Chapter 2 - The Search Begins
Leonard, looked helplessly at them all, he sometimes hated that his friends looked to him when there were big problems, especially when he felt just as useless as them right now. Penny had told him he was a natural leader, to his friends and the people he worked with, the alpha male of the group, but it was times like this were he just wanted to be a follower and let someone else make the decisions. However, there was one big difference, in is his life, he was now never alone, Penny was his wife. "I'm going to give Penny a call, maybe she has some ideas on how we can find him." His friends nodded.
Penny's life had changed drastically over the last six years, and she would swear for the better, because she was happy. Penny first completed her community college and got an Associates Degree in basic psychology, she didn't realize it at first but it changed everything. She now had a degree, she didn't feel like she was stupid anymore or that Leonard would dump her for someone smarter. She also realized that Leonard was always the one she wanted to be with and decided she needed to move on with her life, she proposed two months after her graduation. Then things changed quickly, they were married less than six months later, and shortly thereafter, Penny Hofstadter told her husband she wanted to go back to school. Leonard was very supportive, so she enrolled full time, working part time at the Cheesecake Factory, to pay tuition and for spending money, her husband taking care of their living expenses. Penny went to school in the summer too, she got her Bachelor of Science less than two years later, but that wasn't the best part, the second year she quit the Cheesecake Factory to take an internship with the Los Angles Police Department, as a intern profiler and negotiator assistant. Dr Yamato, the departments chief profiler, took her under his wing, so as soon as she graduated, she went to the police academy and became Detective Penny Hofstadter, very shortly after that. Penny had now, three years later, completed her Masters Degree and had just made sergeant, so she was a situation team leader, and she loved her job, she felt she was really doing something, Penny was happy.
Penny currently was in an unmarked squad car, going to a family dispute involving guns and children, the on scene commander requesting a negotiator, just in case, when she got Leonard's call. "Honey, make it quick, I'm on a call."
"Penny something really bad happened with Sheldon, we are really worried and don't know where he is. Amy is afraid he may do something."
Penny bit her lip, Leonard didn't exaggerate things when she was working, something bad must have happened. "Okay Sweetie, I will be at the scene in five minutes, to find out what is happening, I'll call you back as soon as I can."
"Thanks. Love you, please take care."
Penny smiled, touching her tiny baby bump that didn't show yet from under her work pants suits. "I promise Sweetie, I'll take care. Love you too."
Leonard took the phone from his ear, then pushed the end button, staring at it for a second. He always worried about Penny, ever since she took the job with the LAPD, then becoming an actual police officer worried him even more, but she loved it and he would never keep her away from something she loved. Her being pregnant now was a different story, two thirds of his family were in a police car right now going into danger and there was nothing he could do. Sometimes he wanted to beg her to quit, after he found she was pregnant, but he knew he never could, so he suffered in silence. But that was his problem and not the problem of his friends now looking at him, he put Penny and his baby out of his mind for now and started to concentrate on Sheldon again. "Penny is on call to a scene right now and doesn't know yet what is happening. She says she'll call up back shortly."
Raj, Howard and Alex all nodded, while Amy just gave Leonard a little look he didn't notice, because she saw the look he gave the phone and knew what he was going through. She knew that Penny had a baby inside her, her bestie come to talk to her at lunch a couple of days ago, and other then Leonard, she was the only other person to know. Penny and her got close over the years and Penny used Amy to talk to when she had concerns over Leonard, because right now she was concerned if she was doing the right thing. Penny knew Leonard was always afraid something would happen to her, but now with the baby he was terrified, and even though he never said a thing, Penny knew him well enough to see his pain. Amy and Penny had talked that day a lot about it and Amy had felt she helped her friend out with her concern, maybe even a plan for her future family together with Leonard.
Amy also knew she owed Penny a lot for when she used Penny to talk about Sheldon, after he broke up with her. Amy was devastated, and for the first real time in her life she wondered what was the point in living, she couldn't seem to work anymore and all her thoughts where about him. It was Leonard and Penny who took her in, made her live with them for a month and it was Penny that talked to her every day, until she could live again. She made herself a new life, found a wonderful guy she loved and was soon to be married, it was a dream come true for her and she was happy. However, Sheldon would hold a place in her heart forever, she would always love him, she could never go back to him not after he picked the Nobel Prize over her, but she still loved him, but not the same way as she loved her fiancé.
Amy pulled out her phone and text'd her love, it was part out of her love for him and part because of guilt. She always felt bad that she still loved Sheldon, even though she would never go back to him and it made her feel she was cheating on the most wonderful man that ever came into her life, the man she was marrying. She hit send then turned her attention back to her friends, now her mind clearer and ready to try find and if necessary calm Dr Sheldon Lee Cooper, from what was probably the worse day of his life.
xxxxTIMExxxxTIMExxxxTIMExxxxTIMExxxxTIMExxxxTIMExxxx
Sheldon's friends would have all been surprised that Sheldon wasn't that far away, he was even in the same building they were currently standing. Sheldon was in the downstairs basement, in his room, not the room he had tricked Raj and Howard to believe he was using, but the real room, the room where his research was done and the machine built. Sheldon had planned out his deception cleverly over the last 10 years as he built his time machine. He had set it up for the guys to investigate and discover his secret room in the basement, so that when they found out about him being away at certain times and that he was up to something, they would find the decoy room and wonder what he was doing in it, which was really nothing. Sheldon's whole purpose in setting up the fake room, the one he played hakey-sack as a diversion, was that they didn't keep looking to discover his other room, with his work area and the time machine. Howard didn't even know that he had built a lot of the parts for the machine, over the years, Sheldon having deceived him by asking him to build random components he said were for different projects, only Sheldon knowing how they all went together. However, it was only after he solved string theory that he understood the last equations of dimensional shift, which would make time travel possible and would make his time machine work.