Work Text:
There was a point during every duty shift when Sheldon would look down at the microtapes and wonder where they were supposed to go.
Most of the time, it struck after the imbecile working at the adjacent desk succeeded in diverting his attention from the tasklist. On occasion, it was due to his own exhaustion or fatigue after pulling double- or triple-duty.
Once, it was Penny's fault.
No, that wasn't fair. Technically, it wasn't her fault so much as it was convenient to lay the blame at her feet. After all, he could hardly blame himself for succumbing to feelings and urges that had once been easy to set aside.
That he couldn't set them aside anymore was definitely Penny's fault. His willpower was unimpeachable, or at least it had been until she had wormed her way into his life.
Then again, it wasn't fair to blame either of them for something that was, at its heart, the fault of their superior officers. Wasn't it? It was the captain who ordered the away team to investigate. It was the first officer who hadn't supervised his team adequately, then the lax maintenance provided by engineering that led to the breach in containment protocols that brought the contagion back to the ship. After that, the medical staff showed a flagrant disregard for their duty by not immediately identifying and isolating the affected, not responding quickly enough to the outbreak, and failing to follow proper quarantine procedures themselves.
Of course, none of this occurred to Sheldon until much, much later.
He'd grown increasingly annoyed with the pointless conversation initiated by the thorn in his side who was manning the scanner controls. As was the case during every duty shift they shared, the woman ignored his protest that he had no interest in whatever debauchery she had participated in during their last shore leave. Her next conversational topic had him reevaluating his scale of not-caring; even though it wasn't possible, he thought he had even less interest in her plans for the buffoon serenading the ship. By the time she sauntered out of the lab, he'd already lost his place in the checklist a dozen times in favor of mentally composing letters of complaint to every rank on the chain of command, starting with her supervisor and ending with the President of the Federation.
The next half hour was a welcome relief, even with the increasing turbulence of the planet below and the worrying possibility that the ship wouldn't break free in time to escape its destruction. Sheldon often took comfort in the data manipulations and extrapolations he performed as a member of the Earth Sciences division. Under other circumstances he might find them tedious and below his considerable abilities. Perhaps if his path had led in a different direction - any direction but toward Starfleet in fact...
But it hadn't. And he couldn't deny that somewhere between his accelerated rise through the Academy and his somewhat slower pace through the active duty ranks, he'd found something else that took priority.
"Please tell me you didn't kill Lieutenant Winkle and stuff her in one of these computer banks."
Sheldon dropped the microtapes he was supposed to be encoding with the data streaming in from the scanners. He hadn't heard the doors open behind him, nor had he registered the approach of footsteps. When she didn't say anything else, he glanced toward her before kneeling to pick up the microtapes. Penny watched him from the doorway, running one hand along her neckline as though she were adjusting the fall of her tunic.
"As if I would endanger my career, however tempting the thought," he said.
Penny planted her boot square on top of the brightly colored microtapes he was sweeping together in a pile on the deck. Sheldon looked up at her, his gaze following the long line of her leg up to where the split-panel of her skirt fell across her thigh. Winkle had grabbed him by the wrist before she left and the skin there now started to tingle as his pulse sped up.
He cleared his throat. "Move. I need to get back to work."
She licked her lips and bent forward until her long hair brushed against his shoulder. Her breath was hot against his face as she whispered, "Why don't you make me, Lieutenant Cooper?"
Later - much, much later - Sheldon would get called on the carpet for abandoning his post instead of reporting that he required medical treatment and requesting a relief officer. Never mind that more than three-quarters of the ship had done something similar; Starfleet regulations were clear. The captain wasn't feeling generous enough to make this one of the times he openly flouted regs, not after his ship had been endangered by stupid mistakes and his own failure to counter them.
Not that Sheldon knew any of that. Not that Sheldon cared about any of that. He was still trying to work out how to get in and out of sickbay for his regular (some might say hypochondriacal) checkups without running into the Chief Medical Officer. One lecture about appropriate behavior in a science lab and an old-fashioned scolding for neglecting his contraceptive was enough for an entire lifetime.