THIS STORY IS INSPIRED BY THE DALE BROWN BOOK "TIN MAN" HOWEVER EXCEPT FOR THE CONCEPT THE STORY IS MINE. I AM BORROWING THE CHARACTERS FROM THE BIG BANG THEORY AS MY PLAYERS, BECAUSE FOR THE STORY TO BE A LITTLE BIT BELIEVABLE I NEED THEIR GENIUS. SO THE CONCEPT IS OWNED BY DALE BROWN AND THE CHARACTERS ARE OWNED BY THE CREATORS OF THE BIG BANG THEORY. THIS STORY IS COMPLETELY WRITTEN IN DRAFT, I WANTED TO HAVE THE ENDING DRAFTED BEFORE I STARTED A NEVER-ENDING STORY LIKE THE 'THE COMPLETE PACKAGE' SO IT HAS BEEN IN WORK FOR OVER SIX MONTHS. I HOPE YOU LIKE IT. IT BEGINS IN SEASON SIX AND I AM TYING THE STORY INTO THE SHOW AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, HOWEVER AFTER THE EVENTS UNFOLD THE STORY WILL TAKE A COURSE OF ITS OWN. ALSO, RIGHT NOW I PLAN ON A CHAPTER A WEEK, BECAUSE I NEED TO FINISH MY OTHER STORY. SPECIAL THANKS TO TENSOR WHO DID A LITTLE BETA WORK WITH ME.
Chapter 1 - The Theory
Penny had been feeling nervous all day, she had been trying to get her head around what she wants and now while she eats with Leonard, she can barely swallow her food, her hunger completely gone, she is so confused. Her mind is racing, she feels like she is running out of time to try and put her thoughts together, but even inside her head she can't come up with a solution to her problem. Finally, it was Leonard's words that bring her out of her trance, "Penny is everything okay?"
"Leonard, there is something I need to tell you. I'm just not sure how to say it."
"Just say it." He looks directly into her eyes, waiting for her to respond.
Penny knows all thinking comes from the brain, Sheldon told her numerous times when she brought up heartfelt feelings, but now it feels like it is her heart that is screaming to her 'NO!'. When she looks into Leonard's eyes, the only thing she can think of is that she wants to kiss him and there is no way she can hurt him. She truly doesn't want to hurt him, she has done that before, no she doesn't want to do that again, she wants to hug him and kiss him, not break up with him. But he is waiting for her to say something, she has to think of something. "Leonard, I've been thinking maybe we should move our relationship up a notch, we haven't had sex…..since that night, so I think maybe we should start again." A little nervous smile forms on her lips when she sees the large smile on his face, she loves his smiles.
Two hours later, as Penny lays in bed, in Leonard's arms, it surprised her how much she missed having sex with him, and especially the after sex cuddling. He is spooning her now, while she is wrapped in his arms, it feels so good, she is warm, secure and has a comfortable feeling that only Leonard seems to be able to give her. As she lays there, she also realizes if she had broken up with him two hours ago, she would right now be cold, lonely and crying with heartbreak, it makes her shiver when she thinks about it.
"Penny are you okay, you shivered?"
"No I'm okay, just a felt a little cold for a moment." Leonard pulls her a little closer against him, the closeness of him making her feel even better, if that was possible. She suddenly knows she did the right thing, she didn't want to give this up, being with him was still special to her and she didn't need to rush into doing anything like she had at the Bowling alley a couple of years before. She still is confused about their relationship but she thinks they have time, she didn't have to hurry, hurrying only ends up in pain, she knows that from before. It is probably just a rough patch they are going through, she heard of many couples having rough patches in their relationships, she thinks 'Maybe that is all it is, a rough patch'. She also knows if she broke up again, they were through, they could never go back and be friends and she doesn't want that, so she decides, she will give them time, all the time they need, she will see this through until she is sure.
-TIN MAN-
Leonard sat in his lab at Cal Tech, looking through the raw data results, he had been working with Dr Hogan for a week now on Hogan's project, it was really an experiment, an experiment involving Leonard's lasers. Dr Hogan, a material science expert, had gotten an US Army grant to try and improve on soldiers body armor, make it stronger and lighter, it was what then needed, right now. The current Kevlar vest, with the ceramic plates they used, was heavy and limited in its protection, the Army wanted something better. Hogan had lost his youngest son in Iraq, due to these deficiencies in body armor, a enemy rifle bullet penetrating a part where the ceramic plates didn't cover, and only the ceramic plates stopped rifle bullets.
The terrible tragedy Hogan experienced, made him become somewhat obsessed on fixing this problem. Hogan thought he had an idea, his idea, if validated, would make the Kevlar lighter, stronger and eliminate the heavy plates, that way when bullets hit the Kevlar alone they wouldn't penetrate, even with no plates. Hogan's plan to do that, centered on a hypothesis, he came up with, that if he could figure a way to align the molecules in the Kevlar, so they lined up perfectly, it would make the material stronger. Hogan knew to align the molecules he needed high energy, and Leonard's lasers could be used to supply that energy, so he came to Leonard for his assistance.
Leonard was now sitting at a computer in the lab, reviewing their last test results, while Dr Hogan looked at the material samples they just tested. Hogan was probably the nicest man at Cal Tech, everyone loved him, and Leonard thought of Dr Hogan, like a father figure, he respected the man and thought very highly of him. Hogan had been one of the first people to make friends with him when he got to Cal Tech, and he helped Leonard adjust to his new life in California. Leonard remembered eating dinner at Hogan's homes, many times his first year there and he had met and knew his son that died. Leonard felt a strong bond to Hogan and his family, so when he asked for Leonard's help, there was no hesitation by Leonard to help him in any way he could. However, since Leonard's work was not funded for supporting Hogan, Leonard had to work with him only when his work for the day was done, resulting in Leonard working long hours, day after day. Leonard didn't mind though, he would do anything for Hogan and that was why he was still in the lab going over data for their experiment, at 8 PM that evening.
"Dr Hogan, I have completed the preliminary data crunching on the results from the test and…"
"I know Leonard, just looking at the material, I can tell the test was a complete failure. Most of the target area is vaporized."
"I'm sorry sir." Leonard felt each test failure as a personal failure, he felt he disappointed the gentle man.
"Leonard, don't be. I am sorry, I know you are working overtime with me to do this and I am in you debt for it."
"No sir, please, I am honored to be working on this with you."
Hogan nodded and smiled, Leonard felt like one of his children to him. "Well why don't we call it a night Leonard. You have a girlfriend, you need to see her some."
"It is okay, sir, she understands."
Hogan chuckled, now he knew Leonard was not being honest. "Go home Leonard."
Leonard nodded in defeat. "Yes sir."
Leonard went to his office grabbed his messenger bag and started to put his phone in it, when he smiled and started to text Penny. He was tired and just feeling happy that Penny was his girlfriend again.
LAST NIGHT WAS AMAZING. YOU'RE AMAZING. I'M SO LUCKY TO HAVE YOU IN MY LIFE.
Less than an hour later Leonard was dragging his self up the stairs to his apartment, when he met with Bernadette and Amy coming down the other way. "Hi, another girls night?"
Bernadette and Amy looked at each other, then back at him. "Yeah, that's what we did." Bernadette answered for them both, as both of them hurried down the stairs, not even saying goodbye.
Leonard stood there for a minute and said to himself, "That's odd?", then he shook his head and headed up the remaining stairs to his apartment. He thought of stopping to see Penny, but it was really late and his mind too tired to settle riddles that night. If it was really important she would contact him, so he just went into the apartment and straight to his room to sleep.
-TIN MAN-
Leonard and Dr Hogan's work continued on for a couple more weeks, with no positive results, their difficulty, trying to deposit the exact amount of laser energy needed to prove Hogan's theory. Leonard's biggest problem was he had to calibrate his lasers to deposit the right amount of energy, without damaging the regular Kevlar. Of course, the right amount of energy, was something they hadn't been able to determined yet, so all these weeks, they were still destroying the normal Kevlar armor pretty regularly. It seemed each day they would calculate another energy value, based on last days failure, set up the lasers to test, then analyze the new failure, so they could start over again the next day. Both Leonard and Dr Hogan, were worn out, from the long hours, and what was making things worse was Dr Hogan was a man overweight, in his 60's. It was therefore, no real surprise that after another long night and after another failure, Hogan got upset.
"Damm it." Hogan hit the desk top with his fists.
Leonard turned from his computer screen surprised, "Sir what's wrong."
"Sorry Leonard, but my theory works on paper, why can't we get it to work in the lab. It should work."
Leonard looked at his mentor, the last week had really been stressful for him and Leonard actually thought the man aged. Leonard was tired too, all the days of working anywhere between 12-14 hours per day, had been getting to him too. "Sir, it will probably just take time, maybe we should take some time off and just go over the data again. We might have missed something."
"Always the voice of reason, Dr Hofstadter." Hogan chuckled, then he turned to Leonard a strained expression on his face. "Leonard, something is wrong." Hogan was holding his left arm as he slowly went to knees on the floor.
"Dr Hogan!" Leonard ran to the man, he was terrified.
Hogan was lucky that Leonard knew what to do, because of working with lasers he was constantly going through emergency training, so Hogan survived the attack and made it to the hospital on time. However, after extensive medical tests, the doctors determined he needed emergency bypass surgery and his recovery was expected to take several months. That meant the project was temporarily on hold, while Hogan went through surgery and then recovery in the hospital.
A couple days after Hogan finally went home to recover, Leonard reviewed where they were in the experiment and what he should do. Leonard thought he could continue the work, but now he had to work by himself, for a while before Dr Hogan could come back. Leonard really wanted to continue Hogan's work because he really liked the man and he was now convinced Hogan was on to something. So the day after Leonard visited Hogan to talk to him, at home, he decided to continue where they left off. Leonard's decision was now making him put in almost 12-16 hours a day at Cal Tech.
-TIN MAN-
A week after Leonard started to work on Hogan's theory again, the university's patrons ball was held, Leonard's small group of friends were in attendance, the guys, except Howard who was still in space, and their girls supporting them. Penny was there with Leonard, she hadn't seen too much of him the few weeks and was really happy to be out with him, even though, except for being with Leonard, the rest of the night would probably be boring. They were still working on their relationship, Penny especially was still trying to work through her feelings about Leonard and him actually working so much had given her time to think. She had seen Sheldon's assistant flirt with Leonard and now she realized how much she didn't want him to be with someone else, remembering how horrible she felt when he was with Raj's sister. She was jealous and she knew Leonard meant more to her than she had been ready to admit before. As Penny looked at him, she knew they had been getting closer and more comfortable with each other, which she actually liked, she really didn't want to be with anyone else, but him.
Tonight Penny looked stunning, wearing a black low cut evening dress, and Leonard found every man wanted to talk to them, which was good and bad at the same time. It was during one of those awkward periods that Colonel Turner walked up to Leonard, he greeted Penny, but didn't scan her body or look at her cleavage, like the other men, he wanted to talk to Leonard. Colonel Turner came from the Pentagon and was in charge of all university research grants in the area, which made him in charge of Hogan's program. Since, Turner was a professional soldier, he had to assigned to someplace, so he was assigned to a local National Guard unit as a senior advisor. But tonight he was in his role as program manager and he wanted Leonard to tell him how far Leonard and Hogan had progressed in their project.
"Dr Hofstadter, how is Dr Hogan doing?" The Colonel was very formal.
"I saw him yesterday, he is doing better, but his recovery is going to take a little longer, because the doctors want him to loose some weight before he resumes work. By the way…..Colonel Turner, this is lovely lady is my girlfriend Penny…Penny, this is Colonel Turner, our Army boss and keeper of the money." Leonard gave a little chuckle.
Penny put on her best smile, this man was obviously important to Leonard's work, so she wanted to impress him for Leonard. "A pleasure to meet you, Colonel Turner."
Turner gave Penny a quick glance, "A pleasure to meet you too, miss." Then Turner moved back closer to Leonard.
Penny was very experienced with people being a waitress and she could tell a lot about what people were thinking by just their looks and mannerisms. Turner was obvious, he had just dismissed her, he didn't want her around, Penny didn't know if she should be mad or just leave. She settled on leave, she didn't want to cause a problem for Leonard. "Sweetie, I'm going to find the girls and let you guys talk shop."
Leonard looked distraught. "You sure?"
Penny gave him a big smile. "Yes Sweetie, but I'm not going to let the nice Army man have you all night, so remember I'm still here."
Leonard nodded and smiled, "Thank you and I promise not too long."
Penny spent the next half hour with Bernadette and Amy, and watched as Leonard stood in the corner talking the man in the uniform, with all the medals. She couldn't help but gaze at Leonard, he was now in Dr Hofstadter mode, in the university he was an alpha male, people sought him out, respected him and valued his opinion, he became confident and outspoken, and Penny was currently in awe of him as she watched. There were many good looking men in the room and some of them had tried to get her attention, but she was locked on Leonard, and the thoughts of how much she cared for him. Her mind drifted to when she saw him talking with Alex, that day in the cafeteria and suddenly she was jealous of the Army man who had all his attention. Her feelings for him had been getting steadily stronger over the last few weeks, so she had enough, the Army man had kept Leonard long enough, and she went to steal him from the soldier to make him dance with her.
-TIN MAN-
It was a week later, after the university party, and after destroying another test sample, Leonard made the breakthrough. Leonard had an epiphany, the laser beam was producing too much energy concentrated onto too small an area, the beam was too collated, after all that is how lasers worked, but it was not what they wanted. Leonard decided to widen the beam, deposit the same energy over a larger area, to try and orient a larger mass of molecules into the specific alignment Dr Hogan was seeking. This was the only way Leonard could think of reducing the energy deposited on the material to a level that would not vaporize it.
It was late Wednesday night, Leonard was ready to try the new laser settings that expanded the 3.0 millimeter beam to 5.0 full centimeters. First he turned on the magnetic field that the material was suspended in, the field would be used to align the molecules after they were energized by the laser, so that when the laser energy was dissipated they would be aligned into a perfect matrix. Then he was ready, Leonard set the discharge timer, put on his goggles, took a deep breath and hit the discharge sequencing start switch. It was over in a few seconds, Leonard quickly shut down the magnetic field and walked over to the target area, the experimental sample was not damaged. Leonard repeated the experimental run, with another sample, he had to make sure it wasn't just a chance success. The second test had the same results, he hadn't destroyed the material, but did he confirm Dr Hogan's theory, had they discovered Super Kevlar?
Leonard took the new material to the material lab the next evening to test its properties. He found the material properties were amazing, the Super Kevlar was semi-flexible, almost as much as normal Kevlar, but much stronger. When Leonard did a high velocity object penetration test, the alignment of the molecules made it stronger, almost making the material harden and prevented penetration like ceramic plates. Leonard completed all the correlation of the test results on his computer and stared at the screen for a minute.
"Damm!" Leonard rotated in his chair, a huge smile on his face. "It works!"
Leonard had recorded everything and happily started to put everything together, he now had the settings, the time and the power, he was ready for phase two. It took another week to put together the jig and program the computer, but then on a Friday afternoon, his laser fired like a rapid fire machine gun, moving and firing, turning a small sheet of Kevlar into Super Kevlar, in just three hours. Hogan's theory and his lasers had done it, Super Kevlar was no longer a theory, Leonard could produce it.
-TIN MAN-
Penny didn't know what became of Leonard, the whole weekend he acted like he was drugged, everything made him smile and everything made him laugh. Friday night they played games with Sheldon and Amy, which turned out to be great fun, except for all the pie Penny had to get out of her hair and nose. Penny however was never one to question a good thing, so on Saturday, when they all went out to celebrate Howard's return from space, she just enjoyed the dinner, then club and even the dancing Leonard treated her to, he even insisted on doing. Penny, Bernadette, Howard and Leonard, outlasted their friends and partied to the early morning hours on Sunday, not getting to sleep until almost dawn. Not really getting too drunk the night before, Leonard took her Sunday afternoon to the street fair, a walk on the beach and then a nice dinner that occupied her the whole day. Penny was actually overwhelmed, it was the best weekend she had ever spent with anyone, in a long time, and with so much to do it was over to her in almost a heartbeat. Which was very symbolic because it was late Sunday night and Penny was laying on Leonard's chest listening to his heartbeat, happy as she could be, starting to think what the future would be with him.
"Thank you sweetie." Penny cuddled a little closer in to him.
"Your welcome, but for the record, why are you thanking me?"
"For the wonderful weekend, silly. It was so nice just having a weekend of fun and it was all the stuff I liked."
"I had fun too."
"Really you enjoyed all that stuff? All of it?"
"Yeah, I did, because I was with you."
Penny was at a loss for words, his 'because I was with you.' really went to her heart. It really got to her and she felt a tear in her eye. She just wanted to say something nice to him too, he was just wonderful. "I think that why it was so much fun for me too, because you were there." Penny then pulled herself up so she could kiss him, before she laid down back on his chest.
Penny laid there thinking, things were changing between them and Penny could feel it, it scared her and made her happy at the same time. Penny's confusion about their relationship, weeks ago, which led to her contemplating if they should keep together or breakup, had been on her mind since he had asked her to marry him over a month before. She still wasn't ready for marriage, she didn't know why, so him asking her that night made her wonder if they were really in sync with each other, or just two people who were good friends trying to force a relationship. But now it seemed things just got better, they seemed more in tune with each other and more comfortable, she still couldn't tell him she loved him, but she thought maybe in a few months she could even do that. She also started to wonder how it would be to be married to him, and so far the positives overwhelmed the negatives.
-TIN MAN-
The initial excitement of Leonard's discovery was now a few days old, it was now Monday and that started with what he considered to be the most important part of any experiment, the report, so others could see how it was done and could duplicate and refine their work. The importance of the report was indisputable, which didn't do a thing to make writing it anything less than pure hard work, boring and tedious. Leonard, like most experimental scientists, would rather spend a hundred hours in the lab then one hour writing a report, so he stared at his computer, then for an hour he put his thoughts together, before his hands could begin to type. He knew he needed to get it in draft form for when Dr Hogan returned, so that they could present this new material to the Army. So with a deep breath, he continued to type, the beginning of this ordeal now entered and engaged.
Leonard worked on the report when he wasn't working in his lab, and at first things were going well, until something unusual happened, actually it was wonderful. Penny showed up at his lab on a Tuesday afternoon, to see what he did, she seemed really interested, he was both shocked and proud. That day he showed her some of is laser generated holographic images, it was new experimentation he was working and he was really excited about it, but it really surprised him how excited Penny seemed to be about it too.
"Sometimes I forget how smart you are." She told him after his demonstration, then for a couple of moments she just stared at him.
The look in her eyes was a look he couldn't describe, however her passion afterward, was something he understood quickly, and for the first time in his life, he had sex with a woman in his lab. That afternoon went by quickly and he ended up too flustered to do much of anything the rest of the day. Thursday surprised him again, Penny was there, she wanted to see more and he wanted to show her more, the way she looked at him after his magnetic demonstration, made him realize she was amazed by his work and surprisingly his mind. That afternoon was also lost, when her excitement at what he showed her flowed over to the passion she gave him in return.