Willy sat at his writing desk filling out papers and checking his mail. He finally got to an offer for health insurance. He looked at the sample form, perusing it carefully. After a few paragraphs came the word "dependents". He thunked the paper down onto his desk, his face twitching in slight embarrassment. Willy glanced at his son, Weldon, who sat on the floor scribbling abstract people and animals -god knew what, really- on a sheet of paper. Willy smiled, quite proud of himself. He allowed himself to lean back in his chair and rest his feet on his desk. Weldon looked up at the thudding of the heels of Willy's shoes hitting the desk. Willy turned his head and made eye contact, then slid his feet off the desk and put them back on the floor in front of him. He turned in his chair and put his feet at shoulder's width apart, placing his hands on his knees and leaning forward to talk to Weldon. He did this as a quick, seemingly single movement.
"What's up, buddy?" he said, smiling.
Weldon blinked at him, then gestured to his picture.
"Oh? Can I see it?" Willy said, holding out his hand. Weldon handed him the paper and Willy looked at it. Weldon was starting to draw recognizable shapes...amazing for a 2-year-old...Willy was able to make out the shape of one of the candied bushes in the chocolate room -guided somewhat by color- and the outline of what was probably the candy boat. He smiled and slipped it into a folder in his filing cabinet, where the rest of Weldon's drawings were. Weldon started a new picture, and Willy got back to sorting his mail. He came upon a brochure from the medical lab where Weldon had...Willy decided not to finish the sentence. It now offered medical care for every child it was responsible for. Willy pushed it into the trash bin.
"10 visits were more than enough, thank-you-very-much..." he said quietly to himself. Weldon continued to scribble on the paper. Willy kept sorting through his mail, recounting any recent events for reference. He paused and looked at his calendar.
"So it's the...10th of February...heh..." He found a letter from his father. He nervously scratched at the flap of the envelope, wondering what the letter was about. He slipped out the letter, flicked it open, and started to read it, mumbling the words to himself as he did so.
Dear Willy,
We all realize that I am starting to get on in years, and rumor has it, you have a son. I'm rather eager to see him before I... Willy stopped for a moment, noticing a long sequence of hesitant letters aborted halfway through their strokes... Anyway, I shall be coming on the 14th of February, and I do hope that it is not inconvenient for me to do so.
Wilbur Wonka

Reality seemed to give Willy a slap on the face so strong that Willy actually touched his fingers to his cheek. His father was getting old...and the request wasn't unreasonable, but it made Willy uncomfortable. Weldon dropped his crayon and crawled under the desk, grabbing Willy's ankle. Willy flinched a little bit, but then looked under the desk and laughed.
"You little rascal, you..." he said, picking Weldon up. "C'mon, we gotta go supervise the Valentine's day candy!" He jumped up and ran to the Chocolate Room, setting Weldon down near a cotton candy bush. As he spoke with an Oompa Loompa about how the candies were coming along, Weldon crawled down towards the edge of the chocolate river. Willy glanced over, whipped around, and snatched Weldon up.
"Be-HAVE yourself, Weldon..." he said, wagging his finger. Weldon relaxed after a moment, and Willy finished discussing the progress of the Valentine's day candy.

Willy awoke rather early on the morning of Valentine's day, prepping everything for his father's visit. Weldon was still sleeping when everything was ready. Willy picked him up gently and waited until he was awake to put him in day clothes. After this was done, Willy stood nervously by the front door, adjusting his hair slightly and making sure that Weldon, who was clambering around, didn't get too far. Willy glanced at the monitor for the visitor camera at the gate. He remembered when he had that installed in January 2 years ago for the Golden Ticket Contest...He saw a figure pause at the gate and after a moment, start to pace. Willy hit the button that unlocked the gates and picked up Weldon, fixing his hair for the final time before the front door opened. Wilbur Wonka stood there wearing fairly casual clothing. Willy smiled nervously as introductions between Wilbur and Weldon were made. This grin quickly became a slight grimace when Wilbur posed the most sensitive question of all:
"Where is his mother?" he asked. Weldon squirmed in Willy's arms and reached for Wilbur's jacket, and Wilbur, understanding the message, took charge of holding Weldon. Willy used the time to try and create an answer...but couldn't.
"Do you want me to be honest or to keep with society's standards?" he said, tactlessly.
"What do you mean by that?" Wilbur asked, cocking his head in confusion. Weldon seemed to notice the tension and started glancing at Willy and Wilbur alternatively.
"What I mean is...that...technically speaking..." Willy paused, fighting off a nervous stutter. "...technically speaking...I am his mother...I'm not sure if that really makes sense to yo"
"It doesn't," Wilbur interrupted. Weldon demanded to be put on the floor, and Wilbur obliged. "but if an explanation can be given, with pure and simple facts -that means no riddles and no ambiguities, Willy- I'll do my best to accept it." He said, putting his hand on Willy's shoulder. Willy did his best not to flinch. He had issues with physical contact with strangers, and his father nearly qualified; but the friendly intent of the gesture helped to ease his nerves.

"So, I'd like to know how this all fits together..." Wilbur said, sitting in a chair across from Willy's desk.
"Well, technically speaking, Weldon is my clone, but I consider him a son. And so, therefore, technically speaking, I'm his father because he has my DNA..." Willy began his explanation. Wilbur nodded to show he was listening and that it made sense to him. "...and, also technically speaking...I'm..." Willy gulped nervously. He wasn't ashamed of what he did, he was just worried about how people would react to the truth. "...technically speaking, I'm his mother as well...because..." He struggled to finish the sentence.
"Because you played the part..." Wilbur finished for him. Willy laughed weakly.
"Yeah...that..." he said. Weldon yanked on Wilbur's ankle.
"What the-" he said, looking down. His face softened as he saw it was just Weldon.
"H-he does that..." Willy said, nodding and smiling.

"Please, do let me know when he loses his first tooth...and if you could keep his baby teeth, that would be rather nice. After all, I did the same with yours." Wilbur said putting on his coat.
"That was always what creeped me out about you..." Willy mumbled.
"What?" Wilbur asked.
"I said 'I always found that kinda weird'." Willy said. He wasn't necessarily lying, was he?
"Well, I'm a dentist...you have to love teeth to love the job, and I always did love teeth..." Wilbur explained as he stepped out the door.
"Bye, dad...see you later..." Willy said.
"Goodbye, Willy." Wilbur said. The door closed with a thudding, clanking noise.
"If there is a 'later'..." Willy thought to himself. The reality was starting to sink in with more and more severity every day: his dad would be dying soon. Willy blinked back tears. He tried to distract himself from the thought by focusing on business matters. He picked Weldon up and walked to his office, sitting down at his desk. He took out a sheet of scratch paper and a pen and started trying to figure out if Weldon would ever get any control of the factory, and for approximately how long.
Let's see...if Charlie's 14 now, and Weldon is 2...that makes for a 12-year difference...so, if Charlie lives to a naturally old age, Weldon will only get control of the factory for an approximate 12 years, depending on how well he does health-wise...but I just can't be sure...I'd definitely be gone by-- he dropped the pen. Oh, my god... he thought, I'll be leaving Weldon behind so much sooner than a father should...my grandchildren, if Weldon ever gives me any- which he probably won't, he's likely to grow up to be like me...but...no, I'll get to that later...- will probably never know me, if he grows to be like me...but I have to take into consideration that I'm so different from my father...Weldon might follow me by not following me.
"That doesn't make sense..." he thought aloud. There was a knock on the door. "Who is it?" Willy asked.
"It's Charlie and Grandpa Joe." Charlie's voice said from the other side of the door.
"Come in." Willy said, slipping the scratch paper into the trashbin. It slyly covered the brochure from the health lab. Charlie and Joe sat on 2 of the 4 chairs set up in front of Willy's desk.
"Grandpa Joe has a question to ask you...as do my father and my other grandparents..." Charlie said, getting out of his seat. Mr. Bucket and the rest of Charlie's grandparents sat down...Mr. Bucket had to pull up an extra chair.
"W-what seems to be the problem?" Willy asked nervously.
"We don't think that Weldon is adopted..." Joe began.
"And we get the feeling that you have more to do with him than being his father..." said George. Willy laughed nervously.
"So we're right, aren't we?" asked Mr. Bucket.
"...yes..." Willy said, pulling the brochure from the trash and throwing it on the desk. "I regretted not having a family and went to have something done about it...I was cloned...and they presented to me the option of..." he laughed nervously again. "of...well...Charlie knows, and so does Mrs. Bucket; you could ask them"
"but...the Golden Tickets..." Joe said.
"I did that because I thought that the procedure didn't work...it was only after the contest that I realized I wasn't having stomach flu." Willy said, scratching the desktop and his scalp as he spoke, a nervous wreck now. Mr. Bucket laughed at the sentence. Willy glared at him and pointed towards the door.
"Leave." he said, angry for the first time since all of them had met him. Charlie flipped through the brochure with alternating looks of disgust, awe, interest, and confusion. Willy turned to him. "What procedures catch your eye?" he joked.
"Well...this one here with the toenails is pretty interesting..." Charlie said.

"Hello?" Willy snapped up the phone on the first ring.
"Is Willy Wonka here?" a voice on the other end said. A rather soul-less sounding voice, at that.
"This is he." Willy said, smiling.
"We regret to tell you that your father passed away this week, sir." the voice told him, flatly and heartlessly. The smile on Willy's face gave way to a look of shock immediately. He silently hung up and put his head down on his desk, thinking hard and trying not to have a breakdown. Charlie came into the room with Weldon a few minutes later.
"Mr. Wonka, are you all right?" Charlie asked. Willy shook his head wordlessly, the look of shock having evolved into stunned apathy.
"What's wrong, Mr. Wonka?" he said, urging for Willy to speak. Willy hesitated, rubbing his fingertips along the edge of a paperweight.
"My dad's dead, Charlie..." he gasped.
"Oh my gosh..." Charlie said. "is there anything I can do to help, Mr. Wonka?" Willy looked up from the paperweight in his hands.
"No, Charlie. You can't fix it. Once you're dead, you stay dead. That's why you and Weldon are here..." the paperweight fell out of his hands and hit the desk with a thud.

Willy nervously fiddled with the notecards in his hand. He had been asked to make a speech at the funeral, and had spent all of his energy that week writing one. He cleared his throat.
"My dad and I weren't the best of friends...I-" his voice broke and he spent a few moments of precious time trying to get it going again. "I wish I'd known him better...I always felt like he was a stranger to me...we were just too different...but I'll never forget how glad he was to see Weldon a few weeks ago...ironic, isn't it? Right as a new person comes into my life, another is suddenly taken away from it...I...I hated my braces when I was a kid...but...now I'm grateful that he put them on my teeth...otherwise, I wouldn't have the great smile I have today...and once I get used to the idea of my dad being gone...you'll be seeing the work he put into my teeth, then...I-I'm- darn..." he had dropped his notecards because his hands were shaking so much. "I-I-I...uh...I've run out of things to say now...I'd best be goi-" Willy hurriedly dashed to the back of the room and let out a muffled sob. He didn't want to break down in front of all of these people.
As the coffin was lowered into the ground, Willy suddenly felt the same way he did when Charlie had refused the factory...but to a further extent. He couldn't hold back anymore. He doubled over, tears spilling from his eyes and wetting his face as he tried and failed time and time again to keep his sobs quiet. An old family friend came over and pulled him into a hug. Willy was too desperately upset to resist, so he just reciprocated the hug and kept crying. Weldon stood behind Willy, clutching at the wrinkles in his father's trousers, overwhelmed by the huge amount of people.
"Your son really has to get more exposure to the world, Willy..." the family friend said.
"I know...but I just don't trust the world enough to let him out of the factory..." Willy sobbed.
"You can take him to a daycare center, you know...they'll supervise him, keep him out of trouble, and Weldon can make some friends"
"That sounds like a good idea..." Willy said, finally pulling out of the hug. "I'll go for it as soon as I have the chance...sales aren't going to do well for a while, I fear..." Willy mentioned.
"Why not"
"Because I'll be too depressed to come up with anything..." Willy explained.
"I'm sure you'll think of something, Willy..." the family friend said before walking away. Willy stayed afterwards to watch them pile dirt over the grave, and Weldon walked around fidgeting until eventually Willy picked him up and headed home.