A/N: Greetings, one and all! I'm back, after a shamefully long break... I hope you all enjoy this chapter. Special thanks to reibish for his/her encouragement, even if I did respond to it a tad belatedly. Thanks to all of my reviewers for their patience!

Chapter Seven

So, we left poor Mr Wonka lying in a post-operation hospital bed, with little Charlie once more by his side. And oh, the happiness of those few short moments, the relief of the adults and the trembling joy of the two children, Charlie and Mr Wonka. And if only we could freeze time, and hold them there forever, in a moment where there was no pain or suffering. But already clouds are gathering on the horizon for Mr Wonka and the Bucket family.

After a few minutes of this joyful reunion, the tall, cold doctor who had offered no comfort to the terrified Charlie came over, frowning seriously. He sniffed disapprovingly at the sigh of a little boy cluttering up his hospital.

"If you could excuse me." He pushed past Charlie, fiddling with one of the tubes running from Mr Wonka's arm. "I need to talk with the patient... in private."

The older Buckets found his meaning all too clear, and Mrs Bucket gently steered Charlie away. Mr Wonka made to wave with his right hand, but it seemed to Charlie that it was weighted down with all the tubes running in at his wrist. Mr Wonka grinned, weakly.

"Seeya. Now scoot, Charlie!" But the boy looked agonised, and understandably, the poor child.

"I'll see you soon, won't I, Mr Wonka?" The man lying on the hospital bed paused for a moment, before letting a huge grin split across his face. No one except perhaps old Grandpa George sensed the worry behind the chocolatier's cheerful mask.

"Sure thing. I - "

"Excuse me." The doctor cut him off sternly, and as the Bucket family shuffled towards the door Grandpa George snorted and said:

"Young nincompoop!" Mr Wonka, lying in his hospital bed, silently agreed. Wouldn't you?

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I think this next scene shows, without a doubt, just how brave Mr Wonka was for Charlie that day. The doctor had, "in private", given him some most terrible news, but as he was wheeled out into the corridor to the waiting Charlie he grinned cheerfully. I cannot tell you what that news was, at least not ahead of Mr Wonka telling Charlie, but I can assure you that you or I would struggle to put a smile on top of it.

Charlie, who by rights should have been fast asleep, bounded to his feet at the sight of his precious chocolatier.

"Mr Wonka!" He exclaimed.

"Heya." The chocolatier said in a somewhat tired voice for her had, after all, endured a rather trying day. It was made all the worse by the fact that the doctor had finally managed to confiscate his purple gloves. Charlie did not notice, but Grandpa George did – that the right side of Mr Wonka's face had gone oddly slack, and that his right arm hung limp over the side of the bed.

"You better now?" Charlie asked eagerly. "Will you be coming home tonight?" Charlie, with all the optimism of a boy his age, was certain that one could simply just get up after an operation like Mr Wonka's and leave the hospital as right as rain. Ah, for the rose-tinted glasses of childhood!

Mr Wonka's smile faded at this, and his expression suddenly became very solemn. He heart had sunk a few more notches lower than it already was at the reminder of his precious chocolate factory – a place it seemed he might not be seeing for a very long time. He reached over with his left hand to grasp Charlie's own, and it was then that Charlie noticed the stiffness of his other side.

"I don't think I will, Charlie." He said gently. His poor chocolate river! He hoped the Oompa-Loompas would remember to stir it... "Something happened, the doctor said, during the..." he grimaced. And what about the Inventing Room? Was it to lie, untouched, until he returned? "operation, he said it was a – what is it you do to a cat to make it purr?"

"A stroke." Charlie said automatically, his mouth dry. He knew what a stroke was. They happened to old people and sometimes they died. I fear that even now we cannot step in and tell him not worry, that Mr Wonka will be alright, for that is a thing that not even I, the reporter of this sad tale, can promise.

"Yeah, one of those." Mr Wonka said hastily, alarmed by the pasty colour that Charlie's face had suddenly paled to. "It did some odd things, Charlie, I can't move my right arm, least not very well, see - ?" Mr Wonka took a breath, something he often forgot to do with so many words tumbling out at once. He'd never been so talkative before Charlie had come to the factory. "And it means I have to go to this place, a special hospital, for physi – uh – some long word, I can't remember..."

"Physiotherapy." Grandpa George supplied tonelessly, not looking at Mr Wonka. In truth, he could not stand to. It seemed unfair, the old grouch thought, that someone young and hopeful like Mr Wonka should be struck by such an affliction when he, a man twice his age, should still be able to stand and walk and run. "To regain movement in the limbs."

"That." Mr Wonka, not seeming to notice the old man's expression, nodded gratefully to Grandpa George. "And I'll be away for a while, and I'll get better, and -" his face crumpled suddenly and he whispered; "Oh, Charlie. I don't want to go." He giggled. "I, Mr Wonka, who has faced deadly whangdoodles and the minuses of minusland, scared of a few doctors! It's silly..." He was babbling now, which as you may know is a thing that some children do when they are frightened. If you keep talking, maybe you can keep from thinking about whatever it is that scares you.

Charlie caught Mr Wonka's fluttering hand, and squeezed it hard. "Yes." He said. He was terribly scared and confused, but stuck his chin out and put on a brave face, for Mr Wonka's sake. "I know."

Mr Wonka was not the only child who had grown up that night in the hospital.

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A/N: Please tell me what you think! Still up to standard?