Title: The Early Morning Expression

Author: Len

Spoilers: The Monopolar Expedition

Summary: Sheldon returns from the Arctic. Written for the Sheldon_Penny LJ community's Fanfic Friday/Smutty Saturday challenge.

Author's Notes: Not actually very smutty, but the closest thing to it I've gotten so far. More like smluffy.

Rating: T

"Penny…" his voice murmured nearby. A long, careful finger brushed hair from her face. "Penny…" The finger continued on, flitting gently over her cheekbone, down the ridge of her nose, over her lips and began tracing patterns on her collar bone. "Penny."

She smiled, feeling the warm sunlight though the window, and the warmer affection from the man beside her. Penny rolled towards him to give him more of a canvass to work with. The patterns, just firm enough not to tickle, became larger and more bold. Across her collar bones and down. Such careful, clever hands. Painting formulas in the valley between her breasts, too complex for her to understand, but which he insisted were the only things beautiful and elegant enough to belong on her skin. One finger danced over her breast, swirling a sideways eight above her heart.

Penny traced it's mate above his own heart and rested her palm against his face. In the morning light his eyes appeared almost crystalline blue. "I missed you," she admitted. "Every day."

He smiled; a real smile, the one he kept for her. "I too found myself operating at less than optimal levels." He kissed her hand, the corner of her mouth, the spot under her ear. "I experienced auditory hallucinations wherein I was certain I could hear your voice."

She ran her hand through his hair, chuckling as he leaned into it like a cat. "Is your work done? Did you get the results you were hoping for?"

"I - I'm almost certain we did." He sounded surprised and a little unsure.

"That's wonderful, sweetie!" She wrapped her arms around him, pressing herself against his lean chest. He was thin, but so tall. With him looking down at her, propped on his elbows, the sheet over them both, Penny felt protected from the whole world.

Especially when he looked at her that way, like she was the only thing in his.

She began tracing patterns on his chest, lightly, expressing herself in the words she used as fluently as he used math. He watched her face while she delicately scribed the words forever and home. "It's a little strange," he said. "I know, intellectually, I should be experiencing feelings of pride and excitement, but.."

Penny paused and looked at him questioningly. "You're not happy that it's finished?"

He swallowed. "I considered this on the flight home, and while I waited for you to awaken. I've come to the conclusion that the happiness I feel at completing my work…" He locked eyes with her, as if willing her to understand. "Well, it pales in comparison to the happiness I've experienced at seeing you again."

If she took all the lines from all the movies that had leading men professing love to their leading ladies, and all the romantic poetry that had ever caused her to sigh dreamily and doodle in her high school notebooks, and put them together, Penny was certain they would pale in comparison to that.

She pulled him to her.

When amidst the sighs and kisses and caresses that mark the reunion of two long-separated lovers, he finally entered her, it felt as if time slowed. She framed his face with her hands as he moved slowly inside her, and suddenly she just knew. If she searched the world over, Penny would never find another man who matched her as well as the impossibly brilliant, impossible frustrating, and impossibly devoted Sheldon Cooper. It must have shown on her face, because the look on his face when she murmured, "Welcome home," was bright enough to rival the sun.

End.