Disclaimer: With the exception of Baby Wonka, I don't own a darn thing in this story!

A/n: Well, I warned you last chapter that this one was going to be another emotional and "heavy" one...and it is. It also contains a few "new" things, including a flashback with a difference. I hope you enjoy it, and as always thank you to my one reviewer for the last chapter. I shouldn't even have to say this anymore, but please keep them coming! :)

He couldn't believe it. He WOULDN'T believe it. Ronnie's bleeding had started again...and this time it hadn't had a happy ending. She had lost their child, their precious child that they had been so excited about. And now, as he sat on the bathroom floor cradling her in his arms, it was clear that she, too, was slipping away. Her skin was pale, her breathing shallow. "Stay with me, starshine, stay with me!" he pleaded. Frantically, he tried to reach into his pocket for his WonkaPhone. But his arm was paralyzed. He tried his other arm, but that, too, refused to move.

All he could do was sit there and watch helplessly as his beloved Ronnie continued to deteriorate. She looked at him, clearly wanting to tell him something. "What is it?" he asked her. She moved her lips, but no sound emerged. Again and again she tried to talk, only for her efforts to produce nothing but silence. "You've got to save your strength, buttercup!" he urged her. She gave him a longing, sorrowful look and tried one last time to speak. But once again, only silence resulted. Then her breathing stopped and she went limp. He let out a strangled cry and tears began flowing freely from his eyes. "Why did this have to happen? Why?" he screamed...

Willy woke with a start. At first, he didn't know where he was. Then, gradually, it registered. He was in his bedroom, not in the bathroom, and he was no longer cradling Ronnie. Still feeling rather panicky, he turned to look at the other side of the bed. Much to his relief, his wife was lying there perfectly unharmed, sleeping peacefully. Moving carefully so as not to wake her, Willy reached over and put his hand on her large, round belly as if for reassurance that the baby, too, was okay. "It was only a dream, it was only a dream," he whispered, trying to calm himself. Unfortunately, his self-talk did little to soothe his frazzled nerves. Knowing he wasn't going to be able to fall back asleep any time soon, he slipped out of bed as quietly as he could. Without even bothering to put on his slippers he tip-toed out of the room and into his study.

Up until now, the two months since Valentine's Day had been a mostly happy time for the Wonkas. With the riskiest part of the pregnancy behind them and Ronnie now being able to detect the baby's movements, they had relaxed a bit and turned their full attention to prepping for parenthood. Willy especially had been embracing his upcoming role. He delighted in seeing Ronnie's abdomen rather rapidly expand and it was seldom that he wasn't interacting with it. He rubbed it, squeezed it (gently of course!), patted it, kissed it and even, now that the baby could hear, talked to it. It wasn't an exaggeration to say that he had been, as they say, on cloud nine.

Now, however, the chocolatier felt as though those happy moments had happened in another lifetime. Instead of feeling excited about the fact that he was going to be a father, he felt scared and shaken. Not only had Willy's dream, make that his nightmare, been one of the scariest he had ever had, but it had also been extremely vivid. He had been able to see every detail of Ronnie's face and the paleness of her skin, feel her weight and warmth in his arms, and hear her breathing get shallower and shallower. Perhaps because of that, the images still hadn't even begun to leave his head. They kept flashing through his mind, like a movie on constant replay.

Desperate to get rid of them, he shook his head violently, then held it in his hands and "pounded" it on his desk. Much to his dismay, all he managed to do was give himself a headache (in truth, it had started to come on a few minutes earlier, thanks to his emotional state. None the less, all that jerking around hadn't exactly done him any favors!). Giving a sigh of defeat, he rested his head on his hand. He was simply, it appeared, going to have to resign himself to a mostly sleepless night. He knew he really ought to take some Tylenol for his headache, but he didn't particularly feel like getting up to go get it. So he continued to sit there at his desk, trying, not very successfully, to sort through his emotions.

"Willy? What are you doing up at this hour?" a soft, concerned, very familiar voice said suddenly. "I couldn't sleep," Willy explained as he turned to face his wife, who was standing in the doorway. "I figured that much out," Ronnie said, her tone making it clear that she knew exactly what her husband was trying to do and that she wasn't about to let him. "I should have known she wasn't going to accept that as an answer!" Willy thought. "I have a headache and..." he trailed off, not sure what else to say. Although he appreciated Ronnie's concern, he didn't really want to discuss his nightmare with her, or anyone else for that matter. Having to keep reliving it in his mind was bad enough. Besides which, he told himself, who wants to hear about a nightmare that involved them dying? The mere thought of what had happened to Ronnie in his dream caused a tear to trickle down the confectioner's cheek.

"Somehow I don't think a headache is what's keeping you from sleeping, Willy," Ronnie said gently. When Willy didn't answer, she spoke again. "What is it that's got you so upset?" she asked. "It's really not that big of a deal. I'll be fine," Willy replied, managing, as he so often did, to answer the question without really answering it. "If it wasn't a big deal, then it wouldn't be making you cry," Ronnie said firmly, struggling to keep her exasperation from showing. "I'd really rather not talk about it. It's over now and I'm sure I'll feel better by morning," Willy insisted. Ronnie sighed. Part of her felt bad for her husband, but the other part felt annoyed with him for being so stubborn. "Why does he have such a knack for making me want to hug him and strangle him at the same time?" she wondered to herself.

Against her better judgment, she decided to try once more to get her husband to open up. "You know, I felt a lot better after I convinced myself to talk to you about the fears I was having after our scare. Talking might make you feel better, too," she said pointedly. "I said I don't want to!" Willy burst out. Ronnie knew she shouldn't take it personally. After all, it wasn't uncommon for Willy to get stubborn and after having been in a relationship with him for well over a year, she knew it was simply the way he was rather than a reflection on her or anyone else. Still, she couldn't help but feel a bit hurt. Stubbornness may have been somewhat normal for Willy, but not being willing to talk to her wasn't. "I was only trying to help," she said softly. Then she turned and left the room to head back to bed.

Now the chocolatier felt worse than ever. Even though he had been extremely stubborn about answering her questions pretty much from the moment she entered the room, Ronnie had shown him nothing but concern, care, and support. But instead of thanking her or acting grateful to her in any way, he had hurt her. "Good going Willy, good going! You just had to snap, didn't you?" he scolded himself. Fully intending to go back to resting his head on his hand and continuing to sit gloomily at his desk, he instead found himself reaching for one of the drawers. Still acting without really thinking, he opened it and pulled out a small, leather-bound book. It was pretty nondescript, and to anyone else probably wouldn't have seemed like anything special. To the confectioner, however, it was a very important and special possession...for it was filled with his most personal thoughts, fears, and dreams.

Although the experiences that Willy wrote about in his journal (he preferred to call it that rather than a diary as he felt that the latter term wasn't exactly super-masculine) were varied, they all had one thing in common: They involved him being in and dealing with extremely emotional situations. He had started the journal shortly before he closed the factory, as a way to help himself cope with the issue of the spies and the betrayal of what he had thought were loyal workers. While putting pen to paper hadn't, of course, completely taken away the hurt, it had calmed him and helped relieve some of his stress. It had also helped him to sort out his thoughts and figure out what he wanted to do. Ever since then, he had used writing as a way to express and organize his thoughts during difficult and confusing times, as well as times when he was such a jumble of emotions that even he couldn't quite figure out what he was feeling.

Journal writing had, for many years, been a rather sporadic activity for Willy. But meeting (or rather re-meeting, since they'd known each other as kids) Ronnie had quickly changed that. Falling in love with her, marrying her and having a child with her (not to mention the problems he'd had with Charlie just a few months earlier) had meant that, within the past year, his journal had gotten quite a workout. And now it was about to get yet another dose of his thoughts. Pen in hand, the candy maker opened the book and began flipping through it to get to a blank page, trying not to get distracted by the previous entries as he did so.

This was easy enough for the first half or so of the book, which contained his thoughts about the spies and what they had done to him and his factory. The second half, however, was a different story. A smile tugged at the corners of his lips as he scanned over what he had written about his developing feelings for Ronnie and his courtship of her. Reading about how naive he had been during that time was rather comical (not to mention slightly embarrassing!). "I can't believe it took me so long to realize that the reason I felt so weird was because I was in love with her!" he thought. Reminding himself that he'd gotten his journal out to write in it, not read it, he started flipping through it again...only to stop after just a few pages when another entry caught his eye. It was the one he had written on the morning of the day he and Ronnie became husband and wife...

I can scarcely believe it. In just a few hours, Veronica Wells will be my wife. I feel happy and excited, which I expected. But I also feel nervous, and that I DIDN'T expect. My heart feels as though it might leap out of my chest at any moment, and I'm afraid that if try to eat anything it will just come right back up. To be perfectly honest, I'm worried I won't be a good husband. Romantic relationships are, after all, one thing I haven't had a whole lot of experience with. Yes, we've been together for awhile and Ronnie certainly hasn't had any complaints, but dating is one thing, marriage is another. Honestly, sometimes I wish I had more confidence in myself...

At this point, Willy forced himself to stop reading. Looking back over what he had written on the day he had married Ronnie was all well and good (and doing so had, in fact, made him feel a bit calmer), but he knew that there was no way he could keep it up for much longer and still get around to putting his current concerns on paper. "I'm beginning to think that Ronnie has a point when she says that I get distracted too easily!" he thought as he flipped through the journal once again. This time he managed not to look at any of the previous entries, and soon he had found the start of the blank pages.

For several minutes, the only sound in the room was the scratching of the chocolatier's pen against the paper as he allowed his thoughts to flow freely. When he finally set the pen down and closed the journal, he was surprised to find that he was actually sleepy. He still felt a bit uneasy, but now he was fairly confident that he could return to bed and not be kept awake by his fears. Stretching, he got up and put the journal back in its drawer. Then he headed for the bedroom, making a brief detour into the bathroom to answer the call of nature and grab some Tylenol (unfortunately, he still had a bit of a headache) along the way. As he climbed into bed beside Ronnie, he remembered the words he had spoken to her only an hour or so earlier: "I'm sure I'll feel better by morning". "Boy, do I ever hope I was right about that!" he thought as he closed his eyes.

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

"Earth to Willy! Earth to Willy!" It was a few days after Willy's nightmare, and Charlie was trying to get his attention as they worked in the Inventing Room. Well, at least they were SUPPOSED to be working. In reality, though, the younger male had been handling most of it. For once, the candy maker was struggling to keep his mind on work (actually, it was more accurate to say that he was barely able to GET his mind on work!). As you can probably guess, he had NOT felt better the morning after his dream. Instead, he had felt worse. Not only was he still feeling a bit down from the events of the night before, but shortly before waking he'd had a second nightmare. Just like in the first one, it had ended with Ronnie's death. This time, however, she had died after giving birth, and while Willy had heard what he THOUGHT was a tiny cry, he was uncertain as to what the baby's ultimate fate had been.

Just as she had the night before, Ronnie had tried to coax the confectioner into telling her what was bothering him (she had woken up at the same time he had, so he hadn't had time to even try to hide his fear and other negative feelings from her). And just as HE had done the previous night, Willy had made it clear that he didn't want to discuss the matter. As the week went on, the situation had only gotten worse. Willy had at least one nightmare each night, usually involving Ronnie dying either in the process of giving birth or after having a miscarriage. He had also had one or two nightmares involving holding a crying baby in his arms and being at a loss as to how to console him or her (despite his dreams being so vivid, the baby's gender was one detail that was never revealed in them).

These nightmares, like the initial one, usually caused him to wake up suddenly in the middle of the night. At first he had simply gotten up and gone into his study when this happened, then returned to the bedroom once he had calmed down a bit. But after having accidentally woken Ronnie up during that process a few times, it had become clear to him that, unless he changed his plan of attack, she wasn't going to be getting much more sleep than he was. So, since there was a couch in his study, he had started sleeping there. As a result of that and his continued unwillingness to talk to Ronnie about his feelings, things between the two had become rather tense. The fact that the candy maker's lack of sleep was quickly catching up to him wasn't exactly helping matters, either.

Initially, Willy had been able to appear more or less normal (or at least as normal as he ever got!) at work. But now even that had become impossible. Charlie had caught him starting to doze off or otherwise let his mind wander nearly a dozen times that day alone...and they still had half an afternoon left of work! And now that list was about to grow yet again. "Willy, wake up!" Charlie exclaimed, trying once more to get his mentor's attention. "Honestly, Willy, you have GOT to get your act together!" the chocolatier silently admonished himself as he turned to look at his apprentice.

"I'm sorry, Charlie. I really don't mean to keep losing my focus," he apologized as he fought to get his mind back where it belonged- on work. "What is with you lately anyway? You fall asleep even when we're discussing some of your favorite projects, I constantly have to remind you to focus on work, and you've made all sorts of easily preventable mistakes with the candy. Not to mention that you showed up for breakfast in your slippers yesterday morning. Forgive me for sounding like my mother, but I'm starting to worry about you!" Charlie burst out.

Willy wasn't sure what to tell his protégé. He didn't want to lie to him, but he wasn't sure telling the truth was the best option in this case, either. Not only did he still not want to talk about his nightmares, but he didn't want to burden Charlie with a problem that he couldn't do anything about. "Things haven't been going the best for me lately," he finally settled for saying. "I'm well aware of that, Willy. I just...Oh, never mind!" Charlie grumbled, letting out an exasperated sigh. "I'll be fine, really. I just need to work through a few things," Willy insisted. Instead of replying, Charlie pointed at the clock. It was five minutes to six, which meant it was time for supper (the Buckets always ate supper at six o'clock sharp). "In other words, I've successfully wasted our last few work hours for the day! No wonder Charlie chewed me out!" Willy groaned inwardly.

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

By the time Willy and Charlie had reached the Buckets' cottage, the confectioner had made an important decision. For the hour or so he was eating dinner with the family, he was going to put his troubles aside, relax, and enjoy their company. Smiling, he opened the door (Nora had told him that, as long as Charlie was with him, it was perfectly fine for him to do that without knocking first...especially at mealtimes since he was more or less expected then). "Evening, Buckets!" he said, echoing the greeting James so often used. "I thought I heard you two out there!" Nora replied. Then she tilted her head a bit and looked past Willy and Charlie to the door. "Isn't Ronnie coming?" she asked. Willy shook his head. "No, she decided to eat with Sylvia tonight," he explained.

Nora and James exchanged a glance. They knew that Ronnie sometimes ate at Sylvia's, but usually Willy joined her. It was extremely unusual for the couple not to eat together. They knew something must be up, but decided not to press the issue. "Well, hopefully she can join us tomorrow," James said. Willy (who, by this point, had seated himself at the table with the others) looked down at his plate. "Yeah, hopefully," he muttered. "Willy, is everything all right?" Nora asked gently. "Why wouldn't it be?" Willy countered, a bit more forcefully than he'd intended. Nora looked slightly taken aback. "I was just asking," she said.

"We can't help but notice that you haven't been yourself this week," James put in. "It's not just here, either. He's been acting funny at work, too. I mean, we can be in the middle of one of his favorite projects and all of a sudden he'll start to nod off!" Charlie piped up. Nora frowned. "Have you been having trouble sleeping, Willy?" she asked. "Well...I..." Willy stammered, more than an edge of annoyance in his voice. "We just want to know what's going on with you. You know we consider you part of the family and we're concerned about you, just as we would be about any family member that was obviously going through a tough time," Nora said, her voice soft and caring. "I know they're just trying to help, but I wish they'd get off my back already!" Willy thought. Then, before anyone could say another word, he stood up. "I came here to enjoy dinner, not for you guys to analyze my emotions!" he said as he left the cottage.

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

"I should have known my plan to forget about my troubles for a bit wasn't going to work!" Willy thought as he stepped out of the elevator and into his and Ronnie's apartment. Intending to write in his journal, he headed for his study. He had taken about two steps when he heard someone clearing their throat behind him. Turning around, he saw that his wife was sitting on the living room couch. "You're back already?" he blurted out without thinking. "I could say the same thing about you," Ronnie said evenly. "I guess I could have said 'hello' first," Willy said sheepishly, his cheeks flushing. Ronnie had thought that her husband had looked a bit tense as he was starting to walk by her, and now that he had turned around and she could see his face, she knew she had been right. "Are you all right? You look like you're a little on edge," she inquired.

Willy may have been able to keep it together (even if barely!) when Charlie and the other Buckets had asked him that question, but now his patience had reached its limit. "I wish everyone stop asking me that!" he yelled. Ronnie looked stunned. "I can't understand why you're so reluctant to talk to me lately," she said. "You really want to know why?" Willy asked, an almost warning tone to his voice. "Yes, very much so. I also wouldn't mind knowing why you seem to have lost interest in the baby lately, and why you suddenly have such a problem looking me in the eye," Ronnie said, sounding frustrated. "All right then, I'll tell you why! It's because sometimes I wish I'd worn a condom six months ago!" the candy maker exploded.

A/n: Well, if that's not a loaded cliff-hanger, I don't know what is! As with most of my cliff-hangers, it pretty much wrote itself. I'll try not to leave you guys in suspense for too long, as I know you'll be anxious to know what happens with/to the Wonkas next!

Chapter 15 Preview: Ronnie learns a startling fact about her husband's past when she discusses their issues with Nora and Sylvia, and Willy finally opens up about his feelings (although not to Ronnie).