The Fan Fiction Affliction
Chapter 04, the Reunification Conjugation
Hamish switched between Sarah's storyboard and the text of her chapter. He asked, "Sarah, where did you get the inspiration to include a second love interest for Alicia?" He barely listened to Sarah's answer as he looked to the rear corner of the room, where Penny sat looking into her lap.
Penny got up and left the room. She was gone for a few minutes and then returned to her seat and looked down at her laptop keyboard. Her eyes were red, and there were tear streaks down her face.
After class, as the students were gathering their things and leaving, Hamish saw Penny putting her laptop into her bag about to leave and said, "Penny, a word?"
Penny walked up to Hamish with her head down.
Hamish waited for the last student to leave. He said, "Penny, let's sit."
Penny shook her head yes and sat. She looked down into her lap.
"Penny, what's wrong?" Hamish asked. "I really missed your participation in class today. Are you ill?"
"I'm well," Penny said. "I'm just a little off-kilter today."
"What's wrong?"
"I'm sorry. I'll do better next class."
"What happened?" Hamish asked.
Penny buried her face in her hands and began to cry.
Hamish sat watching Penny for a few moments. He went over to the napkin dispenser and brought her a wad of napkins. He placed them in front of her and sat watching her.
Penny blew her nose on a couple of napkins. Finally, she said, "I'm sorry, I'm a mess. I must look like the Crypt Keeper."
Hamish said, "Penny, I can't say this in front of the other students, but you're my best student. I don't think I even want to read your chapter you submitted today, if you were this upset when you were writing it. Something's obviously wrong."
Penny said, "I think I've ruined things with my boyfriend. He's so angry with me-and with good reason. I think I blew the best thing that I've ever had in my life."
Hamish said, "I'm sorry to get personal. Were you and your young man planning to get married?"
Penny said, "He has wanted to marry me for years, but I've always blown him off. I really screwed up."
"May I be nosy and ask what you did?" Hamish asked.
Penny said, "I took him for granted. All he has ever done is treat me as if I am the most important person in the world, as if he worships me, and all I've ever done is make him scratch and claw for every scrap of affection from me. Four years ago, he told me he loved me, and I broke up with him for it. Two years ago, after we finally got back together, he proposed to me, and I treated him as if he had done something horrifying and almost broke up with him again. Last night, he just got fed up and left after I told him that he can be cloying when he tells me he loves me. He lives across the hall from me, and he never came home last night. I had to take his roommate to work. When I call his phone, it goes straight to voicemail. I think I've lost him-maybe I should say I threw him away."
Hamish asked, "Penny do you think he still loves you?"
Penny blew her nose again and said, "I think he loves me with all of his heart and soul, but I just don't think he likes me very much right now. He told me he wants to spend every day of the rest of his life with me, to show me every day how amazing I am, how proud he is of me, how much he loves me. You know, the funny thing is that, after I broke up with him for telling me he loved me, I wanted to get back together with him, but, whenever I started to tell him, he would be with someone else. He's a great guy, the best. Now I have him back, and I treat him like dirt. He's one of those rare people, you know, who honestly means it when he tells me he loves me. There's no manipulation, no hidden agenda: He simply loves me. He has the purest soul of anyone I've ever met."
Hamish said, "Penny, if he loves you that much, I would wager that it's not too late. I think maybe you still have a shot-don't you think?"
Penny sniffled and dabbed at her eyes. "Oh, darn," she said. "I should have used waterproof mascara this morning. I'll bet I look like a raccoon. I'm supposed to have a meeting with promoters for a new con about a role, and they wanted me to come with no makeup, so I just put on a bit of mascara I could remove before meeting with them. About having a shot, I just don't know. I've always relied on how much I saw Leonard loves me. I knew that, whatever I did, he would be there adoring me and would forgive anything. I wish I could take back the last few years. I would treat him so much better."
Hamish said, "Penny, first of all, I think I've gotten to know you pretty well, and I can't imagine that you are capable of doing anything as uncaring and inconsiderate as you think you did. But, even if you did, I think you know what you have to do. You have to fight for-uh Leonard is it? I can't imagine what would have happened to me if I hadn't fought and my Lori hadn't finally accepted my proposal. If I had given up-I just don't know. You know something? I have never looked at another woman in all our years of marriage, and I've taught and worked with some of the most fascinating, beautiful women around. Having Lori in my corner, I've always felt secure enough to venture out and take chances. I quit my job teaching high school English and started writing, and Lori was always there believing in me, even when I wasn't having any success as a writer. I don't think I would have ever had the courage to do that if it weren't for her."
Penny said, "I just quit my job as a waitress a couple of days ago. I didn't even talk to Leonard about it; I just did it so I could pursue an acting career. I guess I assumed he would always be there to catch me if I fell. He paid my tuition for the course and bought the books and software. He's paid for all of my courses for the last couple of years."
"It sounds as if you were pretty secure about his love," Hamish said.
"Maybe a little too secure," Penny said.
Hamish said, "Penny, why don't you work on an alternate assignment instead of submitting your next chapter right now? Why don't you write about how you feel? You could write the scene between you and your young man and really pour out your feelings. You can work on your chapter some more-you know, once you feel better-and tell me when you've resubmitted it. I haven't read what you turned in for today yet, but I suspect it's not your best work."
"Thank you," Penny said. "You're right. It sucks. I'll do the alternate assignment."
#
"Leonard?" Sheldon's assistant Alex said. "Leonard!"
Leonard finally looked up. He said, "Huh?"
"Okay," Alex said, "I am going to take the controls to the laser array. You're going to get both of us killed. Why don't you go walk around, maybe get a cup of coffee?"
"I'm sorry," Leonard said. "I'm a little distracted."
"No," Alex said, "You aren't a little anything. You're horribly distracted. Is everything all right?"
"No," Leonard said.
"Anything I can do?" Alex asked.
"No," Leonard said. "I'm going to go back to my office for a bit and lie down on the futon I keep in there."
"All right," Alex said. "If I can help with that, let me know."
"O-k-a-y," Leonard said.
Leonard left his lab and walked to the other side of the third floor of the experimental physics building. He opened his office to find Penny sitting on the futon he had slept on the night before cleaning up his Red Bull cans and putting the wrappers from the cheese and peanut butter crackers, which had been his supper and breakfast, into the trash. He froze in the doorway. "Oh, hi," he said.
Penny got up and walked to him. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and buried her face between his shoulder and neck. She began weeping loudly.
Leonard shut the door behind him with his foot as he held her.
Finally, Penny said, "Leonard, I am so sorry. Did we break up last night?"
"I didn't," Leonard said. "Did you? It wouldn't be the first time."
Penny said, "You're still angry with me, aren't you?"
Leonard said, "I'm more sad than angry, although there is still some anger there."
Penny said, "I want us to stay together. Leonard, I had a lot of time since last night to worry whether I had lost you. I didn't sleep. I kept coming over and checking, but you never came home. I can't bear the thought of not having you in my life. What do you want, if you could have anything you could from our relationship or from me? What would make you not be angry and sad?"
"That's easy," Leonard said. "I haven't made any secret of the fact that I've wanted to marry you for years. The anger comes from the fact that I just don't see that we're making any progress toward that, and you keep pushing me away and making excuses. You freaked out so badly at the prospect of marrying me that I promised you I wouldn't propose anymore, that it was all in your court, and I just don't see any real progress toward our getting married."
Penny said, "Ah, rats! I really should have used waterproof mascara today. Your shirt is a mess. Leonard, what would it take to make everything all right?"
Leonard said, "I have to know that we're going to get married-soon. I don't want to drag this on forever. Can you assure me that we are moving quickly toward getting married?"
At that moment, Alex knocked on the door. She poked her head in and said, "Oh, hi, Penny is it? Leonard, I hate to bother you, but the surge alarm is flashing again. I need you in the lab."
"Sure," Leonard said. "I'll be right there. Penny, I'll be just a few minutes."
Penny said, "I actually have to run. My agent called, and I have to meet with the promoters of one of the cons. I may have a job. I'm sure I look horrible."
"Okay," Leonard said. "We can talk more about this later." He turned and started out the door with Alex.
"Leonard?" Penny asked.
Leonard turned around and looked at her.
Alex put her hand on Leonard's shoulder.
"I love you," Penny said.
Leonard left the door open as he walked out with Alex.
#
"Miss, uh...," the production assistant said.
"Penny," Penny said. She stood and put her iPad into her bag as she followed the assistant into what looked like a boardroom.
Three men in jeans and one woman in a business suit sat at a large wooden table.
"Thank you for coming," the man closest to the door said. He introduced himself and the rest of the people there. "Penny, we're starting Vegas Con in a few weeks in, of course, Las Vegas. It will run Thursday through Sunday. We're just starting this year, but we hope to make it as big as the other cons. We're recruiting actors to play various characters to walk around, sign autographs as their characters, and promote the event. Are you familiar with the Firefly TV series?"
"Oh, yes," Penny said. "My boyfriend and his friends are really into it. He even gave me the entire series on Blue-Ray. I've watched all of the episodes and the Serenity movie."
"We saw your picture and thought we might have you dressed up as Inara the Companion from Firefly," the woman said. "We need someone who is extraordinarily beautiful. Of course, Inara is a brunette, but that's why we have wigs."
"Morena Baccarin played her," Penny said. "She is so beautiful. I got to meet her when my boyfriend took me to the WonderCon in Anaheim. You do know that she's a blonde now?"
The woman made a sour face and said, "I know. She was so beautiful before. Now that she's dyed her hair blonde and chopped off most of it, not so much. If you're game, Lisa here will take you to hair, makeup, and wardrobe and bring you back so we can see how you would look as Inara."
As Penny left with the assistant, the older man at the end of the table said, "She is so beautiful that, if we decide not to use her as Inara, we could have her as any of a number of other characters. We can't fake the olive complexion, but she is so beautiful people are going to notice her no matter what character she plays."
Later, Lisa ushered Penny back into the room where the three men and the woman were going over sketches for the characters they wanted to hire actors to play at the con. They looked up. Penny was wearing companion's robes and a black wig. The makeup artist had made her up to look like Inara.
"Wow!" the woman said. "Penny, I didn't recognize you at first. You are striking."
The people walked around Penny commenting on how she looked. They had Penny leave with a photographer to take pictures.
As Penny was finishing the pictures set, the woman walked into the room and said, "Penny, we had an idea. We would like for hair, makeup, and wardrobe to fix you up as a couple of other characters, just to see. Are you game?"
"Sure," Penny said.
#
Hamish dropped his keys into the bowl and set his Osprey messenger bag with his laptop in it on the chair. He walked over to the table by the window, where his wife Lori was reading his latest chapter in The Razor's Edge. He kissed her on the cheek.
Lori took his hand and kissed it.
"Did you have a nice day?" Hamish asked.
"Two young men approached me at Starbucks before my meeting and said they liked me in the role of Stifler's mom in American Pie," Lori said. "I told them I'm not Jennifer Coolidge, but they didn't believe me. They insisted I give them autographs."
"You could pass for her sister," Hamish said. "What did you do?"
"I signed autographs for them that said, 'I'm not Stifler's mom,'" Lori said. "I think it made their day."
"Where are you in the chapter?" Hamish asked, looking over Lori's shoulder.
"I'm at the section where Skree first meets the Trylons," Lori said. "I've highlighted a couple of paragraphs. I understand what you're trying to say, but it's a bit awkward."
"Speaking about awkward," Hamish said, "I had an uncomfortable chat with my student Penny today."
"The girl you think is so talented?" Lori asked.
"Yes," Hamish said. "I've had many talented students, but this one has what it takes. I would bet my career on that. She was upset today. Apparently, she and her young man are having problems. She submitted the worst chapter: She had all the four scientists kneeling with their hands bound behind them and exploded a device, killing all of them, including her, as well as blowing up the Serenity and its crew."
"Wow," Lori said. "She was upset."
Hamish said, "She certainly put her feelings in the chapter. It's a good thing I suggested that, as an alternative, she should write something new, maybe the confrontation she had with her young man, showing her feelings, then scrap the chapter and try again. She was planning to re-write the chapter this afternoon and then work on the alternative assignment between now and next class."
Lori said, "You've never told me how old Penny is. I'm assuming she's freshman or sophomore age, say 18 or 19?"
"No," Hamish said. "She has to be about our daughter's age. I would say 27, 28. She dropped out of college and has been waitressing and trying to find work as an actress for the past few years."
"How serious problems are they having?" Lori asked.
"It's hard to tell," Hamish said. "She was pretty upset."
"I enjoyed her story you shared with me," Lori said. "I agree: She has that spark that the good ones have, that you have. I want to read it as she finishes more chapters."
"Let's hope she and her young man can work it out," Hamish said. "This was the first class when she wasn't the force that kept the class going. By the way, I suggested her to play Inara, the companion from Firefly, at Vegas Con, when I talked to the promoters. The promoters have already contacted her agent about it."
#
Penny sat at the sofa in her sweat pants and one of Leonard's Caltech sweatshirts. She looked at the clock and said, "Oh, good. I have two hours before Leonard should be home. She renamed her chapter and started its replacement. It started on the Serenity deck.
The four scientists were on their knees with their hands cuffed behind them.
Persephone walked in front of them and looked at them, holding an old-style pistol at her side.
"Seffy," Larry said. "I thought we meant something to each other. That time we spent on Microsoftia, where I bought you a new wardrobe and we ate at that little cafe..."
"Shut up!" Persephone said.
Persephone's accomplice Jax walked onto the deck. He said, "I have the men chained up and locked in the storage room and the women tied up and locked in the whore's pod. I'll start the timer on the device to blow up the ship as soon as we are about to leave." He was carrying a laser saw he had brought from engineering.
Simon asked, "What are you going to do with that?"
Jax said, "The Alliance only needs me to produce your heads for Persephone and me to get paid." He dropped a large canvas bag on the floor next to Larry. He turned to Persephone and asked, "Do you want to put a bullet in each of their heads first? That will keep them from struggling. Personally, I like taking heads when the captives are alive. I like to hear their screams as I start cutting, and I like to see how the others react when they see what's coming to them."
Persephone walked over to Larry and said, "I'm so sorry about this." She turned and put a bullet between Jax' eyes.
As Jax crumpled to the floor, the startled expression still on his face, Persephone took a key from around Jax' neck and unfastened the cuffs holding Larry's hands behind his back. She handed the key to Larry. "Free your friends," she said. "We're going to have to dispose of Jax' body out the air lock. I'll go free the others."
"Why?" Larry asked as he uncuffed Sanjay. "Why did you turn on your partner?"
Persephone turned as she walked toward the companion's pod and said. "Because I love you."
#
Sheldon left the departmental meeting and turned on the sound on his cell phone. He saw that he had 12 reviews for his first chapter for his revised story. He rolled his eyes and said, "I may as well face the music."
He opened the first review. "This is much better," Princess Idara said. "It makes sense, and I like the way you set up the disaster on the Enterprise."
The rest of the reviews were similar, except for one, from an anonymous guest reviewer, which read, "U suk, UR writig suks, you shud stop witig."
Sheldon smiled and said, "There's always a troll. Screw him."
#
Penny and Leonard walked into the Acropolis, where a striking middle-aged woman greeted them. "Party of two?" she asked.
"Actually," Penny said, "We are meeting friends." She spotted Hamish, who was waving. "There they are," she said.
"Oh, you're friends of Hamish and Lori," the woman said. "Any friends of Hamish and Lori are friends of mine. Welcome to our restaurant." She picked up two menus and cutlery bundles and led Leonard and Penny to Hamish and Lori's table.
Hamish stood and hugged Penny, who introduced Leonard. Hamish smiled when he saw that Leonard and Penny were holding hands. He shook hands with Leonard and introduced his wife Lori.
Lori hugged Penny and said, "Penny, you are even more beautiful than Hamish said."
As the server left with Leonard and Penny's drink orders, Lori said, "Penny, I have been enjoying your submissions to Hamish's class. The fan fiction based on the Firefly series is one of the best stories I've ever read. I am eager to see the rest of it. Hamish shared your storyboard, and I think you're going to have a real winner. Have you thought about re-writing it to move it away from the Firefly franchise so you could submit it to an agent?"
Penny said, "I haven't thought about that."
Lori said, "I would love to help you with that. I especially like the way your character Persephone double-crossed her accomplice and shot him to keep from having to kill Larry and his colleagues. Then, when the captain dropped all of them off at Galaxia, that set the stage for more drama down the road when the Alliance comes after them. That is very good fiction. I would love to help you get the story in shape so you can submit it for publication."
"So you're a writer too?" Penny asked.
"Well, I was," Lori said, "but I found I liked being an agent even more."
"You're Hamish' agent?" Penny asked, surprised. "He said he has you beta read what he writes, but he didn't say you're his agent."
"I have been for the past 15 years," Lori said. "His first agent Bert retired, and he offered me his client list-for a price, of course. I jumped at the chance to buy Hamish and a couple of other writers you may recognize. I still love writing, but I love helping writers get their stories in shape to pitch to publishers even more. If you're interested, I would love to represent you."
They talked about Penny's story until their orders came. Hamish said, "Leonard-I want to call you Larry-what do you do? Penny said you're some sort of scientist?"
"He's more than that," Penny said. "He is an experimental physicist at Caltech. He won the McArthur Award and spent four months last year heading up Stephen Hawking's team in the North Atlantic researching the presence of Unruh radiation in a large body of water. He may be in line for a Nobel Prize."
Leonard looked at Penny. He said, "Wow! That was absolutely correct! See? You are smart. Maybe one day I'll get you to believe it."
Hamish asked, "So you know about topics like the Big Bang Theory and quantum mechanics?"
"That's what I do," Leonard said. "I have a new grant to do some classified experiments with lasers. That reminds me, Penny, the FBI is going to pay you a visit-just to make sure you're cool."
Hamish asked, "Would you be willing for me to call on you from time to time? I'm working with a producer on a pilot for a new TV series that takes place in deep space. As a matter of fact, the producer is looking for a technical adviser. Do you think you might be interested?"
"Sure," Leonard said. "I can also give you the contact information for our friend Dr. Rajesh Koothrapali, who is an award-winning astrophysicist."
As the two couples left the restaurant, Lori hugged Penny again and arranged for Penny to come see her the next day to talk about her story. Leonard invited Hamish and Lori to visit his lab at Caltech. They arranged for Penny to bring them that Friday.