Writer's block is back in full force :(

Enjoy :)

Disclaimer: Again, not mine.

The present - 11 years and 7 months old:

"DADDY! DADDY! DADDY!" Chris yelled as he ran up to his father, Penny watching with a grin as her almost teenage boy exuded his apparent joy before her boy jumped and barreled into her husband, bowling them both over.

"Hey Chris, nice to see you too." Leonard coughed as both stumbled back to their feet.

"What's going on, Chris?" Penny asked, helping her girls with their jackets.

"Dad, come with me!" Chris said loudly and pulled Leonard behind him towards the basement stairs.

"What's going on, Chris?" Penny repeated, following them while her girls began drawing again.

She walked into the kitchen and from there into the basement, descending the steps until she saw Chris almost hopping with his giddiness while Leonard sat on the sofa, his hands clasped in front of his mouth and his face a mask of awe and concentration as he drank in what he saw. For Penny, it was just another whiteboard filled with equations she didn't understand.

"So, what's the verdict?" Penny asked her husband.

"I... I don't..." Leonard stammered. "This could change everything!"

"Again?" Penny joked, referring to the fact that both of the men in her life had done world-changing things already.

"This is a breakthrough, Chris." Leonard told his son. "If this pans out, we could actually design a hyperdrive."

"A what?" Penny asked.

"A hyperdrive." Chris grinned. "It's a colloquial term for a spaceship engine that allows for faster-than-light travel."

"And with Chris's idea of folding space, we could theoretically reach any place in the galaxy if not the universe within hours. Maybe even faster." Leonard added.

"That of course depends on the universe." Chris shrugged.

"Okay, the blond women gets more and more confused." Penny laughed.

"Mom, think of that heavy carpet in the living room." Chris said. "Imagine trying to lift its diagonal edges and pushing them together."

"I don't think I could do that." Penny shook her head. "Maybe Frank could."

"Exactly." Chris nodded. "So, if we were to travel to, lets say, the Andromeda galaxy, I doubt the trip would be done in a few hours."

"Ah, you mean the subspace tunnel would be longer." Leonard understood too now. "Gosh, I wished this could become a thing in our lifetime."

"Why?" Penny wanted to know. "You wanna become an astronaut?"

"No, but since Chris and Howard built that artificial gravity generator, anyone could theoretically be on the space station."

"I think it's more the getting there part that requires you to be an astronaut." she winked at him.

"Still, I would love to fly to the center of our galaxy to see what's going on there." he sighed.

"Probably a gigantic black hole." Chris giggled. "Like in the center of every galaxy that's spinning."

"So, what now?" Penny asked.

"I'm going to write this as a paper and send it to Doctor Tyson and uncle Howard so they can read it through." Chris replied.

"Why Howard?"

"He's the engineer, he can tell me if it's technically feasible." Chris said. "So, what's for dinner?"

"Wow, what a change in topic." Penny laughed. "From traveling to the center of our galaxy to dinner?"

"Hey, I'm hungry." Chris shrugged. "You were gone for a while."

"You're almost twelve, you could have made yourself a sandwich." she winked at her boy.

"Yeah well, I was busy." Chris huffed.

"I don't know if I should admonish you for getting so immersed in your work that you forget to eat or congratulate you because your hard work resulted in this." she pointed to the whiteboard.

"I also am kinda surprised that you didn't ask me about my math test this morning." Chris said to his mom.

"Son, your IQ is 279, and you're acing every final in college already, I really doubt that we have to worry about your tests in school." Leonard chuckled.

"Tell me something boys, how long will Chris be in college for until he finishes his diploma?" Penny asked.

"If he continues like he is doing now, two years." Leonard told her.

"So, he'd be done with college before he's a senior in highschool." she chuckled. "Chris, you really wanna do highschool?"

"Yeah." Chris nodded. "I need the social education. And maybe find a girlfriend."

"Whoa." Penny stopped in her tracks. "Girlfriend? Where did that come from? Kinda early, isn't it?"

"What?" Chris looked at her innocently. "I'm almost twelve, I notice girls, especially the ones in my college class."

"How about you grow up a bit more, and then think about girls that way." Penny said in an almost pleading voice.

"You can't stop his hormones." Leonard chuckled from his perch on the couch.

"Hey, he's still my baby boy." she argued.

"I'm right here, mom." Chris interjected.

"I'll check on the girls." Penny moped and left the basement. "At least they still are my baby girls."

Penny returned to the living room and sat down on the armchair, turning slightly to watch her girls as they painted more pictures of the things they experienced this day alone. She thought about that for a moment, thinking about the paintings of her girls that were hanging in galleries in the city, the local fame they already achieved for being artistic prodigies.

She kept wondering what part of her and Leonard's combined genes created the artistic streak of her girls. She knew that Leonard wasn't really artistic in any way, except imagining builds when he created experiments. Her own artistry wasn't that much to brag about as well, yet their daughters created masterpieces with a skill that even accomplished painters were admiring.

Currently, Diana was painting a particular cloud formation they witnessed today while Selene was in the process of creating a flock of seagulls they saw taking off at the beach. With Selene's picture, the detail was astonishing, every color on each feather in its place and even having one which was cleaning itself before taking off.

Standing up again, she walked into the kitchen to prepare their dinner, looking outside the window to see the almost fully closed-up trench where the electrician that Frank knew had finished had finished laying the power cable leading from their batteries to Frank and Alice's house. If he finished tomorrow, she could replant the grass to turn their backyard back into the green oasis it used to be.

She put the plastic dishes into the microwave, setting it to the correct time to heat it up. Ever since Leonard had convinced her to prepare dinner while making lunch to save time in the evening, she had not done otherwise, except in the rare occasions that they either ordered in or had a barbecue with their friends.

Five minutes later, the microwave oven dinged, signaling that the food was ready and like a bloodhound let loose on a trail, Chris almost jumped up the stairs and sat down at the table, quickly joined by Leonard. She called for her girls to get into the kitchen and both joined them as well, not a single dot of paint on their skin or clothes, showing how careful both were when painting.

"So, what happens now with your work, Chris?" Penny asked her boy.

"As I said, I'm going to write a paper and send it to Doctor Tyson and to uncle Howard for evaluation and if they say that it looks good, I'll publish it." Chris told her. "Then it goes on to fine tuning the process."

"Any problems?"

"The biggest would be the energy requirement." Leonard said. "I looked it over and I calculated that using that engine would require as much energy as a dozen large fusion reactors create in a month."

"Yeah." Chris nodded. "So any engine like this built would need a setting that it draws only as much energy as it needs for that particular jump. The energy requirement that dad calculated is used for the maximum distance it can make."

"What would be the maximum distance?" Penny wanted to know, sitting down herself after putting the food on her girls' plates.

"I think it's possible to get up to fifty thousand light years in a properly sized engine." Chris shrugged. "Any further and the engine would need to be enormous. Enormous like the size of the moon."

"So, getting to another galaxy would be a bit more time consuming." Leonard chuckled. "But possible."

"How far is Andromeda away?"

"Approximately two and a half million light years." Leonard told her.

"Hey, if we wait a few billion years, it will be much closer." Chris grinned.

"Why?" Penny wondered.

"In roughly four and a half billion years, Andromeda and our Milky Way will collide and combine." Leonard answered her. "But, lets take the furthest distance this engine could do, so it would be fifty jumps."

"So, if you had a series of fusion cores that would take a month to charge the engine again, it would be fifty months, right?" Penny looked at the men in her life. "Not that long for a trip to another galaxy."

"That's true." Chris admitted. "If we had cryogenic technology to put people to sleep, we could bring colonists to Andromeda."

"Wow, I wonder what the ship's crew would earn in pay given that they'd be away from home for more than eight years." Leonard chuckled.

"Or you build a colony ship that the crew then dismantles after getting to their destination." Penny suggested.

"Yeah but we'd still need a means of communication then or a better engine that can go there faster." Chris shrugged.

"You know, it's fun to speculate about this." Penny smiled. "But I think it's safe to say that none of us will be alive when the day comes for the first group of humans to settle on a new galaxy."

"How do you know?" Chris asked. "It could go faster than you think. And maybe, at some point maybe people are reaching a lot higher age."

"And furthermore, who says that we have to settle in a new galaxy right away." Leonard added ."It could be a world close to us that supports life."

"You mean, life like ours." Chris grinned. "Who knows what kinds of life humanity will find out there someday."

"Well, no matter how the alien race looks that we first meet, we'll probably start a war with them." Leonard shrugged.

"That's a glum outlook." Penny commented.

"No, I think dad is right." Chris added. "It's safe to assume that we won't be unable to communicate with an alien race at first. So, the cultural differences alone would probably start a war. That show dad watches sometimes shows that as a great example."

"Which one?" Penny wanted to know.

"Babylon 5." Leonard told her. "The Earth-Minbar war started with a cultural difference. The Minbari warships, when meeting new races, opened their gunports as a sign of respect but didn't target the ships of that other race. The humans, understandably, viewed this as a threat and opened fire. It would be like someone you don't know walking up to you and pulling a gun but not pointing it at you in an effort to get to know you. Wouldn't you feel threatened?"

"I certainly would." Penny admitted. "But lets stop talking about this and have dinner. Afterwards, we can take a dip in the pool."

"Yay!" her girls whooped and dug into their food.

The present – 12 years and 1 month old:

"What is it?" Penny asked while cutting tomatoes into slices, referring to the message Leonard had just received.

"It's from Raj, it says we should turn on the news." he read.

"What channel?"

"NBC." he told her and Penny clicked the TV on.

"...Prize winner Chris Hofstadter made another breakthrough that could usher in a new era of space exploration." they got the tail end of the opening part of the segment. "According to sources, the young prodigy created the theoretical foundation for an engine that could allow a spaceship to travel up to fifty thousand light years in the blink of an eye."

"Well, that's not quite true." Chris commented. "Except if he keeps his eyes closed for hours when he blinks."

"Paul, what's your opinion on the achievements of this young genius?" the anchor asked the expert guest.

"Well Nancy, the first thing I needed after reading the paper was a stiff drink." the guest joked. "If I didn't know that this young man was a certified genius, probably the smartest person currently living, I would have thought that this was concocted by a huge team of smart people working together for years or even decades, not a single boy who is not yet twelve years old working on it for a few months."

"What are the implications for this new invention?" Nancy asked.

"Humanity spreading out into the galaxy if not the universe?" Paul replied. "Think about it, one fully charged jump can transport a spaceship from one end of our galaxy to the other. The possibilities are astonishing if the energy supply can hold it."

"According to young Hofstadter's notes, it would take a dozen large fusion reactors a month to charge the engine for a single fifty thousand light year jump, is that true?" Nancy asked.

"Yes, but if the jump is shorter, it takes less time or less energy, of course." Paul nodded. "And who knows, if young Hofstadter or someone else working with him optimizes the energy requirement, at least for shorter jumps, then we may see humanity settling on new worlds."

"Paul, have you heard of several religious leaders warning against spreading out too fast, or in some cases, some even warned of going into space at all?"

"Were they asked why?" Paul retorted. "Because I know of only one reason why they would advocate against humanity exploring the universe."

"And that reason would be?"

"Religion has told its followers for centuries that we're the center of the universe, that god created us in his image. Now what happens if we find an alien race or more than one, who look different than us?" Paul shrugged.

"That sounds really... I have no idea what to call that." Nancy shrugged.

"Other than shortsighted?" Paul grinned.

"Thank you Paul, for your expertise." Nancy turned to the camera. "And after this break, will..."

"Well, that was something." Penny grinned, interrupting the host by shutting off the TV. "Now Chris is even more famous."

"Or feared." Leonard shrugged. "You heard them talking about what those religious people were saying."

"Do you really think we will have to worry about them actually doing something?" Penny worried.

"I hope not." Leonard shuddered. "I'd hope that people in a church would think twice about the optics of harming a twelve year old boy."

Well, they spent decades of violating..." Penny started but was interrupted by the doorbell, revealing a well-known person upon opening it.

"Doctor Tyson." Leonard said surprised. "This is a surprise."

"Can I come in?" their guest asked.

"Sure, come in, come in." Penny nodded, stepping aside.

"What can we do for you?" Leonard asked.

"Doctor Tyson." Chris interjected, checking who came to visit. "What are you doing here?"

"Young Mister Hofstadter." Doctor Tyson smiled warmly, kneeling down to shake Chris' hand. "Have you seen the news recently?"

"We've seen it today." Leonard said. "Did you publish the paper?"

"I sent it on to the journals, yes." Neil nodded. "I read it carefully and I was blown away. Not just because of the topic itself but also because it had absolutely no error whatsoever."

"And that compelled you to take the trip to Pasadena?" Penny chuckled.

"I wanted to personally congratulate you, young man." Neil directed at Chris. "I had conversations with your friend Howard and we both agree that building an engine like this is quite feasible with our current technology, especially when using Hofstadterium as the hull material."

"But what about the energy requirements?" Chris asked. "Isn't that a bit restrictive?"

"Only when you want to do all those long jumps." Neil said. "When we can agree to limit ourselves to jump of, for example, a thousand light years max, then a single fusion reactor in a spaceship can charge the engine in a few minutes."

"Because the energy requirement rises exponentially the further the jump." Chris nodded, his mind already doing the equations. "A single reactor the size of the one in our backyard bunker would charge a one thousand light year jump in twenty-two minutes."

"That's amazing!" Penny exclaimed.

"Wait, you have your own fusion reactor?" Neil interjected.

"Don't tell anyone." Leonard pleaded.

"Why not?" Neil wondered. "It's not as if you would be the only ones."

"What do you mean?" Penny asked.

"Around the world, several large corporations or energy-hungry industries have begun to license the reactors, so they can lighten the load on power cables, to avoid the heat of the cables going into the environment." Neil explained. "To be more specific, the governments are building them and the corporations still pay for the energy, which has become very cheap though."

"That's nice." Leonard nodded. "What if..." he wanted to continue but the doorbell interrupted him too.

"Busy evening." Penny chuckled and opened the door, revealing one of their friends. "Hey Howard, what's going on?"

"Can I come in?" Howard almost hopped in anticipation, holding a stack of bound papers.

"Sure, come on in." Penny nodded and let him in.

"Doctor Tyson, what a nice surprise." Howard stopped cold when he saw the older astrophysicist.

"Doctor Wollowitz." Neil nodded.

"What's going on, Howard?" Leonard asked.

"It's a good thing you're here, Doctor Tyson." Howard began.

"I told you guys, that you can call me Neil." Neil laughed.

"I can't." Chris shook his head.

"Anyway, I finished the design of the wormhole engine." Howard grinned excitedly.

"You did what?" Leonard shrieked.

"I finished the design of a wormhole engine." Howard repeated and spread out a large blueprint.

"This is all squiggly lines for me." Penny commented.

"It's beautiful." Chris was in awe. "What's the coolant piping made of?"

"Tungsten." Howard said. "We could build it out of Hofstadterium as well, but that would become a lot more expensive unless prices fall even more."

"When could we build that?" Neil asked, looking at the plans as well."

"Whenever the materials become available." Howard shrugged. "But we would need to design a complete spaceship before to see if we have to build this on earth or in space."

"Chris, how far along are you with this ion engine you envisioned?" Neil asked.

"Not as far along as I wanted." Chris sighed. "On the other hand, it should be much easier since the fuel is already available. It's just a matter of it working on earth and space."

"If it worked both inside atmosphere and out of it, we wouldn't need combustion rockets anymore." Howard mentioned.

"Not just combustion rockets." Neil interjected. "Airplanes, cars, everything running on oil based fuel could become clean."

"A lot of people already drive electric cars, do they?" Penny asked.

"Yes, but not even remotely enough." Neil sighed. "Sometimes, when I sit in news shows or in congressional hearings and I am confronted by the ignorance of some politicians, I'd love to get up and strangle some sense into them."

"Well, that would certainly make the hearings more interesting." Penny giggled. "Can we offer you something to drink or eat?"

"I wouldn't mind a cup of tea." Neil smiled.

"Certainly." Penny nodded. "What would you like? Peppermint, chamomile, black, green, Earl Gray..."

"Earl Gray sounds great." Neil nodded. "I wouldn't have pegged any you for people who drink Earl Gray."

"The only reason we have it is because Leonard loves Star Trek and Captain Picard drank it." Penny chuckled. "And I still hate that I know that."

"Who knows." Neil chuckled, watching Howard, Leonard and Chris in a deep discussion over the engine plans. "Maybe a real life Captain Picard isn't that far away."

I know this is pretty short but I truly don't know what's going on with me. Every time I try to write more than a few sentences, my mind goes blank and I can't get anything done.

Still, review please :)