Author's Note: I write this because E.R.M. Griffin wrote a great to chapters of a Wonka fanfic and has yet to finish it. This is my way to cope with the intense suffering. This, though, led to more suffer. Willy is hard to characterize! If you think I did something wrong, give me some pointers.

Disclaimer: I'm not making any money of this. I don't own Wonka - even though I wish I did!

Once upon a time there was a man that had everything except the one thing he wanted.

Willy Wonka was a young man at the time, eccentric, but not as eccentric as he was when the winners of the Golden Tickets came to visit.

He had just opened the chocolate factory and had employeed the entire Oompa Loompa race.

The business was getting off the ground, successfully, but he still was missing one thing. He was lonely.

He wasn't always a recluse. He would go out, swinging around his cane and humming happily. People would stare at the man in the purple jacket and funny hat, but he ignored it. He was accustomed to it. He'd always been different.

No one really understood him, until he met her.

He saw her out on a walk. She was a homeless girl curled up in a doorway, dressed in dirty, tattered rags. She had a dirty rat's nest of hair on her head, it dark, long, and uncombed. She had sad, intense purple eyes. With a drug addict's pallor, she was white as snow, except that her cheeks and nose were red from the cold. She also had full, beautiful lips, the color of blood. She was curled up and shivering, afraid and sad, like a lost baby kitten.

She was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen in his life. She was eighteen or nineteen, he guessed. Not much younger than him.

He felt a wave of empathy wash over him. He had to do something for her.

He walked up. Their eyes met. An electric shock flowed through him.

She stared up at him, her eyes big, the size of quarters. She wimpered, "Please don't hurt me, sir," she begged, in a way that made he think someone had harmed her before.

He smiled slowly, trying to soothe her. "I won't hurt you," he cooed. He took his warm hands in her icecicle ones.

He slipped a fifty dollar bill into her hand, along with some candy. "Oh, and if you ever need anything . . ." He gave her a card with the address to the chocolate factory.

She eyed him warily. "Uh, thank you, sir."

He smiled again. "You're welcome."

He saw her again at night - well, actually in the morning.

He woke up to a pounding on his door, at 1:30 AM.

"Who could that be?" he thought, groggy and disshevled. He swallowed. He suddenly knew *exactly* who it was.

He opened the door - and the homeless girl threw her arms around him. "I'm so sorry, sir!" she cried.

He put his hands on her arms. "What did you do the money?" he demanded.

"Huh?"

"*What* did you do with the money?" he asked, tense.

She averted his gaze, ashamed. "Drugs."

He groaned. She was beautiful, but she was also stupid.

"Hey, come back here!" he heard someone scream.

A tall, dirty and shaggy looking man came to the door.

Willy smiled, pushing away the girl, and stepping in front of her. "How can I help you sir?" he greeted him melodically.

He nodded to the girl. "You can get out of the way. She stole from me."

"Stole what?"

"My drugs," he said, as if she stole his wallet.

"Well, why don't you call the police and report that she stole your drugs?"

"Don't be stupid, bastard. This is none of your business."

"The business of a man is the business of a man is the business everyone, and the business of everyone is the business of a man," he replied gleefully. "Come, take a tour of my factory."

"What?"

"Take a tour. I'm sure I can more than pay for what she stole."

A few minutes later, the drug dealer had been sucked up the tube in the chocolate river.

Willy and the girl were together in the garden of candy.

"So, if you had money, why did you steal from him?" he asked.

"Huh?" she mumbled, her mouth already full of candy.

She was on her knees, shoving candy in her mouth like a starving girl finally getting to eat before she almost died. His eyebrows made a curve like his frown. It was probably true.

She got up, the look on her face like a child being punished. She swallowed. "Well, " she began.

Unconsciously, Willy wiped off some chocolate on the corner of her lips. She stopped talking.

He licked the chocolate off his finger. "Go on."

"Well, I already owed a lot of people, and when I finally paid it all off . . ." She shrugged. "I didn't have enough for any drugs, so I stole it."

"A good decision, of course."

"Hey!" she yelled. "I was desperate."

He sighed, aggravated, then looked at her. One look melted all his anger away.

"You can stay here," he offered.

Her eyes grew big, a little shocked. "What?"

"You can stay here, with me, in the factory."

"But you don't even know my name."

"Well, then, what is it?"

"Tawny."

He smiled at her name. "Well, then, Tawny. You can stay here, and I'll feed you and clothe you and give you anything you want."

"Really?" she asked, a little naive and hopeful.

"You just have to stay off the drugs."

Her smile fell. She looked at him as if he'd said she'd have to stop breathing.

"You can do it," he assured her. "And, I'll spoil you rotten with candy."

A small smile tugged on her lips, that pleased him. "All right?"

She let out a small, sardonic sigh. "All right."

Tawny had been living with him for a week. He had stopped her from sneaking out in the middle of the night to get drugs. Whenever he caught her, they just acted like she had a case of insomnia.

They were up again one night, talking, in the room full of candy. They did that almost every night, and were becoming very close.

She glanced at him, sitting on the ground besider her. "Willy," she began. "Can ask you a personal question?"

He turned to her. "You can ask me anything you want."

"If I . . . If I told you that I had feelings for you, what would you think?"

He smiled. "What kind of feelings? Angry ones? Painful ones? Nervous ones?"

She scowled, frustrated. "You know what I mean."

"Well, theoretically?"

"Yeah, theoretically."

"Theoretically, I would say that I had feelings for you, too. Theoretically, anyway."

This seemed to make her happy. "Really?"

He moved closer to her. "Really."

There was a long, pregnant silence. They could hear the thumping of each other's hearts. Slowly, he leaned in, and kissed her.

First, it was soft and gentle. He took her face in her hands. He tongue teased along her lip.

Their mouths opened. He had the sudden urge to kiss her harder and faster. He wanted to hold her closer to him, to feel her warmth.

*This is going really fast,* he thought. But he didn't stopping kissing.

She did.

She broke away from him, her face the color of strawberries.

"Why did you stop?" he asked, a little breathless.

"I - I'm sorry. I've gone too far with too many guys." Her eyes met his, ashamed. "I'm not a virgin."

A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips. "I know that."

She frowned. "It's that obvious?"

"No, I can just tell." He got up. "Goodnight."

"What?" she burst, incredulous.

"It's eleven o'clock early in the night," he said, pulling her up. "Goodnight, sweetheart."

He felt something crawl into bed with him that night. He saw faintly Tawny beside him in the dark. She was wearing a flimsy, see through nightie she had chosen a the store.

He felt at loss of breath. He opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off. "I love you."

He smiled slowly, "I love you, too."

She pulled her self closer to him and wrapped her arms around him. "You said you'd give me anything I wanted, right?"

"Anything and everything."

There was a silence. "I want you."

He kissed her. "I want you, too." He kissed her again. "I hate the space between us. I hate when you're not around. I want to put you in my pocket take you everywhere I go." He kissed her again. "God, I love you."

He told her this over and over again as he kissed her all over her face. He buried his face in her neck. He wished this could last forever.

She her hands through his hair, silent. She pushed her away gently, so their eyes met.

"Thank you. You saved me," she simply said.

He smiled, softly. "You're sweeter than all the chocolate in the world." He took her in his arms, and kissed her.

Chapter 2 later