Little Wonka: Part 5

As Weldon held Helena in his lap, talking to her, Willy looked on, a smile of recognition on his face. As he watched Weldon being a father, he remembered raising Weldon himself. It seemed almost as if it were yesterday that Weldon had scribbled his first picture. Willy shook his head, snapping out of it. Not for long, though.

"You know, you remind me of me..." Willy said.

"Really?" Weldon asked, pausing momentarily.

"Yeah." Willy said, now in a slightly dreamlike state again.

"I guess if I'm totally clueless...I could come ask you..." Weldon thought aloud.

"I guess so..." Willy said.

"What are you thinking about, anyway?" Weldon asked. Willy looked at him, a sheepish grin on his face.

"I was thinking about you...but...it was before...well..." Willy laughed nervously.

"Oh...well, there's no need to be ashamed of it, right?" Weldon asked.

"No, not really...but I guess I feel like I bring it up too much..." Willy said.

"Well...I was always curious as to how you felt about it...judging by your journal in the packet...I-I dunno...you seemed...kind of a mix between nervous and happy." Weldon said.

"...I guess so...it's been years, now...nearly 17 years since the beginning of it all...I can't remember it...I can't remember much of anything...it was all so long ago..." Willy rambled. Lillian walked into the room at this point wearing the same nightgown she had been wearing for the past week. Weldon smiled, Willy merely looked around to face her and turned back to Weldon. Lillian picked up Helena and walked off, it was her turn to talk to her now. Weldon watched them go, then realized his father was looking at him.

"Oh...uh..." Weldon ran out of fillers for his pauses. Willy looked at the clock.

"Ah, it's getting late anyway..." he said, rubbing away a headache.

"Are you alright?" Weldon asked.

"Oh, yeah, I'm fine..." Willy said, still rubbing his head. "you really should get to bed, Weldon..."

"Alright, whatever you say..." Weldon said, getting up and heading to his room. Willy also got up and walked to his room, still trying to rub away the headache. It'll be gone in the morning... he told himself before he fell asleep.

The headache, however, did not go away the following morning. Willy ate breakfast slowly, feeling slightly sick.

"Are you sure you're okay, dad?" Weldon asked. Willy finally admitted to it, shaking his head.

"The headache's still not gone...and I feel ill..." Willy groaned. Weldon exchanged nervous looks with Lillian.

"Do you think that..." Weldon paused, realizing that Lillian was there. He looked at her, trying to warn her that she might not like what she was about to hear. She absorbed herself in her breakfast cereal. "Do you think that...you might be...you know...'that' again?" Weldon asked. Willy looked up, shocked.

"Nonsense!" he said "there's no way it could happen again, none!". Weldon scraped his fingers together (he wasn't wearing gloves, so it was virtually silent) nervously, worried about his father.

"D-do you think that we should get that checked out, though, dad?" Weldon stammered.

"...it would be wise to..." Willy mumbled.

"Uh, you really shouldn't mum-" Weldon tried to say.

"Please, don't chide me...you'd mumble if your head hurt this way, too..." Willy said, rubbing his temples. Weldon got up from the table.

"I've gotta go make a phone call..." he said, looking at Lillian. Lillian understood that Weldon was off to call the family doctor.

"So...all he's mentioned are a headache and nausea..." the doctor checked Weldon's statement.

"Yes, but he says his headache's pretty bad, so..." Weldon tried to explain his worry.

"Well, then, get him to come over if you can, within the next hour. If you don't get here by then or if you call me stating that you can't, I'll come over."

"Okay..." Weldon said, hanging up.

"Well, Mr. Wonka, I'm not sure what to tell you...did you come into contact with anything unusual?" the doctor asked.

"Nothing but my candy..." Willy said, smiling slightly. Weldon rolled his eyes at this.

"Maybe you've just got cat-scratch fever...did a cat scratch you, by any chance?"

"Nnnno..." Willy said. Weldon slipped out the door and paced where there was more room.

"Is there ANYTHING at all?" the doctor asked.

"Not that I know of..." Willy said.

"Then it might just be psychosomatic." the doctor suggested. Weldon stopped, the corner of his mouth twitching upward slightly as he heard this. Weldon had strange feelings associated with that word. He frowned slightly as the sensation of butterflies in his stomach flickered like an aged light bulb, there one minute, then gone, only to flare up a few seconds later. Weldon poked his head into the room.

"Are you suggesting my father has couvade?" Weldon asked. The doctor raised his eyebrows. Weldon raised his eyebrows back, a childish retort-turned-facial-expression.

"It's...likely...are there any pregnant women in your household?" he asked.

"Sorta...my girlfriend Lillian and I recently had a daughter..." Weldon said. The doctor thought for a moment, processing this.

"Did it bring up any memories of yours, mister Wonka?" the doctor asked, turning to Willy. Willy stared at him for a moment, debating whether or not it would be a good idea to answer the question. Weldon gave a quick nod.

"It made me think of when I was pregnant with Weldon..." Willy said hesitantly. The doctor tried to suppress a facial twitch of disturbance, in vain. Weldon sighed in agitation at the doctor's reaction.

"...You mean to tell me that...you...were...and...Weldon...and..." the doctor tried to build a sentence out of useless fragments.

"Yes." Willy said, smiling. "And I feel like it was the best thing I'd ever done." Weldon nervously backed out of the room and walked down the hallway, sighing at the fact that a house call had to be made. He decided he'd walk in the candied meadow.

Already, Lillian and Helena sat near a cotton candy bush. Weldon came over and wrapped his arm around Lillian. Helena pulled the fluff from the candied bush and stuffed it into her mouth while Weldon grinned.

"It's just adorable..." Weldon said, holding his hands in front of himself as if he were previewing something from a camera lens.

"...of course it is..." Lillian said, jumping up off of the stump to keep Helena from crawling into the chocolate river. "We must remain ever-vigilant, though..." she continued.

"Indeed...we must..." Weldon said. He plucked a donut from a candy tree and popped it into his mouth. Suddenly the door opened and Weldon turned, accidentally squirting some of the jelly filling from the donut out of his mouth. He wiped it away, embarrassed. Willy stepped into the room and walked across the bridge, a focused look on his face.

"Dad?" Weldon said. Willy glanced back quickly, conveying that he didn't have the time to talk. Weldon stopped walking and squeaked his glove, then dropped his hand to his thigh.

"Well he's acting weird..." Lillian said, struggling to keep Helena from crawling too far away. Weldon turned around, a sarcastic smile on his face.

"Really...ya think?" he asked, twitching his head in irritation. Lillian frowned, and Weldon's expression immediately became apologetic. "I'm gonna follow him and see what he's up to..." he said before crossing the bridge and slipping through a small, hidden door at the other side of the room.

As he scuffed quietly down the long, narrow hallway, he realized he'd NEVER been in here before. He moved even slower, nervous. He was really hoping his father hadn't seen him. If he had, however, he certainly didn't let on. Willy seemed to cast a quick glance in Weldon's direction and suddenly go through a door to the side. Weldon scuffed over to that door as quickly and quietly as he could, and realized it was left open slightly. He noticed that the room was brightly lit, and so he stood no chance of actually entering without being noticed. He also noticed the pastel walls and flinched slightly, nearly squeaking his glove out of instinct- he stopped himself just in time.

Willy let his cane fall against the wall (and bounce off, for that matter) with a strange little sigh escaping from his lips. Then he walked over to one of the many tables in the room and picked up a few items from them, stroking them, and then setting them back down in the same places, with an exactness that many had always mistaken for being obsessive-compulsive.

Weldon silently bumped the door open a few centimeters and continued to watch his father. It was at this point that Willy picked up a small lock of hair, stared at it for a moment, flicked at his own hair, put the small hair clipping down and sighed. It was at this point that he noticed Weldon standing in the doorway.

"Oh! My goodness, Weldon, how did you get back here?" he asked, falling into a chair as he spun, spooked. Weldon nudged the door completely open.

"I followed you." he said. He glanced at the cane on the floor and gingerly stepped over it. "What do you keep in here, anyway?" he asked.

"I keep little things that remind me of you..." Willy said, his eyes glazing over dreamily. Weldon quietly rolled his eyes, but changed his mood as they fell upon his first shoes. It made sense to him then. His father simply wanted to remember when Weldon was a little kid, when he actually depended on him, when he was just

"An adorable little baby..." Weldon thought aloud. Willy turned to him.

"What? Oh, yeah, you were very adorable..." he said, sighing again. Weldon started to get concerned. What if it wasn't couvade, and Willy had gone and had "it" done again?

"Dad..." Weldon began.

"Yes?"

"I want you to be totally honest with me, and there's no need to watch your mouth because I'm the only one here." Weldon said.

"You want me to be honest with you?" Willy asked.

"Yes." Weldon said.

"Then I shall be honest. I have a very strong p...p-p-p..."

"Parental?" Weldon suggested.

"No...no...pa...pat...pate..." Willy continued to struggle.

"Paternal..." Weldon guessed.

"Yes! Exactly...paternal and maternal feelings about you...during...d-during the pregnancy...I..I..." Willy shook his head slowly to fight off the pause. "During the pregnancy I had a constant sense of...oh, god, I don't know, almost a sense of euphoria...and...and...I want to feel that again...but I realize that it would be so unsafe for me to consider it at my age..." Willy stammered.

"Now you're making me want to go and have it started off..." Weldon said, sighing and folding his hands. Willy grinned.

"Go ahead." he said. Weldon's hands separated themselves from each other and fell at his thighs. Weldon was shocked.

"You're kidding..." Weldon said.

"Weldon, was I kidding when I told you about your origins?" Willy reasoned. Weldon shook his head. "Exactly." Willy continued. "In fact, if you want me to, I'll call them and you can go today and have it done..." He stopped at Weldon's look of slightly disturbed satisfaction.

"Relax...you can wait for 3 months before telling Lillian...she'll never know until then..." Willy opened a small book with a cover that matched his coat and began flipping through the pages.

"What's that?" Weldon asked.

"This was my personal, non-medical journal..." Willy said, reading a passage and smiling. Weldon had a look at it, and with every word, he longed more and more to do what his father had done.

"Yes, give them a call and I'll go by later today." Weldon said, stepping businesslike from the room.

As Weldon sat on the table, watching the doctor scrape off skin from his arms, he thought about the adventure he had just set out on.