THE METAHUMAN TRANSFIGURATION

By Stephen Tannhauser

Description: The gang gets superpowers. It's not as cool as some of them always thought. Alternate Season 9 premiere.

Disclaimer: The author does not own THE BIG BANG THEORY or any of the characters. The last name given Penny for this story, and the first name given President Siebert, is neither official nor likely to show up in any other BBT story. Please also note that in this chapter, the physics and safety protocols of particle accelerator use have been radically tweaked for dramatic purposes.

- 1 -

HOFSTADTER-COOPER RESIDENCE—2311 LOS ROBLES AVENUE, #4A, PASADENA, CALIFORNIA

MONDAY, JULY 6, 2015, 7:04 A.M.

Compared to the Arctic expedition six years ago, this hadn't been the worst summer of Leonard Hofstadter's life so far. But he had to admit there weren't many other candidates. And it had seemed to be starting out so well, too. He could still remember that moment in May, the last moment he'd really, completely felt happy: when Penny had grinned at him and said, simply, "Vegas isn't that far away."

And then, like an idiot, he'd listened to his conscience instead of his heart, and told Penny the truth about his fling on the North Sea research ship last year, which he'd tried so hard to put behind him. It hadn't even been much of a fling, as flings went; it was one evening, he'd been sick, the girl was a smoker who'd been drunk, and it had been maybe two, three minutes of kissing, tops, before he'd put a stop to it. (With tongue, sure, but he didn't feel any need to go into that much detail.) He'd told himself that once it was out they could move on, and he could be happy his conscience was clear. But then everything had gone, not to put too fine a point on it, to ratshit.

Despite Penny's glib assertion that she wasn't bothered, the rest of the drive to Vegas had been a strained, near-total silence, except for conferring over the directions to the Wedding Denny's she'd looked up on her phone. They'd been sitting in the lobby, waiting to be seated at their table, still in silence, and somehow Leonard had known exactly what Penny was going to say when she drew in a deep breath and said, "I can't do this." He'd been feeling the same way, with an extra layer of all the old self-loathing: this was supposed to have been the happiest moment of both their lives, and he'd ruined it. This was not how he wanted to remember their wedding.

But when he'd said, "You're right, we probably shouldn't," she'd looked at him in disbelief and said, "Wait, aren't you even going to argue?!" And from there it had turned into one of the worst, most senseless fights they'd ever had, only ending when Penny had stormed out and flung herself into a cab. She'd caught a train back to Pasadena, leaving Leonard to make the long drive back alone in a haze of misery.

They'd reconciled cautiously a few days later, Penny assuring him that they were still engaged and both agreeing that maybe eloping wasn't the best way to go after all. But the awkwardness that persisted reminded Leonard of nothing so much as those horrible few days just before their first breakup, five years ago, when he'd first told Penny he loved her and gotten nothing but a horribly discomfited, "Thank you!" in response. Date nights found themselves getting cancelled in favour of late work nights. Neither had ever brought up planning the wedding again. Even the nights they spent together had taken on a far more dully domestic vibe than anything erotic. Sometimes—some few moments that were getting farther and farther apart—they'd luck into some conversational topic that engaged them both for a while, and then it was like nothing had ever happened. But always, always, that awkwardness, that distance, came back. The summer had dragged itself out like a boulder chained to his ankle, and Leonard couldn't decide which was worse: bracing himself for a dumping he was more and more certain was on the way, or resigning himself to this for the rest of his life because he couldn't have kept his mouth shut just for a few months more.

It was only slight consolation that none of his friends seemed to be doing much better. Howard and Bernadette hadn't yet been able to get Stuart Bloom out of their house; Raj was still dating Emily, and was doing a marvelous job of demonstrating exactly how someone getting regular amounts of what Leonard had to admit sounded like pretty freaky sex could be genuinely unhappy; and Sheldon . . . well, it was one of the many ironies about living with Sheldon Cooper that he was actually, in a lot of ways, much easier to deal with in this particular state of misery. He complained about the thermostat much less, for starters, almost never thought of amusing games to play while driving any more, and hadn't mentioned the Roommate Agreement in weeks. And while Leonard's affection for Amy Farrah Fowler had increased a lot since he'd first met her, Leonard couldn't say he missed her habit of tactlessly observing the most annoying things possible, either. He gathered from Penny that Amy wasn't enjoying the separation much more than Sheldon, but Penny had put her foot down with uncharacteristic firmness about trying to get them back together. "Amy needs her own space and time," she'd said. "She'll come back when she wants to."

Maybe we should take some space, Leonard had almost asked, but didn't. In the end, he was too afraid. If he let go now, he might lose Penny forever. And yet he seemed to be losing her anyway, all the same, day by day.

So in a way, perhaps it was a good thing he'd glanced idly at Sheldon's board that morning as he walked to the kitchen for coffee. In another way, of course, that moment's glance was responsible for everything that followed, good and bad. But that was chaos theory: The tiniest change in input conditions, in a system of sufficient complexity, can produce catastrophic outcomes.

All Leonard felt at the time was dull surprise that Sheldon was still standing rigidly at his board, wearing the same clothes he'd had on last evening; he must have been up all night. Leonard frowned and went over to him. "What's this?"

"A paradox, on several levels," said Sheldon. His chin rested on his fist, his brows were furrowed, and his eyes shadowed with fatigue; he looked even gaunter than usual, as if he'd lost weight. The equation on the board was rather more compact than Leonard had expected. "It's either proof of my complete incapacitation or the biggest scientific advance in history, and the problem is that in order to test it I run the risk of looking like a complete fool."

Leonard raised his eyebrows. "Not seeing a downside here."

Sheldon glowered at him, though even that seemed atypically strengthless. "You know, it's taken me a lot of work to come to terms with the fact that my dignity is not other people's highest priority. I'd think a little indulgence from my so-called best friend isn't out of the question."

"Oh, a little indulgence isn't. Indulging you, on the other hand . . . " Leonard squinted at the equation as Sheldon went over to the kitchen counter, turning on the kettle. It looked like it had started as a riff on the classic E=mc2, but there were quite a few more variables in there now: he recognized g, for gravity, Y for electromagnetism, W and Z for the weak nuclear force, gL for (he guessed) the gluons of the strong nuclear force . . . . He blinked several times as comprehension slowly dawned. "Sheldon—is this a GUT equation?"

"A Grand Unification Theory? Hardly. More like a GIT, a Grand Insanity Theory. Hence the use of 'I' for the hidden variable, the fifth force." The kettle whistled; Sheldon whisked it from the stove and poured hot water into his cup. "The only reason I haven't already consigned those scribblings to oblivion is that they do balance so neatly. It's rather like looking at the She-Hulk: That physique can't possibly exist in reality, but you find yourself appreciating its majesty nonetheless."

Leonard narrowed his eyes. "Sheldon—did you just say you think the She-Hulk is hot?"

"Oh, I don't think it. By any objective measure of feminine pulchritude Jennifer Walters is hot, unless you're put off by the green skin and the temper." Sipping his tea, Sheldon came back to stand beside Leonard, considering the board. "Of course, it's a moot point given her fictional nature. Much like all this. There is no 'I' in reality."

"Yes there is," Leonard pointed out.

Sheldon glared at him, then gave the breathless gasping snort he used to imitate laughter. "At any rate," he continued, "if the only way to integrate the four forces is to assume an imaginary fifth, this equation is about as much use as that organ Penny's ex Zack called his brain."

"Well, we had to assume anywhere from seven to twenty-three extra dimensions to make string theory balance. What's an extra interactive force among friends?" Leonard surprised himself with a grin. It had been some time since anything had really made him smile. "What gave you the idea?"

"Oh—a moment's whimsy, nothing more." Sheldon shrugged dismissively. "I was glancing through Dan Simmons' Hyperion series the other day, and it reminded me of the movie Interstellar and the silly notion that love was a real force in the universe. Well, I refuse to attribute cheap sentiment to a self-evidently indifferent cosmos, but it occurred to me last night: What if consciousness, awareness, intellect—pure reason—what if that was the fifth force? What would it look like? So I simply assumed an 'I' variable that averaged to a static balancing factor, slotted it in, and . . . " He shrugged again. "As my mother might say: Bingo."

"Bingo," repeated Leonard. The equation really was a thing of beautiful simplicity, he had to admit. His own brain started whirring. "You know, if the relationship you've got there between gravity and the strong force is consistent, I could probably calculate a viable particle accelerator test for it. And Howard is friends with the guy who's getting the new compact accelerator at JPL up and running."

Sheldon rolled his eyes and waved his free hand. "By all means, Leonard, if you want to make a fool of yourself in front of the world, go ahead. Just keep my name out of it." He finished his tea, glanced at his watch and started. "Oh, Lord, I'm overdue for my seven o'clock bowel movement."

"Right," said Leonard, already scribbling down a copy of Sheldon's equation. "Don't wanna miss that."

Sheldon started for the bathroom, stopped, then turned. "Leonard, I have a question," he said, his voice unwontedly somber. "You've had to adjust to the involuntary cessation of relationships a lot more than I have. At what point do these lingering aftereffects finally dissipate?"

"Aftereffects?"

"Disruptions," said Sheldon, after a moment. "Distractions. Physical and mental. I've restructured my daily routines to account for Amy's absence, but I find myself inexplicably unable to maintain them—as if some subconscious part of my brain is refusing to admit the truth, and keeps expecting Amy to turn up, or call. I find my feet turning towards her neighbourhood before I remember where I'm really going. I spend all night working on what has to be arrant nonsense—" he gestured at the board "—simply because on some level it reminds me of her. Well, I've had enough of it. How do I make my brain stop doing this to me?"

Leonard sighed. "You don't, Sheldon. It happens on its own. With time."

Sheldon blinked. "That's ludicrous on the face of it," he said. "That would imply my brain is no more cooperative than any other person's."

"Of course," said Leonard, and glanced sideways to hide the involuntary roll of his eyes. "What was I thinking. You'd better hit the toilet if you want to get your routine done before we leave."

"Oh. Right. I can't believe I almost forgot my bowel movement—you see what she's done to me?" Sheldon hastened off down the hall, muttering to himself. "Fine thing; the world's greatest brain, reduced to gag equations and ruined schedules…."

Leonard shook his head and went back to scribbling. Some moments passed in silence.

"Oh, my God, I can't even move my bowels!" came a sudden cry from the bathroom. "My brain isn't cooperating with me! Come on, you stupid brain, get that sphincter moving!"

Leonard found himself snorting laughter into his clipboard, and paused, appreciating just how good it felt.

Maybe things were about to turn around for them after all.

BOER LABORATORY BUILDING, JET PROPULSION LABORATORY, CALTECH

4800 OAK GROVE DRIVE, PASADENA, CALIFORNIA

TUESDAY, AUGUST 25, 2015, 10:29 A.M.

The buildings of CalTech's JPL campus covered enough territory, and encompassed enough winding tree-lined streets, that navigating them required their own GPS program. Penny followed the instructions Sheldon had uploaded to her car's system, wincing every time the electronic Sheldon-voice spoke up, but it was mostly reflex. The rest of her brain was turning over and over on a single sentence, the only thing she was certain of: This can't go on.

She didn't want to break up with Leonard. Thinking about life without him put a horrible hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach. Not just for losing him, but for losing what he meant to her: proof that she wasn't just another screwup, another would-be cornhusker starlet who'd washed out and sold out. Proof that her life meant something, that she meant something. But she couldn't deal with this grinding discomfort any more. Over the last few weeks she'd barely seen him at all, between his days at CalTech and long late nights here with Howard and Sheldon at JPL; she supposed she was happy something had sparked his enthusiasm again, but it would have been nice if at least a little of that enthusiasm had come her way.

Maybe once this big experiment was over they'd have a chance to talk . . . no, Penny abruptly decided, there was no maybe about it. One way or another this was getting settled. Strangely, the thought calmed her stomach.

The parking lot to which Sheldon's GPS voice had directed her ("And if you should happen to notice your 'check engine' light is on, I strongly recommend consulting a mechanic!") came up on the right, occupying the area before a nondescript grey square building. She pulled in behind a vaguely familiar-looking vehicle, but didn't recognize it until she'd parked a few spaces down and gotten out to see the driver gaping at her. Her eyes widened; she found herself grinning with startled delight. "Amy!"

Without a word Amy Farrah Fowler strode forward and hugged her. To her own surprise, Penny returned it just as vigorously. "Oh my God," she said, "it's been weeks! Why didn't you call me?"

Amy didn't let go. Her hair, looking limper and muddier than usual in the bright morning sunlight, smelt only faintly of its normal medicinal shampoo. "Stupid reasons," she said into Penny's shoulder. "Limbic-brain reasons. You, Bernadette, the rest of you . . . you all just reminded me a little too much of—well—him. You know who." She drew back and looked up, and Penny realized she was wearing her oldest and least flattering cardigan-skirt outfit, something her grandmother must have handed down. Her glasses were smudged. "I never realized how hard it was to cut someone out of your life once they'd been there for long enough. Is this typical?"

Penny hesitated. "I don't know, sweetie," she said at last. "Most of my relationships didn't even last long enough to need cutting out of my address book."

"Yet you maintained a friendship with Leonard after breaking up with him. Even to the degree you were able to laugh at some of his other sexual encounters. Which is not to say that some of them probably weren't inherently laughable, but nonetheless . . . ."

Penny shrugged. "I didn't really have a choice, Ames. Neither of us were gonna move, after all. And I didn't want to lose him as a friend."

Amy bit her lip. "You know, I always thought of myself as the smartest person I knew." She turned to walk towards the lab building. Penny followed at her side. "Being friends with Sheldon was . . . well, it was an enlightening experience. Being his girlfriend was a frustrating one. But being your friend—that, that was the really humbling experience." She looked sidelong up at Penny, her expression half rueful, half bemused. "I've spent my life studying neurobiology. And yet you know more about how the human brain relates to others than I ever will. How ironic is that?"

Penny managed the best smile she could around the unexpected twinge in her heart. "Amy, sweetheart, the fact that you understand irony puts you a fair bit ahead of Sheldon already." They mounted the steps and went in through the big glass double doors; she sighed in relief at the cool air and shade inside, then took a deep breath. "And . . . And I could have made more effort to stay in touch with you. I mean, I wanted to give you your space, but still. So I don't know how good a friend I am, really."

Amy smiled. "Well, I'll forgive you your shortfalls if you forgive mine. Deal?"

"Deal." Penny smiled back and shook Amy's offered hand. Then she frowned down at it. "Oh my God. You haven't had a manicure in months, have you? Seriously, Amy, these nails belong in a horror movie."

Amy scowled at her. "You know, bestie, it's a good thing you're so good-looking. You have no idea how much tactlessness you get away with because you're hot."

Penny gave her a look. "Okay, one, you're calling me tactless? And two—" She paused, then grinned. "Yeah, actually I do know. It's just one of those delightful fringe benefits. Along with rarely buying my own drinks, a good sales record and an extremely agreeable boyfriend."

"Boyfriend," said Amy. "Hm. Interesting that the word that came to your mind wasn't 'fiance'. Trouble in Paradise?"

All Penny's good humour vanished in an instant. She sighed. "It . . . hasn't been the world's best summer for me either. I don't want to talk about that now. I assume you're here to watch the big experiment too, right? Do you remember which part of the building we have to get to?"

Amy nodded. "I memorized Sheldon's instructions. This way." She turned left and led Penny down a long white-painted corridor, passing glass-panelled doors on left and right. Their footsteps echoed up and down the hallways as they turned right, then left, then left again. "I admit, I'm surprised they're making this big a deal out of it, given how disparagingly Sheldon described it."

"Yeah, Leonard told me a bit about it too. He was kinda cagey about it. Between you and me—" Penny looked around, then lowered her voice. "—I get the feeling he might have overhyped this a little, just to get things moving."

Amy dropped her voice to match. "What gives you that idea?"

"I don't know. It's just a vibe he gives off, whenever he talks about it. Sort of like how I feel on a new product pitch, when I have to use the script for skimming over the side effects. Which I don't do that often," Penny added hurriedly. "Or at all. Really."

Amy arched an eyebrow at her: a disquieting look, half Spock, half Sheldon. "Well, you're not wrong, bestie. Yes, it's the side of science that most scientists don't like to talk about: the marketing side. With all its . . . constructive exaggerations and omissions. You don't get research grants by calling your theories wild blue-sky long shots, even if that's exactly what they are."

Penny repressed an urge to gulp. "That's reassuring. Next time any of you guys plays the Trust Me, I'm A Scientist card I'll know to take it with a grain of salt."

"A wise choice." Amy nodded. Then blithely added: "I suppose it's a good thing that Leonard can't really lie worth a darn either. A useful protective measure for a marriage, I should think."

Penny's jaw tightened. "Yeah," she agreed tonelessly. "Protective. That's what it is."

She was aware of Amy's curious look, but as they turned one last corner and recognized the small group standing outside another set of double doors, Penny took the opportunity to rush ahead. "Bernadette, hi!" she called, and hugged the smaller woman as firmly as she'd hugged Amy. "How are you guys doing?"

"Oh, we're great! Fantastic! Couldn't be better!" was the enthusiastic response. Stuart Bloom flung one arm each around Howard's and Bernadette's shoulders, to all appearances completely oblivious to the sickly smiles on their faces. "Business at the comic book store is going great, we've been working on the house, it's wonderful. I can't tell you how much difference these guys have made to my life."

"Or how much difference you've made to ours," said Howard, his upbeat tone so clearly forced that Penny had to wonder just how clueless Stuart really was. Then again, maybe scientists weren't the only one who were capable of constructive omissions. "We wouldn't have dreamed of leaving you out of this, buddy."

"Yeah," said Bernadette, folding her hands, her voice even higher-pitched than normal. "Who cares if you're not a scientist, or were explicitly invited or not?"

"Exactly!" agreed Stuart heartily. "That's what I love so much about you guys. You're not snobs. You're so welcoming. Penny, great to see you, how's Leonard?" He released Howard and Bernadette and shook Penny's hand; behind him, Howard and Bernadette both slumped and rolled their eyes, like string-cut marionettes. Before Penny could answer Stuart turned to Amy. "And Amy, it's been too long, why don't you ever come by the comic book store?"

Amy blinked. "Because our acquaintance isn't sufficiently intimate as to overcome my complete lack of interest in buying movie and TV paraphernalia, or in reading wish-fulfillment fantasies about impossibly muscled men and impossibly buxom women." As Stuart processed that, looking nonplussed, Amy leaned over to Penny and lowered her voice. "Though I might re-evaluate my stance if one of them looked like you, bestie." She flashed a quick smile. Penny returned it awkwardly.

Footsteps sounded behind Penny. Howard perked up in pleased relief. "Oh, look, it's Raj! Hey, buddy, good to—" He broke off abruptly, looking poleaxed. Penny turned.

She understood Howard's surprise instantly. The girl beside Raj wasn't the tall lissome redhead she'd expected, but a shorter, snub-nosed brunette in a black jacket, with big dark eyes and a hesitant smile. Raj's own smile was distinctly uncomfortable, as if he was having second thoughts about being here at all, but he squared his shoulders and gestured to the girl. "Good morning, everybody . . . you all remember Lucy, right?"

"We do," said Amy, and looked Lucy up and down as if examining a new specimen in a petri dish. "We also remember that she broke your heart after deciding that getting to know all of us along with you was too uncomfortable for her many neuroses to endure. So I admit I'm not sure which is most surprising, Rajesh: that this woman is here, that the woman you're currently dating isn't, or that you have apparently forgiven one and betrayed the other. I'm sure the explanation will be fascinating."

Howard's eyebrows lifted. "Wow," he murmured sidelong to Bernadette. "You know, I never realized how much she'd mellowed out before."

"That's 'cause you weren't at ground zero for a lot of the mellowing," Bernadette muttered back.

Lucy gave Raj a panicked look. Raj held up his hands. "Look, everybody, this isn't anything like what you're thinking. This is not a betrayal, Lucy and I are not going out, I just . . . thought Lucy might be more interested in this than Emily, so I asked her instead. That's all."

"I see," said Amy, unblinking. "So we can assume Emily knows both that you're here and who you're with?"

Raj's smile faded; he shifted his weight awkwardly, gaze flickering from wall to wall to floor. Penny groaned and put one hand to her forehead. "Oh, Raj . . . ."

"Oh boy," said Lucy. "Um, hi, everybody. Does this make me the Other Woman now?"

"No, it does not," said Raj with unexpected firmness. "You're here as my friend, period. I have the right to have female friends beside Emily, and I have the right not to have to report to her on every second of time we're apart." Then his certainty weakened as he looked around at their expressions. "Don't I?"

Howard cleared his throat and put one arm around Raj's shoulder. "Buddy, let me put it to you this way. In theory, you have those rights. In theory, with the right random quantum fluctuation, my atoms could spontaneously rearrange themselves into somebody six-foot-two with no peanut allergy and equipment the size of a horse's. In practice, we call trying to pull those off a Really. Bad. Idea. You get me?"

Raj looked disheartened. "Any chance I could ask all of you not to mention this?"

"Any chance you'll be indulging in a buying spree at the shop next week?" said Stuart. He spread his hands at the glares sent his way. "What? I still need to boost business."

Bernadette expelled an annoyed breath and turned to Raj. "Look, Raj, it's none of our business and we're happy to stay out of it, but have you forgotten who one of the key hosts is? Sheldon Cooper! The man who can't keep a secret if his life depended on it!"

"Ah, yes, but that's only if he knows it's a secret and is trying to keep it," said Raj, lifting a finger like a teacher correcting a student. "If I simply don't mention anything—" the door opened behind him, and Penny drew in a breath, but Raj didn't notice "—I will bet you over a thousand rupees that he won't even notice."

"Won't even notice what?" said Sheldon, standing in the doorway.

Raj winced and covered his face with his hand. Sheldon looked around at them, eyebrows furrowed; his gaze passed over Lucy without a blink of hesitation. "Won't even notice what?" he repeated.

"That . . . Raj got his hair cut!" Penny volunteered. She'd been deeply unimpressed with Lucy after what she'd done to Raj, but she couldn't muster much inclination to defend Emily Sweeney either. "Can't you tell?" She pointed to Raj's head; Raj grinned feebly and patted at his hair, which looked the same as it always did. Lucy looked at them as if they'd both flipped out.

They might as well not have bothered. The moment Sheldon's eyes fell on Amy, his expression went oddly flat; he drew himself up stiffly, as if about to launch into a tirade, but his voice came out so quietly it was difficult to hear. "Amy," he said. "Thank you for coming."

Amy opened her mouth, closed it again, then looked down. "I, uh . . . to be honest, Sheldon, I wasn't sure I would."

Sheldon's brow furrowed. "You RSVP'd. Are you saying you planned to break the social covenant of the RSVP? Especially when you more than anybody else are responsible for this?"

Amy sighed. "Sheldon, the RSVP is not a – wait." She blinked. "What do you mean, I'm responsible? I thought this was your and Leonard's experiment."

"Yes. Based on a piece of nonsense mathematics that you inspired," said Sheldon, as if that should have been obvious to everybody. "It's quite frankly going to come to nothing, and I've done my best to keep out of it entirely, but Leonard, Wolowitz and Kripke insisted on sharing the blame. Or as they keep calling it, the 'credit'." He made air quotes with his fingers. "The end result is, I fully expect in the next few minutes to be publicly humiliated before President Siebert, Dr. Gablehauser, and most of the Physics Department. Oh, and apparently a few mid-level government muckety-mucks, as if they understand anything beyond what'll make a good photo op." He paused, took a breath, and went on in a more subdued tone. "But because it was thinking of you that inspired this, I decided that if I had to go through with it, you should see it, and know about it. Because . . . whatever I may have done to distress you . . . I hope this indicates I'm willing to make amends for it. That I will put my name and my reputation behind something you inspired in me. No matter what it costs my career."

Penny put a hand to her mouth, blinking, abruptly on the edge of tears. In the eight years she'd known Sheldon Cooper, that was the closest she had ever heard him come to a sincere, heartfelt apology that his mother hadn't ordered out of him. The rest of the group looked equally flabbergasted. But Amy's expression didn't change, only staring at him blankly. At last, she drew in a breath to speak.

"Yo, Coopuh!" Barry Kripke swung around the edge of the doorway. "If you've finished hobnobbing with yoah ex and yoah fwunkies, could you maybe wemind them what you came up heah to do?" He bent and grabbed up a plastic filing container that Sheldon had evidently brought up with him, then held it out to the group. "Evewybody, if you got any smahtphones or othuh gadgetwy, dwop 'em in the box, now. Theh's gonna be enough bwoad-spectwum EM wadiation wunning thwough this building to fwy anything that isn't wead-wined."

Lucy looked at Raj in bewilderment. Raj sighed, took out his phone and dropped it in the box. Lucy nodded in understanding and followed suit. One by one they all did the same; Sheldon dropped in a Kindle and a Gameboy as well. Penny gave Kripke her best meaningful eyebrow lift. "I'm gonna get this back, right? All my sales contacts are on there."

"Wewax, beautifuh," said Kripke, grinning. "I'm gonna put these in in our gwound-zewoh stowage wockah. Safe as a bank." He leaned in. "Hey, I heard you and Hofstadtah might be on the wopes. You wike Owive Gahden?"

Penny stared at him, then looked at Howard. "Oh, my God," she said. "I finally met somebody even skeevier than you used to be. I didn't think that was possible."

"So, waincheck then?" said Kripke.

10:47 A.M.

Sadly, the day's unpleasant surprises weren't over yet. As Kripke disappeared down a flight of stairs with their phones, Sheldon led the group down a short corridor to a small room full of folding metal chairs, one wall of which was floor-to-ceiling glass; it was already full of people milling about, most of whom seemed to be older men in suits. Unfortunately, one man, a lot younger than most, was very familiar to Penny. She stopped in dismay upon spotting him and ducked behind Raj. "Oh God," she whispered. "Raj, hide me!"

"What's the problem?" said Raj, obligingly turning himself and Lucy to form a barricade. Sheldon had left them at the door to the room, and Howard, Amy, and Bernadette had gone to mingle with some of the professors. Stuart lingered alone by a snack table, looking uncomfortable.

Penny peered over Raj's shoulders, between his head and Lucy's, and groaned quietly. "See the guy standing next to that tall white-haired man in the grey pinstripes? Blue suit, shaved head, earpiece?"

Raj craned his neck. "Oh yes, I see him. Wow. Looks like they body-waxed a gorilla and put a suit on it." He frowned. "That's odd. I could swear I know him from somewhere . . . ."

"You do," she muttered between clenched teeth. "It's an ex of mine from a long time ago; you met him at that Halloween party where you bonked my friend Cheryl. It's Kurt."

Raj gasped. "Oh, no, Kurt the pants-stealer?"

"Is that a euphemism I don't understand?" asked Lucy.

"No, unfortunately it's very literal," said Penny. "When I first moved into our building I'd just left Kurt; my TV was still at his place, and I, well, I kinda flirted Leonard and Sheldon into going to get it for me. They came back without their pants." She popped up to peer over Raj's shoulder again, then ducked back down. "What the hell's he doing here?"

"Based on the earpiece and the way he's sizing up the room, I'd guess he's that older gentleman's bodyguard," said Lucy. Raj gave her a surprised look. She shrugged. "When you can't talk to people much, you learn a lot just by watching them. And Sheldon did say there were people here from the government. See, all the big guys are sticking close to specific people." She frowned. "They're not Secret Service, though."

"Why do you say that?" asked Raj.

"The Secret Service sidearm is a Sig Sauer," explained Lucy, then smiled lopsidedly. "Wow, say that three times fast. Anyway, if you look close you can see those guys are carrying Brownings." This time both Raj and Penny gaped at her. She shrugged again. "What? I told you I wound up with a subscription to Guns & Ammo. They write all about this stuff, and, you know, sometimes I spend more time on the toilet than I expect."

Penny shrugged. "I'd say TMI, but Leonard and Sheldon kinda raised my threshold for that a long time ago. Wow, so Kurt's working private security. Should've known he'd find a job that would let him keep beating people up. Big ol' 'roid-freak." Then she stiffened, catching sight of yet another unwelcome face near the door. "Oh boy."

"What now?"

Penny struggled to find words, then gave up. "Raj—good luck. I'd stick around but I think I'd only make this worse. 'Bye." She ducked out from behind them and hurried across the room, having to crouch down even farther to hide once she wound up behind Bernadette and Howard. "Guys," she whispered, "I think we've got a problem."

"What's wrong?" said Bernadette. Penny only pointed at the door; Bernadette followed her finger, and gasped. "Oh, no." She elbowed Howard, interrupting his conversation with several of the other attendees. "Howie, I think we'd better go help Raj."

Howard cleared his throat meaningfully. "Bernie," he said through an artificially wide smile, "I'm right in the middle of a very important conversation with President Siebert—"

"Emily's here."

The smile vanished. "Oh, crap. Sorry, gents, President Siebert; gotta dash," said Howard to the bemused men, then followed Bernie back over to where Emily was angrily confronting Raj and Lucy, the latter looking even more terrified than the former. Penny stayed right where she was. Emily didn't like her any more than she liked Emily, and there was absolutely nothing she could do for Raj at this point.

One of the suited men, a fiftyish fellow with large dark eyes and a wide mouth, looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "I remember you from Professor Tupperman's memorial, don't I?" he said in a plummy voice. "You're Dr. Hofstadter's fiancée." He offered his hand. "No reason you should remember an old bureaucrat like me; Doctor Gene Siebert, President of CalTech."

"Hi," said Penny, summoning up her best saleswoman's smile and shaking his hand. "Yeah, that's me. Penny Carmichaels, soon to be Hofstadter. Here to support my man, like always."

Siebert laughed. "Yes, Dr. Hofstadter mentioned he'd invited you to watch the experiment." He leaned in close and dropped his voice. "Between you and me, I was rather hoping you'd wear that black dress again. If Dr. Hofstadter could write down the formula that brought you two together, that would truly be a breakthrough day for science."

Penny's smile felt tight. She sighed. "Yeah, I've heard that before. Um—excuse me; I should really go be with my friends." Even Emily's bitchiness would be better than this. No longer bothering to crouch, she walked back across the room.

Raj and Emily were in full-blown "quiet fight" mode, nose to nose and snarling at each other in the choked tones of people who really wanted to shout and couldn't. Beside Raj, Lucy looked as if she wanted to fall through the floor; Amy, Stuart, Howard and Bernadette had gathered in a circle, watching. "It's not that you're here with some other girl," Emily seethed. "It's that you fucking lied to me about it! And you didn't even ask me if I wanted to come along with you!"

Remarkably, Raj came right back at her. "Gee, Emily, I wonder why I didn't tell you to your face that just once I might prefer somebody else's company for something I'm interested in and I know you're not? Oh, right, could it be because you would lose your shit, like you're doing right now? And by the way, Emily, considering the invite came via an e-mail I know you weren't CC'd on, you mind telling me exactly how you found out about all this? Maybe by reading my e-mail without permission?"

"Oh, please, when you use your dog's name as your password for everything that's practically a public invitation. And you've got some nerve complaining about violations of privacy, Mr. Drawer-Snooper." Emily put her hands on her hips and glared at Lucy, who cringed back. "You didn't seriously expect to steal him back, did you? Here's a hint: it helps if you can actually have sex with someone."

Lucy gulped, breathing heavily, then abruptly broke away and dashed for the viewing room's door—only to pull to a stop as a couple of staffers swung the doors shut. The lights dimmed, and the crowd began moving towards the chairs, taking seats and peering out as the lights came up in the chamber beyond. Emily glared at Raj, clearly restrained only by her disinclination to make a scene at the moment, then snarled under her breath at him, "This is not over," grabbed his hand and dragged him to a chair in the raised back row. Howard and Bernadette exchanged rueful looks and followed.

Stuart glanced after them, then began drifting towards the doors, where Lucy huddled in the farthest corner. Penny intercepted him with a raised arm. "Oh my God, you aren't seriously going to try hitting on Lucy now, are you?!" she hissed.

"What?" Stuart spread his hands. "It's not a funeral—is there a rule or something?"

"Oh for God's sake, sit down." Penny dragged Stuart to the seat beside Howard and slammed him down in it by main force. She looked around for Amy, and finally found her sitting in a different corner by herself. Penny bit her lip and went over, dropping into the seat beside her just as Leonard's voice came over the speakers.

"Good morning, President Siebert, distinguished professors and guests," he said. With the lights dimmed, the viewers had a clear view of the brightly-lit chamber beyond. Craning her neck, Penny saw a wide open area something like a small gymnasium, the walls and floor of unfinished grey cement; pipes and cabling ran down every wall and wove over the floor in a tangled web, converging on a device like nothing she had ever seen. It reminded her of nothing so much as a giant charm bracelet—a perfectly circular torus some eight yards wide, wrapped in coils of gold and silvery wire, suspended aloft by square spoked frames of polished girders and thick metal brackets that divided it into segments like the hours of a clock face. Above and beyond it, on the far wall, a screen as large as a small movie theatre's gleamed black and blank; directly over the torus, a gigantic round metal dish hung on cables like a lid being lowered onto a pot. A bank of screens, LED lights, dials and computer keyboards squatted to one side; half a dozen white-coated figures—Sheldon and Kripke among them, as well as Leonard's old girlfriend Leslie Winkle—were busy doing incomprehensible things with the controls.

Leonard himself stood at a lone mike stand, a binder in his hand, looking up at the observation window. "My name is Dr. Leonard Hofstadter, and we'd like to welcome you to the inaugural run of JPL's new compact particle accelerator, which uses plasma wakefield acceleration to achieve efficiencies previously thought impossible." Barely suppressed excitement thrummed in his voice; he looked more alive, happier and more alert, than Penny had seen in months, eyes flashing behind his spectacles. A momentary wrench pulled at her—she'd forgotten how much it turned her on to see him like this.

"This series of trial runs has been dedicated to testing the output of fully half a giga-electron-volt per metre," Leonard went on, "at frequencies calculated to manifest a possible subatomic transition particle between gravity and the strong nuclear force, as per the integrative equation written by Dr. Sheldon Cooper. Sheldon, if you'd like to stand up, please?"

Sheldon only shook his head vigorously without turning around. Leonard looked discomfited. "Okay, with his usual I wish I could say modesty, Dr. Cooper would rather we proceed. Dr. Winkle, if you could activate the viewscreen?"

At her station, Leslie leaned forward and flipped a switch. Penny held her breath, waiting for the screen to light up, wondering what it would show. Instead, Leslie's snide tones crackled over the loudspeaker. "I'm sorry, Leonard, I'm afraid I can't do that."

Leonard blinked. "Uh, what? Why not?"

"'Cause you've still got the remote in your pocket."

Muffled snickers went up around the observation chamber. Leonard's mouth tightened. "Of course I do," he muttered, not quite quietly enough for the mike to miss it, and dug a remote control out of his white coat. "And with some attempt to recapture the dignity of the moment, please observe the viewscreen." He pointed the remote at the screen, pressing a button. The screen flickered and came alight with a dark reddish radiance, bathing the chamber in a carmine glow. Penny repressed a gulp. "If the particle predicted by Dr. Cooper's theory exists," said Leonard, "we will see gold light tracks on this screen as they escape the smashed atoms in the accelerator, to be captured by the tracking dish above the torus. We're going to begin the power-up routine . . . now." He turned and signaled to Kripke, who began flipping banks of switches. A low hum filled the air.

"Pretty cool, huh, bestie?" Amy murmured to Penny, not quite able to repress a smile. "Times like this I wish I'd gone into physics. I love dissecting brains, but some of Sheldon's toys are just awesome."

Penny had to nod. "They are. I don't understand anything Leonard just said but that thing looks like something out of one of their movies." She hesitated. "Uh—what does it do, exactly? Cliffs Notes version, please."

"Ah. Well, basically, it uses really powerful magnets to smash subatomic particles into each other so hard that when they break, they give off even smaller particles, some of which are things that carry the fundamental forces of the universe. Leonard's using Sheldon's theory to look for a kind of particle that, uh, that converts one force into another—like turning gravity into electricity."

Penny's eyebrows shot up. "Oh, my God. What happens if they find it?"

Amy gave her a serious look. "Well, they basically rewrite everything we think we know about how the universe works, Penny. But if Sheldon's right, it's not going to work. Leonard is essentially using the fact that they have to do test runs on this machine anyway as a way to indulge the bluest of blue-sky long shots."

"Oh." Penny subsided, surprised at her own disappointment. She had her issues with Sheldon, but she had to admit that she had almost never seen him actually be wrong on a matter of scientific fact. Then a thought occurred to her; she frowned at Amy. "Is that why they were able to score us invitations? Because they're expecting this not to work, so it doesn't have to be classified?"

Amy shrugged. "Probably, bestie. Sorry."

"Then why were those government people here?"

"Money." The voice that said this spoke almost as quietly as they had, but Penny stiffened in fury and—she had to admit it—fright as a large, unnervingly strong hand fell on her shoulder. Kurt took the empty seat beside Penny and smiled at her, his teeth white in the gloom. "Tell a politician there's even a chance of a big money-making breakthrough, and he'll be at ground zero if he can. Of course, if it's a crazy blue-sky long shot, it'll be low-level hacks who don't rate Secret Service, but hey—more money for me. Hello, Penny. Been a while."

Penny's heart lurched. In his own way, Kurt still had all the presence that had drawn her when she'd first met him. She'd never been scared of him back then, even though they'd fought like cats and dogs, but she'd been a lot younger and more naïve. And Kurt hadn't carried a gun. She swallowed, feeling her heartbeat hammer in her throat and chest. "Hi, Kurt."

"I like the haircut. You look good. Real . . . professional." Kurt leaned closer, eyes holding hers, almost magnetically. He touched her left hand, and she started. "A ring, huh? Am I too late?"

"Yes, you are," said Amy, voice low but fierce. Kurt scowled at her, but Amy was undaunted. "She's engaged. To the man running this entire operation, an award-winning world-renowned scientist. So I would strongly recommend simply extending your best wishes and moving on, sir."

Kurt chuckled, an oddly chilling sound. "World-renowned scientist. Funny. Way I remember it, he's a dwarf who dresses up in fantasy costumes. Yeah, I asked a few questions before I came over to say hi." He tilted his head, narrowing his eyes. "What happened to you, Penny? Girl I knew, she'd never have settled for a nice guy. Girl I knew wanted the world at her feet. She could've had it, too, along with all the men she wanted. Sad."

Abruptly, Penny's temper detonated. But the explosion didn't burst out of her in a shriek of rage; instead, it shot along her nerves, igniting them, burning away all her fear, all her worry and doubt. Her skin seemed to throb with anger. She leaned in close to Kurt, matching his gaze with a glare. Her voice came out like stone, quiet but utterly unyielding. "Know what, Kurt? That girl's gone. She grew up. And I didn't settle for a 'nice guy', I settled for a great guy. I settled for a guy who's got more honesty in his little finger than you ever had in your whole goddamn steroid-drenched body. I settled for a guy who was willing to risk our relationship for the sake of being straight with me. And the moment this experiment's done, I'm going to take him away to Vegas and marry him, and I never want to see you again. Are we clear?"

Kurt stared at her, more taken aback than Penny ever remembered seeing him in her life. Amy looked oddly stricken.

Without warning, Kurt's hand flashed up, knotted in the fabric of her blouse and yanked Penny forward, pulling her face to within an inch of his. His blazing eyes bored into hers, and Penny felt him breathing with the same pulsing anger she could feel on her own skin, and in her skull. An even worse wrench went through her as she realized there was more than a little arousal entwined with that anger, just as there had been so long ago when they fought. It felt wrong now, sickening, as it hadn't back then—but it was still there. Her anger turned on herself with a sting of pain. Holy God, if Kurt could still do this to her, what was wrong with her? Maybe she didn't deserve Leonard after all—

She suddenly realized it wasn't just her. That pulsing, throbbing noise was in the air itself, was vibrating through the floor, strong enough for her to feel it in her butt through the chair. Amy's hand grabbed Penny by the wrist. Kurt let her go and looked back at the window, frowning. Leonard's voice came over the speakers again. "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm pleased to announce we have successfully achieved full power on the primary particle stream—as I'm sure anyone sitting down at the moment can tell you." The chuckles that went up this time were audibly uneasy, but Leonard, of course, couldn't tell. "We'll be injecting our counterstream in less than thirty seconds. At that time, we should start seeing . . . well, whatever there is to see. I hope you're all as excited as I am!"

A click over the speakers signalled the activation of another microphone. "That seems profoundly unlikely, Dr. Hofstadter," said Sheldon, "as anybody smart enough to know why you're excited should be smart enough to understand why they shouldn't be."

A third click. "And anybody who thinks we should bother listening to the dumbass Dr. Cooper at this point is more than welcome to leave," said Leslie Winkle. "Which includes the dumbass Dr. Cooper himself, just to say."

Yet another click. "And anybody who's wasting time on cheap shots is kindwy invited to shut the heww up and get back to fwippin' wuhk!" snapped Kripke. "Dr. Hofstadtah, we'h at fuh powah on our counterstweam, initiating pulse in ten seconds from youh mahk—mahk, pwease?"

"Uh, mahk. Mark." Leonard clutched the binder to him as if it were a shield. He had turned to stare up at the big viewscreen, still empty of everything except that red glow and a series of codes lining the top and bottom edges—Penny recognized the date, but nothing else. The accelerator was vibrating with power, and the space in the centre of the torus looked oddly . . . strained. Penny rubbed her eyes, wondering if she was seeing this right. The space within the torus looked as if it were a painting on canvas stretched just a little too tight.

"Initiating counterstweam," said Kripke over the speakers, "now."

The pulsing throb in the air kicked up another notch. The distortion in the air grew even more pronounced. It actually hurt Penny's eyes to look at, now. Her vision seemed to blur, filling with flickering dots. She felt dizzy, and put a hand on Amy's shoulder for support. Amy blinked at her. "Bestie?" she said, or Penny thought she did—her voice sounded far away and thick, under water.

A streak of gold flashed across the red light of the viewscreen.

Penny felt too hazy to realize what that meant. But from the gasps, and at least one outright yelp of shock in a voice that sounded suspiciously like Raj's, everybody else did. Another streak of gold flashed across the viewscreen. Then a third. Then two at once. Then a flurry of them. Abruptly the entire room exploded to its feet, bursting into cheers. Kurt leapt from his chair and hurried back to whoever his client was, not even glancing at Penny. She didn't bother to watch him go.

"I don't believe it!" Amy was shouting, sounding overjoyed. "I don't believe it! They actually saw gluon-graviton transition particles! Dozens of them! My Lord, do they even have a name for them yet? Penny, bestie, this is Nobel Prize stuff! This is—" She stopped, and bent down to take Penny's face between her hands. Penny blinked dazedly at her. "Penny, are you okay?"

"I feel . . . really bad," Penny slurred. For the first time, she was grateful she'd been too out of sorts to eat breakfast. It would have been on the floor by now if she had.

"Oh, boy. Okay, bestie, we'd better get you to a doctor. Come on." Amy threw Penny's arm around her shoulder, lifting her up with a momentary stagger. "Ugh, God—you had to be a statuesque goddess, didn't you? Couldn't be a cute little Japanese waif half Leonard's size."

"Sorry," Penny managed. The throbbing had gotten into her head, her stomach, her muscles. The light spilling through the window had shifted, gone golden with the swarm of dots now covering the viewscreen. Over the crowd's excited babble, she dimly heard Leonard's voice going on over the speakers about initiating powerdown, or something like that; with dreamlike clearness she suddenly realized she could hear Raj and Emily shouting at each other again, and thought she could feel the pressure of Kurt's eyes on her back, burning like Leonard's lasers. The doors came closer and closer.

Unexpectedly a small, strong arm slid around her from the other side. Penny brought her head up with an effort, and met Lucy's wide, worried eyes. Are you okay? the other girl mouthed. Penny could only shake her head slowly, but she mouthed back, Thank you. Her dizziness grew worse. The observation chamber seemed to be swaying, long, lazy rolls back and forth. They got to the doors, where Amy let Lucy take over supporting Penny and snapped a sharp order at the staffers. The two young men took one look at Penny and immediately turned to open the doors.

The doors wouldn't open. Looking startled, the staffers pushed at them again, harder. They still didn't move. The staffers braced their feet and shoved as hard as they could; there wasn't even the flex of a door twisting around its lock-point, as Penny had sometimes seen. One of the staffers went to a wall panel, tapped buttons and began jabbering into a pickup mike. Penny squinted hazily. The guy's hair seemed to be lifting up around him, like he was touching one of those static generators she'd seen on TV. How was he doing that?

Leonard's voice suddenly came over the speaker, now much higher-pitched, crackling badly with static. "Uh, ladies and gentlemen, we seem to be experiencing some, ah, some temporary technical difficulties with the accelerator, a momentary, uh, lock in our power input—it's nothing to worry about, but for safety's sake, I'd like to ask everyone to exit the building at this time in an orderly fashion—" Through the window, the golden light filling the accelerator chamber suddenly flashed blue-white. Then again, even more brightly. A stink of ozone filled the air. Leonard's voice broke. "Uh, you know what folks, screw orderly, get the hell out of the building, now!"

The two staffers looked at each other, eyes wide with panic. They stepped back and both flung themselves against the doors—and were thrown back with a thunderous crack by arcing bursts of electrical energy. Lucy screamed and pulled Penny back from the door, just in time to avoid the crush of people that hurtled towards them, only to be likewise bowled over by more bursts of power. Amy dodged her way through to plant herself next to Lucy and Penny, flattening themselves against the wall, out of the way. "What the hell's going on?" Lucy cried.

"I don't know!" shouted Amy.

"It's the EM radiation!" Unnoticed, Howard, Bernadette and Stuart had slid along the wall to join them; Bernadette looked frankly terrified, Howard as if he couldn't decide between terror or engineer's monomania. "The accelerator's overloading, it's throwing off enough electromagnetic power to earth through the metal doors! Even if you had insulating gloves, nobody's gonna get those to move now—it's like the world's strongest mag-lock!"

"And so we're trapped inside a building about to blow up," said Stuart, a painful smile on his face. "You know, I should've guessed. I really should've."

"Oh, God, Howie, do something!" Bernadette wailed. "We've got to get out of here! I'm—" She stopped, then pulled Howard's head down and whispered something in his ear. Penny couldn't hear what it was, but it hit Howard like a sledgehammer. His face went blank.

Without a word, he stood up, looked around, then pushed his way through the crowd to the far wall, where Raj and Emily had backed to safety, and shouted something she couldn't hear at Emily. The light flashed blue-white again, more rapidly, turning them into strobing silhouettes. Penny's eyelids felt heavy. She saw Emily pull out a pair of surgical gloves and snap them on. The three of them ran back to the doors; as if sensing something was happening, the crowd cleared the way for them. Howard set a folding chair upright, and Emily stepped onto it, reaching up to the ceiling and knocking away an insulation panel. She looked down at Howard. "What am I looking for?" she yelled.

"Any kind of electrical cable!" Howard shouted back. "It'll probably be metal-sheathed, like a plumber's snake—you see anything like that?"

"Yes! Yes, I do!"

"Okay, grab it and pull it down—jump off the chair if you have to!" Emily did, and with a series of wrenching snaps a loop of cable followed her down, ripping through the ceiling's insulation panels. Howard joined her to pull more of it out, impatiently gesturing for Raj and Stuart to help. The blue-white light blazed on and off through the window, making their movements jump and flash. Penny bent to one side and dry-heaved. Only bile came up.

"Okay, okay, that's it!" yelled Howard. He looked around. "Um, okay, now we need a volunteer, and this is actually, um, this is the really really dangerous part. We need somebody to put that cable into contact with the doors, so it'll give the power an alternate route to earth out and unlock them."

Stuart stared at him. "Why is that dangerous?"

"Because if the person making contact is too slow he'll get fatally electrocuted," said President Siebert, sounding grim. "Well, step aside, Mr. Wolowitz. This is my university, and my responsibility—"

"Oh for God's sake," Emily burst out. Before anybody could move she'd grabbed the cable up again in one rubber-gloved hand. Sprinting to the doors, she spun on one foot and hurled the cable against the metal locking bar. An earsplitting CRACK burst through the room; the doors snapped open, flying outwards and off their hinges to crash to the floor outside in warped and blackened ruin. Emily flew back through the air as if hit by a giant's golf club making a line drive, hit the far wall, and then the floor, where she didn't move. Smoke curled off her clothes.

"Emily!" screamed Raj. He ran to her side. Strangely, Lucy was right beside him. Howard half-reached back after them before Bernadette yanked him off his feet and out through the doorway, along with Stuart, Siebert and the rest of the crowd. Penny saw Kurt hauling his employer along, shamelessly punching people out of his way left and right; their eyes met for a moment as Kurt went through the door, and then he was gone. And then the room was empty except for the unconscious staffers, Amy and Penny, and Raj and Lucy crouched over Emily's limp body. The blue-white light through the window was constant now, flashing like the world's fiercest lightning storm. Penny could feel the entire building shaking under her back.

I'm going to die here, she thought, quite calmly. I'm never going to be Leonard's wife after all. Which was really kinda sad, when you thought about it.

Footsteps sounded outside the wrecked doors. A tall, gaunt figure appeared in the doorway, long coat fluttering around him. Penny squinted at it. Was this Death?

"Penny, Amy Farrah Fowler, I've been officially released from my responsibilities by the designated head of this experiment," said Sheldon, talking faster than Penny had ever heard. "I'd like to usher you both to a place of safety at the earliest possible opportunity, which would be, um, now. In fact I'd really very strongly urge you both to run, now, right now. Raj, Lucy, that goes for the both of you too."

Penny drew in a breath, gathered all her will and pushed herself upright. "Where's Leonard?" she rasped.

"Leonard . . . has refused to release himself from his responsibilities. He's still down there trying to shut the accelerator down." Sheldon stared at the floor. "I'll have to compose a song."

"Then I'm staying." Penny put one hand on Amy's shoulder, and realized the other woman was crying. Wow. They really had been besties, hadn't they. "Amy? Bestie? Go. You know it's the only way Sheldon will leave too."

Raj came up, staggering, Emily in his arms. Lucy gave Penny a stricken look. "We can't, though, right? We can't just leave you?"

"Lucy. If Leonard pulls this off, I'll be all right. And if he doesn't pull it off . . . I don't want to be." She looked at Sheldon. "Sheldon, you know how to reach my parents. Do that for me. Okay?"

Sheldon could only nod. Amy's face was tearstained. As if neither of them could stand to watch any more, they turned and ran. Penny couldn't help but see that they were holding hands. Raj and Lucy hurried after, carrying Emily. Penny took a few moments to breathe slowly and deeply, gathering her strength. Then she rolled onto her hands and knees and began to crawl.

The room wasn't that large. Even crawling, it only took about a minute to cross. At last she managed to plaster herself against the observation window, staring down. The accelerator had disappeared into a column of blue-white light, throwing off long arcs of electrical power. Leonard was alone in the chamber, frantically dashing from console to console, typing commands and flipping switches in a frenzy. After a few seconds, he stepped back and ran both hands through his hair, desperate, terrified, and exhausted. Penny lifted one arm and tapped feebly on the window.

There was no way Leonard could have heard it. But as if pulled by strings, his head slowly turned to look up at the observation window all the same. Their eyes met. She could see the heartbreak in his, and her own heart melted.

I love you, she mouthed at him. And suddenly all her dizziness and nausea dissolved; her brain was alert and clear, her blood singing. She felt better than she ever had in her life. Completely by reflex, she smiled in nothing but sheer, helpless joy. She felt like she was glowing.

Tears spilled down Leonard's cheeks. A blinding aura of light surrounded him. He touched his heart, pointed at her and mouthed back, I love—

The world went white, then black.