CHAPTER 4
Leonard's feeling pretty good. Howard's mom had a homemade casserole for the boys. Afterwards, they tucked into the living room to finally sit through a movie without the TV acting up. As he climbs the stairs, Leonard is already calculating how best to approach Sheldon about the both of them pitching in to buy a new set. It won't be that difficult to convince him to get a new one, it's an entirely different matter when they get into what kind and how much. No doubt, Sheldon will have plenty of thoughts on that.
Leonard enters the apartment. He sees Sheldon sitting at his desk, eyes still glued to the screen. Did he even move? "Hey, Sheldon. Did you—what happened here?!"
Once Leonard finished opening the door the rest of the way, he was greeted with a terrifying sight. A mess.
A mess.
Since when does Sheldon make a mess?
There are papers strewn about the floor. Books—comic and leatherbound alike—lay open on the couch, chairs, and coffee table. The television set has been dragged further towards the center of the room, near the covered coffee table. Beside the chair is Sheldon's whiteboard. Its pearly surface can barely be seen with the insane amount of scribbling covering it.
"Sheldon, what—how—what did you do?"
Sheldon, only now having registered his roommate's entrance, doesn't even spare a passing glance. "I am simply working on a theory."
Leonard blinks at him. There's something odd in his voice. Off. It doesn't sit well with him, like something inside his friend is cracking. Leonard adjusts his own tone to a placating one. "Well, buddy, it seems you've been working hard. Maybe you should try to sleep on it now?"
"Sleep," Sheldon repeats the word, still not taking his eyes off the screen.
"Yeah, sleep."
"Sleep?" Sheldon now finally looks to Leonard. He blinks once before a pinched look, one that tells Leonard his suggestion will go completely ignored, appears on Sheldon's face. "I am fine, thank you."
"You sure? Seems you might have been going kinda hard while we were away. Maybe it's time for a break, you know, like I suggested before I left? Here, I'll even help you clean up the—"
"Don't touch those!"
The bite in Sheldon's words is harsh and immediate. Leonard's hand freezes an inch away from the first paper resting near his foot. Sheldon has finally moved. He is on his feet. His shoulders have a hunch to them that suggests his muscles forgot they don't have to bend like they have been the whole evening. His eyes have the same harsh edge as his words.
Leonard finds himself speechless as his roommate towers above him.
In an uncharacteristic show of social recognition, Sheldon seems to realize that he has frightened his friend. His shoulders straighten, his features smooth out into what could be described as a calm expression were it not for the whirlwind of calculation going on in his eyes. It's like Leonard can see the cogs turning.
"Perhaps turning in for the night is the correct decision," Sheldon says. "Thank you, Leonard. We shall now both retire."
"Retire…? Sheldon, what about the mess?"
"My carefully curated notes are in exactly the place I need them to be. Please refrain from touching them."
"But I can't even make it to the bathroom!"
"Nonsense. There are several spots you can step without disturbing my work."
"The apartment can't stay like this! Whatever this is, it can't be more organized? I don't know, put it into a file folder or something."
Sheldon's eyes dart around the room, scanning his things, before landing back on Leonard who has gotten to his feet at this point. His hands anxiously twist the strap of his messenger bag.
"Agreed," Sheldon says. "I propose we leave my work exactly as it is until tomorrow afternoon after work, at which point I will personally see to its organizing in a way that will no longer hinder your enjoyment of the shared space. Is this acceptable?"
Leonard sighs. It's nearly eleven and he has work tomorrow. He's too tired for this. "Alright, fine. Sounds good to me. I won't touch your stuff."
"Thank you, Leonard." Sheldon turns and begins to navigate his way towards the other end of the room. "If you follow my footsteps, I will guide you to your room."
With a shake of his head, Leonard follows his nutcase of a roommate.
Sheldon does not go to bed. Well, he does, but he follows his nightly ritual of getting ready for bed with no intention of actually falling asleep. The ruse was necessary in order to get Leonard to get to sleep and not disturb him. Instead, Sheldon sits cross-legged on top of his covers and stares at his bedside clock as the minutes tick by.
"Two hours, forty-two minutes, and thirty-seven seconds," Sheldon mutters to himself. He double checks the time with his wristwatch. Yes, that is correct. Down to the second.
Sheldon had considered telling Leonard of his theory, of what the television pattern told him, but Sheldon refrained for several reasons. The first being a practical one. He is tired and he would rather not spend the time and energy on trying to convince his friend of what Sheldon saw but Leonard himself did not see. That usually took more effort than Sheldon cared to use.
The second is because he—Sheldon dares to admit it only in his own mind—isn't sure about his theory. If he goes into the living room and it is not so, then he risks looking like a fool in front of Leonard, and Sheldon will be forced back to the proverbial drawing board on what to do next.
The third…what if any of his working theories are true? What if…?
If any of Sheldon's theories are true, that will be the best- and worst-case scenario.
"Two hours, thirty-nine minutes and four seconds."
It's a meditative thing almost, counting down. However, it is proving counterproductive. Sheldon finds himself wanting to fall asleep. This must be like the trick his mother tried to get him to adapt in order to "turn off his brain". Sheldon still cannot fathom what good counting sheep would do.
It's going to be a long two hours, thirty-eight minutes, and fifty-nine seconds.
Five minutes before the designated time, Sheldon creeps out of his bedroom, careful to step on the parts of the floor that won't squeak. He bypasses his whiteboard, moves around the book edges hanging off the chair and coffee table, and seats himself in his spot which is completely clear of any sort of debris.
And he waits.
It's dark and quiet and serene. Without the glow of his laptop or the television, the night takes over the living room. There is something serene about no one being around and no demands of work or friends.
Sheldon stops his leg from bouncing which he hadn't realized he was doing at first. He flexes his hands for something to do. Should he be doing something? The numbers seemed clear. After the S.O.S message and the word P.E.N.N.Y. being spelled out, Sheldon was given numbers. At first, he thought they were coordinates, but after a while, he ruled that out and instead found them to be a timestamp. Pasadena, California, Pacific Standard Time, two-thirteen a.m., current date.
Sheldon will find out in exactly one minute and eighteen seconds.
He swallows. His mouth feels dry. He wants to get a glass of water but doesn't dare in case he's away when something happens.
Sheldon takes a deep breath and counts down the last twenty seconds to give his mind something to do.
Quietly, under his breath, "Twenty, nineteen, eighteen…" and so it goes until "three, two, one."
The television suddenly turning on at that exact moment is not totally unexpected considering the television was the mode for communication previously. What is unexpected is the video that plays. It is not the twenty-four-hour news channel that Sheldon left it on.
Penny's face instead adorns the screen.
"Sheldon?"
LOUD. Sheldon's panicked scramble for the remote hidden under a pile of papers nearly knocks him to the floor, but he manages to turn the volume down drastically before Leonard wakes up.
"Penny?" Sheldon hears how out-of-breath he sounds. It's like his chest is constricted and he can't get a full breath as he sees the person he's been looking for day and night nonstop for three weeks straight.
She doesn't respond. She just waits. She frowns and sighs. "Sheldon?"
"I'm here," Sheldon says. He wants to speak louder, but that same constricting feeling keeps his vocal cords from fully flexing. Even if he wanted to shout for Leonard, which he wonders if he should, Sheldon doesn't think he physically can.
Penny speaks again. "This thing is only one way, so I hope you're there, Sheldon. And Leonard, if you're there too. Hi. I'll give you a minute if you're not."
I'm here. I'm here! Penny! Sheldon's mental scream does as much good as his physical voice. In the moment of waiting, Sheldon calculates what this could be. His first thought was that since he had left the channel on the news and Penny's face appeared, first instinct told him it was a shot of her being shown saying they had found her body in a gutter somewhere.
The second thought, after she had spoken, Sheldon wondered if this was a ransom note. Some lesser genius somewhere found out that Sheldon values Penny's friendship above all else and is holding her captive until Sheldon divulges all his most promising theories in order to take credit for themselves.
Sheldon tries to analyze Penny's surroundings to get a better understanding of where she might be. It's a pristine room, a simple white wall behind her with only her face and upper shoulders visible. Nothing to give away her location or her captor.
Penny buries her face in her hands. She mumbles something that has Sheldon crawling towards the television to hear. He barely catches, "—hope you're there, you crazy whack-a-doodle."
Then Penny removes her hands, sits up straighter, and gets the look on her face that Sheldon recognizes as one of her fight-not-flight faces. Sheldon takes this moment to assess her health. She seems pale, but not malnourished. Stressed perhaps. Her hair is not as bouncy or as shiny as usual. Likely she does not have access to her usual products.
"Alright, you better be there," Penny says. "You claim to be a genius, so you better have figured out the memo. There's only so much they can do up here without arousing suspicion."
Up here. Sheldon catalogues the phrase.
"I'm just going to say it. It's going to sound crazy and ridiculous, but it's the truth so if I hear you guys laugh, I'm going to find a way down there and hog-tie the both of you, got it? I've—" Despite declaring she will "just say it", Penny still hesitates before she says, "I've been abducted by aliens."
And Sheldon's theories go out the window.
"I wish I could hear you guys laughing."
Sheldon is most assuredly not laughing. There is absolutely nothing funny about what she just said. And Penny wouldn't lie about something like this. Sheldon cannot fathom that. She always rolled her eyes when such topics arose and gave the group placating smiles and phrases when they tried to explain theories of such possible phenomenon. And now here she is after three weeks of nothing only to pop up on his television with that to give as an explanation.
No, Sheldon is not laughing.
"Well, I'm not joking! So if you could just listen to everything I have to say, that'd be great."
Sheldon can't seem to move as he waits for her to stop being embarrassed about the explanation she has and just finishing giving it because he is more than willing to hear her out.
"Sheldon, they…they meant to take both of us, you and me" Penny says hesitantly. "It's not what you think. It isn't for experiments or anything weird. This isn't a horror movie—yet. I mean, they wanted us to…" Penny frowns. She looks uncertain.
To what? Sheldon mouths the words, not daring to make a noise and miss a single thing she says.
"Star Trek!" Penny suddenly exclaims. "Sheldon, they want you to be Spock. A real-life Spock, going out and being a friendly alien to other aliens. They wanted me to be that too. It's a little more than just that but, listen, it's a long story and I don't have a lot of time." Penny looks behind the camera. She nods. Her eyes move down to whatever is in front of her. "What I need from you, Sheldon, is to just believe me. They want to show you proof. Here are the star coordinates that you need to look at through the CalTech telescope. I'm not even going to attempt to tell you what these are, I'll just show you what they gave me."
Penny holds up a semi-transparent deep blue sheet that looks like glass. On it has the coordinates in the form of stars Sheldon would be able to see from Pasadena if not for the air pollution. He concentrates on searing it into his mind.
"Ok, Sheldon, listen. You need to look through the telescope at exactly two-thirteen in the morning again, got it? Two days from now. The twenty-eighth. And if…if you believe me, and you…"
Penny suddenly gets tears in her eyes. She puts down the slate. Not looking at the camera anymore, and, therefore, no longer looking at Sheldon, she bites her quivering lip and swipes at her watery eyes.
"Here are the two options, whether or not you believe me. If you want to join me up here, you need to go to these coordinates exactly eight days from now." Penny holds up a different slate. Once again, Sheldon memorizes the contents. "If you go to these coordinates, they will take you too. If not, you—"
Penny's voice hitches. She puts down the coordinates again. "If you don't, I understand. Sheldon, you don't have to…this is going to be a one-way trip for a lot of years, and you won't see Earth or anybody else besides me for a long time. They won't tell me how long. They were going to take us together, but I moved wrong. They accidentally took only me. They wanted us both. They haven't hurt me or anything, but they said they might not send me back. I'll be…"
There's no holding back the sob Penny lets out now. The tears she's been fighting finally make their way down her now rosy cheeks. "If this is goodbye, Sheldon, then—"
The television turns off. Penny is gone. Sheldon is once again alone in a dark room.