A/N: Okay, I had to add another chapter to this. I couldn’t leave it on that ending. The song is “I Miss You,” by Miley Cyrus, and shows how Wilbur is dealing with his sister’s death. I switched some of the lyrics in the song as well.

This was mainly a writing exercise for me, seeing how I can expand detail and express emotion. It’s sorta kinda overboard-ish because I expanded a lot. I tried to make this fic as sad as possible, so if I did my job well, you may want to have tissues ready. Thanks so much! Please R&R!

She was gone. She was gone…

And he would never see her again.

The trip to and from the hospital had been hard enough, saying goodbyes and never wanting to leave her side. She was still so young and had so many more things so see, to experience, and to love. It had all been cut short by some sicko who was overly jealous of Cornelius Robinson.

Wilbur scoffed bitterly to himself. He bet the freak didn’t feel so great now, hiding someone in some rundown alleyway afraid of the police discovering his – or her – hiding spot. Whoever it had been had destroyed the life of an innocent eighteen year old, the daughter of their target. Wilbur couldn’t believe it.

Laszlo had painted the entire mansion black, even the windows. Now most of the house was pitch dark, with few exceptions of lights dotting the hallways. No one spoke. Not a sound was heard. Life inside the Robinson mansion had ceased to exist.

Wilbur had locked himself inside his room, doing whatever came to mind. He mainly paced around and around, or sat and thought. The world was crashing down around him.

He didn’t believe this was happening. Not one bit. But when the pinches on his arms turned red, then a blackish-purple, he felt like he was giving into the horrible truth. Inside of him, his heart lay shattered in a million pieces. Thoughts were racing everywhere, mainly about Lela.

Just two days before, he had played chargeball with her. They were happy and at peace. Of course, he had been upset when he had lost to her for the first time, but now he felt slightly comforted that she was so happy the day before everything had collapsed, before everything was ruined.

Before. The word kept running though his mind like a bad disease, spreading everywhere and infecting his brain with thoughts he never wanted to hear himself think again.

Keep moving forward had been completely abandoned on this dark day. No one could forget the littlest Robinson, even if she hadn’t been so little.

Hadn’t been. Not wasn’t. The present tense would never sound the same again with Lela gone. Even hearing her name brought up so many memories that he could never live through again. At least, not without crying.

He remembered when the two of them were just little kids, innocent and naïve. How he wished he could return to that age and never think of such things as life-shattering bombs and broken families. He never wanted these things to poison his mind again.

She had looked up to him when she was younger. Even though she hadn’t had the courage to admit it until they had matured, he knew she had been inspired all the same. He remembered that she would run up to him every day when he got home from school. She had always looked up to him like he was an angel on Earth: her guardian. And for the first eight years of her life, Wilbur had been her protector. Cornelius and Franny had too much on their hands at the time and Wilbur had taken it upon himself to look after her.

It had sure paid off.

Whenever she had been sad, she had come to him. When she had grown older, she had told him everything and anything that had happened. He vividly remembered once when Lela had come rushing into his room, sobbing. He had comforted her the rest of the night, holding her close and rocking her back and forth. That night lay deeply imprinted in his memory.

Raising a hand to his cheek, he realized that he had started crying again.

“Wilbur Robinson never cries,” he muttered to himself to end the tears from coming. He furiously wiped at his eyes face up on his bed, but there were too many emotions to be let out.

And it didn’t matter anymore. He had numbed the paths his tears had taken. If only he could numb the pain aching in his heart. He wished he could have stayed longer those last few minutes with Lela. It was too late now.

You used to call me your angel

Said I was sent straight down from heaven

I'd hold you close in my arms

You loved the way I felt so strong

I never saw you through this view

I wanted just to stay here holdin' you

Promises had been broken when that bomb had gone off. Wilbur had promised Lela a week before that he would bring her to see Lewis again. She had never seen his past for a long time and she would have been able to if not for recent events. This just crushed Wilbur’s spirits to new low.

Lela had promised to show Wilbur her first invention. She had been working on it for about a year up in a locked room off of the observatory. For many days, Wilbur had seen her race up there early in the morning and come back late at night: she had been working so hard.

He remembered once Lela had taken the time machine to go to see Lewis and get ideas from him. Of course, when she had come back, the entire family had been waiting to punish her. Wilbur remembered Cornelius saying to Lela with traces of hurt in his voice, “You could have always asked me.”

That was another thing Wilbur missed about Lela. She had always looked at Cornelius and Lewis as two different people. In a sense, they were; in others, they weren’t. Cornelius had experienced so much more than Lewis had and truly knew so much more about life. Lewis had this cheeriness to him, after his life had been fixed. But deep down, Wilbur knew they were the same person.

He wondered if Lewis knew that in 2047, everything was going completely wrong. Wilbur wanted to get in the time machine, go find Lewis, and tell him everything that happened.

But he couldn’t.

The time machines had been put on lockdown. The Robinsons were afraid whoever had snuck in and planted the bomb would want to take the time machines as well, possibly to correct his mistake and re-aim this time to kill Cornelius, or possibly even Lewis to erase the entire future.

There was officially no way Wilbur could tell anyone his feelings. He didn’t want to bother anyone else. He didn’t want to scare Lewis.

He just wanted his little sister back.

He wanted the girl who kept him reaching towards his dreams, who kept looking towards the future. He wanted the girl who took “keep moving forward” to heart. That was all he needed.

He knew she was watching him and he wouldn’t disappoint her. But right now… it was just so hard…

You used to call me your dreamer

But I ain’t livin' out my dream

Oh, how I wish you could see

Everything that's happenin' to me

I'm thinkin' back on the past

It's true the time is flyin' by too fast

Wilbur sat there, upset and unable to move on. He knew she would want him to move on and not live in the past. But he just wanted to see her again.

Her smiling face had kept him moving forward on more than one occasion. She was just so happy. She had taken that feeling away from Wilbur. If he could just see her face one more time…

…it would just depress him even more. This was what he had to live with now. She didn’t have to deal with pain, grief, sadness, and the troubles of this world anymore. He did. And he would just have to deal with it.

Fate had to have some say in this. If fate had chosen him to go through with this, he would. For her. No matter what it took, he would try.

A light knock on his door interrupted his thoughts.

I know you're in a better place

But I wish that I could see your face

I know you're where you need to be

Even though it's not here with me

“Wilbur, honey, there’s someone here to see you,” his mother called from outside his doorway. Wilbur tried to respond, but his throat choked up. No. He didn’t need anyone to try and cheer him up right now. Nothing could ever be the same. Wilbur Robinson was now a different person, living life blindly.

But what about “keep moving forward”? What about everything he had once believed in? Had that disappeared along with Lela? Had everything he had once trusted and lived by literally blown up in his face?

He couldn’t give up. Lela wouldn’t have wanted him to destroy his life because of something that had happened in the past. He just needed some time to heal. He would keep moving forward, but never forget the events that changed him forever.

He waved his mother away, showing her silently that he did not want to be bothered at this time. There were too many things going through his mind.

“Son, I know you’re having a hard time,” the strong, still unbroken voice of Cornelius Robinson spoke from the doorway.

How was this not hard on his father? He had loved Lela just as much as Wilbur had, if not more. How was this not killing him?

Cornelius spoke out again, “We all are. But please… we’re just trying to help.”

“Go away!” Wilbur growled, getting up and turning his back to his parents. “I can’t – I don’t – just…”

He couldn’t find the right words.

“Why won’t he let me in?” A new voice spoke and Wilbur’s heart skipped a beat. He knew this voice. This was the voice he missed, the voice he had wanted to hear again: just once more. But it wasn’t possible; it just couldn’t be.

Wilbur turned around and nearly stopped breathing. In between his parents was the little sibling he thought he would never see again. Her smile grew when she saw his utter surprise.

“Are you gonna let me in now?”

I missed you

Time suddenly slowed, making Wilbur’s thought blurred. She… was here. But she just… just…

“Isn’t my big brother gonna welcome me back home?”

Wilbur smiled for the first time in the many hours passed.

Wilbur felt the tears roll down his cheeks as he embraced his sister. She was frail and sheet white, but she looked delighted to be back with him. He didn’t care if he looked stupid, or childish, or what anyone else would say if they saw him crying and hugging his little sister. His parents stood in the doorway with wet faces and beaming smiles. He thought she was dead! They all thought she was dead…

How could she possibly be here? Only the day before she had been lying in the hospital, half dead and doomed, never to see the rest of her life. Now she was cradled in his arms. He pushed any wonders out of his head. For it didn’t matter.

He felt her body shaking in his arms, happy to be with him. His hands brushed through her short, blonde hair, and traced along the deep scar on her left cheek. She shuddered away slightly, but buried her face in his shoulder. He soon felt her tears of joy stain and soak his shirt, but he didn’t care. Wilbur could only think about one thing.

She was alive. She was alive…

A/N: Did I trick you? I never did say she died directly in this story, just said she was gone and how everyone would miss her. :) Well, I hope that sent shivers down your spine if it didn’t at least make you tear up. It made me cry when I finished it!

I had a lot of fun writing this, especially because half of the time I was extremely hyper. I hope you enjoyed it and please review!