Word Count: 4054
Summary: Penny realizes after a girls' night, some alcohol and a conversation with Amy, that she needs to be better.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Big Bang Theory or the characters.

Penny opened the door to her apartment slowly, trying to not make too much noise and wake up her most-likely-sleeping husband.

Carefully placing her purse on her desk, she sighs when she's successful with the not-make-too-much-noise thing she was trying to achieve.

She walks to their bedroom, opens the door, and sees her husband asleep. Slowly, she changes from the dress she chose to wear for girls' night into her pajamas. All she wants at that moment is to climb into bed and sleep, snuggled up to her husband. But she hears her stomach grumble. With a sigh, she moves back to the kitchen, looking around for food. She excitedly skips to the cookie jar, but the big smile on her face goes away when she finds it empty.

Penny opens the fridge, but the only thing that catches her eye is milk. So, she takes a bowl from the shelf and cereal, as quietly as possible, she puts it on the kitchen island. She pours the milk and cereal into the bowl, and after grabbing a spoon, she begins eating it. But the cold milk isn't what she wanted, and she looks at the microwave.

She knows that if she times it perfectly, she won't wake him up as she has done in the past.

With the plan in her head, she grabs the bowl and puts it in the microwave. She's staring at it, knowing that she needs to open the door when it's a second to the end. But her ping that comes from her phone at the twenty seconds, takes her eyes off the microwave. Deciding to go check and mute her phone, she leaves the microwave unattended. When she comes back, the microwave makes that obnoxious beeping sound.

Silently cursing, she opens the door to the microwave, still quietly, praying that he hadn't heard that.

"What the hell is going on?" She hears from behind her when she's closing the door of the microwave.

"Damn." She mutters. Turning around, she finds her husband with his white t-shirt and shorts, a mad look on his face. "I was hungry. Sorry."

She places the bowl on the island and sits down, putting some more cereal in the bowl before restarting eating.

"What time is it?" He tiredly asks, leaning next to her on the island. She shows him the phone. "Three am? You woke me up at three am?!"

"Sorry, I just came back from girls' night, and I was hungry."

"And you had to use the microwave?"

"Well, it's your fault." He looks at her, and before he can ask, she answers. "You ate the cookies."

"I just bought some yesterday! Because you girls were going out and I know that you always come back home hungry."

"The jar is empty."

Leonard walks towards the cookie jar and opens it, as Penny looks at him slightly mad that he didn't believe her and had to check.

"Seriously? Who ate them all?"

"You didn't believe me when I told you the jar was empty? You had to check?"

"Girls' night usually has alcohol involved." She opens her mouth, pretending to be shocked and mad at what he was implying. "And, you know, you like to drink."

She jokingly hits his arm, before resuming eating. She sees her phone blinking, and grabs it, seeing a message from Bernadette complaining the kids are crying and she gets no quiet time in her own house. In the meantime, Leonard goes back to her side and sits down. As she answers Bernadette with a 'sorry for that' because there was nothing she could tell her that would fix it, Leonard puts his head down on the counter.

It doesn't take him long to fall asleep, but Penny only notices it when she gets up to place the bowl on the counter. Washing it will be future Penny's problem.

She puts her hand on his shoulder and shakes him. He opens his eyes slowly, finding his smiling wife really close to his face.

"Wha?" He mumbles, but she just puts her hand out for him to take it.

After a few seconds of trying to understand what was going on, he takes her hand and slowly makes their way back to the bedroom. He lays down on the bed and is quick to fall asleep, not even bothering to take off his glasses.

Giggling, Penny takes them and places them on the nightstand. She lays down next to him a few moments later, but she can't seem to fall asleep. Rolling away from him, she grabs her phone once more.

Amy and Bernadette seemed to be having the same problem, though Bernie's was because of crying children. Amy just couldn't sleep.

In the few minutes that took her to wake her husband and get him back to bed, the girls had sent fifty-four messages, all of which were of either Bernadette complaining of the kids' cries and Howard sleeping through it – he was probably too tired to even hear that – or Amy complaining that Sheldon had fallen asleep in the middle of the bed like he used to do when he lived in apartment 4A.

Penny was laughing at some of the messages when she accidentally clicked on a video Bernadette had sent of the crying babies.

Leonard wakes up startled, and Penny immediately turns off her phone and closes her eyes, pretending to be asleep. That didn't fool him though.

"Seriously?" He asks her, and she opens only one eye, to find her husband staring at her.

"Bernie sent a video." She answers quietly.

"I don't care." He puts his head back on the pillow with force. "Let me sleep. I have work in the morning."

"On a Saturday?"

He sighs. "I told you. I have a budget meeting tomorrow." He rolls over to be able to face her and sighs once more. "I have to put up with Sheldon and his complaints that I have a bigger budget than him."

"I thought all he needed was markers and whiteboards."

"Yes, but that doesn't mean that the rest of us get away from his complaints of wanting more money."

"Tell him to start working from home."

He stares at her in disbelief. "Not only would that make him more insufferable, but it also probably wouldn't work." He closes his eyes. "Let me sleep, please." He pleads.

Smiling, Penny puts her phone away, not caring about her friends' complaints about their respective husbands, but caring for her own husbands' complaints.

She kisses him on the cheek, but he doesn't even notice because he had fallen back asleep. Rolling her eyes, she takes her eyes away from her sleeping husband and stares at the ceiling. She needed to do something that would require not waking him up.

Looking at her phone lying on her nightstand, she grabs it.

Ignoring the hundreds of messages from the girls, she texts Amy and asks her if she wants to go to the stairs. Immediately answering with an enthusiastic yes, Penny grins. She looks around for her robe, but she doesn't find it.

Walking to the living room, hoping it's there, she discovers it's not. Not wanting to disturb him by opening their door again, she just grabs the hoodie he left on his chair and the house keys and steps into the hall.

"Hey." She whispers when she sees her bestie closing the door to her apartment.

"What do you want to talk about?" Amy asks, sitting down on the stairs.

"I don't want to talk about anything specific. I just couldn't sleep and don't want to bother Leonard. I kinda already woke him up twice and he needs to sleep for the budget meeting tomorrow."

"Yeah, Sheldon was talking about it this afternoon." She starts, as Penny sits next to her on the stairs. "He was telling me how he has this whole plan to get more money for…" she stares at Penny for a moment trying to remember, but she doesn't get to any conclusion as to what he was talking about. "I-"

"Knowing Sheldon, it's probably something ridiculous. Although it's nice to know I'm not the only one not paying attention when he talks." She giggles, as Amy looks away, apparently embarrassed. "Relax, I won't tell him. To be honest, sometimes at dinner, I stop paying attention to some conversations. I only found out about this meeting like five minutes ago."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Sometimes it's because I don't understand what you guys are talking about, others it's because I really don't care." Penny smiles but then looks away too for just a moment, before looking at Amy again. "I sometimes wish I was smart like you guys, just to be able to understand what you are talking about."

Amy doesn't answer for a few seconds, trying to find the right words to say. Realizing she doesn't have any, she decides to just talk.

"Sometimes, we don't know what the others are talking about either." She starts, and Penny looks up surprised. "I don't know that much about physics or microbiology for example. Certain terms are unknown to me, or I only know a little bit. We aren't experts in every field. That's why I go to gatherings with other scientists to keep up with the other areas of science."

"To know more."

"Exactly. I'm pretty sure if you started talking about pharmaceuticals or explaining selling techniques, we wouldn't know much about it, because it's not our field. In the same way that we don't understand the conversations the guys have about superheroes. And if you start talking about certain movies, or bands, or sports, most of us would be at a total loss."

"You guys aren't exactly the right crowd for football talk," Penny says, smiling. "Most of the things I grew up talking about, are things that you guys know barely anything about. Actually, a few years ago I made Leonard and Sheldon this little quiz. They asked me to help them with this physics thing."

"Physics bowl?" Amy wonders.

"I think that was it. I don't know, it was like ten years ago. Anyway, I helped them. But later I decided to make a new contest to figure out which of them was smarter: Leonard or Sheldon. So, I asked them about pop culture stuff. I don't remember the questions, but I remember they didn't know how to answer anything. And I knew the answer without seeing the answer. Made me feel good. But still…"

"It makes you uncomfortable at dinner." Penny nods. "I can explain some things to you, and I'm sure Leonard would help you with it too, but sometimes our conversations are so advanced I have trouble following them myself. We have these conversations after an entire day of work."

"If you're tired, then how do I see the guys work after they get home."

"Well, Sheldon claims his mind is always working. I don't know how Leonard does it." Amy tries to stifle a yawn. "Maybe-"

"If you're tired, we can stop talking." Penny interrupts her.

"No, it's fine. You clearly have had this problem for a long time now and need to talk about it. Why didn't you bring this up sooner?"

"I was embarrassed," Penny admits. "And also, I still have a bit of alcohol in me." Both women smile. "I always felt this. I thought you knew. You were here for the whole Prya thing."

Amy nods, remembering the whole Raj's sister situation and how it had affected Penny.

"Of course, I remember. But you got back together with Leonard. You married him. He clearly doesn't care that you don't understand our dinner conversations."

"What if he meets someone-"

"Penny, stop that." Amy changes positions, now facing Penny. "Leonard loves you."

"Sometimes love isn't enough."

Amy sighs. "Maybe we should talk about this when you're not drunk."

"I'm not drunk."

"Fine, without alcohol in you." Amy gets up, deciding to go inside and try to sleep before Sheldon's alarm wakes her up.

"Amy…" Penny grabs her friend's hand, forcing Amy to look at her. "Do you think he'd do that?" Penny asks her, in a low, sad voice.

"Penny." Amy sighs and sits back down. "No."

"I know other girls look at him. Every time I go to the university, girls start to flirt with him, right in front of him. And he doesn't even notice it."

"Don't guys do that to you in front of Leonard?"

Penny let her shoulders fall as if she had been defeated in her argument.

"I- It's just that- yeah." She leans against the wall and sighs. "One day," she starts, her voice low and sad again. "he'll realize he can do better than me. And he'll leave. And make super-smart babies with that girl." She looks at Amy, her friend noticing that the sad look in her eyes is the same as all those years ago when Leonard was with Priya.

"Did you ever talk about this with him?" Amy asks after a few moments of silence.

"Why would I? I know what he'll say. That he'd never leave me, that he loves me."

"Ever thought of believing that to be true?"

Penny stares at Amy. "Of course, you don't understand. You're smart like he is. You all have your PhDs and your high IQs. I moved here when I was eighteen to become an actress. The only thing I did after that was being a terrible waitress, a few acting jobs that never got me any other part, and a job that I hate that I didn't manage to get myself, but hey, it pays the bills."

"You also got married to your best friend, and you have all of us. It might not seem much right now because you seem to be in the mood to put yourself down, but you might not have gotten the job by yourself, but you're good at it because otherwise you would've gotten fired." Amy sighs, and then smiles at her bestie. "I need to sleep Penny, and I think you do too."

With that, Amy gets inside her apartment, leaving Penny sitting on the stairs by herself. She sits there for a while, thinking about what Amy said. Deep down she knew she was lucky to have everything she had. A loving husband and has amazing friends. She no longer lived alone in the apartment her friend had just entered, the one she once upon a time could barely afford and instead lived across the hall with her husband.

She grabs her phone and keys, deciding to go back to the apartment and sleep. But she notices she's wearing his hoodie and sits down again, and wraps it closer to her, inhaling his scent. She can smell his aftershave and that ridiculous cologne of his that he bought by mistake but decide to use because he didn't want to waste his money.

She starts to feel bad when she remembers what she told him next. That she could think of loads of things he wasted his money on. She remembers the look of sadness that crossed his face, and then he just nods and walks away from her. At the time she didn't even think about how that was insulting. How she had insulted him about wasting money on things that made him happy and made him who he was when she had struggled most of her adult life and every time she had some money – or even when she didn't have it – she would spend it on clothes and shoes she didn't need.

"If he leaves me," she whispers to the empty hallway "it's because I keep disrespecting him." She sighs, and after a few deep breaths, she re-enters her apartment.

Mad at herself, she falls into a fitful sleep.

It's the middle of the afternoon when he finally returns from work. Tired and with a huge headache after having to put up with Sheldon's speeches about being the only person in the room that truly deserved the money because he was the only one that could truly make a discovery in that whole room.

At the end of that meeting, he still had the nerve to ask for a ride home.

Leonard somehow manages to say no to that. Even if it would make his life hell with Sheldon, and probably Amy too because she was probably the one that ended up going to pick him up.

He drops his bag and flops on the couch, ignoring his wife sitting on the chair and asking him if he was alright. If the message she got from Amy telling her she was going to pick up Sheldon, which meant the meeting was probably complicated for those involved, told her anything, was that he was probably not okay.

"Leonard?" She reaches for him, putting one hand on his back and removing his glasses with the other, and placing them on the coffee table. "Want to talk about it?"

"Sleep." He mumbles, and she nods. Placing the blanket on top of him, she doesn't make any noise for a few hours, deciding to just hang out with Amy on the staircase again when she runs away from her apartment because of Sheldon's constant complaints that he wasn't going to get the money he deserved more than anyone.

They steer clear from the subject of last night, deciding to focus on talking about Bernadette's videos of the previous night and her complaints. Eventually, Sheldon found them, and they returned to their respective apartments.

Penny sighs upon seeing him. Tired on his desk, blanket around him, his mug next to him. If the aroma in the air was any indication, it was probably coffee.

"Hey, you." He looks up at her and gives her a tired smile. "Want to talk about the meeting?"

He sighs. "Not really. I need to finish this."

Penny puts her hands on his shoulders and feels him relax slightly under her touch, which makes her smile. "You should sleep a little more. You seem tired." She puts her arms around him and places a kiss on his cheek.

"I can't. I need to submit this by tonight, and then I have to prepare for the next experiment." He takes a deep breath. "And find a way to do that with the budget I have."

Penny looks confused. "I thought Sheldon didn't get what he wanted."

"No, he didn't." He smiles, despite all. "But all departments got a cut, which meant we all got a cut too. Everyone needs to figure out how to do their jobs with what we still have. Somehow."

He drinks the rest of his coffee and goes back to his computer, sometimes going to the whiteboard to scribble something there she didn't understand. She watched him for a long time, trying to figure out how to get him to stop. Finally, she got up.

"Leonard, sweetie, please just sleep."

"I can't. I have-"

"Yeah, yeah." She interrupts him. "You have a bunch of work to do. But you still need to sleep." She puts her hands on his shoulders. "That amazing brain of yours won't work without sleep."

"I slept last night."

"Leonard, I've seen you this last couple of days. I didn't know why, because I didn't hear you talk about this meeting, but you have been working pretty much nonstop and barely sleeping. You wake up with the slightest noise, and that only happens when you're anxious. Last night you fell asleep on the kitchen island and you fell asleep as soon as you got back to bed. You didn't even take your glasses off. You're living on a few hours of sleep and high amounts of caffeine for a long time now. That ends now."

"Or what?" He asks her, which surprises her.

She was expecting a resigned fine, with him walking to the bedroom and falling on the bed without even putting himself under the blanket and still with his clothes and glasses. She wasn't expecting him to fight back.

"Or…" she realizes she has nothing. She doesn't know what to tell him. If it was Sheldon, she'd say she would call his mom. They all had done it in the past when Sheldon had pushed them more than usual. But with Leonard, calling Beverly would be pointless. If she actually picked up the phone.

"Well, this was a nice distraction, thank you for that." He tells her, his voice laced with sarcasm. His eyes go back to the screen soon after and Penny just stares.

She wants nothing more than to take him in her arms and let him rest. He needs to rest. But he seems to not care about himself.

"Leonard." He doesn't hear her or pretends not to. "Leonard." She says louder but gets the same response. She grabs his chair and turns him to her.

"Hey." He complains.

"You listen to me, and you listen very carefully. I plan on being your wife for a very long time, but that requires you to actually stay alive. So please, go to sleep."

He just stares at her for a moment, before glancing between his computer and the whiteboard for a few moments, before looking back at her. "I need-" he takes a deep breath and takes off his glasses, putting his arms on his knees, his head resting on his hands. That action caused Penny to kneel in front of him and place her hands on his forearms. "I don't know how to do this."

"I don't know either. If I knew how to fix this, I would." Her brain goes to the conversation she had yesterday with Amy, of how she didn't want to lose him but she barely ever understood what he was talking about when he started going on and on about work. "Look, I don't know how to help because I don't understand what you do. And I'm pretty even if you explain it to me, it's still too complicated for me to understand."

"Your point?" he asks her.

"Maybe you can still try to explain it to me? Explaining it might make you remember something that will fix this?"

He nods, agreeing to do that.

They spend the next two and a half hours discussing his experiment. Penny didn't understand most of it, but after his explanations, she started to understand it a bit more. Eventually, he figured out a way to cut costs in his experiment.

"Thank you." He tells her, hugging her. She lingers on the hug for a moment, deciding in that fraction of time that she needed to change the way she acted with him, and be nicer. It was probably going to take her a long time, and there were going to be times when she was going to slip and say something she shouldn't have said, but she needed to try.

For both their sakes, she had to try.

If he could figure out how to make her understand his experiment, she could figure out how to be a better wife and friend to him.

And when he walks towards the bedroom and finally falls asleep, she smiles, happy to know she was able to help him. With a spring in her step, she leaves the apartment to make sure he wouldn't wake up with some noise she made, and walked to her old apartment, wanting to remove Amy from Sheldon's complaints. It was time to help another one of her favorite people.

The End

Started with a cute prompt about waking up someone with microwave beeping sounds and ended up being this entire story about Penny's insecurities with her intelligence (I wish the writers had brought this up more often).

I randomly found this story on my hard drive and then spent about thirty minutes trying to figure out if I had already published it. I don't think I did, but if anyone does notice this being the second time this is published, let me know.

I know it's been a long time without publishing any TBBT story, but my brain hasn't really been interested in this characters. Maybe someday, who knows.