You all know what this is let's just get to it.
This isn't new.
She's done this probably a dozen times. Not always with Leonard, but…well, quite a few times have been with Leonard.
'With' being a bit misleading; no one is ever with her when she does this. She takes care of her anxieties and moves on with her life, and the other person doesn't have to know. Leonard knows about the other times, sure, she'd accidentally told him years ago, when he saw the first one, but he doesn't know exactly when they all were.
When the answer is 'no,' it's easy to pretend nothing ever happened.
Penny taps her foot against the tile. The minutes are dragging on. If Stephen Hawking had invented time, she'd be cursing him to speed it up, just this once, because she just wants to know. And that, she supposes, is different from the other times. The other times, she's pleading with a god she hasn't talked to since she was strong – armed into it by Mary Cooper for the answer to be 'no'.
The other kind. N – O. No K and W surrounding it. The K and W were new to this party."
"Come on, come on," she says, her stomach in knots. The sick feeling is anxiety, she knows it's still too early for morning sickness, and she knows from Bernadette that morning sickness could actually last all day. That's something she's not looking forward to, if the test says 'yes'. She's downed a lot of people's share of alcohol. She's done a lot of people's share of vomiting.
There's maybe thirty seconds left on the timer, and then she can look. The tapping gets faster. Her hand presses more firmly against her stomach, and she's not sure if it's because of the anxiety or because she's subconsciously predicting the answer.
Wait. If this is positive, does that mean she's aced a test?
Penny grins, her tongue between her top and bottom teeth, wiggling in place on the toilet, then grows solemn again, staring at the pregnancy test, sitting upside down on the edge of the tub. "Come on, come on…"
Her phone vibrates right off the counter, but she's snatching the test up first. This is the brand she's been buying for six years; she knows exactly where to look and her eyes flash right to the display scene.
One line. Then another.
She puts a hand to her mouth, not fully realizing how she's feeling until her palm makes contact with a smile. She hugs the test to her chest, sliding her free hand down to her belly again, no, lower than you think it is…here. Well, roughly.
There's a slight dizziness mixed in with everything else. They haven't talked about this recently. He doesn't know that something stopped her from going to the pharmacy, and it wasn't the hangover. He doesn't know that she's spent the last five minutes wanting to know more than wanting no.
He doesn't know how she's feeling right now. And neither does she, not really.
One does not simply process this that fast.
But she does know, now that she knows, that this is the result she wanted.
She puts her pajama shorts back on and walks into the living room. He's sitting in his chair, the latest Firefly comic book in his hand.
"Good story?" She asks.
"Huh? Oh, yeah," he says, tapping the top of the page he's on. "River's a real badass."
"That the one you met on the train?" She asks.
The thrilled look on his face tells her that she's right. The look makes her want to get pregnant all over again. "Hey," she says, clearing her throat and tucking hair behind her ear. "I got a question for you."
He closes the comic book, setting it on the coffee table. "What's up?"
"Remember when we'd talked about…our thoughts on kids, and all that?"
Leonard looks at her, a mildly confused look on his face. "Yes. Why?"
Penny steps closer and holds her hand out, and instinctively he reaches for it. She presses the pregnancy test into his hand. He looks down, and a smile creeps over her face. "Well?" She asks, biting her lower lip playfully as he looks back up at her. "Do you wanna?"