This is so amazing, and also; not a one-shot. I have once again done something stupid.

To make things even more awesome, it is completely untested ground.

"I don't even think I dare asking, but what are you guys up to?" Penny asked with a forced smile as Lennart and Sheldon most carefully carried some sort of device up the stairs.

"It's a time machine", Sheldon explained before Lennart could stop him.

"Again?" Penny asked skeptical and eyed the device. At least this one was smaller than the last one they had gotten. It was round and judging from the stance of the two scientists rather heavy, even though it was quite thin.

"Penny, can you open the door please?" Lennart asked and nodded at his pocket where the keys were.

"Fine", Penny sighed and took the keys before opening the door, "here you go guys." She watched as Lennart and Sheldon most carefully tilted the round plate and carried it through the door. Then they stood rather forlorn in their living room.

"I'll clear the table", Penny said and removed the few things on the coffee table and put them on the sideboard instead.

"I'm not sure the table is strong enough to hold this …" Lennart started as Penny cleared the table, but before he could finish Sheldon interrupted him. "It will hold, Lennart, because …"

"Never mind, let's just put it down", Lennart said quickly, in his turn interrupting Sheldon. Carefully they put the heavy thing down.

"Is this … stone?" Penny asked incredulous when she examined the object closer.

"Yes", Sheldon confirmed, "we are going to dismantle it. It was used for time traveling thousands of years ago … at least that's what the story says. Of course, it didn't work. But it will be interesting to see how the less developed minds from before the modern era thought they could achieve time traveling."

"So you're going to learn from their mistakes?" Penny said with another forced smile. Lennart laughed a bit, but Sheldon missed the joke. "No! Silly Penny, everyone know one can't time travel with a piece of rock. It's a mere anthropological interest."

Penny merely smiled.

"But we are going to test it first!" Sheldon added eagerly and looked at Penny, "Want to come?"

"Eh, nhe … Oh, what the hell, why not?" she said and made a dejected gesture. "How does it work?"

"It seems pretty simple", Sheldon said, "you see these hand prints? We simply put our left hand on them and set a date."

There were three natural hand prints in the stone, of the sort one would get if one put a hand in soft concrete and then allowed it to dry. Sheldon and Lennart put their left hand on a hand print each. "What makes you think it is your left hand?" Penny asked, simply to mock Sheldon. "Couldn't it be your right hand, but the back of it?"

"No, Penny, I am sure it is our left hand", Sheldon stated unamused.

"Whatever", Penny sighed and put her hand on the last available spot. "So how do we set the date?"

Lennart looked at Sheldon, back at Penny and then back at Sheldon again before admitting it: "We don't know."

"You don't know?" Penny repeated, a bad feeling starting to grow in her stomach.

"Well, actually Lennart's statement is incorrect", Sheldon said, "we do know how to set the date, we just don't know what date we are setting." Sheldon made a gesture at the small holes in the center of the stone with little colored pins in them. "That is used to set the date, we just don't know which holes represent what."

"Can I set the date?" Penny asked immediately. Now that they didn't know what date they would pretend to travel to anyway neither Sheldon nor Lennart could request a specific date and therefore she might just as well. Without waiting for answer she rearranged the small red pins so that it looked like a smiley.

Sheldon was about to protest, but Lennart silenced him. "Just let her."

"But guys", Penny said, a new thought shooting to mind, "if this thing is that old then shouldn't you give it to a museum or so? Is it really okay to have it here?"

"The stone was given to Caltech by someone who found it. Caltech ran a wide variety of harmless tests on it and …" Lennart fell silent.

"And what?" Penny asked when she noticed Sheldon was displaying the nervous, uncontrolled behavior he always did when either lying or keeping a secret.

"Well, the C14 didn't give any results", Lennart confessed.

"Isn't that the test that determines how old an object is?" Penny asked confused, "How can it not give any results?"

"Very good, Penny", Sheldon said, sounding impressed, earning an unamused glare from his neighbor. "Technically speaking it is impossible for the C14 test not to give results, but when they tested it one this time machine it didn't give any."

"So what does that mean?" Penny asked while Lennart desperately tried to make Sheldon shut up.

"It means", Sheldon said, speaking very fast, indicating he was saying something he really shouldn't, "that NASA thought it was alien and ordered it to be destroyed! And you don't know Lennart and I saved it!" He looked away in some sort of shameful manner.

Penny gawked, but did not withdraw her hand. "This thing could be alien!"

"Yes", Lennart said, covering his eyes with his right hand. "Please, don't tell anyone."

Penny shook her head, speechless, her eyes bulging. Then she shook her head again, to recover herself. "So … are you still going to test it?"

"Of course!" Sheldon said. "Everyone ready?"

"Sure", Penny said and when Lennart too gave his confirmation Sheldon pushed the one pin that could not be moved, the one in the very center, making out the nose of Penny's smiley.

At least they landed softly, but that really was the only positive factor in whatever had happened. Penny found herself with a bleeding left hand somewhere in something that seemed to be a dessert. She had landed flat on her back and was staring at a truly blue sky. It was so incredibly hot.

Wherever they were, it wasn't Pasadena anymore. California had hot days, but not like this, this feeling as if ones skin was on fire. She jumped to her feet when she noticed that the main reason that she felt as if she was on fire was the sand on her bare skin.

Her sandals could not keep the sand away from her feet, but it was some sort of relief not to have it all over her body. She looked around and located Lennart's unconscious form a bit further away. She walked over to him and did his best to shake him awake.

"It's no use", Sheldon said, "he hit his head. He will wake up in time. I believe he has a concussion, the fall must have caused enough rotational damage to the brain to make it severe enough for Lennart to, as people put it, pass out."

Sheldon was standing on the edge of a cliff, looking at the horizon. He had however turned to face Penny when he noticed she had awoken.

"And that doesn't worry you?" Penny asked.

"Well, yes, Lennart is my friend. But if I were to compare Lennart's concussion to the issue of where we have stranded Lennart's concussion is not very troublesome. It will pass. The question as how to get back home is consistent to the point that we actually get home, Lennart's condition is not", Sheldon said.

"Where are we?" Penny asked, not sure she wanted to know the answer. Australia? Southern North America? Africa? The Middle East? There were desserts in all those places. But perhaps most importantly, what time had they stranded in?

"I fear", Sheldon said, "that we are in Ancient Egypt."

"Ancient Egypt!" Penny called out shocked. "With the pyramids and the sphinx and all that?"

"No", Sheldon said and pointed at a spot behind Penny. She turned around and looked at a spot that looked just like the rest of the dessert surrounding to her. "We have arrived in the beginning of the Old Kingdom, or possibly before it, in the Early Dynastic Period."

"How can you tell?" Penny asked, still looking at the point Sheldon was pointing at.

"Because that is where the Pyramid of Giza and the Great Sphinx of Giza will be build. We are standing on the plateau of Giza and down there …" he pointed downwards, " … is the city of Memphis. Capital city of Ancient Egypt."

"You're joking, right?" Penny asked and once again looked at the spot where supposedly the Pyramid of Giza should have been standing had they been in their time.

"Of course not, why would I joke about something like that? We are standing on the Giza Plateau looking out over the capital city of Ancient Egypt. Probably around three thousand BC."

"Have we gone back in time five thousand years?" Penny asked again, incredulous. This could not be happening to her. Least of all with Sheldon Cooper and Leonard Hofstadter. Slowly she approached Sheldon to see if there really was an Ancient Egyptian town beneath them.

"Yes!" Sheldon said, suddenly energetic. "There is not really that much recorded of the Early Dynastic Period. Modern Egyptology can hazard a guess out of the little material it has got, but this is an opportunity!"

"I think dangerous as hell is more appropriate!" Penny hissed and came to stand next to Sheldon. Indeed, underneath them stretched a city that was not of modern times but it didn't quite look like she had expected.

It was a battlefield.

Or more accurately, it was what is left after a battlefield. The first thing she noticed was the palace, what was left of it that was. It had crumbled, as if a giant had smashed it repeatedly and it could no longer find the strength to stand. What once had been, tall and strong sandy walls were now mere rocks on the ground. The major part of the city was in no better shape, from some houses smoke was rising in thick pillars from recently extinguished fires. The ground looked as if it had been tormented by an earthquake.

She swallowed. Ancient Egypt was stretched out in front of her, battered with people walking everywhere, trying to restore their homes, find their loved ones in the rubble. What had happened here? What could have done this to the proud capital city of Memphis?

"What do we do now?" she asked. Why had she ever went along with the idea of trying an alien time machine?

"Get out of the sun", Sheldon said and glared at the sky. "If we stay here too long we'll get severely burned."

"And where would we go? The town?" Penny asked condescending.

"No!" Sheldon said, sounding affronted. "The townspeople would kill us. These people are not used to strangers. There is no limit to what horrible and painful methods they could find to kill us, especially now that they have been plunged into despair that comes with loosing their home!"

"Then where else?" Penny asked, "I don't really see any place to stay."

"There should be caves a bit further into the dessert. A sort of canyon. We can hide there and wait for Lennart to wake up, then we can figure out what to do. Help me carry him."

Sheldon took the lead and together he and Penny carried him further into the dessert. It felt odd to walk further into the dessert, all her instincts were screaming at her to get out of it. Naturally that was foolish, like Sheldon had said, they would be killed. But truth be told, Penny did not see much more of a chance in the dessert.

Only ten minutes into the walk and Penny was starting to feel exhausted. The sand did not make for a nice ground to walk on, Lennart was starting to get heavy and the sun was making her sweat far more liquid than her body could spare. Sheldon wasn't in a much better condition.

"How much further?" Penny asked, being unable to see past Sheldon.

"Hard to tell", was all Sheldon said, "I am not familiar with the Sahara."

Penny muttered something under her breath and wondered how the Egyptians could live on sandals. The sand was starting to leave permanent marks on her feet that were starting to hurt. Sheldon, who was wearing sneakers and socks, was better of.

They had walked for at least half an hour when Sheldon at last exclaimed: "Look. A cave!"

The ground mercifully turned to rock instead of sand and Penny used the opportunity to stop and remove the sand from her sandals. To her dismay she noticed that her feet were bleeding. She did however soon forget that thought when she saw the way towards the cave.

"Sheldon! You can't be serious!" she exclaimed. The road in front of her was madness. It was a small ridge against a cliff wall that led into a cave. At some parts the road was too narrow for two people to stand next to each other. One faulty step and they would plummet many meters to their untimely death.

"Penny, it is either that or slow death by dehydration filled with hallucinations and madness", Sheldon said, "If we reach the cave we may be able to figure out what to do now."

"Travel back to the U.S", Penny said sarcastically.

Naturally Sheldon didn't pick that up. "Silly Penny. It is not even certain if there was life in North America this far back in time. We have come to one of the few known civilizations from this time."

"What good will that do if they'll only kill us?" Penny asked sarcastically.

"None", Sheldon said, still failing to notice the sarcasm. "I suggest that one of us drags Lennart since that will make for less risk. Carrying such a heavy load makes one unstable, dragging it will be safer for all of us."

"You go first", Penny said and crossed her arms.

"Then you drag Lennart", Sheldon retorted and before Penny could protest he was standing on the ridge and had started his journey towards the cave. Penny, knowing that Sheldon was fearful of heights, had to hand it to him; he was rather brave.

To her surprise he reached the cave without falling to his death. "It's fine!" he yelled at her, "just do it with your eyes closed!"

Penny gawked at him. What kind of suicidal undertaking was that? Had he really done it with his eyes closed? He really was completely insane. It was hardly news to Penny, but it was simply yet another unbelievable confirmation.

"Sorry", she told Lennart before grabbing his arms and dragging him onto the path. She did not close her eyes, instead she transfixed her eyes on the path, making sure not to look down. Her journey did not go half as fast as that of Sheldon, but Lennart was quite a weight. The ground was rough and she felt a bit sorry for him, he would be blue all over when he woke up. On the bright side he would not recall this hellish little bit of traveling.

She reached the cave in one piece and with a sigh of relief she dropped Lennart's arms and sat down. At least the cave was nice and cool. Now that she was out of the sun she noticed how thirsty she was.

"This is an unfortunate turn of events", Sheldon stated as he looked around.

"What makes you say that? Stuck in the dessert with no water somewhere in Ancient Egypt is the best thing I can imagine."

"What makes you say that? I would have preferred to be able to observe the people …" Sheldon said before it dawned on him that she had been sarcastic. "Oh, shoot." He walked around for a bit, trying to find an acceptable spot to sit on when he spotted something interesting. "Look, Penny, people!"

Penny opened her eyes. "What are you talking about? It's just you, me and Lennart here", she said, before she saw that Sheldon was right. A bit further into the cave, propped against a wall, was the unconscious form of someone who did belong in the time they had landed in.

Sheldon approached her carefully. Then he simply stared.

The young girl was dressed in a simple garment of cotton, but it was adorned with details in gold, which made quite clear that this girl wasn't a peasant. Next to her was a staff, which she was gripping slightly even though she was unconscious. She was dirty and covered in blood, it was hard to tell how she had gotten there.

Sheldon couldn't stop staring.

"What's wrong, Sheldon? Can't you see blood?" Penny asked with a grin.

"It is only my own blood I can't see", Sheldon said affronted.

"Then what's the problem?" Penny asked, still grinning.

"Don't you see, Penny? We are actually having contact with a person from one of the first civilizations known to man! It's incredible! These people made a working society actually not all that different from our own. The prosperity of mankind actually fell the further into the future we go. First it rises, then it plummets down to what was the horror of the middle ages." Sheldon was still staring. "These people made the first real civilization!"

Penny sighed. Truth be told, in any other circumstance, she probably would have loved to talk to someone from a different time. Not because she wanted to learn more history, but because it simply seemed awesome. "Let's just make sure she doesn't bleed to death first", she said and tore of part of the girl's dress to use as makeshift bandages.

As she applied them Sheldon commented on everything she did wrong, but when she told him to do it he started and went quiet. Though only after pointing out that disease was very common here and that here they couldn't actually do anything about it. Penny merely shrugged, if she was going to worry about disease now then she'd go insane.

When she was done she tended to Lennart, but there wasn't much she could do for him. Sheldon was entertaining himself with inspecting the girls staff. When Penny had put Lennart on the most comfortable patch of ground she could manage to find she returned to the girl, who was already starting to bleed through her bandages.

She recalled what Sheldon once had told her, that he kept bandages on him at all times, but that they were exclusively for him. Time to break his bubble, this girl would bleed to death without proper care.

"Sheldon, are you carrying those bandages with you?" Penny asked innocently.

"Naturally, in my pocket, as always", Sheldon said.

For a girl who had been raised in Omaha, Nebraska that was all the information she required. Before Sheldon even realized it his pockets were empty by Penny's quick fingers. She had opened the bandage before Sheldon had the chance to protest.

"Be a sweetheart and remove those old ones for me?" she asked with a smile as she saw Sheldon's horrified expression.

"I will do no such thing!" he protested angrily. "How could you steal my bandages! Those are for me!"

"Not now anymore", Penny said and put the clean bandages on her knee to keep them from coming in contact with the dirt and started to remove the old ones herself. Then she used the modern day bandages on the worst wounds. The result improved drastically.

New problems arose when the temperature started to give way. As the night approached, it dropped dramatically, to the point where it reached below zero as the sun seemed to set fire to everything else. Sheldon informed her that it was a completely normal that the temperature could variate by easily 50°C between day and night.

Penny, who was dressed for the warm Californian climate found herself once again at a disadvantage in the Sahara, but it wasn't quite as bad on her as one the native who had lost a lot of blood and could not afford to lose any more warmth, she was too cold already.

Penny did what she had learned, she dragged Lennart to where the girl was laying and propped him against her, hoping that his body warmth could keep her warm and she snuggled up next to the girl on the other side, hoping it would suffice to get them all through the night. She invited Sheldon as well, but he absolutely refused to come in such close proximity to other people.

"I'll take the first guard", he said instead and found a spot that was not completely against his nearly autistic demands on a place to sit.

"You do that", Penny said, too exhausted to care. She snuggled even closer to the foreign girl and was almost asleep when doing so. She fell into an uncomfortable slumber

DON'T expect frequent updates, it will be seen through to the end, but I actually have no time for this at all. Do review though, it motivates me, makes me feel guilty if I'm inactive for too long.