A/N: It's been a long time since I was in middle school, so I don't know what the geeky kids do. When I was there, the boys played Magic Cards all the friggin' time, do they still do that?

Thanks for the review guys! As for no exposition, I used to write grand intricate expositions, but they took so long I lost interest in the story halfway through. I want to actually finish a non-one-shot (a feat I've accomplished only once, though I started over a dozen).

Wilbur was steaming, sitting on his dad's bed. What could he possibly be doing with that girl? Cornelius had a lot of explaining to do. Especially after he walked into the room with a contented, love-struck smile. He could not marry another girl. Wilbur wouldn't exist. Or he'd be different, or something. As weird as his family was, he could not imagine a life without nightly food fights and all the general insanity he'd grown up with. His dad had better not screw this up.

"Who was that girl?"

Cornelius, who had not been paying attention, just then remembered his son. He could see how this would look bad. No, this was not going to be easy.

"Uhhh," he stalled, "That's Kylie, my girlfriend."

"What?! Girlfriend!? What about Franny? You know, MY MOTHER?" Wilbur was enraged.

"Relax, she has a boyfriend, too." He meant to say that his dating someone else wasn't putting his future wife off. The horror-stricken look on his son's face told him that this did nothing to ease his fears.

Wilbur shook is head and took a deep breath. "What?!" he shouted. None of this made any sense to him. If Neil knew he was going to marry Franny, why bother with other girls?

"Take it easy. Give me some time to explain, okay?"

While Wilbur would have preferred an explanation that this girl was just a friend who happened to be a girl, that it was all some hoax, or even that he had no feelings for the girl he was with and was just using her to make Franny jealous (though that would have made his dad a complete jerk), he was willing to hear his father's side. "Okay, but you'd better have a good explanation."

"Even though I'll marry Franny, in all likelihood," Wilbur didn't like the sound of that last part, "most people don't just date one person and get married. I should be a little experienced before getting married." He was having trouble finding the right words.

Wilburn made a face. Cornelius hit his son lightly on the back of the head, "That's not what I meant. It's like inventing. Sometimes I need to fail and learn a few times before getting it right. If Franny was the first girl I ever dated, not only would you not exist, but she would probably never speak to me after age fourteen."

"That bad?"

"This may surprise you, but I'm not the most socially adept person." Wilbur laughed; that much, he understood.

Thirteen-year-old Cornelius sat in his Social Studies class, managing to take notes without actually paying attention. He was only at school with kids his age part of the day for socialization purposes, anyway. The latter part of his days where spent in college classrooms, learning way beyond what he ever could in middle school. He hadn't had many friends, but he missed the ones he had after he left for college. So his parents (he loved being able to call someone his parents) enrolled him again. Actually, after he was adopted, Cornelius had a slightly easier time socializing, and belonged to a small group of loosely associated nerds. He wasn't so focused on being wanted because he knew he was, which made him more confident and easier to get along with. He was still a geek, but he wasn't a needy, pessimistic geek.

Today, though, it wasn't really the whole group of friends that was on his mind. He just happened to sit behind Victoria Morales (okay, he had chosen that seat at beginning of the semester). She was smart, funny, creative and cute. And she wasn't repulsed by him. He was having a bit of an internal battle, though. He was definitely infatuated with Victoria but he felt like he was supposed to like Franny. He and Franny were friends, but he just wasn't interested in her that way. Not yet, anyway. And Franny made no indication of wanting to be more than friends with Cornelius. Was there any point in waiting for something to happen between them?

The bell rang and the teacher dismissed class. Before he could finish packing up his stuff and leaving, Victoria turned to Cornelius. "Neil, can you meet me outside Mrs. Powell's class at lunch? I want to talk to you about something." She looked a little nervous.

"Sure," he told her. He was secretly ecstatic. He wasn't sure what she wanted, but he always enjoyed spending any time alone with her.

He walked out of class into the hall on the way to his locker. On the way, he saw Franny and their mutual friend, Greg walking together. He was about to say hi to them when he saw that they were holding hands, and decided not to interrupt. He smiled, he had a feeling Greg liked her (and she had left a singing frog in his locker which indicated…something). As he exchanged his Social Studies book for his Spanish one, he found himself amazed. He was not the least bit jealous. He was genuinely happy for the both of them. If he was going to marry her, shouldn't he have some sort of antagonistic feelings to the idea of her dating another guy?

Then again, marriage was a long way off. Wilbur wasn't going to be born until he was twenty-nine. A lot could happen in sixteen years. Heck, so much had changed for him in the last year, alone. The idea that he should be after something, that might not happen for another decade, now sounded a little ridiculous. How many relationships that start in middle school end up in marriage, anyway? He sat down in his Spanish class next to Greg. Greg looked very happy.

At lunch, Cornelius practically flew to Mrs. Powell's class. He and his friends often ate lunch there, away from the crowds, and played Magic Cards. Actually, Cornelius only stayed at school till the end of lunch twice a week, but that was enough for him.

He ended up getting there before Victoria. He waited anxiously, but happily, as others passed him into the classroom. He hoped she wasn't going to announce something bad. What if she was moving, or she had cancer? Suddenly Cornelius felt a little sick. True, he had looked through a window into the future, but a-day-and-a-half didn't tell him everything. There was so much he didn't know about how things were to end up the way they did. Or what bumps and bruises happened in between now and then.

Victoria walked up to him. She was smiling. This was good.

"Hey, Neil."

"Hi, Vicky."

"Um, I was wondering," she paused, "Do you wanna go out sometime?"

Cornelius was taken aback, but in a good way. He hadn't expected this, exactly. He had been wrestling with the idea of asking her out. It hadn't occurred to him that she might ask him. He guessed that this was fate's way of telling him it was okay date her. Maybe there was no good reason to wait for Franny. After a few seconds he realized he had to say something. "You mean, like a date, or something?" Duh. Of course that's what she meant. Now he'd made her more nervous.

"Er, yeah."

"Then yeah. I'd really like that." She smiled. He smiled. He could clearly see the yellow and sky-blue rubber bands on her braces. It was a perfect Kodak moment. Then came the awkwardness. They were going out. So what was he supposed to do now? Should he hold her hand, or was that just when they're walking? He just stared, smiling, for bit.

"Hello? Earth to Cornelius." She waved a hand in front of him.

"Sorry," he laughed nervously.

"Here." She gave him a slip of paper with her phone number and email address. "Call me tonight, okay?" Cornelius nodded. Victoria looked through the window in the classroom door. Most of their friends were there, already. Franny was watching them expectantly. Victoria gave her the thumbs up, took Cornelius by the hand and walked in. Quickly, she let go as she, Franny, Lizzy and Alexis (another female friend) went off in their own corner and giggled about something. Cornelius didn't pay attention for too long, though, as the image of Lizzy giggling was pretty frightening (he could have sworn he heard thunder from somewhere). The boys put some desks together and got out their Magic Cards. Cornelius wished he could stay in school a little longer just to walk through the halls holding Victoria's hand, but he had to leave after lunch. He had an important neurophysiology lab that he couldn't miss.

"You didn't have to say yes!" Wilbur objected.

"So I should have turned down a chance to date the girl I was infatuated with for a girl I had no feelings for, and who had a boyfriend, because I visited the future and saw that I was married to her?"

"Yes. Not just because you were married to her, but also because you had a kid with her and he was the most awesome son imaginable." Cornelius rolled his eyes.

"When you hear what happened with her, you'll be glad it wasn't Franny. Trust me."

A/N: See y'all in a few days. Basically, this will be the romantic histories of Cornelius (leading up to dating Kylie or Franny, possibly up to marriage), and of Wilbur leading up to his first date with Sophie. I think, anyway. Also, if you ever have the chance to take neurophysiology, I recommend that you do. It's difficult but it's so interesting. Yay, brains!