Chapter 22 - Moving Preparations

Sheldon paced in the hallway between his apartment, 4A and Penny's, 4B, for a half hour that next morning before Amy came out of the door to 4A. "Sheldon are you ready to go to work, you know it is past your normal departure time." She had slept the night before in her room, Leonard's old room, on the new bed she had to buy, because waterbeds, like her old one, were not allowed in Sheldon's apartment building.

"Of course I know, I have allotted extra time in my schedule for just such anomalies." he replied with the smugness of someone who thought he had his whole life planned. However, as Sheldon looked at her, he didn't feel smug just torn with indecision, he had waited that morning for Penny to come out of her apartment to talk to her, but now he was going to be late for work if he stayed longer and the decision he, at the moment, had to make caused his brain to itch. On the other hand, after that moment passed, he quickly realized it was a simple decision, if he left now, he would not be late for work, but if he waited, it could be lunch time before Penny left her apartment. "Okay, I'm ready….let's go."

Amy sighed as he went pass her to get his bag, she hoped Penny agreed to talk to him soon, because he was driving her crazy with all the nervous energy he now seemed to have. Sheldon joined her less than a minute later, "So ready to go." she asked.

Sheldon gave her a sour face, "Amy I told you I wanted to go to work when you asked and I now have my messenger bag on my shoulder, how could I not be any readier to go." he shook his head and headed down the stairs.

Amy just followed him, shaking her head, again begging any deity that was listening that Penny would talk to him soon. Even though she loved him, sometimes he was too much for even her, and the way he was acting now was way above the crazy line. He had spent the whole night working on his white boards devising scenarios where he could run into Penny, without Leonard, and without creating a situation where she could get a restraining order on him. She had just given up talking to him that night and went to bed early, hoping he would quit obsessing that morning, boy had she been wrong.

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Leonard arrived at his office just before 11 AM, Penny again not wanting to leave his side, her being even more affectionate this morning after they both woke up with Leonard's hand on her tiny baby bump. Her friend Carol actually helped him with Penny this morning, by dragging her off to rehearsal before she could pout to him about leaving her, she was very good at getting sympathy from him when she pouted. He chuckled, he could tell she was getting better, because she was now purposely trying to seduce him to stay with her, instead the pervious days when she was just needy for him. He was getting his old Penny back and it made him feel good inside.

Looking around his office now, he noticed he had boxes stacked in the corner, along with packing tape, that someone had obviously left there this morning. There was a yellow sticky note attached to the boxes, that said whoever left the boxes would be by after lunch to help him pack, so it seemed Leonard had nothing to do till then. He wasn't hungry, since he had just had something to eat before he came in, so he didn't feel like going to lunch to kill time. Consequently Leonard just went to sit in his desk chair and got his laptop out to boot up, thinking he might answer some emails while he waited.

This time alone in his office, waiting for his computer to power up, gave him time to think about what happened the previous night before, and that thought floated to the top of if his mind almost immediately. Sheldon next door would always be a reminder of his old life and Leonard wanted to move past that time and start anew with Penny. He felt this incident in their life together had brought them even closer, and it even gave Leonard more confidence that Penny truly loved him as he did her. It would be good for him, good for Penny and good for their family, to take advantage of this new closeness between them to make some changes now with their lives. So with that in mind Leonard typed on his computer to begin a search on something that he felt would solve their Sheldon situation, and chart a new path for his future family.

While Leonard worked on his computer, at the same time in the cafeteria, Howard and Raj sat at a table, actually looking at the people entering the cafeteria hoping to see Leonard. "He always ate lunch at this time, do you think we should go find him." Raj told Howard who was scribbling some diagrams on a napkin.

"I would like to Raj, but today I need to eat lunch and get back to work if I'm going to get home at a decent hour tonight. I promise tomorrow, we can go get him on the way to lunch, okay."

Raj just nodded sadly, "Okay, things just don't seem the same since our group got cut in half."

"I hear you buddy, I hear you." Howard agreed, while he continued his work on his napkin.

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The director decided to do some of the short scenes early, because they didn't require the actors to rehearse complicated lines and they didn't take much time to tape. Since Penny's scenes were in those short scenes she was busy for about three hours, until the director was happy with what they had done and decided to try one of the longer scenes, that Penny wasn't in, that afternoon. Any thought Penny had about why she wasn't in the longer scenes disappeared when she was told they didn't need her that afternoon and she quickly called Leonard to pick her up, happy to spend more of the day with him.

Penny's call came at about 3 PM, so after 2 hours of packing, Leonard told the graduate students, that were helping him, that he needed to call it a day and he would see them again late morning tomorrow. He then headed over to Penny's studio and picked her up before 4 PM, only hitting the beginning of rush hour traffic on the way home. They made one detour to the market before they arrived at their apartment, to get food for dinner, but they still managed to made it home before Sheldon.

Sheldon tried again to wait that night for Penny to appear, but with food for dinner, Leonard and Penny just fixed up some soup, made hot sandwiches and a salad, then spent the night cuddled together on the couch watching TV. Amy also spent the evening on the couch in Sheldon's apartment, however she just watched him run to the door every time he heard a noise, even noises Amy didn't hear, as he hoped to catch Penny outside her apartment. He had checked the internet that day to see if Penny could actually file a restraining order on him, and finding out she could, he decided not to give her any more justification to do it, by going to her door again. The thought that she could make him have to move, if she got upset and which he considered a possibility because she was too sensitive, was just too stressful for Sheldon even to consider.

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Wednesday morning was more of the same, Sheldon spent a few minutes seeing if Penny would come out in the morning, while Leonard and Penny didn't get up until over an hour after Sheldon left to go to work. Penny was getting easier to get up and send to work for Leonard, although she still sexually teased him each morning, but now Leonard just contributed her behavior to her getting better mentally over her previous worrying about their relationship. Dropping her at work was now dropping her off with her friend Carol and Penny let him go without a sad abandoned expression on her face now, letting him get to work earlier that the two days before.

Leonard's early arrival, allowed him to complete his office packing in only a couple of hours and so after thanking the graduate students he went to the Physics Department administrative area to see his new office and possibly start his move in. However he was a little surprised to see painters working on his new office's walls as he went to the office the department secretary had directed him to. He was now confused and wasn't sure what to do, so he returned to the secretary for additional information. "Umm, do you know how long the painters will take?" Leonard hoped the secretary knew what was going on, they always seemed to know everything.

"Dr Gablehauser said they would be done Friday. He said you would probably move in Monday, after they aired out the place this weekend." the secretary told Leonard while typing something on her computer.

"Oh, okay…..thank you." Leonard left the office area, feeling a little homeless now, and just standing outside the administration area for a little while wondering what to do. It only took him a second to decide and he headed over across campus to the personnel department, to get Penny on his insurance as his Significant Other, something he could benefit from, since the university decided it was only fair to allow other non traditional couples of their staff to support their partners.

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Howard and Raj arrived at Leonard's office at lunch time only to find his office all packed up and Leonard nowhere to be found. "Holy crap." Raj exclaimed, then, "Do you think Leonard took that offer at Cambridge?"

Howard looked around at all the sealed boxes in Leonard's office, everything of Leonard's seemed to be gone now and the sealed boxes the only possible location Leonard's stuff could have gone. Also everyone, associated with the Physics Department, knew about Leonard's offer from Cambridge, news like that traveled fast through the nerd vine. "I don't know, but this seems to indicate he is going somewhere." Howard answered.

"I thought you said that Leonard and Penny patched things up?" Raj accused.

"That is what Bernie told me, I'm only repeating what she said." Howard said in his defense.

"Well dude, I think Bernadette got it wrong." Raj responded.

Howard just nodded, "You might be right."

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It actually took Leonard all afternoon to get the paperwork done and he just decided to drive to the studio after he left personnel, getting there only five minutes after Penny called to her delight. They ate out that evening too and managed to quietly sneak into their apartment before Sheldon came out into the hall looking for them after hearing them open the apartment door. They went to bed early that night, but wouldn't fall asleep till almost two hours later, Penny being especially frisky that night and Leonard enjoying her returning confidence.

However at the Wolowitz-Rostenkowski home, Bernadette was sitting on the couch staring at her husband after he told her what him and Raj found today in Leonard's office. "I can't believe he would leave after all that happened." she said in disbelief.

"His whole office was packed up, Bernie, ask Raj." Howard repeated to her.

"I haven't talked to her, do you think she wanted to be alone with Leonard because she was trying to get him to change his mind about leaving for that offer?" she really hoped that wasn't the case, because she knew Penny would be devastated.

"I don't know, we haven't gotten to talk to Leonard yet." Howard responded.

"This is terrible. I really thought Leonard wanted her back, that poor girl." Bernadette said sadly and she quickly grabbed her phone to text Penny.

HONEY, ARE YOU OKAY?

Penny's text tone went off on her phone located on the nightstand. Only a minute before she wouldn't have heard it, she had been still in the process of returning to the world from the place Leonard sent her with his love making. But now she was just laying on him trying to get her strength back and the phone was only about a foot away, so on instinct she picked it up. She gave a confused look at Bernadette's message that was probably noticeable on her face because Leonard immediately picked up on her confusion.

"Who is it, it isn't Sheldon is it?" Leonard asked

"No not Sheldon, Bernadette asking me if I'm okay." Penny responded.

Leonard looked at her seriously wondering if Penny was having problems and not telling him, "Why would she ask that?"

Penny shrugged, "I have no idea." then Penny smiled, "Should I tell her how I'm really doing right now." her smile now a devilish smirk. She then started to type.

"You're going to tell her you are resting after having sex." Leonard said in surprise.

"No, I will tell her I'm trying to recover my senses after having a mind blowing orgasm that left me feeling like Jell-O and…" Penny stopped typing and rubbed her head against Leonard as a small spasm passed through her, remnants from her orgasm, finally sighing, then starting to type again after it passed, "and I'm still not over it."

Leonard smiled at her admission to him about his love making, "Thank you, but I can't take all the credit, you have been easy to please lately."

"Yeah I read about that too on the internet, it seems some women become less sexual during pregnancy, while others are horny all the time. I guess I'm closer to the horny all the time part." She giggled

Leonard chuckled, "and you are going to tell Bernadette that?"

"No silly." Penny then showed him her phone.

I AM PRETTY WORE OUT, THINGS HAVE BEEN REALLY HARD FOR ME TONIGHT.

Leonard chuckled again, "She is going to see right through that message and know we are making love."

Penny giggled and hit send, "Maybe."

Bernadette looked at her phone as soon as the message alert sounded, reading it and sighing as she looked at her husband. "I think you are right Howard, it sounds like her heart is broken again, so something must have happened with Leonard."

"Are you going over to see her." Howard asked with concern.

"Is Leonard still around?" Bernadette asked

"I think so, I don't think he left yet." he responded

"Well then I will just let her be with him alone like she wanted. I'll check on her this weekend." Bernadette sadly said, Howard nodding in support.

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Thursday, Leonard dropped Penny off at the studio then went back to the apartment to work from home, since he didn't have an office. He decided to just work on answering emails and catching up on some of his data analysis that he had been neglecting, since he left for Cambridge. It was a couple hours later, after 11 AM, while eating a sandwich, and thinking about some of the possibilities the data offered, that he had been looking at, that Leonard suddenly had a thought. He quickly got on his computer and started typing down what he was thinking and after an hour stopped to review what he had typed.

He now reread what he wrote and sat there stunned, 'No one really talks about the surface tension' he mumbles to himself as he tries to reason out a theory. It is a couple minutes more, after refining his words on the computer that he sits back again, now astonished, 'Oh my God, this is so exciting' he says to himself, the basic theory he has in front of him, is something new that hasn't been looked at before, by anyone. He knows he has a lot of math to do and math is not his strongest suit, but he also knows he has the time to work his way through it. Leonard stands up and stretches, then goes over to grab some paper, then sits at Penny's kitchen island to start the math, looking at the clock, 12:30 PM.

Leonard now hurriedly writes down the basic equations he would need to solve, they seemed to flow now from his mind without effort, and if he can solve him, it would prove his theory was possible. It was over 2 hours later that he just stared at the nine sheets of paper, the equations though difficult were now all there, he just had to solve them now. He was keyed up and full of energy, he never could believe that some of the work he did, before he went to Cambridge, would lead to this. It was then he looked at the clock again, and froze, he needed to leave, the appointment that afternoon was too important to miss because it involve his future family and Leonard knew, because of that, science was going to have to wait. Leonard shut down his laptop, saving his work, then stacked his papers in a need pile under it, taking one last look at his work that morning, now on Penny's kitchen island, before grabbing his keys and heading out the door.

The last short scene of the episode was complete before 2 PM, which made Penny's acting for the episode over too. There were still a couple final large scenes, for the episode, yet to be finish, but Penny was not in them so she was basically done for the week. She still needed to come in tomorrow in case they want to re-shoot a scene, that she was in, after they reviewed her scenes tonight, but otherwise she is done for this episode. Since it is still a little early in the afternoon, Penny just decided to just hang around watching them tape the biggest scene in that episode, but after almost 2 hours of mistakes and rewrites, she gives her friend Carol, who is in the scene, a sympathetic wave and turns to change out of her stage clothes and clean up to leave. Penny now pulls out her phone to tell Leonard to come get her, knowing if he takes her time changing and cleaning up she will not have to wait long for his arrival.

"Sweetie, I'm done, so anytime you want to pick me up, I'm ready." Penny figures she has at least 30-45 minutes before she sees him.

"Great." Leonard is excited she is done early. "I'm almost there, maybe 10 minutes out."

Penny is stunned, "Huh." and takes a couple seconds to process what he had told her. "You'll be here in 10 minutes?"

"Give or take, it depends on the lights." Leonard responds.

"Okay Sweetie…..I'll be ready. I love you." she hears his 'I love you, too.' then runs to wardrobe, she just went from have a leisurely 30 minutes to now less than 10, and in such a hurry she doesn't even think to ask him why he is almost there.

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Penny came flying out of the studio door, to find Leonard sitting in the car playing with the radio, his good mood obvious to Penny, who is now wondering what is going on. "Sweetie, I love you being early to pick me up…..by whhyyy." She asks in her cutest way.

Leonard now turns nervous and looks at her, "I have a surprise and I was hoping you would get off early today because you said yesterday that all your scenes were almost done and you might be done early." Leonard then took a breath, "I have made us an appointment and I thought if I could pick you up early, we would be able to make it, it was the latest I could get."

Penny was a now even more confused, 'an appointment?', and a 'surprise', she was clueless what was going on, plus Leonard seemed so nervous, she wondered if she was going to like what was going on. "What kind of surprise." Penny said in a cute sing-song voice, she was acting and she was actually concerned what was going on, so any way she could get information from him before the 'surprise' seemed necessary to her now.

Leonard didn't know if to tell her, or not, so just decided not to, just in case she didn't want to go to the appointment because it was too much of a big step for them. "I can't tell you Penny, you just need to see."

Penny nodded and sat quietly as Leonard drove out of the studio lot, into the beginning of another wave of rush hour traffic. She didn't know what to do because Leonard's demeanor was worrying her, he was trying to be upbeat but she could tell he was nervous. So she just sat there in the car as he worked his way through traffic until he began to take a new direction, he had never taken her before. The next ten minutes Penny sat in wonderment, looking out the window as Leonard drove to somewhere she did not recognize, finally stopping in front of a nice building, that looked like an apartment building.

After taking a good look at the building, from the car, Penny just turned to look at him, "Leonard?"

"This is the surprise." he said quietly

"I don't understand?" She responded

"I made an appointment to look at a new apartment." Leonard then just looked at her with hope in his eyes.