This chapter picks up five days to a week after the last one. Just so everyone's following. : )

I still only own my own characters.

When someone knocked on the door of her lab, Bernadette expected it to be someone bringing her a lecture on using extra grant money to conduct her own personal "I was curious" type experiments. Luckily, Penny didn't ask for an explanation on the relief that flooded the microbiologist's face. "Hey, Penny," she said, smiling. "Hey Ada," she said, greeting the sleeping baby that was strapped against Penny's chest. "What are you doing here?"

Penny shrugged. "I don't know, I just wanted to…say hi, I guess."

Bernadette raised an eyebrow, then glanced at the clock. "I can take a break," she said, removing her gloves and motioning Penny toward some empty crates in the corner. "Come sit. Now," she said when the two blondes had settled onto their makeshift seats, "what's bothering you? Was it a bad day?"

Penny shook her head, looking down. "I feel okay today," she said. "But…I'm having a hard time pinpointing how I feel, and how other people feel, and Amy's the brain scientist but she isn't answering my phone calls, so I figured I could...just talk to you? I just feel we haven't really talked in a long time."

Bernadette nodded. "Sure. But can't you talk to Leonard about this? Or…shouldn't you?"

Penny bit her lower lip. "Part of it is about Leonard."

"Oh." Bernadette looked a little uncomfortable. What are you feeling?"

"Well," Penny hesitated, putting a hand on the back of Ada's head, "last night, I was sleeping, and I woke up, and I thought that Ada was crying, but she wasn't, and then I realized that I was crying. I was absolutely shaking I was crying so hard, and even after I stopped, I couldn't fall asleep the rest of the night. I was able to get up to feed Ada twice without Leonard even stirring, because I heard her so fast."

"What were you crying about?" Bernadette asked gently. She grew alarmed when Penny threw her head back slightly, looking at the ceiling, tears welling up again. "Penny?"

Penny lowered her eyes to Bernadette's her voice catching when she spoke. "Why doesn't he want to marry me, Bernadette?"

Bernadette blinked. "What?"

"In my therapy," she said, taking in a deep breath, "they say I'm getting better. They say that Leonard doesn't inwardly find me inadequate. But if that's true…why am I not a Hofstadter? Why haven't we gotten married? I've mentioned it to him and he always says there's no rush. Bernadette, I don't get it."

"Have you told Leonard that you want to move forward and get married?"

"No."

"Have you talked to the…what?" Bernadette said. "You didn't tell Leonard you're ready?"

"He hasn't brought it up either."

"Well why would he?" Bernadette said. "You're recovering from depression. The last thing he wants to do is stress you out. Have you even brought the subject up?"

"Yeah!" Penny said. "And he came back at me with 'we've been building a family, your father got sick, Sheldon and Amy had their problems'."

"Well, there you go," Bernadette said. "Were you ever planning on marrying while you were pregnant, or while Wyatt was recovering from his heart attack, or while Sheldon and Amy were suffering?"

Penny sighed. "I suppose not. But that's all past now. If he really wanted to marry me…wouldn't he have suggested we have a wedding?"

"You know," Bernadette said, putting a hand on Penny's knee, "I'm positive that Leonard wants to marry you. But he doesn't need to marry you."

Penny blinked. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Penny, you have two children together. You live together. You love each other. Marriage is more than a piece of paper. It gives you certain financial and legal rights, but not being married isn't preventing you guys from loving each other or having your family. And as long as you guys have something that needs to be taken care of, he's not in a rush to actually get married. He's not making excuses, he doesn't have to. There are excuses."

"I know," Penny said. "But…I keep thinking about you, and like how you were talking about how when you smell Sulfur, but you think it's eggs, because it smells like eggs, and it seems so clearly eggs, but…but it's not. It's sulfur. What if our busy schedules aren't why we're not married? What if there's some problem deep down that is preventing us from taking that step?"

"Penny," Bernadette said, putting her hands on her friend's arms. "You've been under a lot of stress, and so I'm not going to drag this out. You're overreacting. Sometimes, it's just eggs."

"What?"

"Sometimes," Bernadette said, "when I smell eggs, it's just eggs. Don't overreact and think something's wrong with your relationship with Leonard just because you guys never got married. Unless you can think of something specific that is bothering you about the relationship, then there isn't anything. Stop trying to create one, or else you will."

"Bernadette, we haven't had sex in four months."

That stopped Bernadette cold. "Have you been cleared?"

"Yes. Six weeks ago."

"Okay," Bernadette said, nodding slowly. "Okay, well…why do you think that is?"

"I don't know," Penny said. "I…I just don't know. I wasn't feeling up to it for a while, but he isn't bringing it up, and we're both so tired and I still don't feel sexy with my scar and the idea that it might hurt isn't doing much to make me want to try, but…" she shrugged. "I don't know, Bernadette. It took us a little bit to get back into our groove after we had Savannah. We tried too much too soon. And my body really got beaten up this time. But…" Penny looked down as Ada began to wiggle. "It's okay, baby," she said softly before looking back at Bernadette. "I'm starting to miss him. Every day I want to go to visit him at work. Every night I want to curl up next to him, but then all those self-esteem issues my doctor says I still need work on come back. But…" she shook her head, "I miss being with him."

"Well if you miss the intimacy, then isn't that something you should talk about with him?" Bernadette asked.

"I tried."

"What did he say?"

"No," Penny said, "I mean, I tried to talk to him but I didn't know what to say, so…I didn't."

"Penny, you know what I think?"

"If I did, I wouldn't have to ask you for help," Penny pointed out.

Bernadette nodded. "Okay. I think he's afraid."

"Of what?" Penny said. "The creature from Alien busting out from my scar?"

"No," Bernadette said. "Remember when he was so afraid of hurting you after your cancer scare? And then once you were pregnant with Savannah, he was weirded out letting himself think that she knew what you guys were doing? And then you just told me now that you think you guys got back to it too soon last time."

Penny slowly began to see where she was going with it. "Yeah."

"You had a major childbirth complication," Bernadette said. "And let's face it, you've always dug your heels in whenever he wanted to move the relationship. He probably doesn't want to push you, and is using that has his personal justification for not trying to initiate anything out of fear of hurting you. And if you haven't initiated anything, then he probably thinks you're not ready. And if you are a bit hesitant, even to the point of sleeping away from him at night, then that means he's not wrong."

Penny looked down at Ada again, who had gotten several fingers in her mouth and was sucking on them while looking up at her mother. She had brown hair. She looked like a little version of Leonard. Penny looked back over at Bernadette. "This might be part of why you still have those bad days," the smaller woman said gently. "You need to allow yourself to realize Leonard still wants you. Talk to him. Tell him that you want to be with him again. But don't tell him about what's in those petri dishes on the counter over there."

Penny cocked her head, looking toward the aforementioned counter. "What's is in the petri dishes?"

Bernadette nodded. "Exactly."

"No," Penny said. "Seriously. What's in the petri dishes?"

Bernadette stared at her for a second, her lips pressed together. "None of your business. Don't you have a scientist to seduce?"

I initially had Gilda in this chapter too, but then my friends and I were talking about how little Penny and Bernadette stuff we've been getting on the show recently, and so I dropped her part out and made it just a Penny/Bernadette(/Ada) scene. But no worries, Gilda will be back!