A/Ns: Oh my sweet suffering Yes, I know this is late. Too late. I broke my promise. But darlin's, if you knew the kind of month I've been having... first I bust up my jaw, then I bust up my thumb, then I find out my jaw is permanently busted because apparently the discs in the joint have been semi-dislocated since birth, which means I'll have to be careful my entire life, and just... argh. Bad month. Bad, stressful month. On the plus side, only one more fluffy and not-at-all-hard-to-write chapter left.

Please review? I've never begged before, but I feel in need of positive reinforcement right now.

I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try
But that was just a dream
Just a dream, just a dream
Dreaming

- "Losing My Religion," R.E.M.

The first two days or so were tolerable. After all, there was still a chance that she'd realize she was being silly and come back, right?

The next two days were worse. He kept lapsing into silence and stillness, looking vaguely off in the distance at nothing in particular, wishing he could go to her, instead of waiting… but then, there was how she had reacted the first time he'd tried that. Willy Wonka was not a fool.

The fifth day was the worst. He kept running across little reminders of her – he couldn't even go near anything that smelled of vanilla… because vanilla was her scent, vanilla and, he had finally worked out, a hint of eucalyptus. That was the sharpness in it.

On the sixth day, he went into his room and didn't come out again. Charlie tried to speak to him through the door, but after a single mild request that he go away, got no answer.

On the seventh day, Charlie decided he had had enough.

Mr. and Mrs. Bucket would no doubt be shocked to find that their young son was walking the streets of the city alone. True, he had walked to and from school on his own, but that was different. That was accepted. He was, they would agree, far too young and inexperienced to actually wander purposelessly through the labyrinth of brownstones.

This was why Mr. Wonka had shown him a more secret door. A chocolatier, he had explained, was essentially a kind of artist, and as such needed real-life experience to draw on. Mr. Wonka had had plenty of that once he went into isolation, but Charlie did not. Therefore it was in Charlie's best interest to spend quite a bit of his time simply seeing what he could see.

It was true that he was not entirely sure where Sara's apartment was. However, he had the general idea, and was quite prepared to ring doorbells until he found her. This entire thing (he would have said had he possessed the kind of personality that would allow him to say it) was really getting very ridiculous.

Sara looked at the crumpled piece of tissue in her hand, blinking back the tears that still threatened to fall. In a sudden, vicious gesture, she balled it in her fist and threw it across the room, where it bounced off the edge of the garbage can and rolled to a stop next to the leg of her desk.

She couldn't seem to stop crying, and it was getting to be downright irritating. The first thing she had done once she got home that horrible night was lock his scarf away, but that hadn't stopped her from taking it out, again and again, and remembering… and every time she remembered, she would cry.

Damn him!

Everything had seemed so simple in New York. The revelation itself had been unexpected –

Standing on the Empire State Building wind whipping salty-cold through her hair and biting right down to the bone, the children standing around her. Such an amazing view… the day was clear as glass, and they could see for miles…
Will's scarf around her neck – his scent suddenly enveloping her – and then the abrupt pang of longing. She wanted him to be there with her, seeing this amazing thing, breathing the pure winter air.
She wanted him with her.

– but that was apparently the way it worked. And then every second had become a long wait until she could see him, and find a way to tell him…

Then he'd had to go and ruin it all with his infernal lack of social graces!

There were some secrets that should never be told, not out of shame or guilt but simply because it did no one any good to know the truth. What he had let out… that she knew what her mother had said, that one dark night when she was pushed beyond her limit… that she knew that was her burden to carry, and no one else's. She had been wrong even to put it on him; if she hadn't told him, he could never have told them and everything would still be alright…

How had he managed to become to much a part of her that she physically ached at his absence? And here she had always prided herself on her independence!

The doorbell rang. Sara wiped furiously at her eyes and got off the couch, hoping she didn't appear too out of sorts.

Charlie sat down to rest for a moment on the stoop of the next house. The last house, really. If she wasn't here, then he really didn't know where she was, and he'd have to find some way to wheedle her address from mom and dad.

He watched absently as a tall, sturdily-built blonde man climbed the steps, balancing a huge bouquet. It looked almost like a flowershop had exploded. Maybe he was having a dinner party and going to put them in different vases.

It was certainly the only use Charlie could think of for the enormous thing.

Sara jerked backwards at the giant… thing… huge explosion of extremely bright flowers that was thrust in her face as soon as she opened the door. Once she had determined that it was not, in fact, a hideous mutated plant monster out for revenge against the fleshies who had killed and displayed the bodies of its floral brethren, she managed to peer around it and saw…

Arthur.

Of course. Just what I needed right now.

"For you," he mumbled.
"Um," she said, racking her brain for a response. "They're very. Um. Colorful."
"Mind if I come in?"
"Actually, yes. I'm rather busy at the moment, you see – "
"What does he have that I don't?"
"What does – who?"
"That guy in the purple suit. What makes him better than me?"
Well, for one thing, he has taste.
"Arthur, this is really not the time. To be honest, it never will be the time."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm simply not interested."
"I thought you were."
"You thought wrong. And if you did a little more of it, you would note that what you thought does not in any way entitle you to any kind of privilege. Good day!"

And with that, she shut the door in his face.

Charlie blinked as the man who had been carrying the huge bunch of flowers stomped up the stairs, suddenly angrier than he had been when first carrying them into the building. Obviously he had missed something.

Sara had mentioned that her apartment was on the second floor. There was only one apartment there, so he went and rang the doorbell. It opened surprisingly quickly.

"Arthur, I told you – Charlie?"
"Hi, Sis."
"What on earth are you doing here?"

No point beating around the bush.

"Mr. Wonka's locked himself in his room and he isn't coming out. You need to come back."
"Charlie…"
"I don't want to hear it," he said with surprising sharpness, and Sara realized how much he'd grown. "He needs you. You shouldn't have just run off like this. It's not nice, and it's not right."

She watched as he shifted unconsciously into a firmer stance, legs planted wide apart and hands clasped behind his back. She saw, in that moment – the way he clenched his jaw, the determination in his eyes – the man her little brother would become.

She went. What else could she do?

The factory did not look different. The difference was more in its feel – it seemed to be responding to its creator's apparent despondence. Sara could not quite bring herself to believe that he really was as devastated over this as Charlie was making him out to be.

The walls seemed to whisper as she followed her slim younger brother; one Oompa Loompa had already paused to look at her. They had seen no more of the strange little men, but she knew, somehow, that the entire population already knew and had made of it what they would.

There was an aura of sorrow, of something cherished lost, swirling in a vortex around the rather ridiculously simple door Sara knew opened into Will's room. It was, as Charlie had said, closed and locked.

Sara draped both hands over her cane, holding it in front of her and leaning on it like a strange wooden shield, or a support against what was to come. Whatever that was.

She thought for a moment that Charlie would announce her, would call through the door to the recalcitrant chocolatier, but no; again she had underestimated his subtlety. There was a certain pattern of knocking the Oompa Loompas used to indicate that Willy Wonka's presence was needed, one he never ignored. And for all the despair he might very well be feeling, he would not desert his factory and his life's work.

So he opened the door, saw Sara, and would have closed it again were it not for Charlie's foot being in the way. He looked down. Charlie looked up. They shared a moment of unspoken communication – why is she here/you can't hide forever – before Will opened the door and stood to one side. Sara entered, back prickling with his stare, and heard the door shut behind her. Her mind flew back to so many weeks ago –

a restaurant room painted soothing colors flowers sent and a terrified voice behind her sounding like he just swallowed helium

– and she was seized with a longing that almost made her double over in its intensity. She wanted to be back at the beginning, to try and make sense of it; she had had no time to sit down and think things through, to analyze and quantify and calculate the potential risks and benefits, not time to do anything but –

be herself for once in her life

– get swept away in adolescent silliness she –

had never had the chance to experience

– had long since outgrown.

Hadn't she?

He would not speak, it seemed, so she spoke first.

"Charlie tells me you've decided not to come out of your room."
"That's right."

His voice was unnaturally even and she wanted to look over her shoulder, to see if his eyes were as strained as his voice. She resisted.

"You really can't. You have responsibilities, you know."
"I know."
"Well? You can't lie around feeling sorry for yourself forever. It – " and then there came a light touch on her shoulder, no more than the first flurry of snowfall, two bared fingers against her throat and the rest of the hand on her blouse, pressed against her pulse suddenly beating rabbitfast.

She tried to choke out the words his touch had swallowed.

"It probably – wouldn't have worked – anyway."

To her horror and confusion, she felt tears form in the corners of her eyes and tilted her head back slightly to try and tip them back into her eyes, where they could never be seen or heard. The hand on her shoulder – his hand – moved slowly up her neck, over her jaw, and touched the outer corner of her left eye.

"You're crying."
"It – doesn't matter."
"Yes, it does. You're crying, but you're trying not to."
"It's not seemly."
"Why?"
"Because – it's not."

Silence. And then –

"But you've cried in front of me before."
"That was… different."
"How?"
"It just was."
"…can it be like that again, then? I would like that…"

His damned voice, so wistful and tinged with hurt he couldn't just come out and express –

She tore away from him with a cry.

"How can you be so damn calm about this? As if it's nothing? All I've done since the beginning is push you away and you keep coming back, with your smile and your patience and the ridiculous haircut – "
"Hey!"

And she realized with a jolt that she had reached the beginning again. Here she was, telling him why she couldn't stand him, while he objected to her opinion of his hairstyle, of all things…

Except this time she knew she loved him.

She didn't want to love him.

There was a chair near his dresser. Sara went to it and sat down, her bad leg suddenly aching. He followed and sat on the ground near her feet, looking up at her without a trace of self-consciousness.

"I was angry at first, you know."

She looked down at him, startled by the conviction and sense of revelation in his voice. He continued, looking away from her.

"I mean, I was really angry for a while. It just seemed so stupid, how every time something happened you'd blame it on me and use it as an excuse to go away – but the I started thinking, and I thought – maybe there's a reason, and I wasn't so angry any more once I figured out what that was."

"And what is it?"

She surprised herself with her own serenity.

"You're scared. Really scared, though I don't know why, because I'm not that scary, am I? Except I don't think it's me you're scared of; I think it's something else, only I don't have a name for it. Except – remember when we went to see that play? And I offered to give you some of… the thing that makes me believe in happy endings, and everything turning out all right? I think that's what you're afraid of."
"Don't be silly."
"I don't think I've ever been less silly in my life. Except maybe when I had to close the factory."

He leaned his bare head against her leg, making sure it was her good one, and when he spoke again his face was muffled by her skirt.

"But it's okay that you're afraid. I remember I was afraid during the Golden Ticket search, when all those brats started getting my tickets. I thought I wouldn't be able to find the right kid. And then I found Charlie, and I think I was even more scared, because now that I had him he wasn't exactly everything I expected and I wasn't sure what to do with him, and when he wouldn't go without his family I just left him, which in hindsight was a stupid thing to do, but I did it because I was afraid of him. 'Cause it seemed like a good idea at the time, but when it's actually all there in front of you it's like jumping off the high diving board for the first time, only you're blindfolded so you can't see if there's water in the pool or not. And then you go and jump anyway, only some people don't, because they don't trust that someone filled up the pool."
"I'm not sure I understand."
"What I'm saying is, I guess, that I know you probably don't trust me because I don't think you trust anyone, but I did fill the pool, really, and you're not going to get hurt if you jump. And also that I l – lo – l – l – l – l – "

He couldn't seem to choke out the words and Sara couldn't let her mind think of what he might be trying to say.

"L – loveyou," he finally blurted out, slurring the words together. Then he drew away from her and hid his face in his hands.

For a long, terrible moment, there was only silence and the feeling like before a storm breaks.

"You…" Sara said, finally, trying to find the words but losing them as soon as they surfaced, only glimmering in her mind like fish in cloudy water.

"Yes," he said, muffled. "And I'm sorry that you're afraid, and I wish I could make you not be afraid, and I'm sorry that being afraid makes you run away, and I wish I could change all of that but I don't know how."
"You're so sure you could," she said, and it was a flat statement and not a question because they both already knew the answer.
"Of course," he said, unnecessarily, drawing himself up a little straighter and letting his hands fall from his face. "I'm Willy Wonka."

Completely out of the blue, she laughed. And couldn't seem to stop. And then the laughs became sobs and she began to lean forward on her cane, losing the strength to support herself in her hysteria. So he picked her up – she was so light, as if she never ate, and he realized this was a very valid possibility. Of course, she couldn't never eat, because you need food to survive, but someone so consumed – yes, consumed was a good word – all eaten up inside with guilt and fear wouldn't eat much anyway. But the point is that he picked her up and carried her over the bed and held her there while she sobbed and got his shirt quite wet and snotty, but that didn't matter because he had plenty of other shirts.

After a time, her sobs eased into hiccups and he dug a handkerchief out of his pocket and gave it to her. She wiped her face and leaned into him, pressing her face into the crook of his neck. And then she whispered something that made everything alright, now and forever.

"You know, I do love you, also. I meant to tell you after I told mother and father about us… and I've thought about it, and concluded that I really can't be having with all this running back and forth, not with my leg. It would be much more convenient if I just started living here again."

And his joy at hearing that was so great that he blurted out, not some great lover's speech or meaningful declaration of his dedication to her, but something that was infinitely more, well – him.

"I told you I filled the pool."

She smiled, and he felt the full warmth of her true smile and basked in it.

"The water feels just fine."