A/N: Mother's Day: Alternate Ending.
They were both silly names, Sherman and Zorra. Silly names in a silly chain of events that, to anyone else would have seemed impossible to set off. Not to him though. To Peabody, the small thoughts in his mind of what the near future possibly held were as real as the seconds that ticked by him, all alone in the musty section of the library. To him it was like those moments were real, possibly happening at that very second on some sort of alternate time line that he was not yet and possibly would never be apart of.
Sighing softly, his gaze flickered back to the sheet of paper on his notebook, back to the reality that was his present, and he found himself thinking of his friend once more. Ursula, who he had imagined having a child out of that broken marriage of hers. It was a cruel fate, but it was the only one he could picture her having with any other man and without him in it. Perhaps it was the side of him that doubted Ursula's ability to make smart choices when it came to the men in her life, or maybe... Just maybe it was the side of him that loved her.
"Thats one thing that I won't deny..." He muttered in a voice just barely above a whisper, gathering his school books, notebooks, his book-bag, and lastly the newspaper clippings into his thin arms and for once willingly walking towards the door, just hours before his usual leaving time.
For once, he was ready to go out and face life as it came to him. He wasn't going to wait for his birthday to decide where he went from there, or a librarian to tell him where to go next. He was ready to make his own, real choices... Or at least face the one hurdle life had thrown at him in the last half hour...
"Ursula!" Just a few steps away from the building's steps, he spotted the blonde haired woman, still the lovely teenager she was and not the bitter woman he imagined her to be.
Thoughts of Zorra and Sherman were fading away in his mind now as he went to her, watching as her soft smile grew, and he gently took her hand, something that cemented her position in his life now just as it always did. The city air that once seemed to circle the girl was no longer hers, as it now surrounded both of them as they started off down the sidewalk together. Facing things with her was a first step, but in the scheme of things, it seemed to be the one thing that was truly important...