The Asgard Amplification 4/7
Amy waved as she made her way into the bar. "Besties! Jane! Darcy!"
Plunking herself down on the stool, the neurobiologist smiled gleefully. "I hear from Sheldon that he's now consulting on your project. Mission accomplished."
Darcy snorted as she sipped her drink and grabbed another handful of chips from the bowl.
"Doesn't anybody respect 'Top Secret' anymore these days?"
Bernadette chortled. "Not really. You should hear what goes down in germ warfare research.
Let's just say that you should all stock up on your full-spectrum antivirals!"
Penny's eyes widened at the thought. "Hit me again," she said to the bartender.
Jane lifted her glass and the lanky woman behind the bar soon had both their orders filled. The five women refocused on each other.
"So, what's it like working with Sheldon?" Penny asked cheerfully.
"I don't know quite yet," Jane confessed. "We've yet to sit down and meet, though I sent him a data set last week. In any case, Sheldon refuses to join us in New Mexico. But Leonard's going to come back down and help with the new equipment we're calibrating. He'll be with us for a week."
"Huh," Penny said thoughtfully, stirring her drink. "If it weren't for you guys and Saturday night laundry with Sheldon, I wouldn't know what's going on in Leonard's life. He still doesn't talk to me."
"Afraid of Priya or is it still the 'Raj thing'?" Bernadette asked.
Penny rolled her eyes. "Honestly, I don't know and, at this point, I don't much care. Leonard Hofstadter is not my whole world."
Darcy lifted her glass in a salute and the other women followed. Conversation turned to a spirited discussion of the merits of chick lit with two for and three against, before Amy insisted that they rate the merits of current movie stars according to an ordered scale she drafted on the back of a cocktail napkin.
"It's scientific," she protested when they balled up the napkin and refused to play any more after the second round of drinks.
"Let's just go see the movie," Darcy pleaded, "I have nothing else to do in Puente Antiguo but work, slather on the sunscreen and surf the internet."
"That does sound pretty grim," Penny said, as the women paid their tabs and headed out into the Pasadena twilight.
"How's the whole long distance relationship thing working with you and, what's his name?, Thor," she asked of Jane as they headed into the multiplex a few steps behind the other women.
Jane frowned slightly. "It's, not, well, he's not in a place where he can communicate at all."
Penny winced sympathetically. "That sucks! Almost worse than no boyfriend at all and, let me tell you, I should know."
"Let's hope that they haven't already picked some weepy romantic comedy," Jane said as they joined Amy, Bernadette and Darcy at the ticket counter. "I have an urge to see things get blown up."
"One mindless action flick full of hot manflesh," Darcy promised, passing a ticket back to her boss who smiled gratefully.
***
Sighing quietly to herself, Jane closed the folder that held the still-blank pad of paper she'd been hoping to fill with notes relating to her collaboration with the man who sat, stone-faced, across the desk from her.
"Look, if you don't want to be involved in the project, don't!" Jane exclaimed as she started to get out of the chair.
"I never said that," Sheldon retorted, but his mulish expression was far from welcoming.
Jane sighed again. "All you've done for the last half-hour is run some sort of cross-examination where you've repeatedly implied that I fabricated all of the evidence for our phenomenon. I hardly call that collaborating!"
Sheldon arched one eyebrow disdainfully. "You may not, but I've been providing an invaluable service simply by ensuring that you haven't falsified this data. Let me tell you that there are plenty of other scientists who wouldn't be half as helpful as I've been."
Jane glared back at him. "I don't need to waste half a day getting patronizing lectures from some string theorist, thanks so much. I got enough of these in grad school and yours are just as misguided as theirs were!"
Sheldon sniffed, rising from his desk chair to lean across the desk, fury evident in his every deep breath. "Misguided? Oh, I, I. . . look, even if you did observe a genuine Einstein-Rosen bridge all those months ago, you'll never be able to recreate it, not with current standards of technology, Dr. Foster!"
Straightening, he strode across the room to his whiteboard. Picking up a marker, he began to write equations while giving a running commentary. "This represents the energy involved in the simplest Einstein-Rosen bridge. This represents the additional energy necessary to contain one so that it didn't destroy a fair chunk of the earth. And this represents the energy necessary to sustain the phenomenon long enough to permit for transmission of materials or data to test the link, which I can only assume is your aim."
With a triumphant flourish, Sheldon concluded the calculations, then capped the marker, spinning to stare at Jane. "Don't delude yourself, Dr. Foster. What you propose, to generate an Einstein-Rosen bridge, is simply impossible at this point in history. Your endeavour is doomed to failure even without addressing the gaping holes in the theory underlying your scheme. I'm only being merciful by showing you this sooner rather than later."
Jane stalked out of his office, too angry to say anything else. Blindly making her way down the hall, she bumped into Leonard.
"Hey," he said, taking in her dark expression and the open door down the hallway. "Oh, you've seen Sheldon. Here, let's go grab a coffee or something."
Jane drew in a deep breath, seeking to calm herself. "Good idea."
Neither spoke until they'd reached the coffee house. Jane gave her order in clipped tones and Leonard followed suit a little bit more comfortably. He let Jane lead them to a table and waited while she cradled the cup for a few minutes before she finally spoke.
"He's right, you know."
Leonard winced. "Sheldon often is, don't tell him I told you that, but right about what?"
Jane lifted her eyes from their contemplation of her coffee. "That what we're trying to do is impossible."
Leonard made a scoffing sound. "No, it's not. You saw it. You know a wormhole is possible. And your model? It's sound! Sheldon's just cranky, that's all."
Jane sipped at her coffee and then stared at the table top. "No, he's right. He broke down the math on the energy required to do what we're trying to do. Even with the fantastic generators that the agency secured, we're falling short. Far short. We can't generate an Einstein-Rosen bridge here."
Leonard banged his fist on the table in frustration. The other patrons of the coffee bar looked up, startled, and he shrugged into himself, embarrassed. "Um, look, just because Sheldon has found some problems, maybe, that isn't time to call it quits. We just have to apply some more brainpower to the issue, that's all."
"You're pretty stubborn, aren't you?" Jane said, smiling a tiny bit against the raging despair that had gripped her since coming to terms with the flaws in the project.
"Hey, I've been Sheldon Cooper's roommate for seven years, now. There's nothing but stubbornness that'd make that happen," Leonard joked.
"You're stubborn about some other things, or so I hear," Jane observed.
Leonard's cheery expression dissipated. "Like what?" he asked warily.
"Penny says you don't talk to her or Raj anymore," Jane replied, watching Leonard over the rim of her coffee cup.
Leonard frowned, his dark brows closing over the frame of his glasses. "Yeah, well, I have good reason not to," he said.
"Like what?" Jane parried.
"Just trust me, okay?" Leonard said uneasily, shoving his chair around in clear discomfort.
Jane opened her mouth, then closed it. She didn't know Leonard well enough, she supposed, and for all that she'd happily taken him on as a contributor to the project, she'd not shared the real implications of the wormhole with Leonard or any of the Caltech scientists.
"Still game for this field trip to New Mexico?" Jane asked, deciding it was better to change the subject, all around.
"What?" Leonard said in abstraction before refocusing. "Sure thing. Wouldn't miss it for the world!"
"Darcy and I could pick you up at the apartment if you don't want to leave your car at the airport," Jane offered.
"Nah," Leonard answered. "It'll be easier when I fly back from Albuquerque to have it waiting there."
They idly talked of the weather in Puente Antiguo and the security measures at the new SHIELD-sponsored lab Jane was running near the drop site. When her phone sang with a call from Darcy, Jane waved goodbye to Leonard with, if not a light heart, at least a determined sense of hope that they'd be able to make the wormhole work, one way or another.
***
"Ah, hey," Penny said warily as she turned the last corner in the stairwell to her floor. Leonard was outside the guys' apartment, twisting the key in the lock.
"Ah, hey you," Leonard responded, fumbling with the key, his suitcase and a ratty messenger bag which he almost stumbled over, making room for Penny as she came up the stairs.
"So you're off to New Mexico," Penny observed, waiting carefully to see how Leonard responded.
He fidgeted around with his keys before dropping them into his pocket. "Yeah. Going to work on a project."
Penny snorted a bit as she leaned against the wall beside the blocked-off elevator. "Come on, we all know this is Jane's project for the Einstein-whatsit thingie. You can all pretend it's top secret and all that but it's just kind of silly."
Leonard rolled his eyes at that but nodded. "Yeah, and speaking of kind of silly. . . ." His voice trailed off.
Penny crossed her arms and arched one eyebrow expectantly. "Yeah?"
Leonard ducked his head. "Well, I was kinda, I mean, I owe you an apology because, well, I've been kind of a jerk. . . ."
As his voice trailed off, Penny screwed up her face. "I'll say," she blurted out when Leonard seemed to have run out of words.
"Hey," Leonard snapped back, "it isn't easy, you know, I mean, dammit-"
Penny softened slightly at his obvious discomfort. "I know," she allowed, then let her voice drop an octave. "Apology accepted, Admiral Needa."
Leonard smiled geekily at her Star Wars reference. "It was Captain Needa, actually, but that's pretty awesome."
Penny smirked back. "I know."
Leonard looked at his watch and started suddenly. "Shit. I have to get going to the airport. But, honestly, Penny, I am sorry for being such a jerk. I miss being friends with you!"
He pelted down the stairs in a confused mass of messenger bag, suitcase and man. Penny waved as he rounded the staircase corner with a grin.
"Miss you, too," she said softly before fishing out her own keys and heading to her apartment.
Part Five
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