Penelope learned very early in their relationship that it's easy to read Scott's state of being by his sleeping position. Now it's become one of her more valuable—and used—tools.

On his side is good—the best, actually, because it's how he settles after sex when he is all relaxed and satisfied and happy to hold her safe in his arms, talking about their respective days and teasing one another in turn until they fall asleep, limbs still tangled but not quite crowding one another. Scott's a veritable furnace, so whether they wake up that close or not depends heavily on where in the world they happen to be, but Penny knows she doesn't need to worry about him when she wakes to find him lying on his side and almost inevitably watching her with a softness of expression that's so rare on him. Those are always the best mornings.

On his back is unusual, because he most often sleeps that way when he's alone. She sees it, though, when she arrives home sooner than either of them are expecting and crawls, weary, into bed next to him. There tends to be small furrows between his brows, not of tension, exactly, but something similar. He learned to rest on his back, legs together, arms folded over his stomach, in the Air Force, and it's the position he adopts when he's made a conscious effort to fall asleep. Counting sheep isn't exactly something that works for him, he confessed to her when she asked him about it once, but the Air Force taught him how to box his thoughts up so he could obtain vital rest. His thinking position, Penny calls it now, because it's how he processes things that are troubling him and merit contemplation.

She considers it a sign of trust between them that he's taken to talking his thoughts through with her rather than sorting them out himself.

The downside of sleeping on his back means he's more prone to dreaming. Even then, they're infrequent at best and are often uneventful, merely a cloudy narrative he'll recall in the morning, sometimes nonsensical, sometimes amusing. Less often but always memorable are the nightmares, something Penny is always on guard against when he's folded himself away in a series of neat angles. The dreams aren't loud or messy—he'll be asleep one second; the next, sitting bolt upright, chest heaving but otherwise still, as though braced against an attack that never comes. She's gotten better at talking him back to the present, and now he'll sometimes even lie back down to curl up against her. If he holds her a little too tight and doesn't actually sleep again, neither of them mentions it.

Just as concerning, if in a different way, is when he drops face-down on the bed and falls asleep instantly. Blessedly, it isn't a common occurrence, though perhaps that's more due to the fact he tries to be off duty as much as possible when they're together. It's inevitable that he gets called out sometimes, too predictably often when things are just getting interesting, and he'll arrive back hours later covered in mud or dust, or soaked through with rain. Sometimes he'll shower before crawling into bed so he can spoon in behind her, or maybe he'll even have enough energy to stay up and eat and resume where they left off. Those are the easier days.

The worst are easy to spot. Sometimes it's at whichever of her—their, now—places she's currently living, because she happens to closer than the island; more often, she'll be called to the island by one of his brothers or Mrs. Tracy or even EOS, if everyone else is too tired or busy; then Penny will fly out to the island with all haste. Even though the journey still takes hours, she always has to make her way upstairs and silently open Scott's door, where she'll find him sprawled out face-down on the bed, which is usually in a state, covers either half under him or rumpled up next to him, tossed aside whenever he last left the bed, far too many hours ago.

She generally has to step over his crumpled and discarded pieces of uniform before she can reach the bed, where Scott's inevitably shoved his head between or beneath the pillows in blatant defiance to the rosy sunlight streaming in through his bedroom's wall of windows. He doesn't look like he's moved other than that, though, and experience has taught Penny he most likely hasn't. Difficult and obscenely long rescues will knock him out for up to twelve or fourteen hours at a time, whereupon he'll wake drowsy and a little confused and a lot hungry but generally rested.

Woe betide anyone who attempts to wake him sooner, she knows, so she settles on an empty quadrant of their bed in an effort not to disturb and reaches for his comm, sitting on his nightstand, to input the password he gave her long ago—far before he gave her the warm, heavy ring on her finger—so she can lower the blinds. Even when the room's gone comfortably dim, his head stays buried, as it will until he finally wakes, just some ruffled almost-curls visible above the golden-brown expanse of his shoulders. They move slow and steady, rising and falling with each deep breath, and it's this that she'll watch until he finally wakes, a few or more hours later.

Perhaps she's wrong about this being the worst, although it's always so hard to see him dead on his feet before he crashes. But at least he rests comfortably, and when she's here with him, he's even started not immediately rushing around to complete the tasks that have piled up while he slept—a feat she still considers impressive.

Murmurs draw her attention, and she watches his back ripple as he stretches before settling down again, throwing an arm across her lap so he can close his hand around the loose hem of her shirt.

No, she muses as she smiles down at him, perhaps it isn't so bad after all.