Author Notes:

Sorry, no sequel to last chapter.

I was in an angsty mood and needed to get it out of my system.

Be warned, this one deals with some dark themes regarding pregnancy and abusive partners. We'll be back with lighthearted for the next chapter.

Summary: Penny has another pregnancy scare.

Penny hates being called Mrs Hofstadter
It takes the nurse calling her name 5 times before Penny reacts at all.

She hates it, it makes her cringe in embarrassment. She knows it shouldn't but she can't help it.

"Yeah, that's me." Even admitting this outloud is torture. It's nails on a blackboard.

"The doctor will see you now."

"Thanks."

Waiting for the doctor is hell, shouldn't she be already inside the office? And Penny knows it's her nerves talking, the doctor goes in after a couple of minutes that felt like hours.

"Penny! Great to see you." The doctor is an older woman and Penny usually liked her, she had the kind of bedside manners that made her regular visits painless.

"...Yeah." Her own response is muted and the doctor adjusts her tone, she's probably seen a million women like Penny before.

"Right, let's get to the point. I have your results right here." Penny is looking intently at the papers in the doctor's hands and for a moment wishes that she had x-ray vision. "Okay, so you're not pregnant." The doctor's tone is neutral and her face is calm.

Penny starts bawling in relief, huge sobs with laughter mixed in make her body shake. "Thankgodthankgodthankgod."

The doctor simply hands Penny a box of tissues and it takes Penny five minutes to calm down enough to be able to talk again.

"Penny, have you heard about Nexplanon? I was taking a look at your insurance and it's covered."

And so Penny hears about the wonders of modern medicine. An implant the size of a matchstick and Penny is protected for five years. Penny hates her sales rep job but apparently the health insurance is great.

Penny is all for it. They can do it right away if Penny wants it and she does want it. It's a bit weird to have it inserted into her upper arm but the doctor says that Penny doesn't need to do anything else, that was it. She has to wait a week before having sex or use condoms, but that's fine, Leonard and her don't have sex that often anymore. It's a chore.

Last month was his birthday and that's what landed her in the doctor's office.

Penny didn't want any children, especially with Leonard. She needed to do her best to ensure it didn't happen.

Leonard was confused. He was certain that he had swapped the placebos, thankfully Penny used the all white ones and not the ones in a gradient.

He had been hoping that Penny would be pregnant by now, he was certain that his math was correct. His birthday should have been the last day of her ovulation.

It didn't matter, he'd try again. He knew that his marriage to Penny was in the rocks, but he knew, he could feel it in his bones that if they had a baby, it would fix everything. He and Penny would be better parents than his own, and once he made it happen he could rub it in his mother's face, that he, Leonard, was not a failure.

Leonard loved Penny. She was his one. She completed him, fixed all of those bad parts of himself.

She didn't need to know about the undergrad he was seeing on the side, she was just a distraction, a way to get rid of his urges. Leonard was not a bad guy, he wasn't cheating on Penny, he made sure to always wear a condom. It was just stress relief.

Leonard was still afraid that Penny would leave him. And he loved Penny, he didn't want to let her go.

If you love something, you have to let it go?

No. Leonard vehemently refused that conclusion.

If you love something, cripple it so it can't leave you.

This was more to his liking. A baby would make everything better and Leonard would do everything to make it happen. Penny would learn to be a good mother, he'd also make sure of that.

Author notes: Yeah, angsty and incomplete, I know. Don't expect more of this Universe.

But work has been hard this week and was in a mood.