Grounds for Grounding

"Wilbur, I need to talk to you." Cornelius said, watching his son to get out of the first working Time Machine, having just returned from taking Lewis back to 2007. Wilbur looked nervously around the garage, as though looking for a place to hide, but his fathers blue eyes were narrowed on him. There was no way the young man could escape his father and best friend. And this would probably be like all the other times the young Robinson had gotten in trouble, but something seemed more… viral about the look in the man's eyes.

"N-now?" Wilbur stuttered, rubbing the back of his neck. He now knew that Lewis and his father are the same person, sharing the same memories. He knew it all along, but feigned stupidity to throw Lewis off the trail, yet in the future, there was no chance of throwing his father off.

Cornelius nodded, face set grim. "I would have specified an exact time otherwise, son." The last word was emphasized to distinguish past and present. He motioned to a stool next to a work bench, and Wilbur reluctantly complied, head hung and shoulders slumped. There could be no quirky remarks now.

"Now, Past has finally caught up with the present. You have had your fun romping through the space-time continuum; following through on things I knew would happen." Cornelius spoke kindly, leaning against the workbench, arms crossed as he gazed at his son through circle spectacles. "And I think a few subjects need to be hit on that your mother was a little too brief with the night before."

Wilbur looked up, disbelief that his father would ground him for life. That would mean all the fun things he had would be taken away, and he couldn't hang out with his friends, and… his jaw dropped at the hard gaze he was receiving. The man was serious. This wasn't his friend Lewis anymore… this was Cornelius, head of the house!

Cornelius pulled an electronic notepad from his lab coat pocket, looking at the list he had scribbled on it. "This is a compiled list from both memories and security data, not to mention first hand account of Mike Yagoobian, who is staying with us until he is back on his feet and properly educated." He showed, at a distance, that there were indeed things written on the pad. He looked back to it, picking the first item out, and then glanced to his son before starting. "Now… first off: Leaving the garage door unlocked. We have warned you countless times about that, and yet you still…" He waved the notepad, and then went back to the list. "Second: Letting the second time machine be stolen. You were the last one in the garage, and this one goes hand in hand with the first offense." He lifted his eyes to that of his son's brown ones.

Wilbur met his gaze, looking mortified now. He had no defense for those, except to claim human error, but that would only just sink him further into the bad graces. Cornelius knew this. He knew his son better than the boy thought he did.

"Son, I'm just getting warmed up." The boys' face paled even whiter that it had been before.

Turning back to his list, he tapped the third offense. "Using the first working time machine without mine or your mother's permission or knowledge. And we had told you countless times to not even look at it. Then going back into the past after the second machine." Cornelius sighed, shaking his head, and waving the notepad as if to dispel some foul odor.

Wilbur could tell this was really paining his father to do, but he was sure that his mother had also pressured the man into doing this. "I was trying to keep time moving correctly." He muttered, as if that was his solid, fool-proof defense.

"I know, Wilbur, I know." Cornelius replied before lifting the pad back to where he could read it. "Throwing Lewis off the roof." The young man cringed at that, lifting his shoulders nervously. That one went without saying as to who was in trouble for it, and why. Yet, suddenly, it was rather odd that his father would refer to his younger self as another person. "Bringing Lewis forward."

"Dad, come on! If I hadn't, you would never have had the courage to go back and fix the Memory scanner, nor would you--" The look Wilbur got was one he hadn't seen on his fathers face in a long time.

"I'll get to that, Wilbur." Cornelius replied with a light smile that bordered on euphoric memories. Suddenly he turned back to the current matter at hand, the memory pushed aside, and the smile gone. "Lying about going back to see Lewis' real mother—"

"I followed through on that one, though!" Wilbur rebutted, still on defense from the previous outburst.

"—Crashing the first time machine after arguing with Lewis." The man didn't stop after hearing his son's outburst. "That one I am considering here and now. You crashed the machine." The final four words were enough to shut the teen up. Blue eyes were now once again drilling into the young man. "And lying to the rest of the family about Lewis' origins, and letting them find out for themselves after they had offered to adopt me…" The smile was gone, and the face was set back into grim determination.

Wilbur's head dropped, chin to chest, unable to look up. If that wasn't a death sentence, he didn't know what else was. There was a click of the notepad being set down, and his fathers hand on his shoulder.

"Wilbur. For all the reasons you should be grounded, are all the reasons I want to thank you. I didn't realize how much your life would be linked; an integral part of mine. You gave confidence and self-esteem to a kid who thought he would never amount to anything… but being twelve, and seeing myself, and where I would be—what I would have in 30 years, knowing it would be mine, and knowing I have you as a friend, looking out for me, gave me courage."

Wilbur looked up, seeing the tears just appearing in his father's eyes. It was because of him that this family was possible? The turbulent chain of events after the family had come together let it all be formed in the first place? Wilbur bit back a chuckle, realizing that his own eyes were filling with tears, something he claimed that he would never shed. Yet seeing his father cry…

Cornelius hugged Wilbur, finally relived that he had cleared up the reasons for grounding that he had written nearly 5 years ago; when he had started on the Time Machine project. To think, though, that the youngest member of the family was responsible, in a way, for bringing them all together in the first place. "Come on, we have a Time Machine to go back for."