My memory isn't so good...anyway, thank you so much for your nice reviews. I appreciate it a lot! The next chapter is right here. This is another one of my favorite chapters.

-This Is Da Vinci Speaking

"So," Lilly said, swinging her legs back and forth, sitting with Willy on a balcony overlooking a round room. "What ever happened to Charlie Bucket, anyway?"

Willy looked around at the empty room, frowning slightly. "He and his family had to move to Hertfordshire. I'm not quite sure why. They never really cleared that up."

Lilly looked around the room as well, then she sighed. "I wondered why it seemed a little empty in here." Then she frowned. "Is there supposed to be someone in this room?"

Willy grinned and clapped. "Out with the squirrels!"

Lilly's eyes widened as hundreds of squirrels came out of a small door against the wall, each of them running and sitting on a blue stool in front of a sink of walnuts. "Oh my god," Lilly gasped. "I love squirrels!"

Willy frowned a bit, but he still had a hint of a grin. "Really?"

Lilly looked at him over the commotion the squirrels were making. When Willy winked at her, she got up and started climbing down the stairs and into the round room with the squirrels.

"Be careful," Willy called out to her, leisurely standing up. "You don't want a hundred squirrels to attack you, do you?"

"Only if you were here to rescue me."

Willy grinned and watched Lilly as she walked around, looking at how each squirrel went about at ing open each walnut. "What if I wasn't here to rescue you, Lilly?"

She stopped at a squirrel listening in on a particularly disfigured walnut. She waited until it threw the nut over its shoulder and watched the nut slide over and down a huge hole in the floor. Then she looked at Willy. "Then I couldn't…."

Willy looked at her for a moment, and he was about to say something when suddenly the lights in the room went deep red.

"Oh dear," Willy said, looking up at the lights. "You might want to come over here with me."

Lilly made her way quickly to Willy, who gave her his hand and helped her onto the balcony. "What's going on?"

"No need to be alarmed, my dear, just a slight backup problem." He brushed some lint off his coat. "Do you want to come with me to see what the problem is?"

Lilly smiled. "Are you asking me on a date?"

"I suppose you could take it that way." He held out his arm to her. "Or we could just…find out what the problem is, then go on a 'date,' as you put it."

Lilly obliged and hooked her arm through his, and as they walked away from the squirrel room, she kissed him on the cheek.

Willy grinned and pretended to blush. "Now, Miss Redwood…you don't want to do something like that in front of the children."

Lilly looked around. "What children?"

Willy stopped walking and looked at a spot to his right. "Children?"

Lilly raised an eyebrow and watched Willy as he slowly slipped into a flashback. He was like this for several seconds.

"Willy," Lilly said quietly, tapping him on the chest with the palm of her hand. "Willy…are you alright?"

Willy suddenly blinked and looked at Lilly. "Yeah. I…had another flashback." Then he seemed to realize something and he looked down at Lilly's hand, which was still sort of shoving him in the chest. He looked at her and raised an eyebrow a little ways. "When you're done molesting me…we'll figure out what the problem is." But he showed no attempt to hide amusement.

Lilly blushed and stepped back, allowing Willy to go ahead of her. When his back was completely to her, and he was a few feet away, Lilly murmured, "Yes, you're right. We should save that for later."

There was no doubt that Willy had heard this, because he stopped walking so fast that his hat actually went flying off his head.

There was a very short silence in which Lilly tried not to laugh. Willy—his back still to Lilly—cleared his throat and went to pick up his hat. "I tripped," he mumbled, then motioned for Lilly to follow him.

They both headed to a room which Lilly knew was supposed to be shut and locked…because it had several locks and a vault opener and a little smiley face sticker on it and a bumper sticker that said, "Open this without warning and you DIE! Have a nice day, love, Willy Wonka."

Lilly laughed, and Willy looked at her. "You laugh now, but try being in there when you haven't given a warning."

Lilly swallowed.

Something weird happened just then. When Willy tapped the door with his staff, nothing happened. Then he did this weird thing where he jerked forward a little bit, frowning at the door, and he tapped it once with his finger. He whirled around to face Lilly, grinning nervously.

"I think we found our problem, Lilly."

Lilly crossed her arms and covered her mouth, frowning. "It's jammed?"

Willy tapped on the door with the staff again. "You know, I'm not sure it's jammed…." He tapped it a little harder. "…as much as it is completely stuck with almost no hope of it ever opening again." He then resorted to pounding mercilessly on the door with his fists.

Lilly looked around them, realizing that the entire factory was submerged in a deep red light. She looked at Willy. "What do you think is going on?"

Willy looked as if he were thinking for a long time, then he spoke. "I think the teleporter might've short-circuited."

Lilly blinked. "The…what?"

"The teleporter," Willy said again, cheerfully turning and facing Lilly again. "I would put a chocolate bar on a surface, press a button, then the teleporter would break the bar up into millions of little tiny pieces…and all of it would be sent to a TV screen. All you would have to do is reach out and take it."

Lilly raised an eyebrow. "Through the TV?"

Willy looked exasperated. "Don't you read the news, darling?" Then he walked past her and to a group of approaching Oompa-Loompas. He knelt down to hear them better, and Lilly put her ear to the large safe-like door. She couldn't hear anything, to her sarcastic surprise.

Willy stood up and looked at Lilly. "The lights are going to be fixed soon."

Lilly looked over at him. "What about the…teleporter?"

Willy looked at the Oompa-Loompas over his shoulder. They shrugged and left. "Well…they're…going to fix the lights. And…oh, the teleporter! It's…um…."

Lilly was surprised to see Willy actually look as if he were about to cry.

"It's doomed."

Lilly made a face and pressed her ear to the door again. "What happened, exactly?"

Willy stood next to her. "You see…if someone goes in there without safety glasses, their eyes get burned right out of their sockets."

Lilly stared at him.

"So…there was an accident…I think one of the Oompa-Loompas had cardiac arrest or something…and aimed the teleporter at the door, see. So…the inner half of the door is currently on display on American channels 10 through 14 and on BBC 2 and 5, in case you wanted to see what it looked like."

Lilly and Willy stood there for a while, just staring at each other…then they both burst out into laugh spasms.

"How did you—" Lily tried to stop laughing, for fear of suffocation, but when Willy fell over, she started laughing again. "How do you come up with that!"

Willy shook his head, laughing hysterically. He couldn't—nor did he try to—stand up. He just sat there, covering his face with his hat, and laughing himself to .

Lilly ended up tripping on Willy's walking staff, since it was strewn on the ground next to them. She fell and landed across his lap, still laughing.

"Miss Lilly," Willy giggled, nudging the side of her head again. "I do believe you're…magnetically attracted to the floor."

Lilly sighed, slowly ceasing her laughter. When Willy ceased his, she sat up and cleared her throat. "Sorry, Willy."

Willy looked at her, suddenly very quiet. "It's not a problem, Lilly."

Lilly smiled softly at him and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.

There was a few moments' silence, and Willy murmured, "Hi."

"Hi."

Willy put his hat back on, not taking his eyes away from Lilly's. "Well…we found out what the problem is." He cleared his throat. "I believe I promised you a 'date'."

Lilly nodded slowly, but she reached up and took Willy's hat off. She held it in her left hand as she used her right hand to steady herself. She leaned in and kissed him.

Conveniently, they were sitting on a platform that slowly lowered into the floor, and when it came back up, the two were gone.