A/N Just a quick point. A couple of reviews and a couple of PMs seem to think no one is talking about, or indeed, knows where the show will be taped. Penny mentions it specifically in chapter three, when she was talking to the gang. Telling them it will be shot at Warner Brothers.

Chapter 4

Late January 2012

After the excitement of getting the part, things settled back down for Penny. She went back to work at The Cheesecake Factory. After all, she wasn't going get any money from the show until she shot the pilot, and she still needed money to live. And after the pilot, even if it was picked up, she wouldn't get anything until they actually started shooting the show in August. So, for now, she was back as a waitress.

Leonard was still working on his new experiment and had managed to work out some of the theoretical underpinnings. He had managed to get this done, even without Sheldon. However, he knew if he wanted to get even more sensitive detection, he would have to talk to Sheldon about the theory at some point.

Leonard and Penny were spending more time in 4B together. They slept there almost every night. And, except for nights the whole group ate in 4A, and the nights Penny worked the dinner shift, they would have dinner alone in 4B. Leonard was now keeping most of his clothes, toiletries, and medications there. In addition, one of his white boards and his computer was now in the apartment. He was basically only using 4A as an office or a game room.

While Penny was now comfortable telling Leonard she loved him, she was still uncomfortable calling what they were doing living together, even though she realized that was exactly what they were doing. She just decided if she didn't think about it, it would be easier for her to get used to it. So, for now, if anyone asked, she simply said they spent a lot of time together.

About a week after telling everyone about her show at dinner, Penny had another meeting to try and work out her contract. She met with Kelli and Jim to talk about it. While most of the work was being done by Penny's agent and Kelli and Jim's staff, they felt getting to know Penny better would help lock in what they thought she should get.

After a three hour meeting and a lunch, they had worked things out. While much of it would be guided by the contract limits that SAG had negotiated with the studios, networks and producers, there was a bit of wiggle room for individuals. Penny left rather happy, but knowing she wouldn't be able to tell Leonard about how everything had gone, until after she got home, around 11 PM. So, she headed for The Cheesecake Factory, to get ready to work the dinner shift.

Apt 4B, 11:10 PM, 27 January 2012

Leonard was working in 4B, he had moved over there after eating dinner with Sheldon and Amy. He wanted to be there when Penny got home. She had the meeting today, and he was eager to find out what had occurred at Penny's meeting.

While he waited, he was working on his whiteboard, trying to get the equations to work. He kept running into the same problem, the equations of Quantum Field Theory weren't solvable, if the curved spacetime of General Relativity was the background.

There has to be a way to solve this. He sighed. But this is exactly why Sheldon, among others, have been working on String Theory, or Quantum Loop Gravity. Maybe this isn't solvable without an actual string theory or an actual quantum loop gravitational theory. In which case going to Sheldon won't even help me. What if I moved this term over to…

He heard the door open, and saw what appeared to be a rather exhausted Penny come in. He walked over to her, giving her a kiss and a hug. Then he said, "So how did it go today?"

"Let me get a shower," said Penny, "and then I'll come out and give you a short explanation. I'm really tired and don't really want to go into it all that deeply tonight."

"OK, you go get a shower, I'll get us some wine and we can talk about it some. If you're tired I don't want to keep you up too late."

She smiled at him, "Thank's sweety, I'll be back out in twenty minutes or so." She headed for the bathroom for her shower, while Leonard headed to the kitchen. He poured two glasses of wine, took them to the coffee table and then went back to looking at his white board. True to her word, and surprising Leonard, she was out in less than 20 minutes. Leonard and her sat down on the couch, and she took a healthy drink of the wine.

"OK," said Penny, "Things went really good today. I got to talk to Kelli and Jim about my character, their ideas for her, their ideas for the show, where they thought they might take her in the future, how they planned to introduce her. They also warned me that some of their ideas might get thrown out, depending on how I present her, how I act her."

"They liked some of my ideas, and we discussed how my ideas might be worked into the show. They stressed how happy their were with my audition. I'll get the pilot script in a couple of weeks, Monday, the 6th, I think. Kelli and Jim want to go over it with me, since I've never had a series script before, and then we have the table read on Monday, the 13th. We'll do rehearsals over the next few days, and if we need to, we'll do some pre taping on Thursday the 16th, and then on Friday, we shoot the rest of the pilot in front of an audience."

Leonard asked, "Will I be able to see it?"

Penny smiled, "Of course, you'll be there for the taping. Probably in my dressing room. I don't think they'll want you to come out and watch on the set, because they'll be cameras, and people running around and the producers, and the director, it'll just be too, busy. And since you haven't been there before, and really don't know what's going on, they may be worried about you getting in the way. So my dressing room should be a safe place and it will have a monitor so you can see what is being recorded. Although, if I'm not needed, I could bring you along with me to the floor."

"Did you work out your contract?" Asked Leonard.

"Yes, we did," said Penny. "I'm getting ten thousand for the pilot. If it goes to series and they decide they want to replace me with someone else, I'll get $50,000. If we go to series, I'll get $25,000 for each episode. My agent and I were expecting only $20,000, but my agent said after I met with Jim and Kelli, their staff came in with an offer of $25,000 so maybe Jim and Kelli approved of me."

"Of course SAG will take their dues, my agent gets 10%, then there's taxes, so out of that first $10,000, I may only get about $6,000. Then when I start getting the $25,000, I'll only be getting around $15,000. Which if we run all 22 episodes would still be over $300,000."

Leonard gave out a low whistle. "That's like over three years of my salary."

Penny chuckled, "Aren't you glad I kept you around, now you can be a kept man?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," said Leonard dismissively, "like you ever thought of making me a kept man. And I'm not sure I want to be one, remember what happened with Bernadette and Howard."

"Yeah, "forget it", said Penny quickly. Penny wanted to move on as she remembered what else happened that night, and didn't want it brought up. I'm just happy everything has worked out and I'm going to get at least $60,000, simply because CBS seems to really want this show."

Leonard smiled and said, "I just want to tell you how proud of you I am. You kept working at it, and now you have a chance to be a big television star."

Penny smiled, slid over to where Leonard was sitting and wrapped him up in a hug. After a bit, she backed off and gave Leonard a sweet kiss. The kiss turned deep and sensual, at which point Penny rose and pulled Leonard toward the bedroom.

Leonard said mockingly, "But, you were so tired."

"Shut up Leonard."

Leonard closed his mouth, and followed Penny.

Late January, 2012

Leonard and Penny continued their routine during the next week, with work during the day, and spending the nights, except those Penny had to work, together. While he was still taking Sheldon everywhere, he spent very little time in apartment 4A, preferring to spend it with Penny. Penny had quit worrying about having Leonard in her apartment all the time, it just seemed natural to have him there now, in fact, she now became uneasy on those rare nights he wasn't there.

Penny was excited to shoot the pilot and she was using the upper left corner of Leonard's white board to count down the days until she got the script. It was Tuesday, six days before the script was to arrive, when a large envelope was delivered to the apartment, just as she got home from The Cheesecake Factory. Ripping open the envelope, there was a short letter.

An hour later, Leonard got home and found Penny sitting on the couch, drinking wine, and again watching a television that wasn't on. He sat next to her and asked what was wrong.

She was quiet for a moment, then said, "I don't know. Jim and Kelli want to see me tomorrow, at ten, at their office on the Warner Brothers lot."

"Why?"

"I don't know," said Penny as she passed the letter to Leonard. It took only a few seconds for Leonard to read it as, except for the salutations and signature, it didn't say anything more than Penny said.

"Are you worried?" asked Leonard.

"I don't know," said Penny. "If they wanted to replace me, they probably would have done it through my agent. But, maybe, they think it's better to do it in person. I can't tell."

"Well, you really can't worry about it now," said Leonard. "Why don't you just sit there and relax? I'll get you a glass of wine, I'll make dinner."

Penny smiled at him, "Thanks."

"I'll also take tomorrow off, so I'll be here when you get home. That way, if things don't go so well, I'll be here for you."

"That'll be great," said Penny with a slight smile, "Thank you sweetie, I appreciate the support."

Apt 4B, 2 PM, Wednesday, 31 January, 2012

Leonard wasn't working on anything, he was simply playing different side missions of Red Dead Redemption, waiting for Penny to get home. It was just before 3:30 when the door to the apartment opened and Penny waltzed in with a smile on her face.

"I take it the meeting went well?"

"Oh, yes, yes it did," said Penny "They even took me to lunch. It was so silly of me to be worried. They are very excited to see how I do."

"I'll get some tea for us," said Leonard.

"I'm not going anywhere tonight," said Penny, how about some wine?"

Leonard nodded and headed toward the kitchen, pulled a bottle out of the fridge, poured two glasses and brought them, and the bottle, back to the couch. He looked at Penny and said, "OK, tell me all about it."

"Well," said Penny, "I was really nervous when I went in. You know I was thinking they were going to get rid of me. But, they even came out to get me at the gate, instead of just having security send me in."

"When we got to the office, they asked if I wanted coffee, or tea, or if I wanted a pastry. I asked for coffee and it must have been obvious I was nervous because they told me to relax."

"They asked how I was, made some small talk, and it turns out they were waiting for Sam to show up." Seeing Leonard's puzzled expression, she added, "He's the head writer."

"So anyway, after he got there," said Penny, "we talked about my character. They said they wanted to try a few things with me. They really liked how I delivered the sarcastic lines…"

"Why isn't that a surprise?" said Leonard.

Penny glared at Leonard, "Shut up, Leonard."

Leonard just laughed, and Penny shook her head and continued, "They talked about how they envisioned the character. That she was going to be like an observer of what was going on with the character of Ally. But, after hearing how I delivered the sarcastic lines, they are thinking of making her an observer and someone who judges Ally."

"They went ahead and made some changes to the script, and they wrote additional lines they may put into the script. The reason they wanted me there was to read those lines."

"They were also very interested in my facial expressions. They made some changes to the script, to get me to use my facial expressions more, when I'm judging her. And they also had some extra lines and situations to allow me to use those expressions."

"By this time it was after noon, and they took me to lunch. I was surprised because Jeanie was at the restaurant. I didn't know she was going to be there, but they had changed her lines and situations also, and they wanted us to read together."

"So, after lunch, we went back to a set, I wish I could remember the name of the show, but it was a small living room set. They had us memorize our lines, then we would do them."

"I was so worried," said Penny. "They gave us our blocking…"

"What's blocking?"

"They tell us where we are supposed to start, and where we're supposed to move. I kept screwing that part up. They told me I wasn't on my mark, I was looking at the wrong place, I was close enough to the mark, but I was out of the light. Jeez, I couldn't get anything right there for a while."

"I started making mistakes in my lines, because I was so frustrated. Jeanie was so kind, she asked for a break and took me off to the side and asked if I had worked on television before. When I told her no, she explained about how you have to be at your mark, at the right time, look in a certain direction so the camera can see you, be in your light."

"Of course, I didn't realize all of this, never having worked in television before. God, I was so busy thinking about moving here, facing there, and looking for the light, instead of just being where the light was. With all that, it was no wonder I was having trouble with my lines."

"Jeanie would explain exactly where I had to be, and what direction and everything, so when we started again, I could at least get close enough to where I was supposed to be, and where I was supposed to look. I got the lines in, the facial expressions in, and Jim, Kelli and Sam were all happy. They told me they were going to work some more on the script so they could have it ready for us, by next Monday."

"They told us that we would get it sometime after six on Monday. They said we were done, and they got a golf cart to take Jeanie and I back to the parking lot. Jeanie said goodbye and said she'd see me in a week and a half. I said bye and headed for my car."

"So, it looks like they are expanding my part a bit. Jeanie was so nice to me. A star like her and a nobody like me and she was so nice."

"So, you think you'll be able to handle it when you really start filming it?"

"I think so," said Penny. "But I really don't have a choice, I have to do it, and I will do it. But enough of that, what are you going to order for dinner?"

"What am I going to order?" said Leonard. "It your night to cook, you order."

"Pleeeeeeaaaaase Leonard."

"Ok," said Leonard, "but you owe me."

Penny just smiled at him.