Mary and Milly
"Mommy, Daddy, where Wally?" Mary asked at breakfast while stabbing her pancakes with her plastic fork rather violently.
"He's with his family in San Francisco where Uncle Gavin and Aunt Susan live, Mary. Don't worry Mary, we'll see him before Uncle Gavin's wedding." Carrie explained.
"Want Wally now, need play Wally games." Mary protested, banging on the tray of her high chair, an early warning of the terrible twos next year.
Since becoming friends with the young Lucas boy last Christmas, Mary and Wally had been as thick as thieves and had developed a close bond over the filming of Empire Strikes Back, with the production having the two often play with each other on a near daily basis as their parents worked on the soon to be greatest movie ever.
However, after production ended things had changed as both families went on separate vacations, and the Lucas' in particular went to Skywalker Ranch near Petaluma to unwind and spend time with their family.
This presented a great disruption to Mary's schedule and the genius one year old who was not used to change was starting to get rather moody at the temporary loss of constant play with her best friend and only friend her age. Sure, she had a loving family and many other favorite people like Brandon Lee or Robin Williams, but to Mary there were some things she could only do with Wally and she didn't like not being able to do it whenever she wanted.
"Les go to San Francis-go, have Uncle Gavin wedding, see Wally." Mary demanded of her Daddy.
"We will Mary in ten days. You just have to wait, good things come to those who wait." Bruce said.
"wHy?!"
After a more normally heated than usual breakfast, Bruce and Carrie would discuss what to do cleaning up in the kitchen, while Mary's annoyances were temporarily forgotten with the distraction of Sesame Street.
"What do you think, maybe we should take some extra vacation before the wedding so she can see Wally? Not like I'm busy and it means more time with Gavin." Bruce suggested.
Carrie shook her head, "Maybe by a day or two, but Mary needs to learn that she can't have everything she wants or else she'll be spoiled." Carrie affirmed, something Bruce could nod in agreement with. He wanted to raise good little goslings, not rotten ducks.
"I think the more important thing is that she needs more friends her age. You heard Mary, she wants to play Wally games with him. She wants to experience stuff only people her age can relate and join." Carrie said.
"Well Cat's in LA now, so we can take her to see Bruce pretty often and she already idolizes Sarah." Bruce suggested in regards to his nephew and niece.
"I love that they're Mary's cousins, but she should start finding friends outside her family. Even Wally is technically her godbrother."
"Yeah." Bruce agreed with a heavy sigh. It was a difficult ordeal though when their street didn't have any kids Mary's age, most of their friends didn't have kids at all, and the old fashioned method of striking up a friendship in public was going to be difficult with Mary's parents, thus there being the chance that some people would only want to be Mary's friend to get to "Han and Leia".
This left them with limited options until Mary went to kindergarten, though by then Bruce and Carrie had decent hopes for their daughter considering her wonderful personality and extroversion. Plus at least by then she would have had four years with her baby brother or sister.
"How about we go to Coldwater after Sesame Street so miss cranky can take her mind off of things? Tomorrow we can go to Cat's so she can play with Bruce and Sarah and we'll brainstorm who we can set up playdates with Mary later tonight." Bruce suggested.
"Okay, sounds like a plan."
"Higher Mommy, higher!" Said the voice of young three year old Milly Kingsley as she was being pushed on a swing set.
Her mother Mavis smiled at her daughter's enthusiasm, "Are you sure, if I'm not too careful you could fall off."
"Is okay, I'll fly." Milly said rather bravely, as if it was a matter of fact. Mavis shook her head and continued to push her daughter with just the slightest boost which made Milly seem like she was going at a turbo speed.
When Mavis had just become a mother, life had all seemed rather bleak as the man she loved had abandoned them and she was overwhelmed with the responsibility of it all. She had been blessed to have such a supportive family, willing to travel to the other side of the country to support her dreams while helping to raise her daughter.
Even with such blessings, life had still been rough as right after getting her dream start at Hollywood, where Universal had shown itself to be a pit of vipers that didn't give a damn about her or her potential. Forced into humiliating roles and then thrown away as a sacrificial pawn as a spy, only to somehow find salvation from the little company that could, and given a chance at redemption. Now, Mavis was a proper storyteller in her own right, and with her professional life set she could spend more time with her pride and joy when things had been getting so distant for a while.
After a while of getting tired of the constant back and forth, Milly willingly jumped out of the swing bravely and landed on the mulchy floor with acrobatic flair. Mavis clapped politely at her daughter's display, pulling back the swing for if Milly wanted to go again, but it seemed that the little girl had other priorities.
"Doggy, kitty!" Milly yelled out in glee, rushing forward and leaving the safety of the playground for an approaching pair of pets.
"Milly, wait!" Mavis yelled in alarm, fearful that her daughter was going to make contact with wild animals or worse, the pets were used as bait for a kidnapping.
Mavis was only a few seconds behind, but thankfully when Milly made contact there was nothing horrible happening with the large Dalmatian simply sniffing the little girl in curiosity while a cautious orange cat with its ears weirdly down kept some cautious space. Both were collared but lacked a leash.
"Don't worry, they're friendly girls who won't bite." Spoke a rather rich voice that had Mavis frozen with anxiety. If such a voice belonged to the actress she believed it belonged to, then that meant..."
"Oh hey Mavis, I didn't know you came to Coldwater often, is this your daughter?" Asked Bruce O'Brian, one of the most famous people in the world and her penultimate boss.
Mavis looked ahead to see Bruce walk beside his wife Carrie, both of them holding the hand of their daughter and only child Mary. It was a picture perfect scene that briefly filled Mavis with jealousy, before the happy cries of her daughter turned her attention to the present where she was happily being kissed by the Dalmatian while the cat cautiously sniffed Milly.
Then, Mavis' emotions came full circle in a 180 as she was meeting her boss outside of work and Mavis was filled with irrational thoughts that somehow her conduct would cost her dream job right as Pacific Rim was entering its final stages.
"Yes, this is Milly Kingsley, the best little bundle of joy to enter my life." Mavis informed, motherly love overriding fears temporarily. "We don't live close to here Mr. O'Brian, I just like park hopping with Milly across LA, she likes to go to new places, it's like an adventure."
Bruce chuckled slightly, "You don't have to call me Mr. O'Brian in off hours Mavis, just call me Bruce."
The tiny Irish girl between her parents then sprinted forward on catching sight of Milly, "Hi, I Mary. This Doggy Natalie, that kitty Ginger." Mary introduced herself.
"I'm Milly, can I play with them?" Milly asked, even though she was petting and hugging Natalie already rather fiercely.
"Yeah, they best pets ever." Mary enthusiastically agreed. She then waddled to Bruce, "Daddy, throw tennis." Mary requested.
Chuckling, Bruce took a couple of tennis balls from his backpack and threw it into the nearby field with the pets and girls giving chase.
"Oh sorry, where are my manners. Carrie, this is Mavis Kingsley, she's a writer at Dreamworks who's making the Pacific Rim show I was telling you about." Bruce introduced.
"Nice to meet you, you have a very lovely daughter." Carrie greeted, with Mavis shaking her hand.
"Thank you, you do too. It's nice to finally meet Mary." Mavis said.
"Oh, you brag about our little girl at work?" Carrie teased Bruce.
"He has a lot of pictures of her in his office and whenever he comes over to Dreamworks, he likes to bring up her often when talking with Tomino or Don." Mavis informed.
"I knew there was a reason you wanted to get the wallet with picture slots." Carrie joked.
"It looked good and it was on sale." Bruce protested.
From there the two families would play together with the parents keeping supervision as the girls either ran around with the pets or played with their imagination using the nearby playground and other parts of the environment, with their favorite activity being to build sand castles and other structures in the sand box to have a fantasy adventures.
"I Ser Kermit O'Brian, Brave, save fawy pwin-cess Mommy wif Mary Dragon." Mary said, wiggling her trusty Kermit who often took the role of a knight on the Quest.
Milly then pulled out her two favorite toys from her backpack, "I'm Papyrus, and this is my brother Sans." Milly introduced, with two skeleton figures, one who was dressed like a dashing superhero, and a shorter one with a hoodie.
"Magic bone people?" Mary asked with interest. Natalie hovered over at the mention of "Bone", though with a quick sniff revealing them to be plastic, pranced away with mild disappointment.
"They my magic friends Mommy made. She gonna make movie with them on adventures." Milly answered.
"You Mommy tell stories too? Wow." Mary said with impressment. Apparently all Mommiess were good storytellers, which made sense. Aunt Cat wrote books and she was a mommy too. Must have been a mom superpower.
The two girls had many fun adventures on the playground together, so much that Mary didn't mind if Wally was in San Francisco for a while, cause she got a new friend with Mary inviting Milly the next day, and they would play together many more times in the future.
