Penny Teller's vision pulsed in and out like someone was messing with the world's dimmer switch.
She'd been running herself ragged for days—signing issues in secret, sketching Issue #3 at 2 a.m., hiding fan mail, juggling shifts, keeping the boys from realizing she was Elisabet Eiríksdóttir, and trying very, very hard not to think about Sheldon Cooper in an emotionally compromising way.
Her body finally had enough.
"I just need a minute," she whispered to the empty hallway.
Then the world tilted.
Her knees buckled.
Darkness swallowed the edges of her vision.
Strong arms grabbed her before she hit the floor.
"Penny!"
She knew that voice anywhere—sharp with panic, precise even while cracking around the edges.
Sheldon.
He shifted her weight awkwardly but securely, gripping her like one might hold a particularly fragile cardboard model of the International Space Station. He was breathing too fast for someone who "didn't panic."
"What happened? Penny? Can you hear me?"
"Mmhmm," she managed weakly. "Hi, sweetie."
"You collapsed."
Sheldon Cooper saying 'collapsed: sounded like he was announcing the death of the universe.
Then—miraculously—he scooped her up. Not the fireman carry he'd studied in safety manuals, but a full-on bridal carry, because instinct apparently trumped documentation.
He carried her into her apartment and shut the door with his foot.
He set her gently on the couch and began fussing with pillows like a frantic nesting heron.
"Penny, people do not simply collapse without warning! That indicates dehydration, exhaustion, anemia, hypoglycemia—"
"Sheldon," she croaked, "I'm fine."
"You are not fine." His voice cracked. "You lost muscular control and gravitational orientation in a shared hallway."
She blinked. "Is that your way of saying you were scared?"
His jaw worked. "I… was concerned."
Which, in Sheldon-speak, meant terrified.
"Hydration," he declared, fleeing to the kitchen.
He came back with water, crackers, and one of his emergency electrolyte packets.
"Drink."
She took the glass.
He hovered, watching the level go down with laser precision. "You require rest and likely a checkup. If you had a… well, a partner of some kind—"
Penny stiffened.
Oh no.
Not this direction.
She swallowed fast. "Sheldon, I don't want any kind of… partner-based health monitoring. At all."
He blinked, confused. "I'm not suggesting anything odd, Penny. I simply meant that having someone to keep track of your needs might prevent incidents like this."
Relief cooled her spine.
Right.
He didn't know. He had no idea what the System was or could do. No clue that something cosmic hummed between them.
"Thank you," she whispered. "But I don't want… shortcuts. Or anything that overrides my choices."
He nodded, surprisingly gentle. "Autonomy is important. I respect that."
She felt her chest loosen.
When she shivered, Sheldon draped a familiar blue blanket over her.
"Is this the emergency comfort blanket?" she teased faintly.
"It is precisely that," he said, sitting beside her but carefully out of physical contact range. "You require comfort. Thus—blanket."
She smiled weakly.
After a long, quiet stretch—her breathing steadying, his hovering calming—Sheldon sat on the coffee table across from her.
"Penny… may I say something without you misinterpreting it as criticism?"
"Sure."
"You do too much."
She blinked.
"You fracture your time and energy into a thousand unconnected pursuits," he said softly, "and yet somehow remain cohesive. It's remarkable. But also self-destructive."
Her throat tightened.
He wasn't scolding.
He was worried.
Sheldon's voice dropped to something almost fragile. "You're… ebullient yet remarkably structured. Most people cannot be both."
A strange warmth spread through her ribcage.
"Sheldon," she whispered, "that's… beautiful."
He flushed instantly. "It wasn't meant to be."
"It still is."
They held each other's gaze too long.
She felt something rising—dangerous, tender, impossible.
She shoved it back down.
"Thank you," she murmured. "For being here."
He didn't smile, but something in his eyes softened. "I wouldn't leave you alone in a time of medical crisis. That would be irresponsible."
But they both knew it was more than that.
Eventually she drifted into sleep, Sheldon still sitting nearby—quiet guardian, unlikely anchor.
When she woke hours later, he was still there.
And she wasn't sure which scared her more:
That he cared…
…or that she did too.