The first thing she does after walking out of the school is call Ned.
"Hey, you still interested in that sleepover this weekend?"
Ned sounds giddy as he responds. "Yeah, I cleared it with Mom, she said we have to go to sleep by midnight but otherwise she just said to have fun. I have the Death Star and we can make that, and maybe we can watch a movie or something! Do you wanna do it tonight or later this weekend?"
"Tonight," Penny says firmly. "I'll bring snacks. I just have a few things to take care of for Skip first and then I'll be over. Probably in time for dinner, if your mom doesn't mind me joining?"
"Yeah, totally, you know Mom loves you! And Dad will be happy to see you, he's been working so much that I don't think he's seen you since…" Ned trails off. He means since May died - Penny saw Ned's dad at the funeral and hasn't since.
"Yeah, I missed him too, he's awesome. Tell them I'll try to be there by like 6, okay?"
"Sounds good!"
Penny hangs up, takes a deep breath, and walks home.
—
It takes less time to pack than last time.
To be fair, last time Penny was frantically searching for everything important so that Ned could keep it safe for her. As soon as she'd gotten the call from the hospital, she'd known there was no way she could keep the apartment. So that meant finding all the valuables, putting them in boxes, and running over to Ned's so he can store them for her. (Thank God for super strength, she never could've carried that many boxes a year ago.) Ned's parents had decided to keep Penny and May's things in their storage locker, and even made an extra key and gave it to her so that she could access it whenever she wanted.
Ned's parents are kind of fantastic.
Anyway, she figures if she's wrong, she can always unpack tomorrow and no one will have to know she considered running away. So she sticks to necessities: a few changes of warm clothes (including one of Skip's shirts, because as much as she hates him, it may be the only thing to fit her in a few months), some basic toiletries, and of course all the money she has (which isn't much, unfortunately). She ends up googling what else she should bring, and uses the advice from a WikiHow article because her life is insane enough already and they have good advice sometimes. So she grabs the blanket from her bed, her knife collection that she started with Ben when she was 9 and managed to keep hidden during her time in foster care, and finally two photographs: one of her with Ben and May, and one from when she was a baby, with her parents. She takes all her homework out of her backpack, packs her textbooks so that she can try to keep learning, and last minute, ends up grabbing a single lego car she'd built with Ned when they were in third grade. Ben helped her glue it together later so it would never fall apart. She wishes she had something with MJ to bring, but they haven't been friends long enough apparently because she can't find anything.
On a final thought, she grabs her compact umbrella and shoves it into her backpack. Being wet would suck, especially since she is well aware she can no longer self thermoregulate. She brings all three of her jackets and her two sweaters and leaves everything that's warm behind because it's February and she needs to focus on what she needs now. If she gets too hot in a few months… she'll improvise.
Once everything is packed, she goes over her room one last time to make sure she isn't forgetting anything. She stares at her sedatives for a long time, but eventually dumps all but one bottle in the toilet and hides the empty bottles in the dumpster. She brings the last bottle with her, just in case.
She actually heads to Ned's first, so that she can hide the duffle near his apartment. She's spent enough time there to know all the good hiding places. Then she heads to the nearest pharmacy. She browses the isles for a while, picking up junk food and drinks and putting them in a basket, and when she's sure no one's paying attention, she slips in the feminine aisle and shoves a bunch of pregnancy tests into her backpack. She also, mostly on a whim, takes two bottles of prenatal vitamins as well.
She pays for all the food, the bored cashier not paying any attention to the teenager stocking up on junk food. She's made sure to get plenty of drinks - a six-pack of soda, a bottle of Fanta, some milk, and two bottles of water. She almost gets some juice boxes too, but when she looks at them the idea of drinking them makes her want to hurl. She skips them.
She heads back to Ned's, checking the time on her phone. 5:45. Perfect. She knocks on the front door and Ned's mom answers.
"Penny! You're here! Oh, it's so good to see you. Ned is just in his room, you can drop your things there and then dinner will be in about 20 minutes, okay?"
Penny nods. "Thank you Mrs. Leeds," she says. Ned's mom scoffs and rolls her eyes at the name, but shoos Penny towards Ned's room.
She knocks first, because she has common courtesy, thank you, but she barely finishes touching the door once when Ned yanks it open for her. "Penny! You're early! Awesome! Did you take care of everything Skip asked you to?"
"Yeah," she says, dumping the snacks on his bed and then semi-hiding her backpack in a corner. "It was just some chores I kept putting off, and he was starting to get annoyed, so I wanted to finish them before he got home from work tonight so that when I go home tomorrow he's in a good mood."
"Fair," says Ned. "Always best to keep the 'rents happy."
—
Dinner is all four of them (minus Ned's sister, of course, who's in her freshman year at Stanford), and Penny and Ned have been friends long enough that his mom and dad think of her like a niece. It's a good night, Ned's dad makes a bunch of stupid jokes that almost manage to make Penny snort water out her nose, Ned's mom cooked yet another fantastic Philippino dish, and Ned has a look on his face that says he's so glad she's finally feeling better.
Penny feels pretty guilty about that part. But she manages to keep it down.
After dinner, she and Ned head back to his bedroom, where they drink soda and build the Death Star together. Once they've finished, Penny convinces Ned to watch The Princess Bride, which is her favorite movie. He agrees with no hesitation, which means he's still treating her like she's fragile, but she can deal with it if it means she gets to watch her favorite movie one last time. They pig out on the junk food, Penny steadily drinking nearly everything she brought with her, and when the movie ends they end up just sitting and talking for a while. They haven't done this in a while, Penny realizes. She'd missed it. She will miss it.
Ned's mom knocks on the door at midnight, telling them lights out, and they both get changed into their pajamas, not caring that the other is there because they're basically siblings, and Ned settles Penny into the blow up his mom had put in the room for her. Penny waits until she hears his soft snores, before getting back up, grabbing her backpack, and sneaking into the bathroom.
The drinks have done their job, and she has to piss like a racehorse, but she reads through the instructions of each test first, before lining them up and using them one by one. She paces on the ceiling (not enough room on the floor) while waiting for the timer to go off. When her phone buzzes in her pocket, she jumps down and takes a deep breath.
She checks the first one.
Positive.
The second one is too.
So's the third.
In the end, every single test agrees - Penny is definitely up the duff.
She has another panic attack.
—
It takes a little while to calm down. When she does, she stuffs all the tests back into their boxes, shoves them into her backpack, and slips back into Ned's room. She steals a piece of paper and a pen, and not bothering to turn on the light (super senses do come in handy sometimes) writes a note to Ned and MJ.
It takes a few tries, in the end. She uses more than one piece of paper. She shoves all the failed notes into her backpack as well. Finally, once she's satisfied with the note she's leaving, she slips out Ned's window. She leaves her phone, wiped, next to the note.
It takes about 30 seconds to grab the duffle bag. She tosses the pregnancy tests and the crumpled notes into a dumpster several blocks away, then goes searching for a truck. She manages to hop onto the roof of one and hangs on for a few hours before the truck stops at a rest stop in Jersey. She slips off the truck and looks at the other options she has. She isn't sure how to tell where they may be going, so in the end she lets her instincts pick a truck and she manages to slip inside and hide among the boxes.
The truck starts driving a few minutes later, and before Penny knows it, she's been lulled into sleep.