I do not own TBBT or any of its characters. Nor do I make any money from the posting of this fanfiction. Damn.

Hello! Just to let you know this story is very alternative universe and is Shenny. If you don't like Shenny, don't read it. You have been warned.

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Space Soldiers

Sergeant Major Penelope C. of the Intergalactic Space Core made her way into the camp, walking in with the men that were visiting scientists to the station. They needed to conduct experiments in the field and much to her disgust that meant that she had to be with them along with several others to keep them safe. Exhaustion was eating at her nerves as they came in from the field. As part of the advance, she had become accustomed to long hours in wild conditions, and having to deal with smart men who were ultimately very ignorant. The three captains next to her were in her opinion the equivalent of Larry, Moe and Curley. No, she thought, even the Three Stooges had some small amount of common sense.

Captain Leonard Hofstadter was a whiner, who hit on any woman breathing within his proximity was about to speak to her yet again when she just shot him a hostile look. Captain Howard Wolowitz made a move to touch her, yet again, when she took her helmet and hit him square in the crotch. He let out a mouse like eek and collapse to the ground on his face.

About the only good thing was that Captain Rajesh Koothrappali, a officer on loan from the British contingency, was too damn scared of her to do more than leaving her the hell alone. She let out a muttered curse, as she went straight over to the housing for the field scouts. And instead of going to take the shower that she was dying to take, she dropped off her things and went straight over to speak to the one man that would have to hear her out.

She pounded on his door before charging in. The man looked up from his computer a look of irritation before it dropped away. There was a flash of relief there before his face settled into his usual lines of non-emotion he fought to keep constantly.

"I see that you have returned safely, Penny," Sheldon said casually.

"Yeah, no thanks to the three yahoos you sent out with me," she told him. "It's bad enough that you forced me to take on greenhorns, but those three made it next to impossible!" When he didn't look up at her, she snapped. Grabbing up his name plate, she threw it over his head against the cabinets behind him. "Don't ignore me!"

This had him looking over to her, alarmed at her fury. True, she had been pushed into irritation and sometimes even to a slight anger. No, this was absolute Penelope rage.

"They endangered the mission, because they were fools who thought they knew best! We lost two men because of them! And all because they wanted to have sex with me!" The words hit hard, making him get to his feet.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, his blue eyes completely focused on her and her next words.

"Of course I am!" She sat down, the adrenaline leaving her.

He went over to her, seeing for the first time the bandaging coming up from her left shoulder. Sheldon rushed her over to the medical tent and her injuries looked after, as he demanded a full report from her. Instead of telling him what happened, she handed off the recorder to him.

"Trust me when I tell you, you'd never believe me if I told you," she muttered as they were stitching up the deeper parts of the jagged cut into her shoulder.

He wirelessly plugged it into the tablet he had with him and watched it from the beginning. She looked over to him, watching it. He would flinch and a few times he actually growled. When it came to the end of the recording, he looked over to her.

"They will be dealt with," he told her, as he stood up to leave.

"Sheldon?" He stopped, but didn't look over to her. "You know what this means, don't you?"

Looking alarmed, he snapped, "You're not sick."

"Injured and pissed off is a kind of sick," she murmured, making him roll his eyes in irritation.

He moved so that he was within an inch of her face before he breathed, "Knock it off, woman, not in front of others!"

She smiled sweetly. "I just wanted to hear your accent. I didn't mean to have you think I was attempting to override or ignore your supreme authority, Doctor."

A flush filled his cheeks, as he stood up. "As long as we have that straight, Sergeant Major."

"Of course, sir," she murmured, flinching when the stapling of her skin began.

Instead of leaving much as she thought he would, Sheldon sat next to her and took up her hand in his. She was crying without making a sound as she sat there. This had him pulling out a handkerchief, gently wiping away her heedless tears she had shed without complaint. As soon as the doctor was finished fixing as much as she could, Sheldon walked her over to her room.

He helped her as much as he could getting her changed into her nightwear. She lay down, feeling him pulling the blankets over her.

"I'm right next door if you should need me," he assured her. "Try to rest, Penelope. It will help heal you faster."

"Yes, Sheldon," she whispered, reaching out and caressing his face. "Can I tell you something?"

"Of course you can," he said. "You tell me something every time we see each other."

"I thought I was never going to see you again," she told him. "One of them wouldn't shoot a gun and the other two couldn't hit the broad side of a large space cruiser. When they weren't screaming about the spiders, they were making moves on me sexually!" Sitting up, she hugged him and pressed her face against his shoulder. "Please tell me you aren't going to send me out with them again."

He ended up stroking her hair, as he told her, "You know I can't. As long as they need to do the testing, you will have to go out with them." Pulling back slightly, he cupped her face and assured her, "But you won't be going out without me as well to keep them at bay. That I can promise."

…

"I can't believe we got a call from the man himself!" Raj exclaimed, sounding joyful. "I heard he doesn't make an audience for just anyone."

"I always got the feeling he was a bit cold and slightly animatronic," Leonard said. "Besides, he can't be nearly as smart as they say he is. It's not like he has a doctorate."

"I don't know," Howard said. "From all the documents I've gotten my hands on, I heard that not only does he have one, but two and that his third masters degree is pending."

"If he's all that brilliant, what is he doing in the military?" Leonard asked of his colleagues.

They walked into the office to find a reed thin man sitting behind his desk, typing away on his computer. When Leonard inhaled to say something to him, he held up his hand in a motion for him to remain silent and went on for at least five minutes before he was finished with what he was working on. Turning to face them, he looked from one to another and then the other without saying a word.

"Good afternoon, Doctors. Mr. Wolowitz," he said coolly to them. "Please sit down. Would you care for a hot beverage?"

"I could go for a beer," Raj said, but only received a glance from the man in front of them.

"Sorry to say, but as we are very close to the frontlines of the native habitat, drinking and nonmedical or recreational drugs are strictly prohibited, Dr. Koothrappali." He motioned to the chairs. "Please sit." They all did. Once they had, he asked, "Comfortable?" When they nodded, he murmured, "Good." He stood up and growled, "Where do you get off putting personnel in danger the way you had?"

"What?" Leonard whispered.

"We lost two men because you got the bright idea that going for a swim in a pond infested with poisonous snakes was a good idea due to the fact that you thought it was the best way to see my tracker's womanly figure!" That had Howard looking away blushing. "Penny risked her life trying to save you, Dr. Hofstadter, because you thought it was a romantic notion to have a candlelight dinner in an area with nocturnal beasts that see us as food. And every time she tried to put out that light, you kept relighting it!" He was glaring at him now. "Even after she warned you that doing so, you thought that she was throwing herself at you."

Leonard jumped to his feet, exclaiming, "I don't have to take this from you! Do you know who I am?"

"You're Dr. Leonard Hofstadter," he answered succinctly. "You are an experimental physicist working mainly with lasers, which is why you're here now. Most of the experiments you've done in the past are redundancies, which is the main reason why I objected to you being here in the first place. But now that you've been here all of a week and managed to help kill two of my men and injure my Sergeant Major for good measure, I'll be redoubling my efforts to see you off this base." He went to sit down. "And for your information, I have two doctorates and was put in charge of not only this location but three others in the quadrant." He pointed to the stars on his shoulder. "That's why they gave me the gold stars." He looked at all of them now, shaking with fear as they sat there. "I will make this very clear, gentlemen. Your presence here is tolerated to a point. You will do your work without endangering my staff or yourselves. You will be a productive member of the team and stop making advances on any of the females on this base." He stood up then, leaning over the desk and hovering over all of them as he growled, "And if you ever make another ill-advised advance towards my Penny again, I'll string you up for bait on the east border faster than you can whistle Dixie!" His eyes narrowed as he snarled, "Understood?"

All three squeaked out, "Yes, sir!"

"Good," he said with a smile and sat down once again. "Now if you don't mind, I need to get some paperwork done before I am off duty. Dismissed."

The three raced away before the man changed his mind.

…

Leonard watched the two from the guest table two days later. Howard and Raj looked at him and collectively rolled their eyes.

"Let it go, dude," Raj told him. "It isn't going to happen!"

"We could make such smart beautiful babies," he sighed, resting his chin on his palm as he kept staring dreamily at the blond beauty sitting next to the stiff scarecrow of a man.

But then it happened.

Penny smiled and took Sheldon's hand into her own. Lifting it up, she kissed his hand. The man relaxed, smiling at her as he lifted her hand towards his face and rubbed it against his cheek.

"Ah, it must be Saturday," came a high pitched voice of a tiny woman that joined them. "Hi, I'm Bernadette, I work here as a chemist. I saw you guys over here and thought I'd introduce myself."

They all greeted her casually, but it was Leonard that asked later on in the conversation, "So what's up with the head guy and the goddess that's the tracker?"

"Penny and Sheldon? Oh they're married," she told them, as she began to poke at her food. "They have been since before they came here."

"They are?" Leonard asked, sounding upset. "But isn't there some kind of rule that you can't marry people in your…" And that's when he looked up to see Sheldon looming over them.

"You were saying?" he asked, his voice tight and cold.

"Shelly, it's Saturday," Penny said as she joined them. "Can't I just beat the tar out of him tomorrow for being a presumptuous little homunculus?"

Sheldon turned towards her, a small smile gracing his lips. "Excellent use of the word 'homunculus', darlin'."

Beaming, she said, "I try." Turning to Leonard the smile disappeared as she snarled, "Listen up, you little piss ant—knock it off or I'm taking you out of the genetic pool the good old fashioned way."

"By dating me?" he asked, beaming.

"By castrating you," she drawled, and watched as all three of the men cross their legs in fear. "And to think, Sheldon, you said that my time as a junior rodeo champion wouldn't come in handy out here in the boondocks."

"I stand corrected, my dear," he murmured, offering his arm to her. "Away to bed?"

"It's Saturday, isn't it?" she purred.

"Leonard?" Howard whispered, as they watched them walking off out of the cafeteria.

"Yeah?" he breathed, pulling out his inhaler and using it.

"I think you better look somewhere else," he told his friend. "Unless the next award you're going for is the Darwin."

"I think I'll be phoning Stephanie when we get back to the tent," Leonard said, and left it at that.

The end

…

Let me know what you think of it. Thanks for reading and I hope you all have a beautiful day!