A/N Warning, long A/N. I'm in a quandary, and I would like my readers to help me with it. My current plan is to end this story sometime in the story's month of July (note below that the date starting this chapter is 16 June). I had planned on several epilogue chapters, written a bit differently than the rest of the story. Basically, I would hit the highlights and take the story out until Penny goes back to work. By differently, I'm talking about doing a whole month in a chapter.
However, several things have caused me to question that. In general, the decline of interest in the show, makes me think if I ever thought of continuing the story at a later date, there wouldn't be anyone to read it. I've also got a few more ideas for the parts in between the highlights in the epilogues, so I considered the possibility of restarting the story at a later date. Concerning that, I have a question or two.
Would my readers prefer me doing the epilogues, with only the highlights, ending in the story's month of November, or would they prefer me continuing the story, on a greatly reduced publishing schedule? By greatly reduced I mean getting a chapter maybe once every month or two. There are some things going on in real life (not related to my health, don't worry), that will reduce my writing time. And, don't worry, if I ever decide I won't be able to write anymore, I will do the epilogues to get you some closure.
So, it's up to you. A break from the story with some info to give it a kind of ending, or a continuation at sporadic intervals, with epilogues to give it an ending if I decide not to write anymore. Let me know in either a review or a PM. If I don't get enough replies, I'll take that as a lack of interest and end it as I currently planned. Yeah, I know it's early, but, life. Enjoy the chapater.
Chapter 81
Tuesday 16 June, 1:00 PM
Penny had finished lunch was wondering what she should do. She had spent the morning watching TV and wasn't interested in watching it this afternoon. Maybe I should take a nap, she thought. I didn't get any sleep last night, I couldn't get comfortable. But, she didn't want to take a nap either, when her eyes fell on all the cards from the baby shower on Saturday. I can write out the thank-you notes, she thought. She gathered up the cards, got out the thank-you cards Leonard had bought, and started on the first card. She hadn't written very much when she felt like she had to Pee.
Penny set aside the cards, got up, and went to the bathroom in the downstairs bedroom. After a few minutes, she came out, sat in her chair, and started working on some more notes. She looked at the clock, 1:30, I should be done with this by four, she thought. Twenty minutes later, she was asleep in the recliner.
Tuesday 16 June, 7:30 PM
Leonard and Penny were waiting in the classroom for Dr. Samuels and Penny was complaining about falling asleep in the chair this afternoon. They would have only one more class after this, but they were confident in being able to feed their babies when the time came. Penny talked about pumping, so Leonard could help, but that would be the next class.
Dr. Samuels came in, with bags under her eyes. She stepped to the front of the class and started talking, "I want to apologize in advance. I was up most of last night. Babies come when they want to, and this one took its time." There was general laughter, as Dr. Samuels continued, "Before we start with tonight's lesson, I want to remind you to bring in your breast pumps next week. We'll be talking about pumping and storing your milk, so I would like to talk about the pumps. Now, tonight, we'll look at what your baby will need and the signals they give that you should understand, to determine if they are still hungry, full, or there is something else causing them not to eat. Is everyone ready?"
Wednesday 17 June, 9:30 AM
Leonard was going through the results from the previous run when there was a knock on his door, and Keith stood in the doorway.
"Come in, Keith," said Leonard. "Have a seat. What's up?"
"You know how I'm the email point person for the team?" said Keith.
"Yes, you look over the emails and answer them," said Leonard. "Or, if you need to, you bring it to me and Tom, and we talk about it. Do you have something we need to talk about?"
"Well, yes," said Keith. "Except, it's just for you."
"What do you mean?"
"I've gotten several requests in the last few days," said Keith. "They want to know more about the material you used for the new runs, the runs where we get more entanglements than we planned. They want to do experiments to determine why you get more."
"Similar to the ones we're planning on doing this summer and fall?" asked Leonard.
"Yes," said Keith. "That's why I'm bringing it to you. You're the one that thought of using the material, and my concern is if we give it to them, they may try to claim priority or claim they discovered it in their experiments."
"I see," said Leonard, who looked thoughtful. "So, your recommendation is that we don't tell them what we're using?"
"Exactly, we didn't name it in the paper," said Keith. "We simply mentioned it as a material. If we give it out, we open ourselves up to losing proprietary rights to it."
"We did get a patent on it, right?" said Leonard.
"Yes, we did," said Keith.
"So any use would have to have our approval," said Leonard. "Hmmmm, could we restrict research into it, as a condition of their using it?"
"I supposed," said Keith. "I'd have to look it up."
"Don't bother," said Leonard. "I have an idea or two, I'll do some research into it, talk to a few people, and get back to you tomorrow, how's that?"
"That sounds good," said Keith, rising. "I'll talk to you later. See you this afternoon."
"Bye, Keith, see you this afternoon," said Leonard.
Wednesday 17 June, 2:30 PM
Penny was bored and antsy. After Leonard left for work, she sat in her recliner spending the morning going through the various Hollywood gossip sites on her iPad, trying to find anything about her favorite stars. One of her favorite stars had just bought a new house, but it was in a gated community, wasn't a public sale, so she couldn't find anything about it.
By noon, she had quit trying to find information on the house and got up to make lunch. She ate it at the island, before heading to the bathroom. Afterward, she returned to her recliner flipping through the different channels and streaming services, trying to find something to watch, and failing.
I don't know why I couldn't do a little something of work, here at home, she thought. I don't know how Bernadette did it, being in bed all the time. I can move around and go out, at least a little bit. I'm looking forward to going to Bernadette's tonight.
After a few more minutes of flipping through the channels, she turned off the TV. Now what? she thought. She was bored and not sure what to do when a thought popped into her mind, I could practice my breathing. So, she turned off the TV and started working on her breathing exercises.
Wednesday 17 June, 3:30 PM
Leonard heard, "Come in," from Eric, and entered his office. Leonard walked in and sat down, with Eric saying, "What's going on that you needed to see me so urgently?"
"Remember back when I changed the material for the beamsplitter?" said Leonard.
Eric nodded.
"Well, we've been getting about one-third more entanglements than predicted. We don't know why yet, but we are looking to do some experiments, just for that purpose."
"How did you come up with the material?" asked Eric.
Leonard then went on to explain his idea, and how he had hoped to get three to five percent more reactions, but, as he said, they're getting about one-third more reactions. He talked about the most popular idea for the increase, a resonance they hadn't calculated, but they really needed to do some more experiments, along with some more calculations.
Eric said he didn't understand why this was a problem. Leonard talked about how it would take about three months to plan and do the experiment, more as it was over the summer. He then went on to explain how there were some requests for the material or the chemical formula for the material, so others could perform those experiments. And how he and others on the team were concerned about another institution beating Caltech to the findings.
Eric nodded, then told Leonard to think about ways to control the information about the material and call the Caltech Legal Department tomorrow. That sounded like a good idea to Leonard, so he said he would do that, thanked Eric, and headed back to his office.
Wednesday 17 June, 8:45 PM
Penny and Amy arrived at Bernadette's at 5:15 and the women spent the next hour mostly asking how Penny was doing. The guys arrived with the food around 6:30, and the next half hour was spent eating and putting the extra food away.
Leonard then laid out what was happening with the requests, and asked them what he should do. Sheldon said he had to give it out, to advance science. Amy said he shouldn't let anyone know what the material was. This cause a brief argument between the two until Leonard told them not to worry about it and then he turned to Howard and Bernadette.
Bernadette agreed with Sheldon, she thought the advancement of science was more important, and he should let them know. Howard thought he shouldn't give out what the material was, it would be stolen or worse, used to make even more advances, in place of Leonard. This, of course, started an argument between Howard and Bernadette, which Amy and Sheldon soon joined in.
That went on for several minutes until Leonard raised his voice over the argument and told them to forget he asked, trying to calm everything down. He then asked Raj who recommended he tell them what it was but have them sign a strict non-disclosure document, before telling them. Leonard thought about that one, ignoring the argument that re-ignited with the other four. Penny just smirked and laughed.
After a few minutes, Leonard got everyone calmed down and everyone avoided the subject for the rest of the night until it was time to leave. Raj talked about the new program he was developing for the planetarium, while there wasn't much going on with the other four. The group soon broke into men and women and after an hour, it was time to go home. Leonard and Penny were walking home and they were laughing. They could still hear the four arguing about what Leonard should do about the requests.
"What are you going to do?" asked Penny.
"Raj gave me a good idea," said Leonard. "I'll make a few changes to it because it doesn't go far enough. But, if they want my material, they'll have to agree to my conditions."
"Oooohhhhh, my badass team leader," said Penny with a grin. Leonard just grinned back.
Thursday 18 June, 2:45 PM
It had been a long day for Leonard. Most of it had been spent either talking to Eric, President Siebert, or the Caltech Legal Department. He now had everything worked out and the Legal department would have the required paperwork tomorrow. All he needed now was to talk to Keith, so he called him, asking him to come to Leonard's office.
Ten minutes later Keith showed up, asking, "What do you need Leonard?"
"I have an answer about the requests," said Leonard.
"You do," said Keith. "So, what can we do?"
"I met with Dr. Gablehauser, President Siebert, and the Legal department today, and we've come up with a plan. We will give out what the material is and its chemical formula, under certain conditions. First, they don't get the info until mid-December, probably around the fifteenth or so, and can't use it until January 1. Second, any research cannot be published, until after June 30, of next year. Third, any published papers that refer to the material, also have to refer to our development and use of it first. And, finally, anyone who is given access to the material, has to sign a non-disclosure agreement, until the end of June, next year."
"Now, I was worried that even with that, we may get something like someone signing such an agreement, and then giving it to someone who hasn't signed the agreement. So, what I've come up with is, each individual, the team lead, the department head, and the President of the University to who we give this, all have to sign a non-disclosure agreement."
"Will that make a difference?" asked Keith.
"It will, based on how we word it," said Leonard. "Any university that gets the information from us, won't be able to publish, because if they do, we have it on record they signed a non-disclosure, with an embargo date. If an individual leaves the university and goes to another university, the losing university has to notify us, and we will send a copy of the non-disclosure form to the new university. This way, they can't claim they didn't know."
"Will I have access to these agreements?" asked Keith.
"Yes, you and Tom both will," said Leonard. "You and Tom will also be briefed by the legal department. And, before you send any information out, you will get signed agreements back, from all the individuals, the lead investigator, the department head, and the president of the university. If any university then violates the agreement, they are on the hook for a lot of money. The legal department may even put the amount in the agreement. This way we lock everyone in.
They get the material to experiment on, but they can't publish until we get a chance to experiment on it, for about six months, and then publish. And, speaking of those experiments, I'm going to need you, Tom, and myself to get together, so we can look at what experiments Tom needs to verify the calculations. You can do all the work to set that up after next week's run. Do you think you got it?"
"I have a few questions," said Keith. "And, I'll probably think of a few more, but I'll wait until the meeting before asking them."
"Fair enough," said Leonard. "The briefing with Legal and our meeting will be next week. After that, you can start answering requests, explaining our terms."
"That's great, Leonard," said Keith. "Anything else?"
"Nope, that was the big thing," said Leonard.
"Then I'll head back to my office," said Keith. "I've got a few emails to send out, to let them know we're working on it and they will get a full answer within the next week or so."
"Sounds good. I'll see you tomorrow," said Leonard. "I want to get the final checks mostly done, so we can finish by Monday."
"See you tomorrow," said Keith. He turned and left, leaving Leonard to continue working on the agreements, before calling to fill Eric and President Siebert in on how it was coming along.
Thursday 18 June, 2:45 PM
Penny was having a really rough day. She hadn't gotten much sleep, it had become almost impossible for her to sleep. She couldn't lay on her back or her stomach, it was only on either side. But, even this didn't help. She could never get comfortable, her huge belly didn't help, but trying to roll from one side to the other was so very difficult. And, even if she made it, she still wasn't comfortable.
As a result, Penny was getting very little sleep. So, she was trying to take a nap. Just as she was starting to drift off, she felt the need to pee. The urge to pee had gotten bad this last week, and according to Dr. Samuels, it was because the two babies were on her bladder. Penny wished they would get off her bladder.
Well, she had to get up, but reaching over to pull the handle to lower the footrest wasn't easy any longer. As she tried to pull the handle up to lower the recliner's footrest, she noticed her legs and feet were swelled. Great, just want I need between not sleeping and having to pee all the damn time. Penny finally got the recliner up and managed to get out of it before making her way to the bathroom.
It really wasn't worth it, she thought, although she was upset at how little came out, and went back to the recliner. She sat down, pulled the handle to recline, and tried to get comfortable. She finally got everything situated and started to fall asleep when the familiar feeling of needing to pee came back.
"Dammit," shouted Penny, to no one there.
Friday 19 June, 10:45 AM
Leonard was looking through the reports. The team had been working on the checks for the installation of all the new modules. The wiring checks from Wednesday were good, the electrical checks from yesterday were good, and the power checks from this morning were good. The short-run this morning found the detectors were also good. It appeared that everything was ready for a run on Monday, but Leonard hesitated. If they tried the run on Monday morning, and something went wrong, he might miss Penny's appointment with her OBGYN. So he was dithering about whether or not to run it.
He continued looking over the data and he finally made his decision. He did a conference call with Keith and Tom, telling them to give the teams the rest of the day, and Monday off, with pay. And, to be back on Tuesday for the run. Tom pointed out that he had several members of the data team planning on working, and Leonard told him if they wanted to work, let them, but they weren't required. Tom said, since they were getting paid, he could probably persuade them to take off.
Leonard thanked them and told them he would see them on Tuesday. They all disconnected and Leonard started working on the changes for the pre-print paper that was already up on the arXiv database, along with reviewing the non-disclosure documents. It was going to be another long day.