Chapter 49
Leonard lay in his room unable to sleep, even though he was so tired he could barely think straight. He hadn't slept at all on the plane and looking back it made him actually feel ashamed, even pathetic, because he knew exactly why, he still couldn't get over he would never see her again. Gloria, his work and now time had all worked to deaden the pain, but none of them could heal the hole in his soul that was created when he had to let her go. They had all helped him move on, like so many other times before, even though this time it was much worse, but unlike those times before that left scars, this time he felt like he had an open wound, one he did not think would ever heal and he would just have to live with the rest of his life.
He was just trying to settle his mind, make it relax by thinking what lead up to where he was now, hoping it would let him finally find sleep and when he began to think back it really seemed that the last three weeks had gone by in a blur. They were now a team, Howard, Alex and him, so he was really happy when Howard and Alex where approved to accompany him to England for the field test of their prototype. For this trip, Alex and him were being funded through the university, under a Government grant from the Navy, the Navy more than happy to fund any program dealing with underwater sensor technology. Howard, who worked for NASA, was being also funded through the Navy after they requested NASA to use him and then provided his funding for the whole trip with the agreement he would write a report on the whole project after it was over.
This had made everything better for Leonard, the three of them working together, had both made this effort easier on him, both physically and mentally he admitted to himself, having friends as invested in the work as himself turned out to be very comforting. He also found out he had really needed their help, especially the last two weeks since Alex finished finals, the three of them working 10-12 hour days getting everything ready and shipped for their testing while finishing up their test plan and calculations so that they could start their work immediately after reaching Cambridge. It also made Leonard smile, how much they had all gotten closer in those two weeks, they would be with each other from the beginning of their day till they all went home that night. Except for sleeping, the three of them practically living together, each day working and eating their meals together until they went to bed each night, tired but happy at what they accomplished that day.
Consequently, the day they left on the airplane actually felt like a day of relaxation for the three of them, going to the airport and just riding on the plane, where they could just sit and talk together. The whole flight from Los Angeles Airport to Atlanta being exactly like that, Howard, Alex and him sitting together, in seats three abreast, and just talking about everything and anything during the trip. Alex now knowing and feeling comfortable enough around Howard to accept his strange wit, like Leonard did, when dealing with Howard as a friend. Still, if that had been the total extent of the events of the trip Leonard would not be laying awake now, but deep into blissful sleep.
However, when they got to Atlanta, and transferred to the wide-bodied airliner to take them to England, things started to change just a few hours into the flight. Since the flight was set up to travel through the night, it was just over an hour after they began when the lights were turned off in the cabin so people could sleep. They had carefully planned their trip and were also lucky, they had made their reservations to assure their flight wasn't during a peak travel time, hoping that it would result in the plane not being full, and were in luck that the plane was only 80 percent full on their trip overseas. That luck carried over to their seating, they were in the middle row of 4 seats, occupying three of those seats, but there was no one assigned to the fourth seat in their row, allowing Alex to curl up in the two middle seats and with a steward supplied blanket and pillow, so she could fall asleep, while Leonard and Howard sat on either side of her, instinctively to protect her. It was only thirty minutes after Alex fell asleep that Leonard stretched and unconsciously looked down at her, Alex's head positioned towards his seat, an endearing innocent expression on her face, it made a feeling overcome him so strongly that he shuttered.
He stared at Alex while she lay there asleep, she was about Penny's age, and her face, also like Penny, looked angelic while she slept, making the memories of Penny coming rushing back to Leonard so strongly it was almost like seeing her there sleeping right next to him. This sudden rush of feelings where almost too much for him as he unconsciously began to reach down and touch Alex, only to stop himself as his mind logically shouted at him it couldn't be her. Leonard now suffered through something like an emotional withdrawal, the adrenaline of just moments ago now dissipating and a new form of extreme emptiness replacing it, the loneliness accompanying it making his eyes wet and his breathing labored. He knew he was going to cry, so he got up from his seat to find the nearest bathroom, again lucky that because most people were asleep, the closest one was empty allowing him to quickly enter and lock himself in. He had only to look at himself, the lonely image of a man who wanted a woman he would never see again, and that image broke the emotional dam that held back the tears as Leonard now silently wept for what his life could have been.
He had ended up spending almost two hours in that bathroom, the inactivity on the plane allowing him not to be bothered the whole time. It gave him the time that allowed him to put himself together, at least as other people saw him, and return to his seat, however even then he just stared at nothing the rest of the flight while others slept, thinking about her continuously until the light started to pour through the aircraft windows and the plane came back to life. The next few hours, with breakfast, preparing for landing and everything else, not allowing him to concentrate too much on what happened that night, they completed the remaining portion of their trip, to arrive at Heathrow Airport, Leonard never having to let on how badly he felt.
It actually got busier for them after their arrival, going through visitor screening, getting their bags and then through customs inspection, before they were finally met by their ride to Cambridge. Even then, during the trip to Cambridge, their host kept their minds busy, spending the time telling them about their accommodations, who their contacts were and where they would work, his talking and them looking around at the sights, through the van windows, keeping their minds busy on their remaining leg of their trip. However, arrival didn't slow things down a bit, they were given a quick tour and maps of Cambridge, centering on where they would work and the office they would work under, then it was off to their living quarters, Leonard and Howard given a two bedroom visiting professors quarters, while Alex being put up in another room, with another woman who would be working on the project too. But even then there was no rest as the three of them were then whisked off to dinner with some of the staff they would be working with, that ending up with a little socializing afterwards, and finally later the three of them taken back to their rooms to sleep.
It was then, back in the room, that Leonard was left alone again with his thoughts for the first time since he left the airplane and like back then he didn't know how to handle the sense of loss that stayed inside him since he had to let her go. It had been several months now and he still felt the pain, though Gloria had been right in that the pain had dulled over time, except for that piece of him that still felt loss to him, the piece she took with her, the piece he had gladly given to her. He told himself he had no other choice he would have to move on but to go back to that place he was at before her, the place where he knew he would never have someone like her and he would have to settle for a life that his true satisfaction would be in the work he did and nothing else. It was a mindset he had lived in all his life, ever since his mother impressed on him he wasn't anything special and subjected him to the notion that working on his career was what he should devote his life to, to make up for his mediocrity. He didn't know what else to do, so he ended up thinking about that for the next hour until his mind, from his lack of sleep, got too tired to think letting him mercifully fall asleep.
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Susan knew something was immediately wrong when Penny skipped breakfast the next morning and went straight out to the barn to take care of the horses. She barely said more than a few words to her mother, just enough to let her know she wasn't hungry and was going to the barn. Susan wasn't sure what had changed so quickly in her daughter, but she wasn't going to let it continue, so as soon as she fed Wyatt, and he went out to work, she called her oldest daughter and asked her to come over.
Lindsey and Penny were extremely close again, so her mother's explanation of how Penny was acting was all the encouragement she needed to let her husband she would be visiting her parents for a day or two and putting things together for her and her son's trip there. So it was just about lunch time when Lindsey drove up, gave Susan her grandson and then headed over to the barn to visit with her sister. It not taking long for her to know something was really wrong when she walked into the barn and saw Penny mindlessly brushing Buttercup, her thoughts so far away she didn't even hear Lindsey walk in.
"Penny are you okay?" Lindsey asked both quietly and cautiously, not wanting to startle her sister.
Penny blinked a couple of times then turned her head to look at Lindsey, a look that combined, confusion, sorrow and loss all combined into one. "Lindsey?" being all that came out of her mouth.
"Yeah Sweetie." Lindsey gave her sister a sad smile, "Penny are you okay?" she then repeated.
Penny looked down and slowly shook her head, "No."
"Sweetie, you want to talk about it?" Lindsey asked hoping her sister would talk.
Penny looked up at her sister, she did want to talk, she had learned that talking had helped from Dr. Miller, and talking to Lindsey did make her feel better, so she nodded. "Yes."
Lindsey and Penny both walked to the bench and sat down Penny leaning against her sister and both of them leaning their heads toward each other, like they did when they were kids and talked. It was a comfortable feeling for both of them, and it immediately brought back memories of simpler times for them both too, when they were each other's best friend and they would take care of each other. Penny felt comfortable now and began to talk, Lindsey quietly listening and only talking when it was necessary.
It was about a hour after Lindsey left for the barn, while Wyatt and Susan were picking at their lunch and feeding their grandchild, that Lindsey and Penny returned to the house. Penny didn't say a word, but Lindsey seemed to have control of the situation, "Penny you go upstairs and get the laptop powered on and I'll be up in a minute." Penny just nodded, looked at her parents a second then when upstairs to her room, leaving her parents now looking at Lindsey.
"It is that guy again." Lindsey blurted out as soon as she heard Penny's bedroom door close.
"You mean the one from California, Leonard?" Susan asked.
Lindsey nodded, "She tried calling him last night but his phone number is out of service."
"She tried to call him?" Susan said with surprise.
Lindsey nodded again. "It seems Dr. Miller told her she shouldn't call him until she could tell him her feelings towards him and where she wanted the both of them to go, so she has been making a list and rehearsing her conversation with him since Dr. Miller told her that."
"I had no idea." Susan stated and Wyatt nodded in agreement.
"Me neither, it was so important to her that she kept it a secret and now when she tried to call…Leonard is not there." Lindsey said with sadness.
"Oh my poor baby." Susan blurted out, herself now on the verge of crying. Susan then looked back up to Lindsey, "But what is going on now with the computer?"
Lindsey sighed, "We know some stuff about him so I told her I would try and help her call him at work." Lindsey sighed again. "But mom, it could be he is not interested in her, she was pretty bad off when she got home, he could have just been a nice guy helping to get her home because he didn't want to see her maybe die in the cold. There may be nothing more than that between them, even though Penny….she said she loves him."
"I don't want to see her hurt anymore." Susan responded. "Maybe we should call Carol?"
"Give me some time with her, maybe things will work out alright, but if they don't we can call the doctor, okay?" Lindsey offered.
Susan just nodded, then looked at the table. "Could you try and get her to eat something, she didn't have breakfast."
"Okay." Lindsey then grabbed a plate and put a couple sandwiches and chips on it, before grabbing a couple cans of diet Dr. Pepper, her and Penny's favorite. She then gave her parents a sad smile before she went up the stairs, with the food, to be with Penny.
Wyatt rubbed Susan's back, "Lindsey and Penny are close again, if anyone can help her it will be Lin."
Susan gave her husband a sad smile as she put her hand over his, "I hope so Honey, I hope so."
It turned out to be several hours later, towards the end of dinner time, before Susan and Wyatt saw either of their daughters again, again it being Lindsey coming into the kitchen with a sad worn expression on her face. She stopped before saying anything and just slowly shook her head at her parents before sitting in a chair at the table. "Penny is not doing to good."
"What is happening, honey?" Susan was so in the dark about what was going on with Penny she craved any information.
"We found out where Leonard works, actually it was easy to find out that about him, there is quite a lot of information on him on the internet." Lindsey started to explain.
"Why is that?" Wyatt asked in confusion
"He is actually Doctor Leonard Hofstadter, a scientist who works at California Institute of Technology. It seems he does research there and the stuff we read was about some things I didn't even understand that he was working on." she further explained.
"Are you sure?" Wyatt asked
Lindsey nodded, "His picture was on the internet too and Penny said that was him." Lindsey then sighed, "Anyway, we called the office there that he is suppose to work from, but all they would tell us is that he will be gone for the summer and they can't tell us where." Wyatt and Susan could both hear the frustration in Lindsey's words.
"How did Penny take it." Wyatt now asked
Lindsey shook her head, "She believes she loves him…I really mean she believes it…..so you can imagine, she is heartbroken."
"Oh my poor baby." Susan blurted out, Wyatt taking her into his arms knowing she was about to cry.
"Is there something else you can do to contact him?" Wyatt now asked.
Lindsey sighed again, "I don't know if that is a good idea."
"Why Honey?" Susan now asked.
"Mom, what kind of guys did Penny go out with before she left?" Lindsey asked her mother back.
Susan understood her daughter right away, "Not someone like Leonard…..Dr Hofstadter."
Lindsey nodded, "I was thinking mom, what if its not about Penny having trouble contacting him, what if its about that he doesn't want to be contacted?"
"You really think it is that?" Susan asked in surprise
Lindsey shrugged, "Penny and I dated the same kind of guys, I can't imagine what I would say to a scientist and what he would think of a farm girl with only a high school education." she now looked seriously at her parents, "What if he found her, felt sorry for her, helped her and sent her home, that's it, he did something for another person out of kindness."
Susan thought for a minute, "But all those other men used her, why would he be different? Why would he just help her without anything in return?"
Lindsey tried to explain her thoughts, ever since she read about Dr. Hofstadter on the internet she had been a little in awe of him. "I was thinking about that too. Penny told me about some of those guys and they just seemed like California versions of the guys she dated here. Leonard was not anything like those guys, he is smarter and accomplished, maybe that success and the maturity that came with it extended to how he treated her."
"So you think he just helped her and after he sent her home he was done with her." Susan stated, thinking that was Lindsey was saying.
Lindsey shrugged, "It would explain why his phone number changed and why she can't get in touch with a guy who is easy to find on the internet."
"If that is what is happening, Penny is going to be more heartbroken." Wyatt now stated.
Lindsey sighed again, "I helped her get over guys before, maybe I can help her get over him too."
"Honey could you?" Susan pleaded.
Lindsey nodded, "I think so." She then stood up and with the help of her mother collected some food up to go back upstairs, planning the whole time how she would make her sister forget the scientist back in California.
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They became the three musketeers, at least that was what some of the people, on Hawking's team, called the three Americans who seemed to be always together. It was actually easy to understand, Leonard and Alex where friends already and so where Leonard and Howard, so Alex and Howard being friends was unavoidable, after Alex got use to Howard's personality and Leonard calmed him down some. Their work schedule also supported their closeness, days of 10-12 hours not uncommon for them, meals eaten by them together, and even when they did socialize, Leonard and even Howard kept Alex close to them, acting like brotherly figures, watching over the young Grad Student.
Alex overall enjoyed the situation, even though she would have preferred a passionate love affair with Leonard while they were in a beautiful foreign country, all the time she spent with Leonard was precious to her and she savored every minute. She even enjoyed both Leonard and Howard around her all the time, even once accidentally overhearing two of the local Grad Students complaining how she was selfishly keeping the two cute American men for herself the whole time she was there. No, Alex didn't really have many complaints at all about her situation and if she was honest with herself she was having the most exciting time of her life, being in the constant presence of both a brilliant scientist and the man she had a crush on, plus being involved in ground breaking scientific work, Alex was happy, really happy.
Howard was actually enjoying himself a lot too, the engineering work Leonard had him doing was challenging and Howard loved a challenge, it was what got him into engineering in the first place, the need to make things that worked. Howard was also happy that Alex was a girl and a pretty one, who seemed to equally friendly to both him and Leonard, to Howard she was the eye candy that made his day brighter. He was also sure he could hook up with Alex if they had some alone time, but then they never were alone due to their work and he had to admit to himself they all were good friends, so he just behaved himself, like Leonard instructed him while he waited for his chance with her.
Consequently the first month in England went pretty quickly, the first few weeks setting up all their equipment in the lab then checking its function before they installed it on the boat, the last weeks before their North Sea trip. Howard took care of all the boat integration, power, electronic communication and the hardware to both mount the equipment and keep it safe during its time at sea. The three of them worked hard, but they finished with two days to spare before their boat sailed, with them aboard to do their experiment, so the next day, with them suddenly finding themselves not burdened with work, they all decided to take a little holiday.
They were use to getting up early, so with instructions from one of the other Hawking team members, they left before dawn the next morning for London, all of them excited to just let a little steam off from the past grueling weeks of work. None of them had ever really seen London so it was both a new and awe inspiring visit, seeing sights they had only read about, Big Ben, Parliament, Buckingham Palace and other tourist sights throughout the city. They even went to Piccadilly Circus, where Alex begged the guys to let her shop for an hour, finding herself some 'London Clothes' that she wore for the rest of the day of their little trip. They ate diner there at a place near the Thames and it was almost midnight before they returned to Cambridge, still experiencing a high from their day being tourists in one of the most historical and exciting cities in England and Europe.
So no sooner than Leonard shut down the car, actually relaxing a little because of the stress of driving a car on the other side of the road that went against years of ingrained memory, Howard spoke, "Hey, I'm still wide awake, you guys want to catch a pint at that pub down the street, I think they are still open for an hour."
Alex had a wonderful time, she got to spend the whole day with Leonard and even Howard's presence hadn't dampened the experience at all. She even had to admit she enjoyed the looks of other women when she was shopping with both men being attentive to her, her almost able to mind read their disapproval of her having two men while many of them had none. For someone who had always been shy and the skinny nerd in high school, Alex was now feeling like a real woman, so the thoughts of continuing the evening, with Leonard, sounded just perfect to her. "I'd like that."
Leonard was wide awake, the constant talking they all did the whole way back from London plus the concentration he had to hold while driving on the other side of the road, made the sound of just sitting and having a beer to relax like a very good idea, "Sounds good, I'm in."
The pub was actually opened for another two hours and as the three of them
got into a comfortable conversation sipping on their drinks, Howard decided this was his chance with Alex. He felt Leonard was the third wheel preventing him and Alex to get together, so with his knowledge of how Leonard was a light drinker, Howard thought getting Leonard drunk would be a good way to remove him from the picture and finally get some of the alone time with Alex he wanted. So after only a few minutes after their first drinks Howard smiled at them all, "So ready for the second round?" almost snickering in glee when Leonard quickly finished off his beer to not look like he was falling behind before smiling a Howard and nodding.
