Leonard spat out a mouthful of orange juice. He was now reconsidering his earlier diagnosis. Apparently Sheldon had bought a one-way ticket to crazy-ville after he and Penny had left him at the train station.
"Wait, what?" Leonard sputtered.
"I have come into possession of a journal which, among other things, contains some rather interesting mathematical formulae," Sheldon replied.
"Did you find it under your seat?"
"No," Sheldon replied indignantly. "It was given to me by a man I met while riding the rails."
"Who, that guy you met on Valentine's Day?"
As usual, Leonard's sarcasm went right by Sheldon. "No, this was an older gentleman, dressed in a very dapper, if somewhat outdated suit. He claimed the journal was passed on to him by his father who coincidentally disappeared shortly thereafter. He was oddly concerned about the use of angles in the design of the train car we were on, which made him seem a little, um-"
"Eccentric?" Leonard supplied.
"Yes, that's it. Come to think of it, since you mentioned Eric, I've noticed of late that the railway seems to act almost as a magnet to eccentric types."
"Why am I not surprised?" Leonard asked rhetorically.
"Only you can answer that," Sheldon replied, missing that one as well. "In any event, if you are done taking us off on a tangent, may I continue?"
"If you must," Leonard sighed.
"Thank you," Sheldon replied. "I spent many hours reading and rereading the aforementioned formulae and after applying advances in modern physics as well as my own prodigious intellect I arrived at the conclusion that we could very possibly use the information contained therein to open a portal into another universe.
Leonard resisted the urge to tell Sheldon how much he wished said portal had already been opened and his friend had gone through. Instead he said, "That's all very interesting, if true. But it doesn't explain why you felt the need to wake me up at three in the morning."
"Why, to enlist your aid of course. As an experimental physicist you have access to, and knowledge in the use of various detectors and other equipment that I believe will be needed to enable us to open the way, as it were."
"So, what are you proposing?" Leonard asked warily.
"That you join myself, Howard Wolowitz, and Rajesh Koothrapalli on an expedition."
Leonard sat quietly thinking for a few minutes before speaking. "Okay, I have some questions. An expedition to where, exactly? And why Raj and Howard?"
"As I believe I implied, the journal contained other information apart from the formulae I mentioned. This included schematics for a device to facilitate our experiment, which I hope Wolowitz can redesign and build using 21st Century components," Sheldon said. "As for the other aspects of your inquiry, they go together. Also included were a number of astronomical charts, which indicate the optimal time and location that this portal opening should be attempted based on, I believe, the positions of particular celestial bodies in conjunction with the location of certain gravitational anomalies in Earth's planetary crust. I cannot be more specific without Raj's expertise in such matters."
Leonard considered this. "Okay, one more question. Do you recall the aftermath of our expedition to the Arctic?"
"I do, and I promise to make every endeavor to prevent such an outcome from recurring."
Despite the patent absurdity of it all, Leonard found himself intrigued by the proposition Sheldon had laid before him. Of course there was no way he was leaving Penny for an extended period of time at this juncture in their relationship, but it wouldn't hurt to look over Sheldon's discovery.
"I assume you scanned the journal onto your laptop?" he asked.
"I did," was Sheldon's reply.
"Okay, send it along."
A/N; Sorry if this is a little "talky." Still setting things up.
