Took a while but managed to finish this one. No idea how much I will be able to write this month, work is just crazy in December and then there's Christmas...

Enjoy :)

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters that appeared in the show.

"Jesus fucking Christ, how much longer?" Penny squealed, feeling as if her limbs and breasts were trying to retract into her body.

"Only one more minute." Leonard chuckled, lying next to her in the cold tub.

"How can you have a penis still on the outside of your body if you do this regularly?" she wondered.

"Oh come on, it's not that bad." he laughed, splashing her with a bit of water.

"Leonard, I swear to god, if you do that again, I will smother you with these oversized shorts you gave me."

"Will you still be wearing them while you do it?" he asked, his face deadly serious before his lips twitched up in a barely suppressed smile.

"Why... you... I... god dammit." she cursed, unable to come up with a comeback.

"On the plus side, it made you forget about the cold long enough for the minute to pass, so lets get back into the hot tub."

"Oh thank you lord." Penny almost cried in relief as she left the cold tub, holding on to the shorts so they wouldn't fall off before quickly hopping into the hot tub, feeling the comfort of the warm liquid surrounding her. "Sweet mercy, what a feeling."

"Not a person who likes cool temperatures, are we?" Leonard grinned as he joined her, more slowly though.

"No!" she shook her head. "I love to shower hot, bathe hot and stay in hot tubs for hours, if possible."

"Well, just wait until a job goes south and you have to dive headfirst into snow while being clad in underwear." he winked.

"Did that happen to you?" she looked surprised. "What did you do to be in underwear? Had to... sex up a target?"

"What? No." he made a face. "I had to chase a target to his mountain hideout and when I changed, his underlings arrived, earlier than I expected."

"How did you get away?"

"I hopped on one of their snowmobiles, whose key they had so kindly left in the ignition and put a grenade on one of their other snowmobiles before I turned tail and drove downhill."

"Wouldn't they chase you anyway?" she wondered.

"They were a bit preoccupied with the avalanche that the explosion caused." he shrugged.

"Wait, how do you outrun an avalanche?" she looked wide-eyed at him.

"You don't." he told her. "You can only try to get away from it sideways and that's what I did."

"Holy shit!" she gasped, wondering what kind of jobs she might do in the future, if she passed all the tests. "And you went down the hill in your underwear?"

"Oh yeah, the people at the lodge at the foot of the mountain looked quite surprised but they took me for the avalanche survivor and didn't ask many questions while they gave me some warm clothes."

"Any more extreme jobs?"

"Yes, one in the desert, that was hard." he groaned.

"How would you do that?"

"You rent a camel, take lots of water and dress in sandy colors to blend in." he said. "And you hurry to find and take out your target."

"Do you have that kind of jobs often?"

"No, most are here in the states, some are in South America, like my last one."

"Oh, what did you have to do?"

"My target was the leader of a guerrilla cell that had been causing trouble." he told her.

"How did you kill him?" she wanted to know.

"Sniper rifle." he shrugged. "Didn't even have to enter the compound he and his cell were in."

"Didn't you fear retribution from a group of armed men?" she asked.

"Of course, especially against the town I used as my base of operations." he nodded. "But I had taken care of that by calling a friend of mine in the Colombian military to send a unit there."

"Was it needed?"

"Oh yes, they had quite the battle." Leonard nodded. "But a hundred guys in pickup trucks can't do much against three times as many trained soldiers with armored vehicle support."

"Damn." Penny muttered as she listened to what the ramifications of a job could be. "I guess I'll learn all of that in the next phase of my training?"

"Yes, pretty much." Leonard confirmed. "But most jobs don't have these things to think about. If you kill some rich guy who raped children, that doesn't have repercussions that could kill innocent people. Especially if you kill that person in a way that isn't an obvious assassination."

"Where will that training be?" she wanted to know.

"Pasadena." Leonard looked for her reaction, given that it was close to the city that Penny spent the darker years of her life in.

"Um... okay." she nodded. "And why there?"

"Because he lives and works there." Leonard replied.

"Who?"

"The man who'll do the training with you."

"And how long will that be?"

"Again, that is under his purview." Leonard shrugged. "But given his personality, he will want you out of there as soon as possible."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"He doesn't like his work to be disturbed and he doesn't think women can be good assassins."

"He seems to be quite a jerk." she huffed.

"Well, yeah, lots of people think so but it's simply who he is."

"What happens if I fail his test?" Penny wanted to know. "Would he kill me too?"

"Frankly, I would be very surprised if you fail." Leonard waved off her concern. "He doesn't even give tests, he just gives you his knowledge and sends you on your way."

"That's an... interesting attitude." Penny chuckled.

"Actually, it's quite sensible." Leonard smiled. "In his mind, once you have finished your combat training and weren't killed for failing it, the rest is just brain work. Essentially, you have to memorize a lot of stuff or write it down and keep it secret by, for example, creating your own coded language."

"And that works?"

"For me it does." he shrugged again. "It's all just about exchanging words, like a shopping list saying 'Get a case of beer, some chips and a bottle of tequila' means I need an assault rifle, a box of ammo and one or two fragmentation grenades."

"Jesus." Penny laughed, her mind conjuring up the image of Leonard holding a rifle, ammo belt over his shoulder and two grenades hanging from his belt, dressed in jungle camouflage and black stripes over his face like Rambo.

"But these days, I usually know the kind of weapons I need and in the places where the organization provides them, there's no need to use coded language." he continued.

"You have to pay them with money or those coins?"

"Coins." Leonard nodded. "One gold coin gives you a high-end rifle or two handguns plus plenty of ammo.

"That's something I need to ask, where do I get my first coins? I mean, if I get them by buying them from that organization of yours but I need them to buy the tools, how does it get started?"

"You need some money, of course." Leonard explained. "If you had absolutely no money, your trainer would often give you a small loan for you to repay after your first job. But, as I said before, I vaguely remember giving you five million dollars."

"Yeah, yeah, I know." she giggled. "I hope my parents don't spend it all."

"Would they, given that it's your money?" he wondered.

"No, I don't think they would unless they have some really big emergency." Penny told him.

"Well, time's long been up, lets get out of here." Leonard said, getting out of the tub.

"Aw." Penny moped, enjoying the warmth but following him nonetheless, immediately starting to shiver in the colder air. "Jesus, it's cold now."

"Here." Leonard chuckled, handing her a towel and pointing to a soft robe.

Penny quickly dried herself off and donned the robe, wrapping herself into the soft goodness of the material. It was probably the most comfortable piece of clothing she had ever worn, her parents never able to afford those kinds of thread counts or materials that made clothing so great to wear. She looked at Leonard in his own robe, marveling at the abilities he had shown during their training.

If she saw him on the streets in regular clothing, she would never think of him as someone who would be able to do that kind of training course that he did and she copied. She had never seen a salmon ladder in real life, much less used one and seeing Leonard doing chin-ups and jumping up with the bar several steps before doing a three foot back jump with the bar to the other half of the ladder and getting back down was an eye-opener.

And to her own surprise, she had been able to do it once she had the technique down. Her training had enabled her to do chin-ups with the flourish, though she had been unable to do the jump to the other side of the ladder for the chin ups downwards. The weapons training had been fun either, Penny really enjoying using two blades, or in this case, sticks, and twirling around trying to hit Leonard, who had been annoyingly able to block every attack she did while he gave her small hits with his sticks, often on her butt, giving her a cheeky wink when she was growling at him.

"You desire something specific for dinner?" he asked. "I was going to order in."

"I don't know, pizza?" she shrugged. "Been a while since I ate one."

"Alright." he nodded, picking up a his phone. "You want a standard pizza or an individual one?"

"I can choose the toppings?" she asked.

"Of course." he nodded and handed her the phone, where she saw the homepage of the pizza place, which looked like a local one, not a large chain. "Just choose a standard pizza and click on the modify toppings button."

"Nice." Penny whistled and began working on it.

She chose a regular pizza and added some stuff like barbecue and even steak strips before adding some spice and extra cheese and a cesar salad. Once she was done, she handed Leonard the phone and he added his own order before sending it away. He showed her the progress bar that the pizza place had copied from what one of the large chains had introduced and she was impressed by how fast it went up.

"Damn, they work fast." she told him.

"Well, it's Wednesday, not that much business." he chuckled and put his phone away. "I'll get a notification when the order is done and on its way."

"That's cool." Penny said. "In Los Angeles, you called and they told you it'll be there in x minutes."

"Always found that strange, how can you promise a twenty minute delivery if you have to make the pizza or pizzas first and you have no idea about traffic." Leonard nodded.

"So they don't promise a set time for delivery?" Penny asked.

"No, they tell you when it's done and on its way. From then on, it can be twenty or thirty minutes, depending on traffic and how much other stuff they have to deliver. And the route between here and the pizza place is famously free of lots of traffic. I mean you saw this morning how few cars were on the road when he drove to the cafe."

"True." she nodded.

"So, I reckon about fifteen minutes between them finishing making the pizzas and them arriving here." Leonard said as they heard the notification sound from his phone, telling them that the pizzas were done and on their way. "Which will be in about fifteen minutes."

"Huh, so what do we do until then?" she asked.

"I have an idea." he shrugged and grabbed her arm, pulling her up and hoisting her over his shoulder and carrying her upstairs towards his bedroom.

"What are you doing?" she chuckled.

"I am carrying you to my bedroom, where I will bend you over my bed and take you from behind. Only a quickie but we won't have time for more." he told her point blank.

"Really?" she giggled, making him stop.

"You did say that I should take the initiative too." he reminded her. "Want me to stop?"

"Did you hear me say that?" she said, smacking his ass. "Keep moving, the clock is ticking."

And while he slammed her from behind, part of her felt sadness at the prospect of him having to bring her back to his father in a few hours. But until then, she would enjoy her time with him.

Penny sat up, groaning from tiredness, and rubbed her eyes before standing up and walking into the bathroom. She switched on the lights and looked into the mirror, bleary eyes looking back at her as she did her morning routine, splashing her face with water and then brushing her teeth while using the toilet at the same time.

She put on her usual sports underwear plus long, thick sweatpants along with a sweater and fleece jacket. Two pairs of socks and a thick hat rounded up her outfit and she walked down the stairs to put on her special running shoes, the cleats on their bottoms clicking on the heated hardwood floor. She opened the door and took a deep breath, the cold temperatures making her lungs burn and she coughed in reflex before doing her stretching exercises.

Ten minutes later, she began running, using the well-worn pathway towards the forest that Alfred and Leonard owned. She sighed inwardly at her thoughts about him. It's been three months since her day off and Leonard hasn't visited her or his dad once. Alfred had told her that he had accepted a job that necessitated more than just a few days of research from home, which she took as him being somewhere, maybe impersonating a butler or something to learn about a target. She wondered, if at some point once she was like him, she would had to do the same and how far she might have to go for information.

When she reached the forest, the pathways weren't flattened like the ones on the rest of Alfred's property. Freshly fallen, powdery snow was crunching under her shoes, the only indication of her being still on the path the colored sticks Leonard and Alfred had placed alongside it. The cold was trying to seep into her core as she ran, the heat produced from the running barely able to withstand the freezing temperatures. She cursed at the weather. Five degrees Fahrenheit was something she hadn't experienced since she was a child, snowy winters being completely unknown in southern California.

"Tyson, heel!" she suddenly heard a female voice shout, making her turn around and see a familiar dog running at her.

"Hey, boy!" Penny squealed and knelt down before the large canine almost bowled her over and started licking her face.

"Uh, hello." the woman who had called for him to stop approached her, Major at her side.

"Hey, Major." Penny giggled and put out her arm, the other dog starting forward to join his brother.

"Um..." the woman tried again while looking strange at the blond woman who the dogs were currently showing their happiness to see her.

"Hi, I'm Penny." Penny greeted her.

"Cecilia." the other woman greeted her back. "How do you know these two?"

"Oh, I'm Leonard's girlfriend." Penny smiled, voicing for the first time what she felt, even though she and Leonard still hadn't talked about what their relationship was. "And how do you Leonard?"

"My dad and I helped Leonard train these two. And since he's often out of town for work, we walk them while he's away." Cecilia told her. "But, if you're his girlfriend, why didn't he ask you?"

"Oh..." Penny hesitated. "My work schedule doesn't allow me to give them the care they'd need."

"Are you from around here?" Cecilia asked.

"No, I'm from Nebraska, but I met Leonard in Los Angeles." Penny said, deciding to omit her four years long nightmare though. "Now I'm... uh... working with his dad."

"Oh, then I understand how you don't have much time." Cecilia chuckled. "That old codger is a slave driver."

"I wouldn't say that." Penny looked wide-eyed at her, wondering why she had such a low opinion of Alfred. "He's a hard taskmaster but he's not abusive."

"Relax, I'm just kidding." Cecilia laughed. "It's like a game me and my dad play with him whenever we meet. So, how did you and Leonard meet? Is your dad the owner of the company that hired him?"

"What?" she looked confused.

"Well, Leonard is a systems analyst, whatever that means, so I assumed..."

"Uh, no... we met... uh... at a reception." Penny told a half-truth, since they had attended a reception, though didn't meet there. "And he was the first one who went through the trouble to get to know me and look past just my looks even if his interest in me was most likely due to them."

"I understand that." Cecilia nodded. "It's hard as a woman to get respect in some types of jobs. Few people think I'm a good dog trainer because they feel I don't look tough or big enough, as if dogs care about that."

"I know, Leonard said the same thing, it's all about your energy and how you project yourself." Penny nodded.

"Exactly." Cecilia agreed. "Though I have to say, I'm a bit jealous."

"Of my relationship with Leonard?" Penny was surprised.

"No, your relationship with him." the other woman pointed to Tyson, who was sitting in the snow, his head in her hand and eyes closed as Penny scratched his chin, clearly enjoying the attention. "My dad told me that malignois only bond to one person, so I assumed he had done that with Leonard but now I'm not so sure."

"Tyson is a sweetheart." Penny smiled. "Major too. I love their seemingly boundless energy. Is it true that if they don't get their exercise, they become aggressive?"

"Unfortunately yes." Cecilia nodded. "That's a common problem when it comes to dogs that were specifically bred for working purposes. But no dog is inherently aggressive. For example, pitbulls have a very bad reputation but in earlier times, during the Victorian age, people routinely trusted them with their kids."

"What was the worst dog breed you have ever seen?" Penny asked. "I mean, in those you trained or were called up to train?"

"The worst dog I've ever experienced was a chihuahua." Cecilia told her. "The owner brought it in because it kept biting her son, even when he just wanted to sit down on the couch with his mom."

"Really?" Penny gasped. "Why would he do that?"

"The woman had coddled the dog so much that it was completely misbehaving. It didn't allow anyone coming close to the mom." Cecilia said. "She was a single mom too, so I kept wondering what a possible husband would have experienced when he wanted to get into the marital bed."

"So, what did you do?" Penny wanted to know.

"Nothing." Cecilia shrugged. "I tried to teach her what to do but the mom didn't want to do them because she thought it would upset the dog."

"Wait, what?" Penny thought she misheard. "She was more concerned with what the dog felt than the fact that the dog was biting her son?"

"Correct, and I told her that." Cecilia nodded. "I told her that no training in the world will change the dog because the she wouldn't continue to treat the dog the way it needed to be treated to stay trained."

"So, what happened?"

"Last I heard, the son moved out on his eighteenth birthday." Cecilia told her. "Now the mom can be all alone with her dog."

"That's so weird." Penny couldn't help but give a wince. "Alright, I need to get going so I can finish my run."

"Yeah, knowing Alfred, he'll already be counting the seconds." Cecilia grinned.

Penny gave a last rub to the dogs before starting her run again. She heard at least one of the dogs running after her until a whistle stopped him dead in his tracks and made him go back. Penny felt a pang of sadness, wondering if it was so bad if the dogs were living at Alfred's house during Leonard's absence. She would even volunteer to take care of them, using her morning run to give them exercise. Maybe she could approach the subject with Alfred, at least ask why he wouldn't take the dogs in the first place.

Forty minutes later, she arrived back at the house, breathing hard and stepping into the anteroom between the kitchen and the backyard to take off her shoes and clean the floor from the slush she had brought into the room. Once barefoot, she walked into the kitchen where Alfred was busy at the stove, flipping pancakes and stacking them up on a plate.

Penny hurried upstairs and shed her clothes, grabbing a towel and hurrying into the bathroom to give herself a quick shower before dressing in a new set of training clothes and returning back to the kitchen. She helped Alfred set the table and sat down, waiting for him to finish with the last pancake and put the plate onto the table.

"Can I ask you something?" Penny spoke up as they ate.

"What did I tell you about questions?" Alfred smiled at her.

"This isn't about the training or the business." Penny clarified. "On my run this morning, I met a woman named Cecilia and she was walking Leonard's dogs."

"Yes, she's George's daughter and she helped her dad train them." Alfred nodded.

"Well, why don't you take the dogs when Leonard is away?" Penny wondered.

"Because, while I love having them here when he's visiting, I'm simply too old to take care of them full time." Alfred sighed. "I simply can't give them the exercise they need anymore."

"But I could." Penny argued. "I can take them with me on my run in the morning and I have no problem playing with them in the evening."

"Are you sure?" Alfred looked at her. "They can be quite a handful."

"I am." Penny nodded. "Leonard said that Tyson is bonding with me already so it will also be a chance to push that forward."

"You do realize that he won't give you Tyson once you're done training, right?" Alfred looked at her. "Tell me something. What do you expect in terms of your relationship with him once your training is finished?"

Alfred's words made Penny pause for a few seconds. Thoughts rushed through her mind, all the images of her living either close or even with Leonard as they both did jobs that helped people, either on their own or together and then returning home to the other. Even though she had voiced being his girlfriend for the first time today, she and Leonard still really hadn't cleared that up. Were they a couple? Or just bed buddies? She really needed to talk to Leonard about it.

"Well?" Alfred looked at her, noticing her pause.

"I want to be with him." Penny admitted.

"Do you love him?" he asked.

"I..." Penny hesitated, thinking about the fact that she was missing him every time he wasn't there, enjoyed every minute she was with him even without the sex and looked forward to seeing him again. "Yes, I do."

"Good." Alfred smiled. "Because he does too."

"Wh... what?" Penny became fish-mouthed. "How do you know that? Did he tell you?"

"No, but he's my son." Alfred kept smiling. "And I was the one teaching him how to read body language."

"I... okay." Penny beamed, even she was a bit overwhelmed.

"One other thing." Alfred added. "It's Christmas in a few days, and usually, me and Leonard go out to eat on Christmas Eve. Since you don't seem to get along well with your family, would you like to join us?"

"What?" Penny looked at him confused. "I love my family, why would you think I'm not?"

"Because since you've been here, I haven't seen or heard you contact them." Alfred pointed out.

"Because Leonard told me I couldn't." she argued back.

"I'm pretty sure Leonard told you that you wouldn't be able to see them during your time here." Alfred corrected her. "There's no rule that you can't call them during your free time as long as you don't tell them about the things they shouldn't know, though Leonard told me that your parents know about what he does and you are learning."

"They do yes." she nodded, feeling stupid for not having called her parents during her time here. "Hard not to given that they and my sister have seen him in action and were held hostage by that other guy."

"Right." Alfred remembered. "Well, finish breakfast and get ready, we're going to have another sparring fight."

"Okay." Penny nodded. "What's the code word for today?"

"Lentils." Alfred told her and got up.

Ever since Penny's back injury, Alfred had instituted a safe word for the day, to say if an action during one of their sparring matches resulted in a real injury, given that he he painfully taught her that there's no pause in a fight until the enemy is down and out. Several times, Alfred had called a break and then hit her hard once she let down her guard and since then, she had never done it again.

She finished eating and brought her plate to the washing machine, letting Alfred put it in while she went into his gym and began her stretching exercises. Ever since her injury, Alfred had changed the plan to an exhaustive stretching regime, often going up to an hour just loosening joints before they fought. That, combined with her doing yoga to avoid the cold tub Alfred had offered her had prevented any more extreme injuries save for a few bruises here and there.

Once they were done, Penny went into the makeshift ring, in reality just a few wooden sticks denoting an enclosed area. She waited for Alfred to decide on the weapons and caught the stick when he threw it to her. While she had proven to be most proficient using two weapons, she had also learned to use one, though sometimes she flailed her left arm around instead of using her left hand to hold the weapon in both.

"Begin." Alfred said and went on the offensive.

She began defending frantically, the older man's attacks coming in hard and fast. She was still mesmerized at his ability to fight that way given his age and despite her efforts, Alfred managed to hit her a few times on the arms and legs. She leaned back and kicked forward, Alfred blocking the attack but it gave her time to get out of his reach and prepare her own attack.

She went back in, on the offensive this time but as with all the fights before, Alfred expertly blocked everything she threw at him. Her stick only hit his, never coming even close to his body and he pushed her backwards and forced her back into defense. She defended with every ounce of her ability, managing to not get hit again and even to go back on the attack.

"Come on, stop trying to hit me and hit me!" Alfred called and the way he said it lit a fire insider her.

She furiously attacked him, her stick moving faster than it ever had. Her body moved with a lithe grace she had never managed before, turning and twisting as she tried to hit him. Then it happened. For a fraction of a second, she saw an opening and she dove straight through, the end of the stick slamming against Alfred's chest. That connection lasted only for half a second before Alfred slammed the stick away with his and brought his defense back up but before Penny could attack again, Alfred took three steps away from her.

"Lentils." he said, ending the fight.

"Oh my god, did I hurt you?" she asked, dropping her stick. "I didn't hit you that hard, did it?"

"No." Alfred shook his head and smiled widely, like a parent watching his kid ride the bike alone without training wheels.

"Then why did you stop?" she wondered.

"Because your training has ended." Alfred still smiled.

"Wh... what?" she was surprised. "That's it? Just like that?"

"Yes, that was it, at least part one of the trials." he nodded. "You learned everything combat-related I can teach you and since your remaining training will be done by someone else, you and I are finished."

"Um... what now?" she felt a bit steamrolled. "Do I have to move out now?"

"No, you can stay here until Leonard gets back and takes you to your next destination." Alfred said. "Also, I'm going to get the dogs here, so I expect you to take care of them."

"Will do." Penny said happily, feeling like jumping up and down. "But, what am I going to do now?"

"You should still train and do target practice to get more proficiency with guns." Alfred told her. "We can also do more sparring matches, just ask."

"But what is part two of the test?" Penny asked him.

"You will know soon." Alfred winked at her. "I'll get into my office and prepare the second part, you can do whatever you like in the meantime."

"Okay." Penny beamed and ran back to the house to shower and look forward to a day of leisure and wait for the dogs to arrive.

Well, part of Penny's trial is done. What will part two be? ^^

Review please :)