Chapter 9

Gone Fishin'

The urgent need for a bathroom break, woke Leonard and tutting to himself as he felt just too comfortable to move, laying here with his wife in his arms. Feeling annoyed that his bladder just couldn't have the consideration to wait for another hour or so. he got up to head for the bathroom and silence his complaining bladder.. As he was returning to Penny and comfort, Leonard's cellphone rang joining his bladder at it's rudeness and he quickly answered it before it woke Penny up, "This is Dr Hofstadter, can I help you?".
it was Dr Gablehauser who apologized for ringing him on his holiday but he desperately needed Leonard to run through some data for him.
"Er, well actually Sir I am on my honeymoon, Yes Sir, I got married last Saturday, Yes Sir, to that very pretty blonde girl Penny, Thank You Sir, Well if you really are that desperate I think I could look at the data for you", Leonard told him but inwardly cringing inside as to what Penny would say. "Er, just how much data is there?, so, about an hour and a half to scan it all, Oh OK sir that doesn't sound too bad. I'll download it now, Bye Sir.

Leonard set up his laptop and began to download the data, and wondered how on earth he was going to explain it to Penny?, Fortunately for Leonard at the moment, Penny seemed to be still asleep.
But as soon as Leonard breathed a sigh of relief that he could postpone his explanation for hopefully another hour, when 5 minutes later Penny entered the lounge "I thought I heard your phone ring?, I warn you Hofstadter if it's that woman from the future, then you can expect to get breakfast in bed from a ward orderly in the local hospital", She told him giving him a stern look.
"No such luck, I'm afraid", and he giggled and ducked as Penny threw a cushion at his head, " Well actually honey it was Dr Gabelhauser and he was kind of desperate for someone to look over some data for him, Sorry honey he said it would only take an hour and a half and he promised he'll pay me double into the bargain".
"Leonard!, it's our honeymoon, I want this to be special, and I don't want to remember you doing work on it", Penny berated him in some dismay. Then added, "My how quickly the magic goes in a marriage", "and what do you expect me to do for an hour and a half?. And answer wisely Hofstadter or else", she warned him as she noticed the sly look on his face as he began to open his mouth.

As Leonard began to look through the information Dr Gabelhauser had sent. Penny made coffee and sat and sulkily watched him work.

Finally after finishing her coffee, Penny made herself some breakfast, not without Leonard's notice, though he wisely kept silent

"OK Listen up, we, 'Husband', are going to go fishing this afternoon and you are going to be very, very nice to your very beautiful and wonderful wife tonight too, so then Hofstadter I suggest you be prepared to pull out all the stops to make me happy. Or else", Leonard sat up straight and gave her the scouts salute.
At that moment Penny's cellphone rang and she got up to answer it.
"That was Janey," She said, when she had finished the cellphone call. "She rang to ask if we would like to go to North Platte with her, as she needs to get some supplies and would I like to look around the shops and stuff, so I thought as you are ignoring your wife and working this morning, I could just go with her, OK".
"Sure good idea, OK Honey take care now".
Then Penny showered and dressed, then twenty minutes later Janey called for her, Penny quickly kissed Leonard, and then the two women left for North Platte.
Leonard felt distinctly uneasy at Penny going without him and would have said no. But Penny was still in high dudgeon with him and Leonard did not want to upset Penny by arguing with her, however the thought that she was with Janey alleviated his concern to a degree, and he returned to scanning the data for Dr Gabelhauser. Finally over 4 and a half hours later, Leonard finally finished and sent his report to Cal Tech, feeling some annoyance at what he thought was Dr Gabelhauser's deliberately low estimate of the amount of data Leonard had to deal with, And made himself some coffee, And just as he was finishing his coffee the two women returned from their trip and Penny came in with a couple of bags of supplies for them as well as two bags of shoes and a couple of cute dresses Penny had discovered in a store in North Platte. And after a stern look towards Leonard, daring him to comment on her purchases, she offered Janey a coffee which she declined "Sorry, but I really have to get this stuff back and prepare the fish for the diner but thanks anyway. Then Janey left for the diner.

Penny put the shopping away but not before Leonard also spied a couple of cookery books that she had also bought, but again thought it prudent to keep silent. They had a quick lunch and then went to change for their fishing trip. Leonard went to his bag to get his old jeans and was unfolding them when a thick packet dropped to the floor, he picked it up and upon opening it saw loads of one hundred dollar bills inside.
"Penny, do you know where this come from?.
Penny turned and goggled at the site of the bundle of money in Leonard's hand then noticed a piece of notepaper on the floor, picking it up she then proceeded to read aloud.

Dear Leonard
I know you insisted on taking the blame for the flashlight on the back seat of the car, but I cannot help but feel greatly responsible as I insisted it be included in the room mate agreement, also I'm ashamed that I was unable to help both Penny and yourself with your respective illnesses, My close friends badly needed help and I was unable to give it. As a hot beverage seems totally inadequate on this occasion. I have discussed this problem with Amy and She has recommended to me that perhaps an enclosed gift of a small amount would be acceptable by the pair of you in order that, as well as aiding you both to recover but also as a wedding present too, also most importantly for being my dear friends, who would always be there when I needed them.

Yours faithfully
Dr Sheldon Cooper & Dr Amy Farrah Fowler
"Penny there's 10,000 dollars here", Leonard informed her in utter astonishment, "I just can't believe it", Penny replied, "Amy never said a word to me", "And would never have though in a million years that Sheldon would do something like this", she said beginning to choke up.
"Well this makes our financial situation a little easier", Leonard observed.
"Yes it sure does Honey. Now lets go fishing", then she added more to herself, "I wish I had known about the money. I would have bought some more shoes, and maybe that cute blue dress I saw... and a necklace would be rather nice too".

Penny untied the boat from the jetty and they moved away, then Leonard started the engine and moved into deeper water. Penny baited their hooks as Leonard was behaving like an absolute girl with his worm, and they began to fish. Penny never caught anything at all as she spent much of her time supervising Leonard and instructing him as to what needs to do and after an hour or two, they returned to the jetty after Leonard (with a great deal of Penny's help) brought back six white bass .
They entered the cabin and Leonard put the fish on a plate, and looked expectantly at Penny.
"Umm sorry sweetie but you caught em, you clean them", she informed him.
So Leonard did so but unfortunately not without yet more supervision from Penny.
Then she sat down and relaxed, while Leonard cooked the fish with some rice and a salsa, opened some of Penny's favourite wine and then they ate together.
"Well that was delicious, my compliments to the chef", she said, then she drained her glass , undressed herself and headed for the Jacuzzi, without even a word or a backward glance at Leonard. Penny was still a little annoyed with him at his audacity to work on their honeymoon.

But after half an hour Penny's plan to teach Leonard a lesson failed as growing bored with being on her own,and she also strongly in need in need of a certain type of exercise with Leonard. So she called his name in a sing song manner for him to join her.

Leonard entered the screened off area of the Jacuzzi and spotting the familiar patterned items of swimwear on the floor immediately gave him an inkling as to what Penny wanted.

But first Leonard had to make a long grovelling apology to Penny, for his neglect of his wife that morning before Penny, finally allowed him to enter the jacuzzi and just five minutes later they were both occupied with physical activities , before they went inside and resumed in the bedroom and after an hour or so Penny comfortably lay spooned in front of Leonard, his arms holding her close to him before both fell asleep in the wee small hours.

The next morning they took the boat out again and just traveled around the lake, Penny revealing to Leonard that Lake McConaughy was the fifth largest lake in the USA. And then she talked of the fishing trips that little Slugger as her father had called her, had grown to love, but sadly Penny revealed that when she reached puberty, her Father suddenly stopped taking her with him. Then Penny wept at the memory of rejection. "He didn't mean to you see, it was just that once he saw me as a young woman, he assumed that I would not want to be doing those things anymore. What hurt the most is that he never asked me once if I still wanted to go", Penny said once she stopped crying.

Leonard carefully moved over towards her and put an arm round her to comfort her. And there they sat for a while and watched the insects dancing on the lake surface.

Then they anchored the boat and Penny began fishing catching a couple of Walleye and some striped bass, while Leonard watched remembering one of the guys at Cal Tech telling him how relaxing fishing was and he hoped it was helping Penny. She never failed to surprise him, as she expertly cast her line and watched her float, then when she got a strike she seemed to play the fish with ease, knowing when to let it have line and also knowing the right time to reel it in. "She is so clever at a lot of things, she just amazes me, how easily she does some things while I struggle pitifully at them. Leonard also was quite well aware that the only thing holding Penny back from learning physics was simply due to the fact that Penny just did not find it interesting, I'm certain if Penny wanted to learn then nothing would hold her back". And just as he was considering with pride how wonderful his wife is, when Leonard put his hand on to the other rod, and managed to impale the skin of his thumb on the hook. Leonard gave a cry of shock rather than pain, but it was enough for Penny to turn to him, suddenly white faced with fright. But she managed to calm herself and not panic before picking up some side cutters and snipping off the barb she removed the hook from his thumb. Leonard became angry with himself at his own clumsiness and stupidly upsetting Penny, after noticing her shaking tearfully with fright.
Leonard turned the boat to return to the cabin as Penny had lapsed into a numb silence, after an hour of them arriving at the cabin, Penny was able to recover a little and insisted quite firmly that Leonard help her clean the fish as she had to help him with much of the cleaning of the fish yesterday.

Leonard sat hoping that spending some time quietly watching a movie might help Penny to relax, and Penny was taking full advantage of Leonard's plan, and lay, comfortably fully stretched out on the sofa with her head on Leonard's lap watching the movie Notting Hill, with a glass of wine before her.
I just love that English accent, Hugh Grant has", She gushed. "Yeah I remember you told me once before", Leonard reminded her.
"Oh yeah, it was the first time I told you I loved you when you got jealous of that English guy from my college", She recalled.
"I had to act fast there was a very pretty girl at stake there, I had to take steps to make sure she was mine, in case I lost her forever"
"Well Dr Hofstadter I'm definitely yours now", she said smiling and holding up her left hand.
"I Know, I still have to pinch myself to make sure I'm not dreaming , Mrs Hofstadter" he told her, and kissed her under her ear causing her to giggle. "you'd better keep telling me that when I'm pregnant and throwing up then becoming the size of a house at 8 months gone. Leonard told her he'd still love her even if she got to the size of their apartment block. Penny kissed him, it then got rather passionate after that.
It was during that night that the Nightmares began. Leonard was not aware of this during the night but when he got up to make Penny a drink in the morning he was utterly stunned to discover that all his clothes and items had been laid, and placed in a neat line on the floor all the way from the kitchen to the bedroom door. Also chairs too had been moved and placed in front of the external doors.

Leonard was totally at a loss to know what to do, he'd never even heard of such a thing before.

Also Leonard couldn't be sure whether it was him doing these things or Penny?.