AN: A little something fun, it might be a bit OOC, but I'm going with it anyways. Hope you enjoy!

Who's gonna love you baby?

Penny slumped onto her couch, dropping her bag at her feet like it weighed a ton, despite being nearly empty. She was done. Finished. The Cheesecake Factory was closing. In exactly one month, she would be be jobless. Approximately one month after that, she would probably be homeless too. The manager had called them all in for a meeting, and broke the news, announcing that there would be no transfers, no job spots at other locations. The whole crew was out of work.

It hadn't really sunk in yet. She had picked up a paper on the way home to scan the want ads, but she knew that the chances of getting something were pretty slim, with so many other servers out of work as well. Even if she did get a job, she'd be low man on the totem pole again, with the crap shifts and limited overtime.

It almost wasn't worth it to look for something in her current line of work.

Idly, she flipped through the want ads, not really seeing them. She was under qualified for most of them anyways, and not flexible enough for the 'strippers wanted' ones, she sneered at the paper sarcastically, knowing she'd go home to Omaha before she took to the poles. The mere thought of Howard finding out where she worked and bringing the guys in for a show and stuffing money in her g-string was enough to make her want to hurl. The look of scorn or bewilderment that would be on Sheldon's face...

"Oh crap." She sat up.

Sheldon. SHE would have to tell Sheldon that his Tuesday night schedule would be compromised.

With horror, she remembered his reaction when he found out about his usual cashew chicken having come from a different spot. She couldn't even buy out the rest of of the take out containers either and fake it because he was accustomed to coming IN to eat.

The situation she was in finally hit, and her hands started shaking.

She was going to be jobless. Homeless. And she was more worried about Sheldon's reaction to not getting his barbeque bacon cheeseburger with everything on the side on a cheesecake factory plate.

There was only one thing to do. Steal a plate, and promise to spend every Tuesday for the rest of her life making him a burger.

She sunk lower onto the couch and put her head in her hands. "Great, who's the wackadoodle now?"

~P~

The next morning, Penny got out of bed with a smile on her face. The night of restless sleep had produced a tiny germ of an idea, and if she could get it to work, there would be no need for her to find a new job, and even better, no need to tell Sheldon about the impending closure of the Cheesecake Factory. She would open her own restaurant. Preferably in the locale she currently worked in.

It was a long shot. She didn't have great credit, but she did have three things on her side. While most people knew she was from Nebraska and a few knew she had grown up on a farm, almost nobody knew that her godmother and aunt had successfully run a diner in Omaha for the last twenty years, and that Penny had practically grown up in the kitchen there. She even had all the kitchen certification, except for the poster on the wall graced by a culinary school's name, and even better she knew a few chefs and wait staff who were soon to be looking for work. She wouldn't have to cook a thing.

If there was one thing besides cows and corn that Penny knew, it was how to run a restaurant. She'd never actually done it on her own, but observation had to count for something right? And as a teen she had gone over many supply orders and even haggled with distributors. The Cheesecake Factory might be bleeding money, but she knew why, she had even attempted to point out to the current manager several things that would both cut costs and improve the restaurant. She could do this!

The only thing that would stand in her way was the issue of money, and she knew exactly where to get it. When her grandparents had died ten years ago in a car accident, they had left some money behind, and it had been put into trust funds for her and her brother. Not enough to live on forever, but enough to start a new business and get started. Originally intended to cover university, it had been sitting in the trust fund since Penny dropped out, inaccessible without the executor's approval or until the day she turned twenty five.

Well, in a few months, she would be twenty five. With a good business plan, she felt confident the executor would grant her access to the money, and if they didn't, she would find a bank that would loan her exact amount of cash that was in the account.

Problem Solved.