Word Count: 776
Summary: They reassure each other. Always.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Big Bang Theory or the characters.

Penny stared at the whiteboard in front of her. As always, she understood nothing of what was written there, and as always, she felt a bit... sad. As if she wasn't smart. Not smart like the guys, smart as if she couldn't do simple math. The 2+2 kind of math.

As much as she wanted to look away from the board when Leonard came back to the living room, she couldn't.

"Is there something wrong?" He asked, laughing slightly "If you see something wrong there, please tell me before Sheldon sees it!"

Penny sighed, and not the good kind of sigh. Not a content, happy sigh.

"What is it?" Leonard asked, now worried. "Are you okay, Penny?"

"No." She kept staring at the board, doesn't even look at her husband for one second.

"Okay, then." Leonard took a deep breath before saying that and grabbed his keys from the bowl next to the door. If she wasn't ready to talk, she didn't have to talk. When she was ready, she would come to him with her problems. He learned that after so many years of trying to get her to open up. Because even when they started dating, she wouldn't talk to him when things got hard, she would just keep it to herself. She was learning to trust him. He liked to think he's the one he trusts the most. "Ready to go?"

There's no answer to his question. Instead, Penny decided to ask him something else.

"When did you start knowing you were this smart?"

The question took him off-guard since he wasn't expecting that question. "Uh... I... don't know. Why are you asking me this?" He started to approach her and decided to just put himself between the board and her. That movement made her finally look him in the eye.

"It's just that I never had a moment where I realized how smart I was. I mean... I go to a calculator to do simple math, you know? Simple math as in division, multiplication."

He took her hands in his and grabbed them. He smiled at her sweetly, before starting to talk. "I sometimes go to the calculator to divide, multiplicate. The other day I messed with my calculator, so I added 1+1." Penny looked away from him, but he still continued. "Even the smartest person in the world, in math, of course, can mess up some calculations. There was this time..." Penny interrupted him mid-sentence.

"You can stop trying to make me feel better. There's no need for you to lie."

"I'm not lying Penny. I once or twice published papers with simple mistakes. I now revise it more than once to make sure there's no mistake. Simple mistakes." He let's go of one of her hands to put it in her face and make her look at him. "You aren't smart with this thing," He points to the board. ", but you are smart in a lot of other things. There is a lot of difference "smart". I have mine, you have yours." He shrugged after finishing his thought.

She looked at him and only saw someone that was, in fact, telling the truth. She couldn't find in his eyes that he was lying. She smiled.

"You are really smart, you know?"

He smiled at her, sadly. "There are a lot of people that are smarter. Look across the hall, for example. Sheldon is a bigger genius than me."

"Yeah, but he remembers everything that he sees or hears. You, on the other hand, you have to remember everything without the help of photographic memory. Or eidetic memory, or whatever he usually makes us say!"

Leonard doesn't say a thing about her commentary. He isn't usually someone that is complemented on his smart ideas since he grew up with someone that put him down the second something came out of his mouth. And then going to live with Sheldon – sorry, Dr. Sheldon Lee Cooper – didn't make it any easier. Whenever someone tells him he's smart, he either doesn't believe that person or makes them want to think again.

So, instead of saying something else, he just grabbed his keys once again, and opened the door, waiting for Penny to leave the apartment. She's almost out of the door, when she turns around, colliding with him. She puts her hand against his chest.

"You are smart. Very smart. And a really nice guy. Accept that, Leonard. Take the compliment." She then walks away, leaving her husband behind trying to understand what just happens. "Come one, move your cute tushie."

He then leaves the apartment. A smile spreading on his lips.

The End

A day later than I thought I would post, but it's here. I completely forgot to post! I have another chapter for next week, and then we're back to the "normal" posting. Every week there's a continuation of the latest episode, and sometimes there are other chapters because I decided to post them.

Hope you all enjoyed this one. It's been on my mind for a long time now. Like arismommy11 once said in a review, Penny should reassure Leonard more often. So, here it is. They both reassure each other, I think it's something that it's needed.