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Disclaimer: I do not own any of the recognizable characters or GlenOak…or the church. They belong to one Ms. Brenda Hampton.
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A/N: This is a one-parter. I'm not really going to explain anything, except that this is set in present time (meaning Season 10). Everything else doesn't really need much of an explanation I don't think; it's all pretty self explanatory.
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Utopia
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Mary tossed and turned in her bed, thrashing around and kicking all the covers off of her. She felt the last traces of the comforter be pulled from her thighs in the other direction while she was still asleep and stopped rolling around.
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Mary opened her eyes to see the sun shining brightly into her bedroom. It was a glorious day. Sitting straight up, she nudged her partner.
"You awake?"
He stirred in his sleep and opened his eyes. "I am now." He sat up and kissed her passionately. "Hi sweetie. Sleep well?"
She grinned back at him- a genuinely happy and content smile. "Yup."
"Good," he looked over at the clock, "because the kids will be awake any minute."
"I don't understand why they don't just sleep on the weekends. It's Sunday. We should have to drag them out of bed to go to church."
Wilson shrugged. "Maybe they like church."
"They're thirteen and eight. Doubtful." She laughed.
"Breakfast?" he asked as he picked up her hand and climbed out of bed.
"Are you asking or offering?"
"Offering. You know I always make breakfast for you."
"Oh...yeah. Right." She seemed to not remember.
He put his hand to her forehead, as if to check her temperature. "You feeling all right?"
"I'm fine." She stood and went to the closet, coming out with her robe on and tightly tied around her trim waist. "Let's go."
Before Mary and Wilson had a chance to open their bedroom door, there was a knock. Mary opened the door to reveal her and Wilson's eight year old daughter, Zoe.
"Yes sweetheart?"
"I'm hungry. What's Dad making for breakfast?"
Mary laughed and ruffled her daughter's light brown locks. She had the worst bed-head; her hair turned into one giant mass of curls and knots. "I don't know. Why don't you ask him yourself?"
Zoe walked into the room and sought out her father. "Food?"
Wilson just laughed at her. "Yes, food. Pancakes?"
"That's perfect. Blueberry? They're my favorite."
Wilson smiled down at his daughter. "Do you know who else's favorite is blueberry pancakes?"
"Who?" She seemed truly interested.
"Mom's."
"What is your favorite type of pancakes?"
"Uh..." Wilson pondered as he walked out of the bedroom and in the direction of the kitchen, "chocolate chip."
"That's Billy's favorite," she said proudly.
"I know."
Billy walked out of the hall bathroom and joined her father and sister in the hallway. "Are you two talking about me again?"
Mary followed her family down the stairs. "Don't you know that's their favorite subject?"
Billy smiled up at Mary. "Good morning, Mom."
"Good morning, son." He was close to being her height.
An hour later, the West family arrived at the GlenOak Community Church. Zoe and Billy went off with children their own ages, and Mary and Wilson went to find her family.
"Mary!" Lucy came over and hugged her older sister. "Oh, I love your skirt. Where did you get it?"
"At the mall. We can go sometime if you'd like."
"I'd love to. It's so much more fun spending time with you than with Kevin and Savannah."
Lucy walked away and Mary and Wilson went inside to get their seats. When Mary sat down in her regular spot, she noticed Matt sitting next to her.
"Matt! What are you doing here? Why aren't you in New York?"
"Well, Sarah and I are still having problems. I came to see you and Wilson. You guys have the perfect marriage."
"Yes honey," Wilson placed his arm around Mary's shoulders, "we sure do."
Billy and Zoe took their places on the opposite side of Wilson and the choir finished their song. Reverend Eric Camden and Reverend Lucy Camden both entered into the pulpit, Lucy in front of her father. Lucy went to the chair seated toward the congregation and Eric went up to the podium.
"I know Lucy was supposed to give the sermon today, but I just have something that I have to get off my chest." Eric took a breath, looked out as his approving congregation, and then continued. "I love my family. More specifically, I love my daughter Mary. I'm sure I can speak for Annie when I say she was always our favorite. When you have seven kids, that's what you do. You pick a favorite." The congregation laughed like a laugh track from a bad sitcom. "She's just… she's so great. There is no way we couldn't love her.
"Mary got into some trouble a few years back, first with the high school and then financially after she graduated, as I'm sure you longstanding members are aware. You would think that that would make us hate Mary, even rebuff her from the family. But no. We love her more for her faults, for her abilities to overcome adversity and persevere when any one of you would have counted her out. She even," he laughed, "she even married her high school sweetheart and now they are a beautiful family of four. The four of them are so much cuter together than Lucy, Kevin, and Savannah.
"I guess my lesson to all of you for this Sunday is to love your family. Love yourself. Good people do bad things, and bad things happen to good people, but that doesn't give any of us the authority to write off a member of our family. Forgive them and embrace them. Life is too short to spend it angry with each other."
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Mary's eyes sprang open and she breathed in deeply, taking in the humid Puerto Rican air into the lungs via her mouth. She closed her eyes again tightly, trying to forget, trying to will away any thoughts that had crept in through her subconscious, only to feel him turn in the bed next to her.
"Did you have a nightmare or something?" Carlos asked.
"No," she swallowed and smiled weakly in the darkness. "I'm fine."
Instead of pressing her on it, instead of knowing her well enough to recognize that she was lying, Carlos just rolled away from her and went back to sleep. Mary closed her eyes, too, and rolled onto her side. This was definitely as far away from her vision of her perfect world as she could have possibly gotten. So far, in fact, that it made her ill when presented with the alternative.
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The End
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A/N: So, what to say. This was inspired by Season 2, episode "Homecoming", when Mary has her nightmare about playing basketball again and falling down because of her bad knee and wakes up all upset in the middle of the night. And the whole utopian/dystopian thing came in to play because that is my theme for my year long English project. It kind of fit here, and I needed something to tie it together, so I used it.
I don't really like this piece I don't think. Usually my one-parts are a lot stronger than this one. This lacks a lot of the depth and length that I have grown accustomed to in writing these. But, I still like the idea, so I'm posting it on here. Maybe if the mood strikes me I'll come back and edit it. Doubtful, but you never know.
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Do you think Mary's white picket fence life with Wilson would have been perfect, or does she really belong with Carlos? Review.
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