Work Text:
The music blasting from her cell phone woke Penny. She groaned. It was some theme from Star Wars that Leonard had excitedly loaded onto the phone after the release of most recent movie, and it was entirely too cinematic to make a good ring tone.
Silently vowing to change it to something less dramatic, she rolled over and groggily answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Penny, get Sheldon and--”
“No.” She cut him off. It was her day off, and she wasn't about to get saddled with a sick Sheldon again. “If he wants to go to the doctor, tell him to call Amy. He's not my responsibility any more.”
“It's not that. You need to get--” The rest of his words were drowned out by background noise, what sounded like glass breaking.
Coming alert, she swung her legs over the side of the bed. “What? I can't hear you.”
There were more crashing sounds at the other end of the line. “Get Sheldon. Get out of there. Tell him it's code Alpha One.” There was a moment's hesitation. “That cabin we went to up at Big Bear. I'll meet you there when I can.”
“But--” She wasn't even sure what she should be asking. “What's going on? What about Bernie and Howard and Raj...”
“I'll get a hold of everyone and send them to the lake.” There was shouting in the background. “Once you're in the car, turn on the radio. Penny, I love you. Go! Now!”
The line disconnected before she could answer him. Quickly, she threw on her clothes, grabbed her keys, and ran across the hallway to her old apartment.
She'd found Sheldon wearing his Wednesday pajamas, cocooned in a quilt, watching Dr. Who. “Sheldon, we have to go.”
He sniffed, hard. “I'm sick, Penny. I'm not going anywhere.”
“Leonard said it's a code Alpha One, whatever that means.”
Sheldon looked up sharply. What color existed in his pale skin seemed to drain away. “Alpha One? You're certain?”
“Yeah. Now get dressed and come on.”
“No time. That's the code for an apocalypse.” Cold apparently forgotten, he shoved his feet into slippers and nearly leapt from the sofa. He ran into the bedroom, returning moments with two backpacks. Sheldon handed one of them to Penny. “Let's go.”
Sheldon silently reached over and turned off the radio. She would have objected, but the scientist who'd been speaking had been using jargon she didn't understand anyhow. Taking her eyes from the road for a moment, she glanced over to see her passenger sitting ramrod straight, staring straight ahead. “Sheldon?”
“God help us.”
His words sent an icy chill down her spine. Sheldon wasn't religious. If he was appealing to God.... “Sheldon, I don't understand. What's happening?”
“They had an experiment scheduled at the University today. I should have been there.” He coughed once, as if suddenly reminded why he hadn't been at work.
She wanted to shake him. “Sheldon! What--”
“I think they ripped a hole in the fabric of space time.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means Caltech is gone. And I'm not sure how much more of California will go with it.”
It had been three days. Three days since they had arrived at the cabin, and Penny had broken a window to get in. The fact that Sheldon had simply stood by watching and hadn't complained about her unlawful entry had told her how serious it was, and how rattled he was.
Not that she was much better. She'd nearly worn a path in the carpet from pacing. Now, she stopped and looked over towards Sheldon, toward the couch where he sat, folded in upon himself, his knees pulled to his chest. “They're not coming, are they?”
“It seems unlikely. If they were, they would be here by now.” He picked up his phone from the table, glanced at it, and put it back down, giving his head a small shake.
No signal. Her phone couldn't get one, either. They were too far from civilization and some of the cell towers were down. The rest were almost certainly overloaded. Not that it mattered. On the way to the lake, before they'd lost signal, they'd tried all the numbers. Leonard. Amy. Howard and Bernadette. Raj. Stuart. Sheldon had even tried Kripke and Leslie Winkle. They'd all gone to voice mail, if there'd been any answer at all.
Penny picked up the remote to turn on the television.
“Don't. Please.” Sheldon's voice was uncharacteristically quiet.
She dropped the remote, and instead circled to sit on the other end of the couch. It wasn't like the news would tell them anything they didn't already know. The portal, if that's what it was, was still open. Things had come through it, things that the California National Guard and the US Army were currently trying to deal with.
“This is my fault.” Sheldon drew his knees even more tightly towards himself.
Penny shook her head. “Sweety, you weren't even there. How could it be your fault?”
He raised his head to look at her, and before he lowered it again, she thought she saw tears. “You don't understand, Penny. I did the math. It was my theory they were trying to prove. And I was wrong. So very, very wrong.”