A/N Oh my Gosh I am so sorry for the wait, but I have a good excuse. Well, at least, I think it's a good excuse. School has started for me and I am slowly adjusting to going to bed earlier and getting up at God awful times. Thank God, I only have classes twice a week. The next update will be up faster, I promise and sorry this is a little shorter than usual.

Enjoy!

Chapter 5

Her feet hated her for agreeing to work a double today. It was Sunday, the busiest day of the week, but she needed the money. The constant stream of orders also kept her mind busy and didn't allow her to think about Sheldon…much. Of course, he was there, always at the back of her mind. It had been like this for a while not just since his hospital stay.

She always thought about her whackadoodle and right now, she wondered, when she reached her floor of the apartment, if he was up now.

A glance at her watch told her that he probably wasn't. It was past his usual bedtime and he had to go to work the next morning.

She wondered how people would react when they saw him at work, with his still black eye and his injured wrist in a sling. Would they make fun of him? Would someone actually care enough to ask him what happened? She felt a pang of hurt when she thought of all the people that didn't like him and right now he had said she was his only friend.

She knew he wasn't the easiest person to get along with but if one gave him a chance they would find out that he was a great friend. He was loyal, he wouldn't lie to you(even if he could) and there was a never a dull moment when he was around.

She wondered what he did while she was at work. Usually he played paintball on Sundays, but for obvious reason she knew he wouldn't be doing that today. He also would come over to her apartment afterwards and they would just sit on her couch and watch movies or something.

Sundays were her Sheldon days and she definitely missed not having one today.

She opened to the door to her apartment to see immediately that it was clean. Sheldon had been here. So that's what he had done today. She could only smile and shake her head as she made her way to the shower.

It was after eleven the next day when she heard knocking on her door. She had been laying in bed for the last ten minutes awake and debating if she should even get out of bed, but she could tell by the knocks that it was Sheldon. He had obviously not gone to work.

Opening the door after the third set of knocks, she gave him a smile. "Hi, sweetie." She had missed him; not seeing him all day yesterday.

"Hello, Penny." he returned with his own soft smile he reserved only for her. It always made her heart beat just a little bit faster.

"Is there something you need?" She stepped aside, gesturing that he could enter. He did.

"Yes, there is." He turned and faced her as she shut the door. "Leonard is at work at the moment and I need a ride to the police station. Would you be able to take me there?"

Sheldon had come a long way in the favor department. He no longer assumed she would do things for him, instead he would ask her and in the case where she couldn't so something for him, which was very rare, he never complained.

"Sure, honey. Just let me get dressed."

"All right, Penny. I'll wait out here." He sat down in his spot on her couch, wincing.

She had to turn away quickly so he wouldn't see her tears. He was still in so much pain. Just wait until she found out who had done this to her Moonpie!

The ride to the police station was in silence. Sheldon seemed deep in thought and Penny was clenching the steering wheel so tight it hurt. All she could think about was bashing someone's face in.

Finding a good parking spot, she unclipped her seatbelt and was ready to open her door when Sheldon stopped her by grabbing on to her wrist.

"Penny," his voice was soft and he searched her eyes. "I want you to stay here."

"Why?" No, she wanted to be there for him! He needed her. Right?

His grip on her wrist tightened slightly and he wasn't looking at her now. "I have my reasons. I would like to do this myself. I need to do this by myself."

"Sheldon, I want to see who did this to you." I need to see who did this to you.

"Penny, please." His gaze was back on hers.

"Sheldon…"

"Please." He pleaded with her.

Oh God, his eyes.

"Fine." She sighed defeated, then gently cupped his cheek. "You better get those son of bitches." And she leaned forward to kiss him. She aimed for his lips, but immediately changed her course to his cheek cursing herself for chickening out.

With their foreheads almost touching he let go of her wrist and gently cupped her cheek. She held her breath; her heart stopping.

He smiled. "I will."

Less than an hour later he was back in the car. He seemed a little shaken up but managed to giver her a shaky smile when he opened the door.

Immediately she started asking questions. "So how did it go? Did you get the right guys?"

After clicking his seatbelt in place he answered her. "Yes, they had the men."

Starting her car she began to drive away. "Good. Now what?"

"Now, all I have to do is go to court on Thursday and tell the judge the events of that night and he will sentence them." He sighed. "They seem to be under the impression that they will not receive any jail time."

"What?!" She braked sharply when the light turned red and looked at him. "After what they did to you? Hell no!"

"That's precisely what I was thinking as well. Supposedly this is not the first time of the them has done this and the worst he has gotten was a large fine."

She rolled her eyes. What was wrong with people these days. Those men assaulted Sheldon for no reason and now they expected to get away scot-free?

"That sounds like Kurt." She said off-handedly, not even knowing why she decided to bring him up at all.

He jumped at the name, probably remembering when he returned from an encounter with him without his pants.

"What?"

She turned into their apartment building's parking lot and parked her car. Settling in her seat she looked over at him.

"When we were together he would go out drinking and always manage to get into a fight at the bar. I don't even know how many times I had to go to the police station to bail him out. You think he would learn his lesson after so many times, but no. Not even when I told him that he would eventually have to do some jail time if he didn't stop."

"Yes," he said, his voice quiet. She could barely understand him. "I suppose that does sound like Kurt."

They parted ways when they reached their floor. Sheldon claimed that he wished to rest some before Leonard and the others got off work. She had let him; feeling a little drained herself. This weekend was taking it's toll on her physically and mentally. Seeing Sheldon in pain was the hardest. He didn't complain about it though, he probably didn't want her to worry. But worry she did.

She was in love with the man for God sakes!

Sheldon walked into his apartment and was surprised to see that Leonard was home as well. He say that Leonard had just gotten off the phone with someone and now was putting his phone in his pocket. He turned and face him.

"Oh, hey, Sheldon."

He seemed nervous and Sheldon grew suspicious.

"What are you doing home, Leonard? You should still be at work."

"Um, yea about that, I took the rest of the day off." He plopped into the armchair, wringing his hands in his lap. "There's something I need to talk to you about."

A/N I hope you all like this. Now I'm going to talk about Leonard. He is definitely NOT my favorite character(no where near it) and I've kind of portrayed him as an asshole in this story. But this is how I feel he would act in this kind of situation. I believe he would feel guilty about what happened to Sheldon and as much as he seems to get annoyed with him he's still his friend. So, I may have been a little harsh on him but he will be getting some redemption later.

Also, I have found out that my Science teacher's favorite show is The Big Bang Theory. Hmm... I wonder what kind of conversations we will have in there. Oh, and I want to add this. Science is definitely not my best subject and of course for the group project we have to work on the whole semester I get paired with someone who can barely speak English! ( I hope I don't offend anyone by saying this and if I do I'm sorry!)

Once again, thank you for anyone who's stuck around to read this!