When Reya came home from the grocery store, she found her husband asleep in the kitchen, his head resting on the table, a tray of Deborah's home made cookies a few inches away. At first, it looked like he was dead, but when she looked closely, she saw the steady rise and fall of his back and she knew he was sound asleep.

"Deb didn't poison you?" she whispered. "I was afraid she had." Willy was too asleep to hear and she smiled. "Can I have a cookie?" No answer. "Thankyou." She reached over and took one off the tray, taking a bite out of it. The crunching was what woke him up, and he glanced up at her. "You said I could," she said, gesturing to the tray. He smiled sleepily and sat up, rubbing his eyes. "Long day at the hospital?"

"I was only there for an hour or so," he muttered, yawning. "I felt so exhausted by the time I got home, I must've just slipped out when I sat down?"

"What did you do?" she asked.

"Not much. It's beginning to bother me, because it feels like every time I got there, I'm not accomplishing anything. She still won't talk, she just stares. Well, I sort of got her to talk. We played a game where she'd tap once for yes, twice for no?"

"That's communicating," said Reya.

"Didn't do much. I just learned her favorite color is blue, she has a pet rat, and she doesn't live with her mother and father so she's most likely a runaway." He pointed to the canvas across the table. "She painted that for me." Reya looked at it and smiled.

"That's amazing," she muttered.

"You know, when we played, I still felt like we were talking, like we were having a regular conversation."

"Perhaps it felt the same to her?" asked Reya.

"It may have. Either way, I was so tired on the drive home. Actually a little surprised that I just fell asleep right here so suddenly." Reya nodded, completely understanding.

"You'll come home tired, but you'll go back, in the morning, completely refreshed." He smiled at her and kissed her gently.

"I told you no!" shouted Jack's voice.

"You don't use it anyway!" came Ronnie's voice in retort.

"Get out of my room, shrimp!"

"Don't call me a shrimp!"

"I'll call you whatever I want to!"

"You're just jealous because Mom and Dad didn't drop me on my head!"

"Say that again and I'll punch your teeth down your throat!"

Willy glanced at Reya lazily, and Reya groaned. "I think this is a joint mission," she said, signaling him to stand up.

"Do I gotta?" he whined, sounding a lot like Ronnie.

"Come on," she said, pulling him to his feet. "I'll make it up to you... in bed." He looked at her and made a face.

"No way! I don't want another one!" Reya laughed as they headed up the stairs and Willy shouted up to the children, "That's enough! You were both dropped on your heads!" Reya gasped and nudged him in the ribs; he gasped in pain.
-

Reya was sitting on her bed, reading a magazine by the time Willy finally finished, and she gave him a sympathetic smile as he flopped down next to her. After a minute of staring blankly at the ceiling he spoke up.

"Honey, I think they're plotting against us. I think they've discovered that one day, if they work at it long enough and hard enough we'll shrivel up and die."

Reya snickered, shaking her head, and patted his stomach. "We knew it would happen some day."

"I think... they are planning to stay in this house until the day we die." He looked up at her and she shrugged. "Tyler and Deborah have graduated, and yet they have not gone off to college. They're planning to stay here and feed off of us, continue taking our money, and then watch us as we fade away."

"It won't last forever. Eventually they'll realize how unfit we are as parents, and they'll run away screaming."

"And what about the young and naive?"

"I'll outlive them even if it kills me."

"You know, I was thinking about it, and we got off lucky," he said looking at her. "Out of all of them, not one of them has fully taken after us. Not one drug addict or cutter in the group." Reya smiled and nodded.

"We are lucky." He sat up and crawled over to her, kissing her cheek.

"For now at least."
-

It was around midnight when the phone started ringing. Willy and Reya both groaned, Reya reaching blindly for the light, and grabbed the phone, answer with a yawn. "Ugh... if this isn't the lottery saying I won millions, I'm hanging up," said in a grouchy tone. Willy sat up, rubbing his eyes, watching as his disgruntled wife, listened to the voice on the other end. "Yeah," she muttered. "Yeah, he's here. Why?" His ears pricked up. There were five he's in the family including himself, so the possibilities were endless. "Okay, one minute." She looked at Willy and handed him the phone. "It's for you," she muttered, and laid back down.

"Hello?" he asked. "Who is this? Yeah. Uh-huh. What?" he shot up, causing Reya to glance up at him. "Is she all right? Uh... about a half hour at the least. Right now? Oh dear. I understand. All right, I'll be right there. Thankyou. Bye." He hung up and slowly climbed out of the bed. Reya rolled over so she was facing him and watched as he got dressed.

"What's going on?" she asked, looking up at him.

"That was the hospital," he muttered. "Something happened to Jane Doe and they want me there."

"Why you?"

"I dunno. I'm too tired for this." He was grouchy now, so she watched silently as he dressed, and saw him to the door.

"Honey," she said softly. "I didn't say anything before because I wasn't worried, but be careful. That girl's probably been through a lot, but she's probably not in her right mind either. Just be careful, okay?" He walked over to her and kissed her gently.

"Don't worry," he whispered, and stepped outside silently. As he walked to his car, he heard a familiar giggling and turned. A little girl was standing under the street light, holding her dolly and waving at him.

"Daddy, wanna play tag?" she asked. He blinked and stared.

"Jessica?" he muttered. "Come and catch me, Daddy!" she cheered, and ran. She had only moved two steps when she disappeared, and he closed his eyes.

"I'm too tired for this," he said to himself, and got in his car.
-

When Willy arrived at the hospital, he heard screaming the minute he was on the psychiatric floor. He felt nervous, and was greeted by two nurses. "Are you Mr. Wonka?" asked one.

"Yes," he answered. "What happened?"

"She was asleep, and then she just started screaming about an hour ago."

"Why did you send for me?" he asked, still feeling exhausted.
"Because she's screaming for you," said the other nurse. Willy stared at him, confused, and walked with him to the padded room, or as they called it, the quiet room. Since straight jackets were banned in the sixties, Jane was struggling with a nurse who was trying to restrain her from scratching at herself. When she saw Willy step in, her eyes darted right to him. Immediately her fighting stopped, and she went like a wet noodle, slumping to the ground on all fours, sobbing lightly, and closing her eyes. Her hair was starting to grow back, but it was too short for him to tell what color it was supposed to be. Perhaps a dark brown?

She watched him with tears in her eyes, and he stared at her for a long time. Her blue eyes showed a level of pain he couldn't fully understand. It wasn't as bad as his had been when he had lost his mother, but is wasn't much lighter than that either. When he looked at her, he felt as though he was looking into the eyes of an old woman, chained to the stone walls of a prison, trying to scratch her way out with her chipped fingernails.

"Jane?" he asked softly.

"He killed her," said Jane, in a shaky voice, choking on tears. There were dark circles under her eyes, and she was pale. "He killed Jay-jay."

Willy stared at her confused, and she dropped her head in dispair, realizing he didn't understand.

"Who?" he asked.

"He killed Jay-jay!" she screamed, making them all jump. "He promised he wouldn't hurt her. He promised!"

"Jane," said Willy, daring to step a little closer to the sobbing girl. "Who killed Jay-jay?"

"The monster," she said softly, looking at him. All the nurses seemed to be thinking she was out of her mind, he had too at first, but when he saw her eyes, he knew whatever she was trying to tell him was not something in her head. She had genuinely seen something or heard something.

"Who's Jay-jay?" asked Willy after a minute. She didn't answer, but wailed, and buried her head in her hands, muttering gibberish. "Jane, who's Jay-jay?"

"An angel," she said, looking up at him at last. He stared at her confused, and the nurses finally came to Jane and gave her an injection. Immediately, she slumped over, closing her eyes, and was sleeping peacefully.
-

The nurse led Willy to the classroom he had last met with Jane in, and took him to a canvas she had painted on since he had last seen her. "I don't know if this has any connection," said the nurse. "But she said angel, and it made me think of this." Willy studied it for a minute. It was an angel painting, but there were a few details that caught his eye. Most paintings of angels had angels with golden blonde hair, at least that he had seen (not including the gothic style angels he had seen Reya draw).

This one had dark black hair, and it was Asian. She had painted it with slitted eyes and facial features that told him that. The other thing that got his attention was the figure in its arms as it seemed to fly away. It was Jane, with her shaved head, cuts on her face and bruises, and ratty clothing, secured safely in the angel's arms.

"That must be Jay-jay," muttered Willy. "Is there any way you could find out if this is a real person, Ma'am?"

"We can show it to the police," she said. "If this is a real person she might be a missing one or a Jane Doe body."

"Please do that then," he said, nodding. "Then we may be able to find out that Jane Doe's name," he added, pointing to the hospital room.

"Maybe," said the nurse. "But don't get your hopes up too high."

"My dear, I always try to look on the bright side or hope for the best, because quite frankly, if you wait for the worst, you'll surely get it." The nurse chuckled and he checked the clock. "And now, I will be hoping to get home safely without falling asleep at the wheel, so goodday"
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