A/Ns: Wow, I never expected to garner this sort of response. So… might as well.

Kurumi: I really have no excuse for changing the description of her getting dressed except that I felt like it, and the new version flowed better IMHO.

Response to The Island Hopper has been removed because it was taking up too much space. For the curious - we had a mutual misunderstanding that has since been resolved. Nothing very serious.

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If temptation ever came my way
I know the words I'd always say
I'll never hide my love from you
You're my deepest blue

Am I dreaming now?
Walking on the moon
And I don't know how to read you, baby
Every time I try to move closer…

- "Deepest Blue," Deepest Blue

Willy Wonka stretched and rolled over into a patch of sun. This woke him up, as he realized that he shouldn't have been able to do that; there should have been someone there, stopping him. A minute later he realized that in and of itself was deeply unusual, and sat up. The covers slid off his chest and pooled in his lap as he sat cross-legged and tried to remember what had happened.

He'd made a special new kind of chocolate drink specifically with Charlie's older sister, Sara, in mind. She didn't smile enough, and she was so pretty when she smiled – not that he'd seen her smile more then once, but he remembered it clearly. She'd lit up and shone from within, glowing and warm and not at all the frightening old schoolmarm he'd taken her for. So he'd made a special kind of chocolate with increased amounts of the property that caused endorphins levels to rise. When people felt like they were in love, they were happy, and when they were happy, they smiled.

And furthermore (he thought while climbing out of bed), she'd smiled that way for Charlie, and he wanted her to smile that way for him. It didn't seem quite fair, somehow, that she could love only one person in her family enough to smile like that at them, to light up inside just from being around them and seeing that they were happy. No one had ever smiled at him that way. Because of him, certainly, because he was the greatest chocolatier and candymaker in the world and his creations delighted children all over the world.

But no one had ever smiled at him, because they enjoyed being near him. Except Charlie, but that hardly counted; they were practically identical in every way, except even he had to admit somewhere in his fevered brain that Charlie was far better adjusted then he.

Where was I?

He pulled on his pants while searching his memory for what had happened last night. He'd given her the drink, and then he'd had some, too, because he was interested in the effects and because who didn't mind a little extra happiness here and there?

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Warmth spread throughout his body, which was very odd because the drink was cold. It wasn't the kind of steady, creeping warmth he associated with hot chocolate, though… this was more of a quick jolt that left him feeling tingly and hypersensitive. Interesting.

He took another drink and looked over at Sara. She had almost finished her glass and had set it aside on the sugar-grass. Now she was sitting with her knees draw up to her chest, arms wrapped under her legs to keep her skirt in place, and staring off into space. Her book – she was always reading, which he didn't quite understand but didn't dislike, either – was lying near the glass, untouched.

She seemed to be trembling.

"What's the matter?"

He could barely hear her over the roar of the chocolate waterfall. Willy cupped a hand around his ear and leaned in.

"Speak up, I really can't hear you when you mumble like that."

"I don't know," she said, louder this time. Only he wasn't paying much attention to what she was saying because it occurred to him that Sara – sitting on edible grass next to a chocolate river under and edible tree with a few edible bushes and flowers in the background – was looking fairly… edible… herself.

And not in the cannibalistic sense, either. If pressed, Willy would have to admit that he didn't know exactly in what sense he meant. He had a vague idea, of course, he just… wasn't very sure how you went about… responding to the sudden realization that someone was extremely edible in a non-cannibalistic sense.

He'd read something about this, he knew it. There was something he was supposed to say in this sort of situation, wasn't there? Something about her.

Oh. Yes.

"Was your daddy a thief? 'Cause he stole the stars from the skies and put them in your eyes."

He laughed awkwardly. Sara shot him an incredulous look.

"What on earth are you talking about?"
"You know, I'm not really sure."

She kept staring at him. He stared back. This was going absolutely nowhere, and in the meantime his body was feeling very strange and tingly and insistent and it was actually getting to be fairly uncomfortable and he knew there was something he was supposed to be doing besides saying that thing about stars. He looked away.

"What's that thing you do, when you really like someone?"
"What do you mean, exactly?"
"It's…when you like them… people do it in books all the time… starts with a 'k'…"
"Kissing?"

She clapped a hand over her mouth and flushed, but Willy was far too excited to notice. He snapped his fingers and sat straight up, looking back at her.

"Yeah, that's right! Kissing! That thing you do with your mouth! Now I remember!"

Sara's hand slid from her mouth.

"And… why was that important?"

By way of an answer, he kissed her. And then he kissed her some more.

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Willy blushed bright red right up to his roots and almost crushed his velvet jacket. He'd kissed her! And he'd liked it, and they'd done a lot more then just kissing once they'd gotten back to his room… and she'd liked it, he guessed, though she'd hadn't smiled, exactly…

But didn't girls have cooties? He had been pretty close to her and he hadn't seen any cooties, but you could you see cooties to begin with? And were cooties really that big a deal?

Of course they were! They were cooties.

But what were cooties, exactly?

They weren't anything, they just… were.

He was supposed to be grossed out! She was a girl! She had cooties, and he'd touched her and kissed her and done other stuff and it had actually made him feel… really good…

And she had smiled, almost. Not exactly, not the way he'd seen her smile before, but she'd looked happy. She'd looked happy because of him.

Maybe… (and here he began to wring the hem of his coat) …maybe she'd be happy to see him? And smile at him the way she had before, at Charlie?