I re-read my last chapter to get a feel for this one, and I saw my last A/N…we totally got a Howard/Penny friendship scene last night! It was great!

Anyway…here's the last chapter! (And may Kaley make a full recovery and not get hurt riding ever again!)

The ride back to the stable was much quieter and less eventful. Penny assumed it was because the guys were tired; they all were bracing themselves on their mounts' necks instead of sitting up. Raj looked particularly tired, even more so than Leonard, who's lack of gusto in grade school P.E. was apparently catching up to him once again.

Raj's horse veered too close to the edge of the trail and a tree branch smacked him square in the face before he realized what was happening. Penny, Howard, and Leonard snickered, and he gave them a warning look. "You're so terrifying," Penny teased. Raj looked confused, then smiled and shrugged. "You're never going to be able to talk to me, are you?" She asked him, cocking her head. "Am I never going to have a conversation with you?" Raj looked like he was about to say something, like he often did, but he sighed and shook his head, like he always did.

"You know what we can do?" She asked, cocking her head. "That doesn't involve talking?" Raj gave her an incredulous and somewhat confused look. "Relax," Penny said. "It's PG-Rated."

"PG?" He said, the "G" coming out as a squeak.

Penny raised her eyebrow. "Yep!" She put a hand into her saddlebag and drew out a long, thin piece of plastic. "Western trail rides don't often have riding crops with them, but this place gives them to us just in case a rank beginner can't get a horse moving with her legs. Exhibit A, Leonard Hofstadter."

Raj followed Penny's gaze to the experimental physicist just ahead of them, attempting to get his horse moving to no avail. Spotting him, Gloria spun her mount around, withdrew the whip from Leonard's saddlebag, and gave his mount a smart tap on the rump in one smooth motion. The mare plodded forward.

Raj was smirking. "Take yours," Penny said, motioning to the bag. Raj withdrew the crop and held it up. Penny took hers in her hand, swung it slowly outward, and hit it against Raj's. He looked confused for another moment, and then lifted his own crop, bringing it down against hers. Penny pushed her whip back upward, resisting Raj's. They started speeding up, not hard core fighting but making it look more realistic. Both were grinning, Raj from ear to ear. The horses continued on the trail, following their herd instincts, trailing the others without much care of what their riders were doing.

"Hey!"

Raj and Penny jumped, looking ahead. Gloria was giving them an odd look. "You guys are lucky that these guys aren't spooky-that can be dangerous!" She shook her head. "Swordfighting on horseback," she muttered under her breath.

"I believe they were engaged in a mock lightsaber duel," Sheldon said. "The moves they were making are classically displayed in…"

"Sheldon," Howard said politely.

"Yes?"

"Shut up!"

Gloria shook her head, muttering something, and faced forward again. Penny glanced at Raj and grinned. He grinned back, giving her the double thumbs up.

They returned to the stable and dismounted-Howard and Leonard were better the second time-and they thanked Gloria for her time. "No problem at all," Gloria said. "You're an amusing bunch. You going to come back?"

"Not in fourteen billion years," Sheldon muttered, loud enough for Penny to hear but not anyone else.

Raj leaned over and whispered to Howard. "Yeah, I enjoyed it, too," he said, nodding. "We'll be back to roam the open range again, ma'am."

"Glad to hear it, son," Gloria said good-naturedly, touching her cowboy hat and nodding. She tied the last mount, Leonard's, to the post and patted it's rump. "My next group arrives in fifteen minutes, and I got some paperwork to do, so I'm going to head up to the office now. Hope y'all had a good time."

"We did," Penny said. "Thank you."

"Thank you," the guys echoed. Raj nodded, smiling.

"So, guys," Penny said, stepping backward so she could see them as they moved toward her car. "What did you think?"

"I gotta say," Leonard said, glancing at the other guys. "It was really, really fun."

"It was," Howard said, smirking. "I got some great new lines."

Sheldon looked deep in thought. "It was fairly relaxing…apparently the animals here lack the plotting intelligence of Texan equines. The most fun I've had in a long time. FYI, that last sentence is a Bazinga," he informed them.

"Of course it was," Penny said, shaking her head. The guys smiled at her, and it caused her smile to grow bigger. "Really?" She asked incredulously but jovial. "You guys enjoyed it?"

They nodded. Penny squealed and jumped toward them, trying to wrap her arms around all four of them at once. "I love you guys," she said happily. "Howard," she warned. "Stop sniffing my hair."

"Sorry."

Penny pulled back and reached into her pocket for her keys. "Let's hope I have the gas to get home."

Ten minutes later, the gang was, once again, on a long, empty road. This time, however, there was no bantering, arguing, or laughing. This time, the four guys were sound asleep.

Penny glanced in the review mirror. Raj and Howard were completely out, heads tilted toward each other-completely accidental and completely hilarious. Sheldon was slumped against the door, his face twitching slightly. Next to Penny in the passenger seat, Leonard was asleep, too, his head tilted downward and his hands shaking with each bump in the road.

Penny grinned to herself. After years of living in their world, her best friends in the world had taken a step into hers. And they'd enjoyed it. She flicked on the radio and turned to her country station, keeping the volume low so not to wake them.

"We're giving this life everything we got and then some. It ain't always pretty, but it's real. It's the way we were made, wouldn't have it any other way. These are my people."

Penny used to think that her people was her group of girl friends and their boyfriends; the group who she watched football with. Sometimes, she'd thought of them as the fellow waitresses, or a few other aspiring actresses that she was friendly towards. But they weren't. Her people were the four nerdy guys who'd become the best friends one could ever have.

I had no freaking clue how to end this, so I used the reference in The Zazzy Substitution about Penny liking country music. The song's by Rodney Adkins.

Hope you liked it! (And wow, a friendship fic is HARD!) :D