"Did you know frogs have more musical ability than people? But … nobody believes me." The raven haired little girl clutched Frankie, her star frog. "They all think I'm crazy!" she whispered confidentially. A moment later, her earnest expression changed into a suspicious glance. "You think I'm crazy too!" she accused, a pout etched prettily on her face. She threateningly raised her hands in a karate chop position.

"No, no, I think you're … right," Lewis answered reassuringly, smiling inwardly as he remembered Franny's words from the future. He gazed fondly down at his wife-to-be, who stared rapturously up at him as well. Her hands were clasped happily, while Frankie looked on bemusedly.

♫♫♫♫

Cornelius Robinson smiled reminiscently as he stared at the monitor of his first real invention – the Memory Scanner. He slipped off the comfortable headphones and powered down the machine, still affectionately thinking of his first encounter with Franny, the love of his life.

"Yo! Dad!" Wilbur, a teenage boy with jet black hair, precisely the same hue as his mother's, poked his head in the door. Cornelius jumped a mile, almost breaking the Scanner for the second time in its existence. He turned, irritated, to face his son. "Mom says dinner's ready," Wilbur continued, his expression slightly guilty at his father's annoyance.

"Yeah, I'll be right there," Cornelius replied. His impatience with Wilbur could never last long, not with his son, who reminded him so strongly of Franny. He stood and placed the old, graying blanket over his prized invention, the one that started it all. Cornelius' thoughts drifted back to his times with Franny, years before Wilbur had been born …

♫♫♫♫

"Lewis! Time for lunch!" a chipper voice, sounding distinctly caffeine charged, floated into Lewis' spacious inventing room. The afternoon sun was almost literally dripping through the windows of the dome, casting light on the numerous gleaming contraptions. About thirty, in fact – all invented by Lewis Robinson, a boy of fourteen. He barely heard his foster mother's calls to come eat. A pencil was tucked behind his ear, half hidden by a haystack of spiky blonde hair that would never lie flat, and another was in his hand as he drew madly on the next empty page of his notebook. A shelf nearby stacked all the notebooks he had filled since he had moved in with Bud and Lucille, almost two hundred in total.

A few moments later, Lewis dropped the pencil triumphantly and proudly tacked his newly finished plan for the first robot he would ever invent to the large blackboard. He knew he could do it; in fact, he had already done it in the future. But Carl would have to wait.

"Coming, Lucille," he yelled back. He cast one last look at his inventions, then ran down the stairs.

As usual, Lucille Robinson had twenty or more caffeine patches slapped onto her arm. She was busily stirring a large pot of spaghetti, a food she knew Lewis loved. Bud came walking in, the face drawn on the back of his head beaming its perpetual smile.

"Hey there, Lewis!" Bud greeted his adopted son with a beaming face. "How's the inventing going?"

"Great," Lewis answered through a large forkful of spaghetti. "I'm going to invent a robot." Bud and Lucille shared a furtive look of pride as Lewis described his plans for Carl. Long before he had finished recounting how he planned to build the robot however, he was interrupted by a loud knock at the door. "I'll get it," he volunteered. He jumped up from his seat at the table and made a beeline for the door. Wrenching it open, he grinned in delight at the eleven year old girl standing on his doorstep.

"Hey, Lewis!" the girl bounced in, her shoulder length black hair flying behind her.

"Hi, Franny," Lewis answered, still grinning. He felt a familiar thrill run from his head down to his feet. A frog, whom Lewis knew to be Frankie, was perched comfortably on Franny's head, and Lewis could see a few more poking out of Franny's pockets. Lewis' classmates thought that a "big kid" like Lewis hanging out with some little girl was stupid. After all, they weren't related, their parents weren't friends, or had any other relationship in any way – but they didn't know the half of it.

"Frankie's making real progress," she informed Lewis happily. She plucked him off of her jet black hair and placed him on the table. Frankie immediately began to belt out "Twinkle, Twinkle" at the top of his lungs, with sort of a jazz twist. Lewis watched, fascinated.

"That's great, Franny," he congratulated her. Franny smiled proudly and embraced Lewis tightly.

♫♫♫♫

"I can't believe you!" Franny cried. Hot, furious tears gathered at the corners of her wide brown eyes, threatening to spill over at any moment. Even Frankie was staring reproachfully at Lewis – or Cornelius, as he was now known as. Franny was now thirteen years old, and was growing up into an extremely pretty teenager. Cornelius knew that many of the boys in his class who had scorned her just a couple of years ago had nothing negative to say anymore. Sixteen year old Lewis stared down at the ground, ashamed. Even though he was three years older, Franny still intimidated him – she wasalways right, after all.

"It's like I don't know you anymore, Cornelius." Her soft, tearful tone frightened Cornelius more than her yelling. "You won't let me even talk to anyone anymore!"

"I just –" he began lamely. Franny cut him off by slamming her hand on the desk and stalking out of Cornelius' lab. The sun was still shining, as if mocking the broken hearted boy. He glared up at it, kicking a piece of scrap metal that lay on the floor. He couldn't believe that he and Franny were fighting over something so trivial such as … well. It wasn't as petty as Cornelius would like to believe. He knew he had screwed up, that he deserved every angry emotion Franny felt towards him. It hadn't seemed like such a big deal at the time. He had, in a fit of jealousy, insulted a boy he had seen Franny with one day, who turned out to be a cousin Franny was extremely close to. She hadn't told Cornelius that her cousin, Robert, was visiting, because she had wanted to surprise him.

Cornelius could have slapped himself for not recognizing the striking family resemblance between them.

Days went by. Cornelius was becoming increasingly miserable, and it showed. Franny, the caring person that she was, felt his pain as well. Her rage was rapidly disappearing – she knew she had made an over-dramatic scene in Cornelius' lab, but she couldn't bring herself to apologize. She spent most of her time with Robert, who tried fruitlessly to cheer her up, but it only made her more upset; Robert was still feeling ill-disposed towards Cornelius for offending him, and the dirty looks he was shooting at the Robinson mansion made no improvement in Franny's mood.

Robert departed a few days later, leaving Franny alone to mope. The day after he left, however, the doorbell rang at the Framagucci house. Franny knew immediately who it was. She ran, tripping, down the stairs, and opened the door to find Cornelius.

"Please, Franny," he implored. He opened his mouth to continue, but Franny once again cut him off and hugged him. She knew, without his actually saying, what he meant, and Franny Framagucci was an extremely forgiving person.

That, among other things, was precisely what Cornelius loved so much about her.

♫♫♫♫

Author's Note: Sorry if it seems rushed ... it's my first fic, don't hurt me. :(

Review, please!