Marie woke with a start. Something just didn't feel right. Like things were all where they were suppose to be. Carefully she slipped out of bed, not wanting to wake Will from his deep slumber for no reason. He had a rather important surgery going on later that day and he needed all the rest he could get since the surgery was bound to take more than eight hours.

After pulling on a silk dressing room and slipping into her slippers, Marie padded softly out of the bedroom. Both the twins doors were open, which didn't surprise this mother in the least since they tended to go to bed late and rise with the sun just to get back to whatever they were working on in their lab. Sometimes, Marie couldn't understand how she managed to have two brilliant children and remain modestly sane.

She breezed past the living room and dining room. Entering the kitchen, Marie went straight to the metal door that stood out like a sore thumb in the mostly wooden area. If they were not in their rooms, the lab was the next likely place. They spent more time there than any other place. Perhaps the library a close second.

Upon opening the rather cumbersome door with a smile smile and shake of her head, Marie was soon frowning slightly. No lights were on in the basement laboratory. Worry started to gnaw in the pit of her stomach. It was much too early for them to be at the library. Maybe they went shopping for supplies? After all, Marie and William agreed to pay for the power, but all the equipment and materials was provided by the twins themselves. In Marie and William's opinion, it was a fair trade off. The twins would never be able to pay for the kind of power that they used in a day, let alone a year.

They were just lucky to have parents with high income jobs. Other wise their hobby would be severely limited. William and Marie had hoped when the twins first asked them for a laboratory that this odd hobby of proving people wrong would eventually die way. For that reason alone they indulged the twins. If only they knew that it would only feed their hobby and turn it into an obsession on top of a passion and desire.

Marie quickly and silently made her way back up into her bedroom for her cell phone. After rummaging through her purse for a few minutes (she had one of those large 'put your life in a purse' kind of purse), Marie finally found her cellphone. She stole a glance at William to make sure he was still asleep despite how loud she was being. With a slight smile at the fact Will was still out like the dead, the twin's mother tiptoed out of the room and back down into the dining room to call her children.

Once sitting at the table, Marie dialed Ry's number first since the girl always had her phone on. Worry and panic set in when she heard the ring tone floating down the stairs to the dining room. As fast as she could, Marie was dialing Arty.

Mid-dial, her dark eyes fell on that omnious sheet of paper. Eyes widened and a cell phone fell to the floor. "Will!" shrieked Marie, tears forming her eyes as she held up the paper. "William!" she shouted again, not caring anymore about the surgery that was to take place that day. The frantic woman grabbed the paper and stormed up to the master bedroom where on groggy husband was sitting up in bed.

"William, they are gone!" she said in a panicked whisper.

The doctor's brows furrowed. "Marie, what on earth are you talking about? What's all the commotion so early?" he said in a half awake state. Will rubbed his eyes and put on his glasses to better see his wife who was crying.

"The twins! They left! They are gone, William! GONE!" she shouted just as her legs gave out. Will's eyes widened as he leaped off the bed to see if his wife was correct in her rantings. He came back looking horror-stricken.

"Marie," he said softly, pulling his wife up off the floor and over to the bed. Tears were streaming down his face too. "What happened," he asked, trying to calm Marie down a bit from her racking sobs.

"I-I-I woke up and went to check on the twins...only to find they weren't here!!" she said in one big breath before sobbing again. Her eyes were getting puffy and red already. Will sighed lightly and held his wife close as silent tears streamed down his sun-toughed face.

"But, I did find this." A shaky hand held up a single sheet of printing paper. It was just like the twins to use printing paper of all kinds of paper. It wasn't elegant or fancy, just as they were. Marie couldn't help but inwardly smile at that fact.

After Marie placed the letter on the bed, the two poured over it like one would a treasure map, trying to soak in all the words and meanings they could. When they finished reading the letter, Marie and William just looked at each other with red-eyed puffy faced smiles of pride. They had lost their children in a flash, which they would still be sad for in years to come, but pride in that the twins were able to do what was impossible was ever evident on the faces of Marie and William Montgomery until their deaths.

Dear Mom and Dad,

Bet you are wondering where the hell we are. Well, we don't frankly know either as this morning we tried the time machine, the project we had been working on for the past year and a half or so, for the first time since we finally finished it last night. A bit hasty but we were anxious to see what the future held.

First of all, now that you know sort of where we are, we want to say how much we love and cherish everything you've ever done for us. The laboratory especially. But not just that. Thanks for letting us follow our dreams, chase after our ambitions, pursue knowledge as we desired. Nothing we could ever do would be able to pay back how much you have helped mold us into the youngsters we are now.

I know it's hard for you guys to read this, knowing that we are gone and you have no idea when or where we are. Heck, neither do we. But hopefully all goes well. The lessons you have taught us will be our constant friend when we may feel lonely. Remember the good times we shared as a family, few as those may be.

It seems like we have died, and in seven years we will be legally dead. Who knows if we will be able to come back, though I doubt that Ry will want to. If it gets to be too unbearable, we may just reverse the formula and be back. Though time is a tricky thing as you both are aware of.

There is only one thing we ask of you. This is all. We ask that you publish our findings. All our journals save for one which we have with us. Sell our lab and equipment and retire early. We wish for you to at least have that one gift.

There is so much we wish to say and do, but we might change our minds if we stayed much longer than this morning. We had always dreamed of a grand adventure...and guess what? We are about to start it.

And we could never have done without your love and support through the years. It never would have been dreamed about if you two did not encourage us Do not blame yourselves, we are not running away or abandoning you. You both encouraged us to follow our dreams, and this just happens to be where ours is leading us. Consider it as we are finally moving out and being on our own.

But I digress. Time is of the essence. We love you both and will miss you as much if not more than you will miss us.

HUGS AND KISSES!

Love from your son and daughter,

Artemis and Orion Montgomery.

PS- Don't forget to feed the fish********! =)

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Author's Note:**********family joke that may or may not be further discussed in the following chapters.

w00t~ For another chapter completed! Though technically this could be considered part two of the prologue, I figured I'd split it up. Focus on the twins in on chapter then the parents in the second one before getting too far into this monstrosity.

The letter was hastily put together, I may or may not come back through at some point and re-write it...

DO NOT WORRY! Next chapter will be the one to introduce our lovely USS Enterprise crew

AND HUZZAH! You now know the twins names. More on their names in the next couple chapters.

Thanks for reading! Be a dear and review too! Thanks again!