we're out."

"Certainly."

Penny grabbed her bikini and went into her room to put on some clothes. Since it was rather hot, she put on some short pants and a light shirt, so she wouldn't sweat. She grabbed her purse and headed out, telling her parents that she would eat lunch out. They got into her dad's truck and drove into town, stopping at the mall they used to go every time when they were kids.

"So, spill." Bridget ordered as they walked into the first store.

"Okay." Penny started and started rummaging through the shirts while her eyes already focused on the lingerie.

"When did you meet?"

"The night after I broke up with Kurt, I walked into a bar at one in the morning with my overnight bag in hand. I saw him sitting at the bar and he bought me a drink when he saw that I didn't have enough money for one. One drink turned to three and then a bottle of tequila."

"And then he took you home?"

"No, actually he was quite the gentleman. During our bottle of tequila, Kurt showed up and made a scene but a bouncer-friend of Leonard held him until he got arrested. Then we left the bar and since I couldn't go to any of my friends due to the time, he paid for a motel room for the night."

"And there he made his move?"

"No, I made it. He said some really sweet things to me and I just couldn't help myself, he was so cute. The next morning..."

"Ho ho, hold on. What happened during the night?" Bridget asked.

"What do you think? We made love. Three times." Penny grinned and enjoyed her sister's bulging eyes.

"Three times? Jesus Christ."

"Anyway, the next morning he had to leave early because of work but when I woke up, I had breakfast and a newspaper with one-ads for apartments waiting for me in the room. I looked through them, found an apartment I liked and moved in. And while I was unpacking, my new neighbors came home and one of them turned out to be Leonard."

"So you started dating then?"

"No. I actually thought about this as a one-time thing, until I moved in anyway. But then I couldn't help myself, he was so good in the sack. We did it a few times more and then a few times a week and after about six months, he took me to a romantic bed and breakfast as an apology for a screw-up of his."

"He must have done something really bad."

"You could say that but it wasn't something you normally would consider bad if you don't know his roommate. But also, he didn't pay for the trip, apart from the driving and the minibar. He had a coupon that he had won in a cereal box contest."

"Okay, then what happened?"

"It was the most amazing weekend we had up to then. We did long walks, horseback riding and spa treatments. We had sex in the lake, on the beach, in a Jacuzzi. And during our first night, I asked him if we could become steady."

"That's so romantic." Bridget gushed but Penny could hear some irony in her sisters voice.

"Why do I have the feeling you're being ironic?"

"Because I am, at least a little, because you mostly described sex."

"Yeah well, it's a big part of my life with him. And the first months were primarily about sex." Penny defended.

"Is he really that good?"

"Oh my god, he's amazing." Penny gushed and couldn't stop smiling.

They kept talking as Penny tried on a few shirts and dresses before taking some underwear to try on. As she kept choosing pairs, Bridget eyed her suspiciously.

"Should I be worried that my baby sister is buying underwear that you can see through and that even prostitutes would balk at?" she asked and Penny blushed.

"Shut up. I want to make Leonard really hot when he comes back."

"Comes back? Where is he?" Bridget asked.

"At the North Pole."

"Say what? Why would he go to the North Pole, it's cold up there."

"Duh. He's a scientist and it's a science expedition. He had to go, although he didn't want to."

"Then why did he?"

"His roommate made him, if he hadn't gone it would have been bad for his scientific career."

"That must suck, your partner being away for so long."

"Tell me about it. I miss him terribly. And communication is rare due to the constant bad weather up there and the lack of satellite coverage." Penny sighed and went to pay for the clothes she chose, the sexy underwear included.

After depositing their shopped goods into the trunk of the truck, they went to a late lunch and talked about everything they missed since Penny moved to California. She realized that she hadn't had a talk with Bridget in a long while, her sister's job making it hard to have face to face conversations, Bridget's absence during Penny's visit last year being evidence enough.

After their lunch, they spent two hours in a shoe store, with Bridget patiently waiting as Penny tried on one shoe after another until she found a pair of beautiful flats that accentuated one of the dresses she had at home. As she paid for them, she noticed Bridget outside the store, talking on her phone.

"What is it?" she asked her upon exiting the store.

"My boss called. We're off tomorrow at six. So I have to get up at four to get to the airport and through security." Bridget replied.

"Ugh, that's like the middle of the night."

"Yeah. So we should probably head back. Mom will surely make dinner but I have to get to bed early."

"Okay." Penny agreed and they left the mall.

After returning to the house, Bridget and Penny took their shopping and brought it into their respective rooms. Since Bridget didn't really unpack, she just placed the two shirts she bought into her suitcases while Penny tried to figure out how to get a pair of shoes, a skirt, six shirts and a pair of underwear into her suitcases when they had been full to begin with.

Deciding that this would be a decision for when she would actually pack for her return trip, she left them on her bed and joined her parents and sister at the dinner table. Meryl once again had not disappointed, making each of them a big juicy steak, the one meat Penny would always ignore her vegetarianism for, apart from a piece of chicken now and again, and they all ate with gusto.

They all watched TV together like a family, with the exception of her brother Scott, who was in jail yet again after he blew up his newest meth lab. Why her brother tried to make drugs when he was obviously not successful at it was beyond her. But in her mind, it was better he made it than taking it.

After watching the shows, Bridget excused herself to go to bed, and since it was summer, it wasn't even remotely dark outside. Penny pitied Bridget in that moment but if she, Penny, had a job that required her to get up at four, she would do it too.

She went outside and walked on the cow pasture, close to one of the wind turbines and tried to catch a signal on her phone to see if Leonard had maybe written her. Even after waiting for a few minutes with full bars, no message came and Penny pocketed her phone, sighing as she did before walking back to the stables. Inside, she petted the horses, staying longest with Tornado who nuzzled her head again and whinnied softly, a sound that was picked up by two of the foals.

"Do you miss Leonard?" she asked the horse who coincidentally bobbed his head as if nodding. "Yeah, I miss my stallion too."

She felt her arousal spike when thinking about Leonard and what they did the last time when they both were here. His pose on the horse when it reared was something that had always stayed in her mind, but of course their nightly activities was the thing she missed most. She just hoped that she could manage the remaining four weeks once she was home again.

---

After spending another two weeks at her parents sunbathing, working on tractors and generally doing nothing, she was sitting in a cab on her way back home after the short flight from Nebraska to Los Angeles. She had to go shopping once more, this time to get another bag so she could take the stuff she bought with her sister home.

What she had mostly enjoyed was the horseback riding. She had come to love to put Tornado through his paces and that horse never seemed to get tired, even after hours of running around the pasture and even sometimes through the forest and over the field behind her parent's property.

After paying the cabby extra so he would help her carry her luggage up the stairs, she collapsed on her couch to take a deep breath. It was just four more weeks to go. It would have been five more weeks if she hadn't called her boss and got another week off to spend at her parents but she had to agree to double shifts for the next three weeks which accommodated her greatly to use up time she otherwise had to sit around to pass. As she kept musing, her phone rang.

"Hello?" she asked into the phone after seeing the number of the Cheesecake Factory.

"Hey Penny, it's Carl." the evening manager replied.

"Hey Carl, what's up." she asked the guy almost nobody liked at the Factory.

"I saw in the shift schedule for the next three weeks that you have double shifts, they are to compensate for your vacation, right?"

"Yes, why?" she asked, hoping he wouldn't cut her hours since she needed both the money and the hours to occupy her mind.

"Would you be able to move those double shifts a week forward?"

"What do you mean?"

"In a week, several more waitresses and one of our bartenders have vacations. If you agree, I would talk to Mike and we move your double shifts to those weeks and throw in some bar tending shifts as well."

"That sounds perfect, I'll do it." Penny said happily, since she enjoyed bar tending more than waiting on tables.

Also, while she would have regular shifts during the next week, the last three of Leonard's absence would be double shifts, enabling her to occupy her mind when he was on his way home, otherwise she would probably jump out of her skin even more than she already did, with her arousal spiking every time she thought of him. Just as she was about to start unpacking, her phone rang again.

"Hello?" she asked into the speaker.

"Hey Penny."

"Marie, how are you?"

"Great, how was Nebraska?"

"Amazing, I had so much fun."

"Good. I wanted to ask you something."

"Sure, go ahead." Penny said, wondering what her friend wanted now.

"Would you come to the movies with me today? Eric's boss called him to work for some emergency and now I have an extra ticket."

"Sure, what's the movie?"

"The new Star Trek." came the reply, making Penny's face fall.

"I don't know, that's not really my kind of movie." she replied to Marie.

"Pleeeaaase. I called my more nerdy friends already and they all have seen it."

"Fine, when does it start." Penny huffed.

"In two hours, I'm going to pick you up in ninety minutes." Marie said and hung up.

Penny shook her head and started unpacking her bags and suitcases. She put her clothes back into the closets and drawers and placed her new pair of the, what her sister called most slutty, underwear at the bottom of the appropriate drawer. The rest of the clothes met their siblings and her new shoes found a home in her shoe closet.

After freshening up and applying a fresh coat of light makeup, her doorbell rang. She checked her watch and found out that the ninety minutes had passed already. She picked up the intercom and told Marie she would be right down, grabbed her keys and left the apartment.

"Hey girl." she greeted her friend, who was waiting next to her car.

"Hey Marie."

"Ready to go?"

"As ready as I'll ever be." Penny replied truthfully.

They drove the distance to the movie theater and after parking the car, they walked towards the entrance. Instead of heading to the counter, Marie led her to the snack bar to get popcorn and sodas, showing her the tickets she had picked up already.

"If I hadn't gotten them earlier, we would have to have been here half an hour before the movie started." Marie answered Penny's unasked question.

They headed to Theater hall six and stood in line, waiting for the guy who tore the tickets to hurry up. They were in their seats a minute before the lights dimmed and the ads started, making Penny shake her head at their hurry, since they could have gotten here half an hour later and missed nothing. After suffering through almost thirty minutes of commercials, the trailers finally started and to both their surprises, their bucket of popcorn was already empty.

Penny vowed to drink her soda slowly so she wouldn't have to pee during the movie and sat back into her seat. After the commercials, the lights lit up again so people could get more snacks and Penny looked around, seeing mostly male nerds in the theater, making her and Marie kind of stand out, especially given the looks they were receiving.

It made her painfully aware again that the nerd she loved wasn't home yet and she felt her face fall again. But soon enough, the lights went out again and the movie started and after a few minutes, Penny suspended her disbelief and enjoyed the hours of action.

"So, what did you think?" Marie asked her as they were driving to Penny's apartment block.

"Well, I must admit, it was kinda fun. Also, Zachary Quinto is hot." she grinned.

"He is, isn't he." Marie agreed.

"I just wished I could have watched it with Leonard." Penny sighed.

"You really love him, don't you?"

"Very much so. I don't know if I can make it through another four weeks, especially since I haven't had any contact with him for over a month and I'm really worried that something bad has happened to him."

"I'm sure everything's fine." Marie reassured her. " Isn't cellphone communication to the North Pole impossible anyway?"

"There's a satellite covering it sometimes. But I check the weather regularly and I haven't seen clear sky over the Pole for weeks now."

"There you have it. You probably need to be at the arctic coast and use a CB radio."

"It still sucks not knowing. He could be lying in the ice somewhere, frozen stiff. Or ripped to shreds by a polar bear." she said almost in tears, remembering Sheldon's comment to Raj's parents.

"Don't start thinking like that or you will work yourself up to a degree that can turn unhealthy. Take a deep breath and think about the good times you will have once he is back." Marie told her as they stopped at Penny's block.

"Fine, I'll try." Penny said and exited the car, giving her friend a hug before heading up to her apartment.

---

The following week had become hell for Penny. Everywhere she went and looked, she saw loving couples, walking down the street, holding hands and kissing. Even in the Cheesecake Factory she rarely saw a group with an uneven number of males to females. And even when they were six or eight people, they all made loving eyes to one another, making her sick to her stomach.

"Penny, are you alright?" Cheryl asked her as Penny sat in the employees lounge with her head in her hands during her break while Cheryl was done with her shift.

"Do I look alright?" Penny replied, almost in tears. "What's going on this last week. It's as if Cupid decided to have some fun with me by having nothing but couples walk around me. I can't go or even look anywhere without seeing someone kissing."

"Penny, it's only three more weeks." Cheryl tried to calm her friend down.

"Have you any idea what that means? I haven't seen my boyfriend, who I love more than I thought I could love anyone, for nine weeks. I haven't hugged him, haven't kissed him or felt him inside me. I'm feeling like I'm ready to jump out of my skin. Then there is the fear that he might be dead up there, I haven't had any communication with him for five weeks now and I can't help but think that the worst has happened." she yelled and finally broke down, crying hard into her hands while Cheryl hugged her from above.

"Penny, everything okay?" Mike, the day manager asked, having heard her outburst.

"Does she look okay?" Cheryl asked back.

"I'm fine." Penny sobbed and stood up, trying to fix her makeup with her hands and failing miserably.

"No, you're not." Mike said. "Go home, take the rest of the day off. Tomorrow too. Clear your head so you can do all those double shifts from Monday onward."

"I can't take the day off. I need the money, especially after having three weeks off." Penny argued.

"Don't worry. I'll write you today's hours and tomorrow's too. You'll just have to work an extra hour each day for a week."

"Thanks Mike." Penny assented and let Cheryl lead her outside.

"Will you make it home?" Cheryl asked Penny after they had reached her car.

"Yeah, I'm sad, not blind." she tried to joke.

"Penny, you need a girls night, desperately. So, since you got tomorrow off, pack your toothbrush and get your ass over to my place at seven. We'll have some drinks and you can unwind."

Penny was about to shut down the idea but Cheryl was right, she needed some human contact tonight. She had thought that three months without Leonard would be manageable but the events of the last few minutes had shown her that it had become unbearable to be without him. In two days, she would start her double shifts and hopefully not see loving couples everywhere but until then she needed something to distract her.

"Okay, I'll see you in a few hours."

She drove home and headed upstairs, booting up her laptop to use later and heading straight to the shower to wash the smudged makeup off her face. As soon as she was dried off, she dressed in some underwear and a knee-length skirt and a bra. Before she could take a shirt, she heard her Skype ring. Knowing that it was either her parents or Cheryl or Kim calling her, she walked to the laptop to look at the contact who rang her. She almost collapsed when she saw Leonard's face on the screen and she quickly sat down on the couch and hit the accept button.

"Sweet mother of all that's good and holy." were the first words coming from the man she loved.

"What?" she asked in a moment of extreme confusion.

"I just got a spontaneous erection, a massive one. Why did you have to accept the call wearing only a bra like that?"

Penny looked down at herself and saw that he was right, she had totally forgotten that she hadn't put on a shirt yet when she saw his face appear on the screen. With a smile, she pushed her breasts together, making them even look bigger.

"No, please don't." Leonard whined.

"Why? Don't you like them anymore?" she asked sultry.

"No, I love them. I want nothing more than hold you, feel you in my arms, taste your lips, bury my head between your breasts and legs and simply feel you."

"I feel the same." she replied and felt fresh tears coming on.

"Don't cry please. Or I will too." he said and sniffed.

"Sweetie, how can you call me on Skype? Are you on your way back? And why haven't you written me on your phone?"

"No, we're still at the Pole, for another three weeks and then some should the weather prevent us to leave on time. Also, my phone is broken, I accidentally dropped it and in that moment, Raj dropped a piece of equipment on it." he replied. "And as for me calling, Howard managed to hack into an environmental satellite that is over the Pole, so we can check our email and surf the net a bit. That's why I don't know how long we can talk."

"Why?"

"The satellite is only used for taking pictures and sending them to the control stations around the world. But it doesn't really have the ability to maintain a continuous video connection. So, as soon as the satellite takes its next rounds of pictures, the connection will be severed."

"God, I miss you so much." she said and pressed the laptop to herself as if to hug him.

"I miss you too but please, you're giving me a closeup of your cleavage and I can't take it anymore." he whined, making her put the laptop back down on the table.

"I meant what I said a few weeks ago in one of my messages. I won't let you leave my bedroom for a week." she grinned.

"Something to look forward to."

"Everything alright up there?"

"Yeah. We had a scare two weeks ago when the heat went out but Howard managed to fix it the next morning." he said. "What about you? How were your parents?"

"They're good and it was great there. Tornado is still tame and my dad has started breeding horses using him as a stud. He also installed that heat pump thing you recommended and is rapt with joy about it and he has rented part of the pasture out to an energy company to place two wind turbines on his property."

"That's great! I hope I get to see it someday."

"Play your cards right and you will." she smiled. "I love you Leonard."

"I love you too and I..." he started but suddenly the picture stopped moving and his contact went offline.

"Nooo." she shouted and tried calling him only to get the message that his contact was offline, something she could see for herself but was hoping it was an error.

She sat back into her couch and sighed deeply. On one hand, she now knew that he was alive and well and why he hadn't messaged her, also knowing that more communication wouldn't be coming until he was home. But on the other, she learned that he won't be home earlier than the set time. She wiped the tears that had run down her cheeks off her face and went into the bathroom to wash her face again and put on some makeup before taking a shirt and leaving her apartment to get to Cheryl's place.

"Hey Penny, come in." Kim greeted her after opening the door.

Penny mumbled a greeting and walked into her friend's living room, seeing two bottles of wine standing on the living room table already and knowing that many more were in the cabinets. She placed her purse on the floor next to the armchair and flopped down in it, accepting the glass of wine Cheryl had already poured. They clinked their glasses and drank in silence for the first minute until Kim spoke up.

"So, you feeling better? Cheryl told me about your breakdown today."

"It wasn't a breakdown. I just lost my cool for a second."

"That looked like more than that." Cheryl said.

"Fine, I had a breakdown but I feel better now. And worse."

"Why worse?" Kim asked.

"Leonard called before I got here." Penny answered.

"Wait, he called? I thought that was impossible."

"It is. But his friend Howard hacked into a satellite that's over the Pole they could check their email or something. Leonard used it to call me on Skype. Luckily I had booted up my laptop after coming home from the Cheesecake Factory and Skype starts automatically."

"Okay, but why did that make you feel worse?" Cheryl asked.

"Because as great it was to see that he was okay and knowing why he can't message me anymore, seeing him painfully reminded me that I can't touch him for another three weeks. Especially after he opened with telling me what hard an erection he had upon seeing me sitting in front of my laptop only in a bra."

"Why didn't you wear a shirt?" Kim asked.

"I was just getting dressed to come here. And after seeing who called me, I kinda forgot and simply accepted the call. And after he told me what he misses doing, I miss him even more doing it."

"Do what?" Cheryl asked.

"What do you think? Loving me, holding me, making love to me. Making me feel like the most important woman for hours." Penny mused.

"Really? Tell us all about that." Cheryl said and refilled Penny's glass.

---

After four hours of them just sitting around and drinking with Penny in the armchair and Kim and Cheryl on Cheryl's couch, they were pretty much wasted. Between them they had emptied numerous bottles of wine, a bottle of rum and a bottle of vodka that Cheryl had produced once she realized that wine wasn't enough to loosen Penny's tongue.

And as usual when they were drinking together, Kim and Cheryl kept asking about her sex life with Leonard. While they were comparatively sober, Penny had been able to deflect most questions but as usual, once she was inebriated enough, she started talking more freely but much to the girls chagrin, Penny still didn't know the most wanted information the other two girls want, which were details about his girth.

And Penny was horny. She was proud of herself that she had managed not to masturbate for nine long weeks but she had no idea if she was able to do another three until Leonard came back. And if she made it she would probably climax as soon as he touched her skin, no matter where. She looked at her friends through glazed eyes, the inebriation making it hard to focus. Today's video chat with him certainly didn't help calm her raging hormones.

"Days like this I wish I could do what you do." she mused, just loud enough for the other two to hear her.

"Do what?" Cheryl asked, her voice as slurry as Penny's.

"Use each other for sexual release since you swore off boyfriends until the right one came along." Penny replied. "But I don't even have a friend like that."

"What the hell?" Kim asked, trying to focus as well. "How do you know what we do?"

"Remember the last girls night we had? I fell asleep on the couch and when I woke some time later, I have no idea how long, I went to the bathroom and when I came out I heard you guys moaning. The door to your bedroom was open and I peeked inside."

"Oh god." Cheryl said, holding her head.

"Relax, I'm not judging you. Granted, it felt strange at first seeing you like this but if you feel comfortable doing that, go ahead."

"Why don't you do it?" Kim asked.

"I'm not a lesbian. And as I said, I don't have a friend like that." Penny replied.

"We're not lesbians either." Cheryl interjected. "Our continued interest in your boyfriend should tell you that."

"Yeah." Kim agreed. "But since we take this no-boyfriends-until-we-lose-our-status-as-sluts thing serious, we needed release one night. And add alcohol and suddenly it felt right to do it, once in a while."

"As I said, I envy you for that." Penny said.

"Just so you know, you have friends like that." Cheryl said quietly.

"Excuse me?"

"We would help you tonight."

"No, I couldn't do that." Penny shook her head.

"Why not?" Kim asked. "Penny, you're miserable, even we can see that."

"Because..." Penny started and stopped. 'Are they right? Well, I do feel miserable. And it's not like I'm cheating on Leonard, am I? There's no other man involved.'

As Penny's brain was at war with itself, Cheryl and Kim took her silence as acquiescence as agreement and stood up, walking towards her and taking her hands in theirs, one at each arm. They silently led Penny towards the bedroom, gently pushing her down into a sitting position.

"But..." Penny tried to say but Kim, ever the dominant one, stopped her with a kiss.

Penny's eyes widened when her friend's lips touched hers. It was the first time she had kissed another woman in any form of romantic sense, other times it had only been when she was a young child and her aunts and uncles gave her pecks on the lips. But this was completely different, even from Leonard.

Penny involuntarily moaned into the kiss, having missed this form of contact terribly for the last nine weeks. Kim took this moan as invitation to thrust her tongue into Penny's mouth and Penny was too far gone to stop now. Her brain was in overload mode, the mixture of inebriation, horniness and the intimate human contact making her unable to stop her friend.

Kim pushed her into a prone position, kissing her harder and thereby pushing her head into the cushion while Penny felt Cheryl running her hand over her bare lower legs, since Penny only wore a knee-length skirt.

When Cheryl started to fumble with the zipper on Penny's skirt, she tried in a moment of panic to swat her hands away, but when Kim lifted her shirt to her shoulders and started to suck on her right nipple while caressing the left with her hands, any thought of stopping went right out of her head, since she desperately needed this, although she knew that she would most likely feel terribly guilty the next morning during her hangover.

As her brain got overloaded with the endorphins resulting from Kim's ministrations on her breasts, Cheryl finally got the zipper open and slowly pulled it down, still giving Penny an out should she decide not to do it. But Penny kept moaning and after Cheryl got her panties off, she opened her legs, thinking about Leonard doing that to her.

Her moan turned into a groan when she finally felt lips on the sensitive flesh between her legs again, even though the touch was almost fleeting, Cheryl's tongue running lightly over her folds. Her hips bucked up automatically, creating more friction and Cheryl took that as a sign of acceptance to go harder.

As Kim reconnected her lips to Penny's, Cheryl closed her lips around Penny's nub and sucked hard, making Penny scream into Kim's mouth in pleasure, her body too sensitive to bear that longer without an emotional reaction born out of pleasure. Even with her building guilt and the sensual assault, the small rational part of her brain realized that while Cheryl was quite good, she didn't even come close to Leonard in skill.

Penny's hips started bucking up in a fast rhythmic pattern and Cheryl obliged her by moving her tongue faster over her nub and folds. She felt her climax approaching rapidly and when Cheryl dipped a finger into her, Penny shattered into a hundred pieces, loudly groaning into Kim's mouth that was still fused to hers.

After she had calmed down, Cheryl continued with what she did using her tongue and finger, adding a second and giving Penny another climax several minutes later. Kim separated from her and moved down the bed, giving Penny the ability to take a deep breath. She was just about to turn her body and attempt to get up when she felt Kim take Cheryl's place between her legs, holding them open.

"Oh god!" she exclaimed loudly as Kim went down on her.

Whereas Cheryl was tentative and gentle, Kim was rough and decisive. She licked her hard, coming closest to Leonard in skill, lacking only the love with which he did it. Just like Leonard did, Kim spread her folds open and stuck her tongue inside her, running it along her walls and letting it swirl around her nub before repeating the process.

Penny soon climaxed a third time, unable to prevent it when being pleasured in such a way. She opened her eyes and saw Kim's head shaking rapidly from left to right and back to create even more friction. She had to admit that her friend was quite skilled in pleasuring another woman and Penny wondered where she could have gotten that skill. Either she was simply a natural or she and Cheryl did it more often than Penny could imagine.

Penny's eyes fluttered and she saw Cheryl taking off her pants and panties. At first she had no idea what her brunette friend was planning but her eyes went even wider when Cheryl slung her leg over Penny's head and lowered her body, making it clear what she planned. At first Penny's mind shouted that she wasn't one to do that but then the other part of her brain kicked in, the one that had gotten prevalent after meeting Leonard.

She felt a sense of giving compensation and gratitude where it was due. Since Leonard had begun pleasuring her with his tongue, she had started to feel compelled to reciprocate and that had led to her giving him blowjobs that she more and more enjoyed. So it was natural for her not to protest as Cheryl lowered her body to her mouth and Penny started to do what her friends did right now and what Leonard did almost every time they made love.

She tried to do for Cheryl what Leonard did for her. She ran her tongue between her friend's folds and let it swirl over her nub before dipping it inside. Now, for the first time, she learned how a woman actually tasted, having only experienced the residual taste of herself on Leonard's tongue when he kissed her after he was done licking her.

Her actions gave Cheryl the permission to put more weight down and soon enough, Penny was giving as good as she was receiving from Kim, enjoying the fact that she was making Cheryl moan loudly and twitch. She realized that she would never have done this if she weren't completely wasted and lonely, any less alcohol or Leonard not being away and this would never have happened.

Part of her still told her that what they were doing was wrong but she was too far gone now anyway. She received another climax, courtesy of Kim's rough ministrations and her hips bucked up again. The only thing missing right now would be Leonard penetrating her and giving her the pleasure she really sought.

After several more minutes, Cheryl climaxed above her and fell off her face onto her back on the bed, giving Penny a strange sense of satisfaction knowing that she was responsible for her friends pleasure. Just as those smug thoughts ran through her head, Kim brought her the fifth climax which Penny shouted out now that her mouth was free again. Once she had calmed down, she felt Kim lift her head and kneeling on the bed before not feeling anything anymore.

"Damn Penny, you're good at this." Cheryl said from beside her but not getting any reaction. "Penny?"

"I think she fell asleep." Kim said, seeing Penny lying there and breathing in a deep, slow pattern.

"Oh. Do you think it will be weird when she wakes up?" Cheryl asked.

"Very. Remember what if felt like after we woke up after the first time. And she was wasted and even then she still hesitated, although she clearly needed this. When she is sober and hungover after waking up, she will most likely feel very ashamed, guilty and probably mad at us."

"And?"

"And we have to make it clear to her that this was only to help her. That it was nothing more than friends helping another friend over a crisis, even if our method was, in her eyes, more than others would do. And we also have to swear to her that nobody will tell Leonard about this."

"What if we told Leonard?" Cheryl asked. "If he breaks up with her over this, we might have a shot with him."

"Possible but unlikely. Also, and I can't stress this enough, if we tell Leonard, Penny will kill us. And that is not a figure of speech, she will actually stop our hearts." Kim sad, dead serious.

"You're right. I feel as if we have sobered up in the last hour. What do we do now?"

"Well, since I am the only one without an orgasm so far, what do you think we will do now?" Kim asked rhetorically before moving to the top of the bed and placing herself over her friends head. Cheryl smiled as Kim lowered herself and started licking her best friend.

---

Penny woke up with a splitting headache and a churning stomach. She opened her eyes and realized she was lying in a bed, on the left side of it and her head facing the wall. She lifted her body slowly, her legs swinging over the bed and down to the floor and as she was sitting on the side of the bed, she noticed the lack of clothes on her lower body, while her shirt was bunched up at her shoulder and her bra was pulled under her breasts.

With a confused frown, she put them back into the cups and lowered the shirt, wondering why she was naked from the waist down and seeing her pants and panties on the floor. As she put the latter on, her mind went back to the night before and what had happened.

When she got to the events after all the alcohol, her eyes went wide. Oh my god, she had a drunken lesbian night with her best friends. She turned her head and body to look behind her and saw her two friends sleeping soundly, both naked and still in the sixty-nine position, with Kim on top and her head on Cheryl's thigh. The knowledge of what she had done made her stomach flip and before she could put on her pants, he had to run out of the bedroom and into Cheryl's bathroom to violently throw up.

After several minutes of retching and expelling the remaining contents of her stomach through the wrong orifice, she managed to stand up and wash her face and mouth. After getting her toothbrush from her purse, she brushed her teeth and gargled with some of the mouthwash she found in the cabinet.

After drinking some water directly from the faucet, she went back into the bedroom to get her pants and returned to the living room where she put them on. She sat down in the armchair and put her head into her hands, wondering how she should feel about the events of last night. A quick look at the clock showed it to be two in the afternoon, a testament to how long they had been awake.

She had had sex with her friends. Something she never once imagined she would do, since she never had any inkling to do such a thing. But something Kim had said last night made her think twice. Penny, you're miserable. And Kim had been right, Penny had felt miserable without Leonard with her and after such a long time without sex. And she knew deep down that she had needed this, otherwise she would have stopped them even in her inebriation.

She heard her friends exiting the bedroom and going into the bathroom one after the other but still didn't lift her head, even after she heard them sit down on the couch. They sat together in silence for several minutes until the quiet time was broken.

"Penny..." Cheryl started.

"Don't." she replied. "Last night was..."

"Don't say a mistake." Kim said sharply, cutting Penny off.

"I wasn't going to." Penny clarified. "Last night was... surprising. But also a one-time thing. And most importantly..."

"We won't tell Leonard." Cheryl said, voicing what Penny was trying to convey.

"Right. And that somehow surprises me, coming from you." Penny said suspicious.

"Oh, I would like to tell him, see him ditch you and then tie him to my bed to use as my living sex toy but I value my life much more." Cheryl laughed softly and pushed a bottle of Advil to Penny.

She nodded grateful, wincing at the movement due to her still pounding headache and swallowed two of the pills before leaning back into the chair, a move that her friends mirrored on the couch. Everybody stayed silent as they let the pills work their magic and felt the headaches receding to a dull thump.

"You want something to eat?" Cheryl asked around.

"No, I think I will head home and sleep some more." Penny replied and got up.

"Penny, don't dwell too much on what happened last night." Kim said as they all walked towards the door. "Otherwise you might start feeling guilty and get even more miserable. And then it will get really weird when we are in one room."

"I think it will feel a little weird anyway, no matter how much I dwell on it." Penny said. "But I have accepted it because you have been right, I did feel miserable and now not so much anymore. So, let me say thank you for what you did last night and I see you later."

She gave each of her friends an awkward hug and left the apartment, walking down the stairs with a spring in her step she had forgotten that she had. While last night hadn't even come remotely close to what Leonard made her feel, it had helped take the edge off and for the first time in weeks she didn't feel as if she had to jump out of her skin.

She drove home and parked her car, walking into the building and getting the mail of her and her neighbors from the still shiny new mailboxes. She walked up the stairs and headed into her apartment, heading into her bedroom and collapsing on the bed, sleeping in her own apartment for the first time in weeks.

After their drunken night, Penny's days were filled with her work, double shifts meaning she had to be at the Cheesecake Factory for ten hours a day, except for the first week, when she had to work an extra hour to make up for the day and a half that Mike told her to take off. While it was exhausting, it also helped pass the time, since she went to work at nine or ten and wasn't home until nine or ten at night.

Also, while she didn't attempt to avoid both Kim and Cheryl, she didn't, at the same time, actively seek out their presence, her embarrassment about what they had done together still there, although Penny was indeed grateful, since it had helped her to alleviate the pressure somewhat. She still missed Leonard dearly and wanted nothing more than feel him inside and against her again but she wasn't about to crawl out of her skin.

"Penny, you're remarkably chipper today." Bernadette, her diminutive blond colleague said to her on the last Thursday of double shifts. "Makes me wonder, you have been working double shifts for almost three weeks now."

"Yeah, my boyfriend will be back in a few days. That keeps me happy. Also, I have the next week off again to spend it with him." she replied. "Of course, that depends on the weather. If there is another snow storm, they have to wait longer."

"Then lets hoping there won't be." Bernadette said and walked off as Mike closed in on her.

"Penny, you got a minute?"

"Sure, what is it?"

"Listen, I did a little calculating. As of today, you have worked off your missed hours, so tomorrow you will have a regular shift again, not double."

"Oh great!" Penny exclaimed. "My feet will be thanking you."

"At least wash them before." Mike grinned and returned to his duties.

Penny finished her shift and headed home, parking her car and walking up the stairs like she had done almost every day. And as usual, she took a shower to wash the grit of the day off her before drying herself off and putting on blue panties and a blue bra, but instead of simply donning some baggy clothes, she decided to look into her closet and try on some things she could wear for Leonard's return, something that will show him her sexual qualities and make him ravish her right away.

She booted up her laptop and started her playlist, moving her body to the tunes and trying on several outfits, some of them too slutty to use as a comeback present, others too modest. She put on some tight blue jeans and a red top the was loose at the bottom and accentuated her breasts, showing off her cleavage in a most pronounced fashion.

Just as she was about to take it off again to try something new, she heard a knock on her door. Wondering who could disturb her at this hour, she walked towards her apartment door. She hoped that it wasn't Cheryl or Kim or both, since she didn't really want to deal with them right now but after she opened her door, her heart almost stopped.

"Leonard, you're back!" she said surprised but with a smile she couldn't stop upon seeing the man she loved standing, all bushy-haired and -bearded, in brown pants, a blue shirt and his usual hoodie in front of her.

---

And that chapter ends here. I hope you enjoyed my take on the time that passed between seasons 2 and 3. As for the Feuerzangenbowle, it's something I have done every New Years Party (except for last New Years due to me being sick) and it really tastes amazing though you tend to drink too much because it so sweet ^^

If you don't review, I won't hurry with writing the next one :D

Review please :)