A/N First off, those who are requesting the name of the story this is a prequel to, I would request you send me a PM. I know at least three readers who don't want to know, and if I put it up here, they may see it. A PM would limit it to those who want to know. As an aside, it was two weeks and a year ago, as I write this, I started writing this story. I want to thank everyone who has read this, and especially thank those who have reviewed, especially after the way the last two chapters have gone.
Chapter 49
Caltech Laser Lab, 8:00 AM Thursday Nov 1st 2012
Leonard unlocked and entered his lab. He put his messenger bag down and extracted his computer from the bag. Opening the computer he turned it on, then started updating the white board in his office, with all the changes to the calculation he had made at home the previous night.
He was struggling with the calculations now, really needing some more data, but his experiments hadn't provided anything new, and he hadn't heard from Geoff in about a week and he really needed to talk to him.
I may have to call him in the next few days. He was supposed to get me the data last week, and I really need it. Or, if Sheldon ever gets back to me on my idea, I may get help that way.
Leonard sighed, knowing he probably needed both of them to actually make any progress, as he had been stuck on the main equations for a couple of weeks now.
And then there was the issue with Penny. Tuesday is a taping day, I don't expect to get a call from her. But Wednesday? It's one of her light days and she's never missed a Wednesday before. What could be wrong? Leonard sighed and looked at the clock.
He had about 15 minutes before one of his grad students would be there, to go over the progress on the student's experiment, and explain his changes, for that experiment. That would give him enough time to grab a cup of coffee and either a fruit cup or a bear claw in the cafeteria. He put down his marker, locked his office and headed for the cafeteria.
Studio 44, NY 3:50 PM Thursday Nov 1st 2012
Penny had spent most of the afternoon in her dressing room, coming down to the set only for the blocking for the four scenes. Brent was in all of them, but only one were they alone. In between those scenes, she kept running over what Brent had told her, and it brought tears to her eyes, every time.
Brent said I was the one that kept asking for drinks and ended up drunk. Brent told me I was the aggressor, about having sex. How could I do something like that? And the answer came immediately to her. I've done something like this before, Raj.
But, I didn't have a boyfriend then, and dammit, Brent knew I had a boyfriend. But, I told him it didn't matter, how the frigging hell could I do that?
Again, the guilt and shame were overwhelming and her tears started again. No sense staying here, I need to get home. I can't talk to Leonard about it. Jeanie's not here, but even if she was, I'm not sure I could tell her.
Penny gathered her things, put them in her bag and left her dressing room. She went down the stairs, and was walking toward the exit to the studio, when Les Droste, one of the cameramen, stopped her.
"Er…Ms Jensen?" he said.
"Yes Les?" said Penny.
"I uh…I'm not sure…"
Penny noticed he was looking down, as if he was embarrassed, "What is it, do you want to tell me something?"
"Er, I would," said Les, "but, I'm not sure how."
"Just tell me."
"Well, it's really none of my business," said Les, "but, I thought you might want to know. Brent is telling some people that he slept…er…I mean, what I should say…"
As soon as Brent was named, Penny had a feeling she knew, "Just tell me. I may be mad, but not at you and I won't be embarrassed."
"Er, I'm embarrassed," said Les, "What I'm trying to say is that he's bragging to some of the guys, that he and you had sex, and he was telling them about you."
Penny's stomach flipped over, but she kept her face unchanged, "Thank you for telling me. I may have to talk to our producers."
"That might not be a good idea," said Les. "The people he's telling are a small clique of his, and they'll deny it."
"How do you know?" asked Penny.
"He has a reputation of sleeping with actresses," said Les, "he's gotten some of them drunk, then he brags about it. When some of the actresses complained, about his telling others, the guys he had told would deny it."
"When I first started in the business, he told me about things, but when I told him I wouldn't lie for him, he had me booted off the show I was working on."
"I'm not sure I could verify anything for you. I didn't hear everything, and it would be his and his clique's word against mine. And, generally, if they say anything to you, they make sure it's just one of them, or only members of the clique. But I just wanted you to know, so you could be prepared if someone, other than Brent, asks you about it."
Penny felt like crying again, but she simply said, "Yes, I can see where that might be a problem. I want to thank you for at least letting me know."
"You're welcome," said Les, "I'm sorry something like this happened…is happening to you. I've seen Brent be a real ass."
"As have I," said Penny. She hesitated. She looked at Les, and saw pity and sadness in his eyes, "It's my own fault, I made a mistake."
"I'm sorry," said Les. "If it helps, I think you're doing a wonderful job. You struggle a bit with your blocking and such, during rehearsal, but you are spot on during taping night. And, you're funny."
"Thank you, Les," said Penny, "I better be getting home, have a good night."
"You have a good night, too, Ms Jensen."
"Please call me Penelope," said Penny. She turned and walked out of the studio.
Apt 314, NY 4:35 PM Thursday Nov 1st 2012
Penny opened the door to her apartment and put her things on her table. She had stopped at the store, and picked up a few bottles of wine. She opened one and poured herself a large glass. Taking it down in one long drink, she then poured another large glass.
She was a bit stunned, by what Les had said. It was bad enough that she had made the huge mistake of sleeping with Brent, but now, he told her she was the one that pushed for it. Now he was telling others about it, and she thought everyone in the show would soon know. Would Kelli and Jim even want her when they found out?
Until now, she had felt mostly guilt, for what she felt was cheating on Leonard. But, now, with Brent bragging about it, and knowing others had found out, an immense amount of shame, for her actions, was crushing her.
She took another large drink of wine. All she wanted to do was drink, so she could forget what had happened, for a little while. She reached for the bottle to refill her glass, when she stopped.
She realized she still had to study her script, her lines, and her blocking. As much as she wanted to drink and forget, in her head, she could hear Jeanie's admonition about being professional and she decided she would eat and study first.
She put the bottle down and went into the kitchen to make her dinner. She baked some frozen fish, put a potato in the microwave and when they were finished, she sat down at the table and ate. Afterward, she started looking at her script.
She was having a bit of difficulty, as every time she saw "Hunk" in the script, she would think of Brent, and lose her concentration. What made it bad was, although she only had one scene alone with Brent, he was in the three other scenes of hers, and the scenes before and after hers, so she kept seeing "Hunk". She finally gave up, got the bottle and glass, and she poured another drink.
She turned the TV on, and was flipping through the channels, ended up watching "Wheel of Fortune". When it ended, she got up and went to the bathroom. When she returned, she found her show was on. Just then, Brent appeared on the screen.
She was surprised by the amount of fear and disgust that surfaced in her, just by seeing his face. She rapidly changed the channel, just wanting to get that face off of the TV. She was now afraid of getting her script, to study it, worried about the reaction to Brent's character in the script. But, she knew she needed to work on it, so she got up to get it.
As she was going to get her script, she heard the iPad Skype ringtone for Leonard. I can't, I can't, I can't face Leonard yet. She just let it continue, until finally it stopped. Penny sighed, she could feel the relief flowing over her, until she heard Leonard's ringtone for her phone.
Now, she felt she would be able to answer the phone. She hadn't spoken to him since Monday, he had been calling, and leaving messages. She knew she wouldn't be able to speak to him if she was looking at him, on Skype, but she felt she would be able to get through a phone call.
She picked up her phone and said timorously, "Hi sweetie."
"Is that you, Penny?" said Leonard. "You haven't been answering my calls and didn't answer my messages or texts. I've been so worried."
Penny was trying to figure out exactly what to say, and failing, "I'm sorry, I've been distracted." Penny could feel something in her throat, so she coughed a couple of times, to clear her throat.
"Why are you coughing? Are you feeling OK," asked Leonard.
Penny was about to say no, she was fine, when it occurred to her that it might explain her not calling. Summoning up her acting skills, she said, "I haven't been feeling well. I've been trying to rest, and trying to study my script."
"But, I've been going to bed early, and studying when I could. I'm sorry." There, that's not a lie, she thought, but right after that, another thought, but, it's not the whole truth either.
"Oh no," said Leonard, "I understand. You just take care of yourself. You don't want to be sick, go into work, and get everyone else sick."
Now Penny was feeling bad about how great Leonard was being, while she wasn't being totally truthful with him. She started choking up again, but managed to turn it into a cough.
"Maybe I better cut this call short," said Leonard. "And, let you get back to resting."
Penny desperately wanted to cut the call short, she wasn't sure how much longer she could hold up, so she said, "That might be a good idea. I really have to study a bit more, and then I should get to bed."
"OK, now that I know you're OK…well, at least I talked to you," said Leonard. "I'll try to call tomorrow night, and if not then sometime this weekend. I love you."
That choked Penny up and she coughed again, "OK, bye, I'll talk to you this weekend. I love you." The last was said with more emotion than Penny intended, she hope Leonard wouldn't notice.
"Bye," said Leonard
"Bye," said Penny, and she disconnected. She felt terrible. How can you love me when I'm so unworthy of your love? Penny was now feeling truly awful about herself and she grabbed the bottle of wine the glass and poured a large amount and again took a long drink, before pouring another.
"Yeah," Penny said to no one, but the room, "first you fuck around on him, now you're not telling him everything. You don't deserve anyone like him Penny. He should just drop you, you disgusting skank, and if he knew everything, he probably would."
Penny again took a large drink. She was starting to feel it, but she didn't care. Maybe if I drink enough, I'll black out and at least for a little while, I won't have to remember. Maybe I'll finish another bottle and that will do it. She took the bottle and the glass back to the couch, started flipping through the channels and drinking. By eleven, she was quite drunk and she headed of to bed, walking unsteadily to her bathroom.
After her usual preparations, she started to get into the bed, and stopped. She could see Leonard's picture, and the snowflake on her night stand. Doing the only thing she could think of, she placed the picture face down, on top of the snowflake, thinking she didn't deserve to see either Leonard or his snowflake. She didn't feel worthy.
Apt 4A, 5:00 AM Friday Nov 2nd 2012
Leonard slowly awoke, the phone ringing finally had penetrated. He reach for his glasses and put them on, then grabbed his phone. He saw the name Geoff, on his phone, and he answered, "Hello?"
"Good morning Leonard," said Geoff, "I apologize, as I'm assuming I woke you up."
"Yes," said Leonard groggily, "that would be a good assumption."
"Again, I'm sorry, but I needed to talk to you before I leave for the weekend."
"What is it?"
"I'm heading to CERN today," said Geoff. "I'm leaving in about an hour as I've got to check on an experiment, and the weekend is the only free time I have. Also, I have a possible candidate for one of the open positions, and I will be talking to them while I am there."
"So, what is so urgent that you are calling me at five in the morning?"
"I'm simply apologizing to you, Leonard," said Geoff. "I haven't run the latest experiments, and so I won't have any data for you. On top of that, I haven't done any of the work on the equations, so that is behind also."
"Dammit," said Leonard. "Oh, I'm not swearing at you Geoff, just at the situation. I'm stuck and until I have the data, I can't really do anything. How much longer do you think it will be before you can get to the data?"
"I'm not really sure," said Geoff. "We're just getting back from our mid-term test week and even with the light schedule last week, I couldn't get much of it done. As you know we have two vacancies in our department, one of them an experimentalist, and the other a teaching position."
"We are also losing one of the professors that lectures and supervises the laser lab, after this semester. So, that is going to make it even more difficult for us to provide you with the data next year."
"What the hell is going on there Geoff?"
"It's just a cycle," said Geoff. "The instructor was a post doc, who got an offer for a tenured-track job. The experimentalist got an offer to move to CERN, and the supervisor is reaching retirement age."
"We should be able to replace the instructor after graduations next May, with a new PhD. But the experimentalist and lecturer, along with the supervisor, are going to be a bit more difficult."
"But, again, that's not your problem, it's ours," said Geoff. "Unfortunately for you, our problems are causing problems for you. I'm hoping I can use some of my down time, between semesters, to get that data to you. I don't want to discontinue the partnership, but I'm afraid we might have to, if I don't get the data to you."
"Geoff," said Leonard, "do what you can. If you aren't able to get it to us, maybe we can look at some alternatives to keep us working together."
"You're quite kind Leonard," said Geoff. "I will do my utmost to try and get the information to you. I'll let my department know I'm having problems…"
"No, Geoff," said Leonard, "don't do that. That might cause problems with my department. Let's keep this between us for now, until you tell me there simply isn't a way."
"Are you sure, Leonard?" said Geoff.
"Yes, I am," said Leonard. "We can talk the first or second week of December, to see where were at."
"Thank you, Leonard," said Geoff. "I'll let you get back to sleep, again, I'm sorry I woke you."
"Don't worry about it, Geoff," said Leonard. "Just leave me a message or send an email about once a week, so I can keep up."
"I will do that, Leonard," said Geoff, "look for a message next week."
"I will," said Leonard, "now, have a good trip, and when you come back, do what you can for us, goodbye."
"Goodbye, Leonard," said Geoff. They both disconnected.