"You think Bernadette's beating up Howard?" Penny asked.

"Well, yes. Think about it, the bruising, the silent aura he had yesterday, the tension between him and Bernadette.." Sheldon began to explain. Leonard held up a hand to stop him.

"I don't know. Bernadette gets mad, but I don't think she's hurting Howard."

"Well, how do you explain the bruising?" Amy quizzed him.

"Maybe he fell over."

The other three people gave him strange looks.

"It could be! Penny, what do you think?"

"I think..."

She was interrupted by a knock on the door. Amy opened it and Raj poked his head in, looking confused. He'd been told to come over to play WoW at Leonard and Sheldon's and had found them to not be there. Penny pointed at the fridge.

"There's a little bit of wine in there."

Raj smiled gratefully and went to get it.

"What's going on?" he asked after drinking the small amount that had been left in the bottle.

"These guys think Bernadette's beating up Howard."

"What?!"

"There was bruising!" Sheldon snapped. He could tell they weren't taking him seriously and he didn't like it.

"He might have bumped into something." Penny said.

"Oh, bestie. He wouldn't have had such dark bruising if he'd bumped into something."

"Maybe it was during sex." Raj pointed out. Everyone ignored this.

"OK, say we accept your hypothesis and he is getting beaten up. What do we do?" Leonard asked his roommate.

"Leonard, duh! We intervene." Penny scoffed.

"When?" Raj asked.

"Now. Come on, we have to nip it in the bud before it screws up their marriage." Penny told them, standing up.

"Whose car?" Amy wanted to know.

"Leonard's. Penny's probably still failed to get the 'check engine' light checked." Sheldon decided. Penny rolled her eyes at him. He really was a whackadoodle.

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"Guys?"

"Yeah,Raj?" Penny answered.

"If he is getting beat up, why didn't he tell us?"

"I don't know, sweetie." Penny told him.

"It was most likely loyalty to Bernadette. He loves her and doesn't want her to be ashamed or sad." Sheldon told him.

"Wow. How'd you guess that?" Leonard asked him.

"Past experience." Sheldon replied, shortly.

The car trip was silent following that.

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Howard liked to lie against Bernadette's chest sometimes. It made him feel safe and loved, especially with her arms wrapped around him. He didn't make a habit of it because he was afraid he might be too heavy for her. And it wasn't very manly. She didn't seem to mind, though. They'd only just fallen asleep when:

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

"Howard and Bernadette!"

Both jumped and lay frozen, clinging onto each other. Upon realizing that it was just Sheldon, they relaxed.

"Oh, God..." Bernadette yawned.

"Just pretend we're not here."

"We know you're in there!" Penny called.

Seeing now that they had no choice, they got out of bed and pulled their dressing robes on and went to answer the door.

"You didn't invite them over, did you?" Howard asked Bernadette.

"No. And not at this time I wouldn't have." She replied.

"I only just got to sleep." He told her.

"I know, honey."

"What do you guys want?" Howard asked them, sleepily.

"We're staging an intervention." Amy announced.

"On what?" Bernadette asked.

There was an awkward silence, during which, the 5 visitors looked at each other for advice.

"Come on guys. We're tired, we have work tomorrow, it's late. Just say what it is, so we can go back to sleep." Howard pleaded.

"Will you guys sit down first, please?" Leonard asked them. They couch looked so comfortable, they were only too glad to do so.

"We think you're battering your husband." Amy told Bernadette.

Bernadette gasped. Not through shock, but from how...horrible it sounded. How had she become a husband batterer? Howard looked concernedly st her and then confusedly toward his friends.

"You've thought wrong. There isn't any husband battering going on."

"Really?" Leonard asked him.

"Yes!"

"Howa do you explain your belly bruising then?" Raj demanded.

"It's none of your business what goes on around my belly! Look, nobody's battering any-"

"Howie."

He looked at his wife. She looked so depressed it hurt him.

"Yeah?"

She looked him in the eye. "We should tell the truth."

"Why?"

"Because you don't deserve what's going on."

"What's going on?" Penny asked.

"I've hit him. The first time was three weeks ago. I hit him on his head and he got bruised."

"You said you got your head caught in a door." Sheldon reminded Howard. The engineer nodded, looking down at his lap.

"The second time was on the night before we went shopping together."

"Yes, what did you hit him with? It looked like a bottle to me." Sheldon asked her. Bernadette shut her eyes. When she opened them, tears slid out of her eyes.

"It was a bottle. And I didn't just hit him...I beat him!" She started sobbing, feeling more regret and remorse for the action than she had felt for the past couple of days. Howard put his arms around her and held her. She gripped his forearms and leaned against him.

"Howard, why didn't you tell us?" Raj wanted to know.

"Because I was worried you guys might be mad at Bernadette and it wasn't her fault..."

Yes it was." Bernadette whispered.

"No, it wasn't. You got mad, it's not your fault. And I didn't want to admit we'd hit a rough patch. Sorry, Bernie."

"It is a rough patch." Gazing at him, she cried out, "and you got the roughest of it!"

"Well,what are you gonna do?" Penny questioned them.

"I don't know." Bernadette admitted, wiping her streaming eyes.

"Me neither." Howard replied.

"What about a trial separation?" Amy suggested. Bernadette looked thoughtful. Howard looked horrified

"No way! My parents tried it and my dad liked it so much..." He stopped his sentence there.

"Sorry. It just seems it might be a good idea to help this thing to cool off."

"Yeah, well. We're not separating."

"Have you tried discussing it with each other?" Leonard asked.

"No." Bernadette sighed.

"We kinda just hope it doesn't happen again."

"You should. Communication is very important in marriage." Raj told them.

"Just for the record, if you guys do decide to go for a trial separation, what happened to Howard's parents has a very slight chance of happening to you. In fact, for most couples..."

"Yeah, we get it." Howard interrupted. He ran a hand through his floppy brown hair before continuing. "We'll keep it as a last option, alright?"

"Fine."

"Will you guys be OK?" Penny asked.

"Yeah." Bernadette replied, squeezing Howard's hand. He smiled at her and nodded.

"OK. Do you want some privacy to talk about it?"

"Yeah."

"We'll get going, then. Remember to talk to each other, alright?" Leonard said to them.

"We will." They promised.

When all the goodbyes had been said and the apartment was bereft of visitors, they looked at each other, unsure how to start.

"Am I a bad husband?"

"No. Am I a bad wife?"

"God, no. Can I ask what's been bothering you?"

"I don't know, Howie. It just seems that everything's making me angry. I'm calm one moment and the next I'm.. hurting you. And it's horrible of me, but when the feeling comes, I just can't stop it."

Howard was quiet. He seemed to be thinking.

"Bernie?"

"Hmm?"

"You.. haven't had your period yet, have you?"

"How do you know?"

"When I went to get deodorant this morning out of the cabinet, I saw your packet of...stuff and it hadn't been opened. And you bought it like 2 months ago."

"You're right. It hasn't come yet."

"Oh my God. Could...could you be...?"

"Pregnant?"

"Yeah."

"I don't know. Maybe. I mean, I missed my period and the mood swings..I've even been putting on weight."

"You have? Where?"

"Oh, my God, Howie!"

She clutched his hand tightly and looked excitedly into his dark blue eyes.

"We could be having a baby!"

Even I wasn't expecting that. I was just typing away and then BAM! it hit me. Bernadette could be pregnant! What do you think?I'm sorry I couldn't fit in Howard and Sheldon friendship moments, but I'll fit it in next chapter, where I'm planning on getting the boys together and the girls together. And then in another chapter or two, we'll find out if Bernie's pregnant or not! Don't forget to review, I want your input on this. Thanks for reading!
Love Shania. xx