Author's Note: In response to reviewer advice which I decided I thoroughly agreed with, the end of this chapter has been edited to increase the overall quality of the story. Somebody slap me if I get that prematurely overexcited again. Also, kindly forget the previous ending if you've read it already. If you haven't, please disregard this notice and continue reading.

Little plot bunnies have been frolicking around in my head for days now, making an intolerable amount of noise. Here is my attempt to make them shut the hell up.

I have a deep, abiding love for both the Johnny Depp and Gene Wilder's portrayals of Willy Wonka, though mine's going to be predominantly based on the Depp one. Not that it's better per se, but it's more vulnerable and thus more fanficable.

Lastly, I am deeply averse to the concept of a Mary Sue in this fandom, though I've read a few fics that pull one off successfully. To me it seems awkward to somehow get a girl into the factory to interact with Willy. Therefore, I picked the most obvious, age-appropriate choice: Mrs. Bucket. It's been many years since I read the Dahl book, but I'm pretty sure that her first name was never mentioned. So for this story, I hereby proclaim that her first name is Emma. And Mr. Bucket is Randolph. Just accept it.

Enough of my rambling…please read and enjoy!

----------------------------------

Dawn broke deceptively golden and sugary over the vibrant majesty of the Chocolate Room, sparkling smugly on the gentle waves of the chocolate river and turning the pristine grass into a radiant sea of emerald.

Mrs. Emma Bucket groaned, shot a dark, half-lidded glare at the wonderland outside her window, and rolled over in bed, jerking her grayed woolen blanket further up over her shoulders and burying her face in her pillow. For some people, a morning ritual so clearly resentful may be normal, but Mrs. Bucket was, for all intents and purposes, a chipper and enthusiastic morning person. Though it may not have struck her half-awake mind yet, this day was one of the few in the year quite worthy of Mrs. Bucket's dislike.

Despite her efforts, the persistent artificial daylight immediately went to work prying her eyelids open and wiping away any traces of sweet sleepy oblivion. Increasingly wakeful, Mrs. Bucket rolled and shifted again, throwing one arm carelessly onto the pillow next to her.

The vacant, cold pillow next to her.

Mrs. Bucket was suddenly completely awake with the realization, a realization which had brought about many unpleasant awakenings in the past months.

A year ago that very day, her husband, Randolph Bucket, had died in a tragic fire at the toothpaste factory where he worked. It was unclear as to what had caused the fire. The official police report had eventually concluded that some source (perhaps electrical) had caused sparks near a vat of chemicals, which had resulted in a devastating explosion. After helping injured co-workers to safety, Mr. Bucket had reentered the toothpaste factory to try to salvage the capping machine which had been the source of his livelihood for the past 3 years, a machine which by chance he had learned was not insured. In an attempt to maintain his position and save a few thousand dollars for the company which he had devoted ten years of his life to, Mr. Bucket had lost himself in the smoke and died of asphyxiation.

Mrs. Bucket screwed her eyes shut in a somewhat futile attempt to hold back tears and exhaled a deep, trembling breath.

Enough tears, dear, she could almost hear her husband whispering comfortingly in her ear.

With a burst of the same strength that had helped her live through half a decade of virtually nothing but cabbage soup, she collected herself and got out of bed. She dressed mechanically and started to make breakfast, mindful of her still slumbering parents, in-laws, and Charlie.

Completely unmindful of the parents, in-laws, Charlie, and the general sullen peace Mrs. Bucket had made with the morning, the door of the Bucket household flew open. In burst the violently colorful form of excitement and eccentricity which composed Mr. Willy Wonka. Sporting a wild emerald coat with electric blue pinstripes today, Willy always seemed the clash sharply with the overall grayish-brown décor of the little house.

"Good morning, Mrs. Bucket! Ah, is breakfast nearly ready? I was my usual morning stroll along the banks of the river when I detected this most amazing olfactory sensation coming from your house. What are you making?"

Mrs. Bucket sighed in exasperation. "Sausage."

"Sausage?" Mr. Wonka seemed to perk up. "I don't suppose it's snozzwangler sausage is it?"

"I hope not. If it is, I'll have to pay a rather angry visit to the butcher this afternoon. I distinctly remember ordering the normal pork kind."

"Oh." Willy slumped in disappointment. There was a moment of uncomfortable silence.

Normally Mrs. Bucket would have humored his eccentric question and inevitably ensuing rant a little more, but today she was hardly in the mood to be regaled by tales of his wild experiences with exotic foods in largely imaginary lands. Charlie chose this opportune moment to descend the ladder of his attic room and yawn hugely, looking around at the two of them with sleep-filled eyes.

"'Morning, Mum, 'morning Willy." He walked over to his mother and pecked her on the cheek, then broke his normal morning ritual and hugged her firmly. "You doing okay?" He asked softly, looking at her with concern.

"Don't worry about me. I'm managing alright," she said, giving him a slightly shaky smile and returning her attention to the eggs and sausage she was making on the stove.

Charlie turned around to where Willy had seated himself, gloved hands folded on the table before him and noted that his mentor wore a small frown of concern as he looked past Charlie at Mrs. Bucket. Just as soon as he saw it, though, the expression vanished. Charlie wondered fleetingly if it had even been there in the first place.

Shrugging to himself, he gingerly pulled out his chair and seated himself slowly. Ever since the 15-year-old had gone through a growth spurt this last year, he had been forced to do everything with extreme care. It had taken only a few botched batches of candy and broken dishware for both his mother and Mr. Wonka to convince him that his unaccustomed clumsiness was no laughing matter. Granted, his mother had been a little more understanding than Willy, who had impetuously demanded that he "get this growing up nonsense over with immediately and kindly hand me that jar of sprinkles without smashing it."

The death of his father had been a devastating experience for Charlie, but after a few months of mourning, during he was completely unable to make any decent candy, he responded to his lack of a father figure by spending even more time in the company of Mr. Wonka. The two sometimes disappeared for days at a time into the depths of the factory in fits of inventive fervor, usually reappearing in time for Sunday dinner so that Charlie's massive teenage appetite could be satiated.

That very beast made an appearance as Mrs. Bucket put a plate of breakfast on the table before him, decided not to awaken the still slumbering grandparents, and served Mr. Wonka and herself. Charlie's customary serving size was now comparable to that of a baby elephant's, and buying enough food to keep the cupboard stocked was a daily battle for Mrs. Bucket.

She sighed almost imperceptibly again as she seated herself and was surprised when she looked up to see Willy looking at her intently. The corners of Mrs. Bucket's mouth twitched upwards briefly in a pale imitation of a smile as she looked back defensively at the chocolatier. After a brief stare-battle, Willy turned towards Charlie and flipped on a blindingly bright smile.

"So, dear boy, what's on the agenda for today? More work on those candy books? I think I had a breakthrough last night on how to keep the pages from melting together—"

"Sorry, Willy, but I…" Charlie paused awkwardly, then pressed on with determination. "Mum and I were going to visit the cemetery today. You can work on the candy books if you want."

Willy's smile died, an uncharacteristic line appeared between his eyebrows, and a muscle in his jaw tightened. "Oh…was it today that he…?" He hesitated, his gaze shifting uncertainly from Charlie to the silent Mrs. Bucket, who was nudging the food on her plate around listlessly. She nodded wordlessly.

There was another, even more uncomfortable, silence. After a few minutes, Mrs. Bucket stood up abruptly and began clearing their plates.

"Charlie, dear, could you wake your grandparents give them their breakfast? Then I think you should do some of your chores before we leave. I have to do at least some of the laundry or I'll never get it done today." Her voice broke and she slumped slightly at the sink, her back to the two still seated at the table. She sniffed and ran a hand across her face. "I'm just going to go get some air. You start on those chores, dear."

With that, she quickly turned and hurried out the door. Charlie and Willy looked after her for a moment before looking at each other.

Willy opened his mouth, seemed to reconsider, closed it again, and sighed slightly. "Charlie, you do what your m-mother said," Willy stumbled slightly over a word that wouldn't have gotten past his gag-reflex four years ago. "Scrub the ceiling and vacuum the windows or whatever it is that you do. I'll go talk to her."

Charlie raised his eyebrows questioningly at his mentor. Willy responded with a rare and steely look which explicitly meant "do what I say, and do it now." Charlie drew back slightly and, not wishing to invoke Willy's ire, busied himself with waking his grandparents.

Willy stood up gracefully, brushed some crumbs off of his lapel, donned his top hat and firmly grasped his cane before striding purposefully out the door.

Willy Wonka paused a moment, as he always did, to admire the beauty of the Chocolate Room before scanning the area for Mrs. Bucket. He spotted her sitting on the grass under one of the more impressive candy apple trees, staring out at the chocolate river flowing placidly past her.

He approached her slowly from behind, making sure to make plenty of noise to alert her to his presence. She didn't turn or make any sign that she heard his approach. He stood uncomfortably behind her, suddenly aware that he had no idea why he had insisted on coming out here. In fact, Charlie was much better equipped to comfort his mother.

Even after years of living with the Buckets in his factory, Willy was not comfortable with intimate interaction, and certainly not skilled at it. He was still uneasy with human contact, and though Charlie was his most favorite person in the entire world, the most physical encouragement he could muster with relative comfort was a pat on the shoulder.

Looking daunted at Mrs. Bucket's unsympathetic back, he opened and closed his mouth several times, took off his top hat, put it back on, fiddled with his cane, reached out one hand, and then drew it back with a small yet sharp latex "squwinch!" He cleared his throat and spoke, his voice starting uncomfortably low, then overcompensating as it adjusted like a pubescent boy's.

"Erm…M-Mrs. Bucket? Is it all right if I join you there? I mean, it technically is my Chocolate Room, so you should be asking if you can join me, but since you're there already and I'm the one in a position to join, I guess I have t—"

"Yes, Mr. Wonka, you can join me," Mrs. Bucket interjected quietly. Willy allowed a small smile of pleasure flit over his face before walking over to Mrs. Bucket and situating himself on the ground with remarkable dignity for a person sitting in a meadow of peppermint grass under a tree which miraculously grew fully formed candy apples. He laid his cane carefully beside him, crossed his long legs before him and rested his folded hands on his lap.

There was yet another silence, this one far more comfortable than the rest. Willy seemed to radiate the tranquility and happiness he felt whenever in this cavernous manifestation of his psyche. After a respectable amount of time (Mrs. Bucket wondered if Charlie had finished his chores by now and was waiting for her), she tucked some of her dark, curly hair behind an ear and pursed her lips as she gazed out at the waterfall.

"Mr. Bucket…Randolph…was truly grateful for all you've done for us. He was proud, though, and even if he never said it to you, it irked him that we depended on your charity so much. Two years ago he requested that he be able to work overtime more often so that he could earn more. He wanted to put Charlie through college entirely with our own money. That was one of the…one of the reasons he went back in. During the fire. I know it. He must have thought that saving the machine would earn us much more money."

She laughed, but it was really more like a sob. "And we did get more money. Except it was life insurance instead of a bonus check." Her voice broke on the least word and she buried her face in her hands, weeping quietly.

Willy felt as if something was twisting tightly and uncomfortably in his chest. He stretched out a hand, and it danced briefly and nervously in the air over Mrs. Bucket's shoulder for a few moments before withdrawing and digging in one pocket. He pulled out an unnaturally yellow handkerchief with an orange plaid pattern and offered it to the woman next to him.

She accepted it and held it to her eyes as she continued to cry. Willy's hand ventured out again, paused again in a moment of indecision, then fluttered down to pat her lightly on the back.

"There, there—" he managed a grimace-like smile which was abruptly interrupted when Mrs. Bucket let out a moaning cry and threw herself into his arms, sobbing loudly and sniffling.

Willy let out a strangled cry of surprise and tension and nearly fell over. He raised his arms away from the woman as if she was infected with a particularly nasty case of Fizzwuffleitis and stared down at her, arms wrapped around his torso and face buried in his waistcoat. He gulped loudly.

"Erm…there, there," he repeated. The only thing he could recall was that comforters often said "there" a lot to comfortees. He could not personally ever remember ever comforting anyone sincerely before, or even being comforted for that matter.

Despite his inexperience, he understood that this was a critical matter. Mr. Bucket's unfortunate and untimely death had been a massive blow to Willy's plans for the family (which, in his genius vision, would collectively live in the factory for 137 years, at which point Willy determined that he would cease to be fascinated by them) and apparently an even larger blow to the emotions of everyone involved. Willy, against all of his instincts and impulses, wrapped his arms awkwardly around the sobbing woman and continued to pat her on the back.

After Mr. Bucket's death, Willy Wonka was reminded of why he had chosen a life of isolation in the first place. People were bound to do things disappointing and hurtful, like stealing your secret recipes or dying. In fact, Willy'd had half a mind to kick out the entire Bucket family to protect himself from further pain. But seeing them in the aftermath…well, Mr. Wonka understood very clearly that they were feeling much more pain than he was, and yet they stayed together. In fact, they gained strength from each other's presence. Even better, Willy found that while they mourned, he too gained strength from their presence.

No, there was absolutely nothing more important than giving the same strength to Mrs. Bucket right now that she had shared with him a year ago, despite how icky it might seem.

After several more minutes, Mrs. Bucket's sobbing quieted and subsided to some slight hiccupping. She gently extricated herself from Willy's stiff, tense embrace and glanced up at him with slight embarrassment, wiping her eyes with his handkerchief. Looking down at her tear-reddened cheeks, Willy was suddenly reminded that Mrs. Bucket, motherly as she might be, was mostly likely younger than he was.

"Sorry, Mr. Wonka," she said, embarrassed. "I don't know what came over me. This past year has just caught up with me, I guess. Never thought I would be the sad old widow going to the cemetery on anniversaries with my long-suffering son and knitting into the late hours of the night."

"Come now, Mrs. Bucket, you're not old at all. And I've heard nothing of this supposed knitting." Willy's mouth quirked in a sly smile.

"Oh yeah?" Mrs. Bucket fished around in a pocket and brought out a pair of long needles and what looked like a recently started gray scarf. Willy's eyes widened dramatically.

"Appalling. Why knit when I have nearly a dozen oompa loompa seamstresses who can do it better than you?"

She smiled and punched him lightly in the arm. "That's no way to treat a sad, lonely old woman."

Willy practically bounced with excitement over the fact he'd drawn a smile out of her. "I have an idea. Would you like me to go with you to the cemetery?" He asked, anxious to please her.

Mrs. Bucket looked at him, astounded and stuttered slightly. "Y-you? You want to come with us to…possibly the most depressing place in the entire city?"

Willy's mouth twisted. He clenched his latex-clad hands distaste at the thought of a place where everyone was either sad or dead. With visible effort he drew himself up, breathed in deeply and said "I've come to realize over the past several years…that there are some things more important than happiness. That there are things even at times more important than candy."

Mrs. Bucket understood immediately what an meaningful thing this was for Mr. Wonka to say, though to someone else it might have seemed trite.

"Willy…I can't tell you how much it means to me that you're willing to come with us. Thank you."

"Really? Are you sure you don't want to do this with just Charlie?"

"Absolutely. Mr. Bucket thought of you as family…and I've come to as well."

Willy felt a great fluttery soaring sensation somewhere near his stomach which sent a surge of elation through his body that manifested itself in a massive, sparklingly genuine smile on his face. He felt that in all politeness, he should somehow express his gratitude or reciprocate in some way, but for once Willy Wonka was speechless and satisfied himself with helping Mrs. Bucket to stand. They walked in ineffably charged but also undeniably pleasant silence back to the house and what would turn out to be a decidedly less painful day.

----------------------------------

Wow…hope that wasn't too rushed or OOC. I tried to get Willy's characterization right, but I'm not sure it is. It struck me just as I was near finishing this that Mrs. Bucket (originally read Mrs. Wonka…Freudian slip! Haha…shifty eyes) seems very Mary Sue-ish. I PROMISE you that this will not be the case in later chapters. She WILL have flaws.

Please R&R!