Y'all are...really not gonna like me for this chapter...

What happened six months later was nowhere near expected. Nor was it respected.

"Come on, Lovely," Willy said standing in the large doorway to the factory, holding his free hand out for Libby to take. She grabbed his hand through her mitten-clad hand. "Wait…" he murmured, hearing footsteps coming quickly in his direction.

Lilly came running towards him, waving her hands. "Guess what?" she chimed.

Willy looked up at her. "What?"

Lilly smiled. "I love you." She kissed him. "And you know what else?"

"What?" Willy said, smiling a little.

"You've never, in your entire life, told me that you love me."

This caused Willy to blink a few hundred times. "Are you serious? I've never?"

Lilly nodded, keeping her arms wrapped around Willy's neck. She didn't seem angry or anything. As a matter of fact, she was grinning brightly, and she was looking right into his eyes. Willy found this a bit odd, but shrugged it aside. Ever since Libby was born, she'd been acting oddly at random times.

"Well," Lilly said, kissing him again briefly on the lips. "I'm waiting…."

Willy smiled and ignored the strange feeling tugging at the back of his mind. "I love you," he whispered.

Lilly kissed him again, this time a bit harder.

"I love you so much," Willy said. "And I'll tell you how much I love you when we get back."

Lilly nodded and stroked Libby's hair softly. "Have fun, guys."

Just then, an Oompa-Loompa came out, pushing a baby carriage big enough to fit two six-month-olds. It was an odd sort of contraption, as it was as tall as a normal carriage, yet the handlebars of it were lowered so the Oompa-Loompa could push it easier.

"You got it okay, there?" Willy asked the Oompa-Loompa. "Do you need any help?"

The Oompa-Loompa shook his head and made a hand gesture that Willy understood as, "Don't you worry about a thing, Mr. Wonka. I've got it."

Yet Willy still could not exactly push aside the uncomfortable feeling tugging at the back of his mind. He felt sad a little…but he was not sure why. He was, in fact, worried about something…but he couldn't put his finger on it. Everything was alright; Lilly had gotten sick again after the twins were born, but she had gotten much better since then. So what was the matter?

When Willy, Libby, and the Oompa-Loompa reached the gate, they stopped, and Willy reached into the carriage, taking each twin out one at a time and setting them carefully in the snow by the bars.

By then, the feeling at the back of Willy's mind had grown to be a mysterious depression. He leaned against the iron gate by Libby, who was playing in the snow with the twins. He leaned his head back against the gate, and he had a perfect view of the upper area of the factory.

This turned out to be a bad thing.

He was trying so hard to identify the feeling that he didn't notice the smoke rising from the factory pipes had turned exceedingly blacker.

It wasn't until he heard Libby shrieking that he fully registered what was going on….

The factory was on fire.

It had erupted into flames that left as quickly as it came. Willy wasn't bothered by this as much considering the fire had been in only one small section of the factory….

One small section….

The section that….

He had just come out of….

"NO!" Willy suddenly cried, running as fast as he could to the factory. This turned out to be rather difficult, given the fact that there was quite a bit of snow on the ground and he was indeed a man with a cane. "Lilly!"

There was a cry coming from behind him, but he ignored it completely.

"Daddy!" Libby cried, running after him. "Wait!"

"Oh dear," Willy breathed, kicking aside the burnt fragment of the red carpet. "Lilly! Lilly, please answer me…."

Suddenly, a large piece of the ceiling down the hall came down, fast, and landing right beneath where it fell…a next to something that looked solid.

"Please, someone pinch me; bruise me to make this a dream…" Willy murmured, inching his way towards the solid object. He could hear Libby running in behind him. "Lovely, no…stay back there…."

"But daddy!"

"STAY BACK THERE!"

Libby did as she was told, still wringing her hands and crying. Her father had never raised his voice at her like that before…that scared her even more. Something bad was definitely happening, and she didn't want to know what it was.

Willy didn't know what to think. He made his way closer to the thing on the floor, and he was slowly disappearing into the darkness. Libby could no longer see him.

Libby, who was no tugging her hair mercilessly, softly cried out, "Daddy?" He was still gone, so she tried a little louder. "Daddy?"

There was a silence. Then, out of nowhere, Willy's walking staff and hat came sliding out of the darkness and shot towards Libby. They stopped right at her feet.

Libby picked up the hat and put it on her head, then sat down, sobbing into her knees. She could hear, very clearly at the other end of the hall, her daddy. He was making a strange sound; almost as if he was trying really hard not to scream, yet not sure whether he should.

Libby knew, with a tiring sadness she could not describe from her quickly developing three-year-old brain, that the last memory she would ever have of her mom was one of her hugging her dad.

"Why did you have to follow me," Willy whispered, torment apparent in his voice. He held Lilly's body close to him, and he stared at her face, not bothering to notice the fact that it wasn't burned or black at all. "You should have stayed back, Lilly Lonka. I was going to tell you I loved you." He shook his head, tears streaming down his face despite his determination to stay calm. "I'm never going to forgive myself for never telling you I loved you…and I love you so much…."

He lay next to Lilly and fell asleep, never letting go of her hand the entire time.

...eep...