Interesting things in Pasadena

Own nothing

Leonard sat on the couch in 4B quickly removing his phone from his pocket and dialing Penny. The phone on the other end immediately went to voice mail. Leonard took the phone from his ear and just stared at it. Penny's phone was apparently turned off. Leonard waited for the beep and left a message:

Hey beautiful, I was told you called. Just calling back, call me. Love you… L

Penny had slumped over onto her couch and was resting with her head on a throw pillow with her feet pulled up as she slept on her side. After she missed talking to Leonard, she turned the TV on and set the sleep timer. She then placed her phone on the coffee table and must have fallen asleep. She had not put her phone in Airplane mode for the trip back to New York, so her phone lost all charge and turned itself off. Penny slept somewhat uncomfortably on her couch until she woke up a little cold from not having any covers.

Leonard was not happy that he could not get in touch with Penny. He looked at his watch and thought that she probably had fallen asleep. He decided to leave her a text for when she woke up.

Hey, I just wanted to apologize for forgetting my phone and not being there when you called. You know Sheldon, by the time we got through his post food delivery critique and ate, I didn't get your message to call you until we finished. How was the audition? I really want to know. Love you… L

Penny woke up with a bit of a neck ache. She sat up, stretched a little and went off to the bedroom where she stripped off all her clothes except her panties and crawled under the covers just wanting to get back to sleep. The flight back to New York and then the audition was exhausting.

Leonard woke the next day and quickly looked at his phone not seeing that he had any missed messages. He quickly got out of bed and showered getting ready for the day.

Pence rose at her customary early time and showered according to the schedule Sheldon had laid out for her. She actually adapted nicely to the rigid confines of Sheldon's schedule even finding some comfort in the breakfast meal rotation. She finished with her morning preparatory tasks and was putting on a pot of coffee when Leonard came through the door. "Good morning Leonard… I trust you slept well… you left rather abruptly last evening…"

Leonard smiled as he made his way over to the coffee maker taking one of the mugs that Pence had filled with warm water to pre-warm the mugs. "Good morning… yeah sure… I slept ok… didn't get to speak with Penny though."

Pence patted his shoulder. "Poor dear, I'm sure you will catch up today sometime. She really is a dear".

Leonard smiled. "So… you said something about Dr. Hawking?"

Pence poured two cups of coffee handing one to Leonard. "Yes… He would like you to come back to Cambridge to continue this bit of sleuthing we have started."

Leonard giggled. "Sleuthing? Is that even a word? I guess that I would have to get it approved by the University first".

Pence sipped her coffee. "That has already been taken care of. Stephen called your Dr. Siebert and it has been approved. He was also intrigued with the idea that Dr. Cooper has been exposed to this issue and is willing to have Dr. Cooper accompany us. Dr. Cooper's eidetic memory may come in handy recognising patterns of similarity."

Leonard frowned just a bit. "Sheldon? Really?... How deep do you think this leak goes?"

Pence was more direct. "Dr. Hawking thinks because of our report from the lecture last night, that it is apparent that someone on the team is definitely involved."

Sheldon came out from his room and poured a bowl of shredded wheat, pretty much ignoring the conversation.

Leonard looked over. "Sheldon, how would you like to go to Cambridge and continue looking into the information leak from the North Sea expedition? Dr. Hawking thinks it is a team member and at this point also thinks you would be some type of asset"

Sheldon smiled. "I'm glad that Rolling Thunder took me up on my suggestion. Of course I would like to go".

Leonard was perplexed. "You're suggestion?"

Sheldon stood to join the conversation. "Yes… of course… it was fairly apparent that the minute changes in the data presented at the lecture last night could only have been disseminated so quickly if they were positively identified prior to the lecture. This data has only been retrieved recently and it took your intimate knowledge of the detection systems to ferret it out. I must say… Kudos to you Dr. Hofstadter. At any rate, I posed that being no known source is currently suspected, fresh non-involved eyes and ears would be a logical addition for the identification of the perpetrator". Sheldon proudly smiled as Pence and Leonard looked on. "I even suggested that Howard attend also. He has uncanny abilities with clandestine computer techniques that we could find helpful. And Stephen really likes the little scamp".

Penny woke up and shuffled to the coffee maker for her needed pick me up. She looked at the time on the microwave and saw that it was 11:00 AM. She was startled by how late it was and quickly looked around for her phone. She couldn't get it to unlock and figured that it had zero charge. "Shit! What if the audition people were trying to find me?" Penny quickly found her charger and plugged in her phone. She waited until she could swipe the screen and found that she had a missed message. "God Damn IT!" Penny opened the message and found that it was from Leonard. "Thank god".

Penny smiled to herself as she read the message from Leonard. She was a little annoyed that that English Bitch didn't tell Him she had called and she really wanted to tell him how things went. But first, she needed to find out about the rest of the auditions. Penny quickly took a shower and got ready for any call that might come in.

Howard came over after Leonard had given him a call to discuss going over to Cambridge. "Are you guys serious? Isn't this kind of thin against the law?"

Pence smiled. "You are coming over as friends to Dr. Hofstadter and as a former colleague to Dr. Hawking. There are still a few staff members accompanied him while he was here. They will think nothing of it. And we are set to design the new computer infrastructure for the lab and you are a consultant on that project. No one will be the wiser".

Howard was impressed. "So… when do we leave?"

Pence looked to Leonard. If all your papers are in order, we can leave as soon as possible".

Sheldon held up a hand. "Hold on… we need to get the requisite vaccinations before we travel. There's no telling what is running rampant in England".

Leonard just hung his head in shame. "I need to call Penny".

Penny finished drying her hair and went out to the living room. She had thought that she heard the phone ringing. She turned off the hair dryer and heard that it was, so she quickly picked it up.

Leonard called and found that his call went to voice mail. It was not immediate, so he figured she had the ringer turned off or something. He decided to leave yet another message:

Hi… again… It looks like I may need to go back to Cambridge to finish finding out who is leaking the information. I don't know exactly when, but we will try to fly through New York again. Call me if you get a chance…. L