Sorry this chapter is up so late at night again, guys, college is a slave driver!

We're starting to get into one of the angsty parts, so…just consider yourselves warned. I know some might be bothered, but it may be a sensitive issue for others, so…yes, you've been warned.

And I still don't own anything.

"Hang on," Leonard said, trying to get Penny's point straight. "You talked to Gilda and she suggested we systematically narrow down to reasons why we might be having problems getting pregnant?"

"Yeah!" Penny said. "Come on, we can't have sex every day, this would at least be a way for us to feel like we're doing something, you know?"

"Yeah," Leonard said, smiling. "Especially since we're not getting any younger; it may be a while yet before this actually happens, so figuring this stuff out…" he nodded. "It's good. It's very good."

"We've already been trying almost a full year," she said quietly. "You don't have some sort of scientific solution worked out already? Fail, Leonard Hofstadter. Fail."

Her question was meant as a joke, but the way that Leonard cocked his head made her realize he was taking it seriously. "I'm kidding."

"No, no," he said, looking excited. "That's an idea!" He jumped up and moved toward the table by the window, grabbing her laptop and bringing it back to the couch.

"No," Penny said slowly. "We can do my idea of figuring out what could be stopping this from happening. That is an idea. Wanting a formula for it is me mocking you. That is not an idea."

"I know, I'm just choosing to ignore your mocking because we have work to do," Leonard said. "We'll search reasons why we might be having difficulty, and then narrow down the possibilities to what's going wrong! Then we can make sure it's fixed! And technically, it was Gilda's idea, not yours. Self-admitted, there."

Penny grinned, feeling enthusiastic. "Okay!" She grabbed her college ruled notebook, turned past the first few pages of scribbled physics notes, and began writing the words that Leonard read aloud from the computer.

"Penny," Leonard said. "You don't need to write down 'okay, I'm going to do a Google search'."

Penny looked down at the notebook. "Oh. Right." She turned the writing utensil upside down and attempted to erase, but the eraser was dry and cracked and it left an orange streak across the page. "Son of a bitch!"

"Penny," Leonard said. "Go get my board."

"Ugh, you sound like Gilda," Penny said, smirking and running across the hall. Luckly, Sheldon and Amy were so immersed in counter factuals they didn't stop to question why she was taking the board. Amy didn't even seem to notice she entered the room, and that got Penny's attention. She stopped and smiled at them for a moment, holding the board and feeling proud, for some reason, that they seemed so very immersed in each other. A question Amy posed snapped Penny out of it, and she smirked before turning and bouncing back across the hall. "I got it!" she said proudly as she re – entered her apartment, deciding not to mention that Gilda had suggested as much to her earlier.

"What took you so long?" Leonard asked. "I've read a full article already!"

"Well, I had to find out where the Large Hadron Collider would be located had Queen Jane Seymour not died shortly after the birth of Prince Edward the sixth."

"And?" Leonard asked.

"Belarus. What did you find out?"

"You know I actually kinda think that one makes sense," Leonard said, thinking.

Penny clapped her hands. "Leonard!"

"Sorry." He cleared his throat. "It looks like the first thing that we need to do is get the basic fertility test." She looked at him. "You did that a week ago. Did they ever call back?"

Leonard cocked his head. "I'm…unsure."

Penny moved over to her home phone. "Dammit!" She picked up the receiver. "How long has this been disconnected?"

Leonard frowned. "That's the number you gave them? Has anyone actually ever called that number?"

Penny glared, looking as if she was going to defend herself, but decided it wasn't worth the effort explaining that her parents still used their home phone all the time and it made her feel like someone ready to be a parent and that made her feel good. "Shut up." She replaced the phone and came back over to the couch. "I'll go over there tomorrow."

"Sounds good," Leonard said, putting a hand on her knee. "So…" he started to type into the search bar.

"Wait," Penny said, "let's not do this right now." She saw the look on his face and realized she'd better explain herself. "Let's wait and see if we can narrow this down before we go listing all these issues that we could be having. Let's start out able to eliminate stuff."

He nodded. "Okay."

"Okay," Penny said, running her fingers through her hair nervously. "Ugh. My hair is gross."

"Tell you what," Leonard said, "I'll go down and talk to the fertility people, you go and take a shower."

Penny thought for a moment, then nodded and jumped up. "I'm down with that!"


"Okay," Penny said, coming out of the shower as Leonard smiled at her from the couch, envelope in hand. "They didn't talk to you there?"

"I had no appointment. They told me to call if I had any questions." He patted the seat beside him. "Let's take a look."

Penny sat down next to him and leaned over, putting her hands on his shoulders. He tore the end off of the envelope and fished the papers out, unfolding them. His eyes, along with Penny's, darted back and forth over the lines. "Well," Penny said cheerfully, "looks like there's nothing wrong with you, Dr. Stud."

"No…" Leonard said, shaking his head. "Doesn't appear to be."

"Terrific," she said, leaning against the back of the couch. "So I'm the problem."

"Not necessarily."

"Um…yes necessarily."

"No, that's not what it means. Here, I'll look everything over again," Leonard said, taking the result sheet from Penny.

"What for?" She asked, letting him take it and looking away. "It's very clear. You're as fertile as the ground in Narnia." Shaking her head, she looked down at her feet. "It's me." She looked up at Leonard. "It's me. It's my fault I'm not pregnant."

"This doesn't mean it's your fault," Leonard said. "It just means it's…probably not my fault."

"Which means it's probably my fault." Penny licked her lips slowly.

"Look on the bright side," Leonard said. "There's less possible reasons why this isn't happening now. It's a matter of narrowing it down and finding it. Here. Let's research this." He eased Penny's laptop off her coffee table and booted it up. Her background, a photo of the two of them dressed as Han Solo and Princess Leia for the past Halloween, popped up on the screen. He logged onto the internet and found Google.

"Your favorite site," Penny said. "Mine, too."

It took him a second to realize what she was talking about, and then he grinned and shook his head. "We're horrible."

"I have a dirty comment," Penny said, "but I'll save it." Feeling cheerful all of a sudden – this was doing better than nothing – she leaned against him and rested her head on his shoulder as he searched for causes of fertility problems in females. He tapped the screen. "Any surgeries that might affect fertility?"

Penny read the lines he was pointing at, squinting. "Nope." She shifted her weight. "Is it wrong that I'm nervous?"

He smiled. "No."

"Ugh…" she said, shifting her weight again. "Good, because a little part of me is. But go on."

"Here's something. Endometriosis. It only affects about seven percent of all American women. Do you have any of those symptoms?"

"Nope."

Leonard scrolled down. "Premature menopause…"

Penny laughed. "Yeah, that's it," she said sarcastically.

"You're not overweight or underweight," Leonard continued. "You stopped drinking when we started trying…you don't smoke…" He looked at Penny in shock when she shifted uncomfortably. "You smoke?" He asked incredulously.

She threw up her hands. "Not anymore, okay? I was a…curious teenager."

"Penny, do you know what kind of damage you've probably done to yourself?" Leonard said, shaking his head and his hands.

"Leonard! It was for like, six months when I was sixteen. My father started driving me to and from school to make sure I wouldn't go anywhere, and I stopped." She shrugged. "I haven't had a cigarette in ten years."

"Fine."

Penny glanced at him, feeling uncomfortable with how angry he had become over that. "Sorry I didn't tell you," she said quietly.

"Doesn't really change anything, now does it?" He mumbled. "But whatever. After ten years you shouldn't be feeling any of the effects."

She looked at him for a long moment, her mouth hanging slightly open. "Leonard…"

He shook his head.

"Oh, God," she moaned, putting her head in her hands.

"Hey," he said. "Calm down. I'm not mad at you. You were a kid. I just…I don't know why I didn't consider that you did, I'm sorry." He reached for her, making her face him. "But our kid's not touching them, okay?"

Penny sighed. "Yeah. Okay. For sure. You really never tried them?"

"So not endometriosis," Leonard said loudly, scrolling down while Penny smirked and shook her head. Turning back to read the screen, she listened to her boyfriend eliminate other possible causes, and watched as he wrote down other possibilities that they couldn't eliminate without tests. "There," he said after a while. "We'll just get tested for these, and see what happens."

"Yeah," Penny said. "Let's do it." She offered her fist, and Leonard bumped it with his. He got up to get water. She leaned forward and clicked on 'next', and another page of possible causes popped up. "This seems to be the same list as before…oh, cysts. Lovely, that wasn't on the other one." She scanned the symptoms. "But I don't think that's…oh." Penny's finger froze the mouse on one of the possible problems and felt her blood run cold.

"What?" he said, looking at cocking his head. He glanced at the screen, but not before she began scrolling. "What does it say?"

"Symptoms," she said, scrolling down farther, trying to get away from that first sentence. She felt her lungs tighten and told herself she was overreacting, but what she'd read she hadn't even considered a possibility. "Symptoms…bloating, a bit…frequent urination…" she thought about it. "Um…no?" She kept reading, feeling herself begin to panic. "Nausea…" Well, she'd thought it was morning sickness, but it hadn't been so…. "Yes. Loss of appetite, yes. Painful intercourse, no. Fatigue, a little, lower back pain, yes…oh no …" Her chest began to ache, and she felt as if her lungs couldn't get enough air. "Leonard," she gasped, one hand pointing at the computer screen and the other against her stomach, trying to breathe, feeling more and more desperate when each gasp for air didn't satisfy her need for oxygen. The mystery of why conception was so hard for them suddenly seemed to have an explanation, and the realization of the possibility was causing her to panic. She was losing control of her lungs, and the stress and frustration of the past few months all came to a head as she stared at the list of symptoms, most of which she had, and feeling herself lose control. She started to shake with her struggle to take in oxygen.

Then Leonard was next to her, bringing her pointing arm down and sliding his hands up and down her sides. "Easy, easy," he repeated, sliding one hand around to the left side of her chest. She didn't need him to tell her that her heart was racing, she could feel it pulsing in like six different places. "Breathe, breathe."

"Can't," she gasped, her fingers pinching the fabric of his jacket hard, as if that would help open her airways. She knew she was panicking, and that was making it worse, but she couldn't help it. She could only manage to squeak the single syllable as the tiny bit of air she was able to inhale was pushed back out of her lungs. "Can't."

"Yes you can, focus. Inhale."

"Help!" She begged, knowing that he couldn't do anything more than he was already doing.

"You're okay, just focus," he repeated, shifting his weight ever so slightly. "Just focus."

Penny closed her eyes. Tried to block out what she had been reading. Tried to just let herself breathe rather than trying to. Instead of letting her fears control her, she focused on where she was-home. She focused on Leonard's arms around her. She focused on his voice. Slowly, she was able to take a deep breath, shuddering on the exhale in pure relief. She slumped backward, letting Leonard hold her, feeling tired. "Leonard."

"It's okay," he told her. "I'm here. Do you feel better?"

Her eyes felt wet, as if she was crying. Penny put a hand up to her face. No, she wasn't crying, but her eyes were watering. "What happened?"

"I think you had a panic-attack." He shifted her body over so he could see her face. "What happened? You're muttering to yourself one moment, and the next you're croaking out unintelligible syllables and shaking." He rubbed her arm. "I over think and you overreact, huh?"

"Are you seriously making a joke about that?" she said, looking half angry and half hurt.

Leonard looked confused. "What?"

Penny took a gulp of air. "That." She pointed at the screen. "Five of seven symptoms."

Leonard looked at the screen, scrolling to the top to see the name of the problem that had caused Penny to panic. She watched him read the first sentence. "A cause of infertility in otherwise healthy females, ovarian cancer kills seventy-five percent of all women diagnosed per year."

"Okay, now," Leonard said. "This isn't likely. You don't have all the symptoms…"

"No one does. And it says your risk is increased if you've never had a baby. That's me."

"It also says that symptoms aren't specific to the disease and you could just have them at random times. And there are dozens of symptoms for diseases like that."

"No, but look," Penny said, "Risk is also increased if you have a family member that had the disease. I think that's what my aunt died of; I was three so I don't remember. And look at this. If you're having trouble conceiving, and haven't used fertility drugs, that may increase your chances of having it."

"It doesn't mean you have it."

Penny saw Leonard's face in profile as he looked at the computer screen, and she knew he was worried. Of all the causes of fertility problems in females that they could make educated guesses about, this one, this horrifying, serious one, was the most likely, based on symptoms and past.

Penny's hands went involuntarily to the sides of her stomach, resting her palms flat. "Oh God," she whispered.

"It's going to be okay," Leonard said. "We're just looking at all the possibilities now."

She shook her head slowly. "I know that's it, Leonard. It has to be. It fits."

"It doesn't all fit," Leonard said. "There's no frequent urination, and that's a sign of pregnancy too, and sex is still fine, and so what if you're a little fatigued? People get tired." He smiled at her. "This disease is so rare."

"I know," Penny said. "But you know I'm going to be freaking out until the possibility is eliminated. Damn you, ovaries!" She was desperately trying to bring comic relief to the table…or rather, the couch; she was feeling a bit embarrassed about falling right into a panic attack from simply reading about one of the many reasons for difficult conception. But cancers were scary, and she did tend to overreact about the simplest of things.

"So call and get an appointment," Leonard said, partially to be encouraging and positive and partially because he really wanted – needed – to know as well. "I'm sure you'll get cleared in just a few days. And if by some chance you do have it, they can do surgery and you'll be fine."

"Yeah," Penny said, taking in a deep breath. "But that's providing it hasn't spread. And if I get my equipment removed we can't have kids. Not even via surrogate in this case." She put a hand on her chest. "Those panic attacks, they really take it out of you!" She declared. "Have you ever had one before?"

"Oh," Leonard laughed. "Yes."

"When we weren't sure if Luke was going to blow up the Death Star before it took out Yavin?"

Leonard gave her a playful swat on the arm. "Before our first date."

Her mouth fell open slightly. "Really?" she asked, her tone suggesting that Leonard's inability to control his nerves was the sweetest thing she'd ever heard.

He leaned over and kissed her forehead. "Yep."

"Aww," she said, putting a hand on his chest. Then the romantic look came out of her eyes. "You know my reason is a little more justified, right?"

Leonard wasn't sure to answer her with a "of course" or laugh at how abruptly she changed tone and expression. He simply put his arm around her and used his other hand to minimize the internet window before wrapping both arms around her. "And Penny?"

"Hmmm?"

"It was Yavin Four."

I know cancer is a sensitive issue for a lot of people (as it is for me) but I hope it won't turn anyone away from the fic, there will be no humor had from the seriousness of the issue, I promise you that.