A/N: Response time!

Gs33022, yes, Charlie has now discovered where Violet has been living! However, he did not find out her secret, per se (Not yet? Nah, maybe he will, maybe he won't.), as he left just after the door closed. You'll still get to read what happens from it, though. Oh, and the grandparents will talk again. :-)

As a side note, did anybody notice what Violet was wearing in the previous chapter? The text in that spot described the outfit as "fitting attire for an interview".

It was quite a beautiful afternoon. Being the weekend still, Charlie had decided that he wanted to hang out with Violet again. The two of them were at the outdoor café near the Wonka factory, just hanging around at one of the small, round tables. Nobody else was there.

"Say, this is a nice change of pace from the usual fall weather," Charlie remarked. He was nibbling on a salad that consisted of nothing but cabbage. "Wouldn't you agree?"

Violet, who was just chewing her gum and had not ordered anything, nodded. "To tell you the truth, I wasn't at all expecting it to get warm this quickly. It's been a bit chilly outside all week." The weather, in fact, was so warm that both Charlie and Violet were dressed in knee-length shorts and T-shirts, even though it was late October.

Charlie grinned as he adjusted his posture in his seat. He and Violet were positioned so that they were facing each other at the table. Good, it seemed like they finally were getting along.

Violet made a quick attempt at blowing a bubble. Although the gum wasn't very high-quality, she managed a surprising bubble that extended from her nose to her chin in vertical diameter before snapping. She reached up a perfectly pale, normal hand to peel the remnants off of her lips and back into her mouth, resuming the chewing afterwards.

"Wow!" she exclaimed in excitement. "That was the best bubble I've ever tried! Normally, I can only stretch. What did you think?"

"That was impressive for that brand!" Charlie remarked. He looked down momentarily to pick up his fork and take another bite of his cabbage-only salad. Violet grinned in pleasure.

When Charlie looked back up, his facial expression changed to one of severe confusion and worry. "Uh, Violet…" he stammered, "…what's happening to your face?"

"What are you talking about?"

"It looks like you're turning blue!"

Violet gasped. She looked towards the clock tower nearby. It was reading 1:50, but sunset somehow had approached anyway without either of them noticing. To make sure that Charlie wasn't just playing a cruel joke on her, she also lifted one arm to look. It was entirely blue. She then looked down at her legs, which also had changed color.

"What? This—this is impossible!" Violet panicked as she began to bloat. "Nobody has the sun go down at 1:50 in the afternoon! Well, the poles, maybe, but—"

Charlie shrugged as he stood up from the table. "Welcome to our autumns."

Violet's arms were sticking up now, although she was still sitting down.

Violet looked around at the sky, noticing how quickly the stars were showing up. Her breathing intensified to a panic, all thoughts of this nice outing now lost.

Suddenly, she heard a loud RIP! coming from her right. She turned to look. Charlie had torn open the side seam of her T-shirt and was feeling the swelling, blue skin, also giving it a quick poke.

"What's going on with your body?" he asked, continuing to violate her personal space. Although she shouldn't have been able to see this because it would have required her to bend at the waist while her arms were down, Violet saw Charlie pick up a pushpin that had appeared mysteriously at her side of the table and proceed to stick said pushpin into the skin that was showing between the torn fabric.

"DON'T!" she yelled in a panic, but it was too late. The pin was stuck in and pulled out already, although it didn't hurt. A little bit of blueberry juice could be seen seeping up from the tiny hole.

Charlie used a finger to swipe the juice and smell it. "You're filling up with blueberry juice? My, my, my, Violet, this is embarrassing!"

"Of course, it is! Now imagine the fact that this is far from my first time!"

Charlie gave an out-of-character, wicked smile. "Embarrassing for you? No, I meant embarrassing for me! I can't be seen with you like this! What will my family think?"

He proceeded to reach into a pocket of his shorts and pull out a dart, as if he were pulling a gun from a holster. "I'm sorry, Violet, but now that I know this about you, we can't stick around."

Violet's eyes widened as she saw the professional-grade dart. "Don't you DARE!"

Somehow, despite several minutes passing, Violet had been trapped in mid-swelling this whole time, specifically at the part where her torso had widened significantly and was beginning to pull in her thickened arms. She never even had to stand up.

"Why not?" Charlie asked, smirking. "As I said, it would be humiliating if people knew that I was hanging out with a blueberry. Besides, nobody is here! I never am going to get pinned by witnesses to this!" He glanced down for a moment at the pushpin that he had set back on the table and giggled. "Hee-hee…pinned! Oh, I am so clever!"

Charlie took a few large steps backward, lifted an arm, and pulled it back as if he were about to throw the dart at a dartboard. "One…"

"No! NO! CHARLIE!" Violet flapped her hands uselessly, her thickened arms still sticking up.

Charlie ignored her. "Two…"

"NO! STOP!"

"Three! Goodbye!" He threw the dart directly at her.

Violet screamed as she heard a loud BOOM!, juice flying everywhere over the café's tables before her vision turned all purplish-blue.

Violet woke up screaming bloody murder. She proceeded to hyperventilate afterwards, and her heart was beating so rapidly that she could feel it creating large ripples in the blueberry juice surrounding the front of her ribcage.

She used her stubby hands to give her sides a few quick pats, trying to confirm that she was still in one piece. Unable to see for herself, she felt around for the cord to her lamp, pulled the cord to turn on the bulb, and looked around herself in the light. All was well, as far as that went.

Oh, man, she thought, still unsettled, what a HORRIBLE nightmare! Now that she knew that it was only a nightmare, she started to feel a little bit better. The real Charlie still had no clue about Violet's problem. More importantly, the real Charlie never would have behaved the way that his nightmare counterpart did. Something was bugging Violet, though, and she couldn't quite figure out why. She kept thinking back to the parts of the dream where Charlie had called her, repeatedly, too embarrassing to be seen with him. He also had made a mention of, "What will my family think?". Violet felt, for some reason, a bit of déjà-vu from those parts, but she couldn't pinpoint from where.

Nightmare or not, Violet did not want to risk falling back asleep and possibly resuming the dream or starting an even worse one. With her lamp already on and lighting up part of the room anyway, she decided just to get out of bed slightly early. Daybreak was set to occur within the hour, if the ajar blinds on her window were anything to go by, so she figured that she may as well do so. Violet looked towards the left side rail, pushed the button that was responsible for tilting the mattress forward, and waited as it moved very slowly. She started to slide down a little, like when the floor returns to level at the end of a rotor ride at an amusement park, and finally had her feet on the ground. Violet had to be extra careful not to trip over the two blankets that had slid with her, but she managed not to do so successfully, with a bit of help from bracing herself against the now-tilted mattress.

Violet waddled away from the bed, just wanting to get away from it. She was still slightly tired from the disrupted sleep cycle, making the waddling take a little more effort than usual. She finally stopped after about two minutes and rested, without falling asleep. She personally had to be lying down to fall asleep anyway. It helped that she had partial light on in the room, too.

About half an hour to forty minutes passed. Out of the corner of her eye, Violet suddenly noticed the area by the window starting to get a little bit brighter. Gleefully, she looked down at her body. She couldn't see much going on for herself yet, but she could feel some of the extra weight from the juice going away. Additionally, she could feel her arms and legs beginning to extend themselves back again. She looked towards the mirror on her vanity. While it was far enough away to need the overhead light from the room proper on, Violet still could see the outline of what looked to be a shrinking starfish. She looked down again. Her torso had gotten small enough to see her feet.

When her arms and legs had gotten slim enough to bend seconds later, Violet hurried over to the light switch, turned it on, and stood in front of the mirror. All that was left of the blueberry juice now was a large bulge in her upper and lower torso, outlined underneath her red sailor dress, and the bulge was shrinking fast. Violet put both hands over her belly and pushed hard, pretending to press in the shape, although she knew that it was just going away on its own. The action was merely a prideful "Take that!", an attempt to exert some form of imaginary control.

She stared for a few more seconds, looking at her blue-skinned reflection. A few seconds later, the abnormal pigmentation started to fade. Violet lifted up her right hand and watched as the back of it went from cobalt, to cyan, to sky blue, to her regular Caucasian.

She looked in the mirror once more. There was the normal girl again, all traces of blueberry juice gone for the next half-day. In private celebration, she put her hands to the sides of her upper ribs, just below the armpits, and ran her hands all the way down her sides until she reached her pelvis, happy to be feeling her proper shape. She then stretched out her arms and bent from side to side, followed by stretching out each leg in turn to wiggle it. Violet followed this up with a grand finale of skipping around a portion of the room. It felt so nice not to have all of that extra weight from the juice anymore.

Violet headed to her window, just to peek. The beginning of the dawn had phased through, the sun now over the horizon. It was a brand-new day, and with it, a symbolically new start.

She remembered having to rush from Charlie abruptly the previous day. True, she had been mostly detained in their conversation in the first place, but she had found out during it that they had a general misfortune out of their control in common. Normally, she still would have told herself to forget about it, but something about that dream also was getting to her. It was almost as if she was feeling the "too embarrassing to hang out with you" bit tugging at her conscience.

She decided finally to head out to see Charlie again and to pick up from where she had had to jump up abruptly and leave. Realizing that she had slept in her dress from yesterday (but not by choice, of course), she took a quick sniff of one armpit. I think I'll take a shower, she thought as she headed towards the bathroom. She had been thinking of taking one anyway, regardless of the circumstances.

...

After having showered, blow-dried her hair, put her used gum into her mouth (her biggest priority of the morning), and gotten into socks and undergarments, Violet was standing in front of her closet, trying to decide what to wear today. She figured that if she had to come back and apologize to Charlie a second time, then she ought to show up looking extra nice. Casual home wear wouldn't do.

After a moment of searching, she noticed a blue pantsuit tucked to the side. She took out the hanger to look. Both pieces were meant to be worn as a set—they had been bought that way—so they were hung together, the slacks draped over the hanger while the jacket was slung on it.

She decided on that. Pantsuits were just casual enough to get away with wearing them on an ordinary day, but elegant enough to be used for events. Slowly, she put it on, slacks first, jacket second.

Violet checked herself in the mirror. Unfortunately, she realized that she was now covered in nearly the same hue that her skin had been a little while ago. She cringed, starting to rethink herself. The jacket and slacks had been made to match in color, as monochromatic pantsuits always are made; in fact, the bright yellow buttons on the jacket were the only visible parts that weren't blue. Then again, she wasn't a blueberry right now. Everyone else would see this as normal. The cobalt hue really helped to complement her chestnut brown hair, and besides, she would be long out of this outfit before she transformed again this sundown…right?

Violet decided to go with it. She went back to her closet to see if she possibly could add anything. She noticed a red dress belt hanging in another part of the closet. The belt having caught her attention, she pulled it out. It was the large kind meant only for decoration, and definitely not the functional kind that could hold up somebody's pants or skirt.

Clutching the belt in one hand, Violet went back to the mirror. The crimson red color seemed to work well with blue. She wrapped the belt very casually around her waist, inserted the end strap into the buckle, and pulled to make the whole thing snug. She very, very seldom wore belts, so she wasn't too sure about her look with it, but once it was on, she approved of her reflection. The added accessory had helped a little to make her pantsuit fit to her form better; she hardly had a bust shape to show at all, as it very much was still developing, but her waist was ever so slightly more pronounced. Violet also noticed that the belt being in place also made the bottom of her jacket look kind of like a skirt.

Violet looked over herself one last time. After thinking about it for a moment, she realized that the outfit was so her! She was wearing blue and red together, and if you combine blue and red, you get…violet! Violet grinned as she realized the random ingenuity.

Violet then proceeded with the usual, everyday step of brushing her hair, pulling it back, gripping the top layer, and inserting the clip that formed her hairstyle. Then, she got her shoes on, headed to the kitchen to snatch a Granola bar for a quick breakfast while walking, and was ready to go.

...

Violet took her time while strolling. The part of town between the factory and the alley was not very crowded this morning, and besides, it was morning. She had no need to head to anyplace in a hurry, much less to head to anyplace to hide. True, it was still chilly, but her coat was adequate to help with that. It wasn't winter yet, with all of the fierce snow.

Violet finally approached the alley while poking along. Wondering if the Buckets would want to see her again after two swift departures, she had a bit of an uncertain feeling as she crossed under the tunnel, walked a little further, and came to the shack.

She knocked on the door once there. This time, it was Charlie who opened it.

"Um, hi!" Violet waved. "I hope that I didn't catch you at the wrong time. I'm sorry that I ran out like that yesterday, but I really did have a curfew that I needed to meet. Truly."

"I understand," assured Charlie. "Come on in."

Violet stepped inside and, just like yesterday, took off her cold weather gear and draped them near the door. Charlie let go of the door to let it close.

"This is quite the interesting situation!" Charlie remarked once Violet had gotten settled. "I had no idea that Mr. Wonka had any living relatives. It's not every day that you get to talk to one!"

Violet started. "What?"

"Well, you can't be his daughter; you said that you were transferred. Are you his niece? Granddaughter? An adopted relative?"

"What are you talking about?"

"My mom sent me out for a last-minute supper preparation last night after you left. On the way, I saw you running into the courtyard of the factory. I assumed that you must be living there."

Violet's heart jumped. She looked at the bed to see if Charlie's grandparents had overheard. Sure enough, they were looking at attention. Uh-oh.

"Did you see anything else?" she asked quite nervously.

"No. I left after you went inside."

Violet relaxed a little bit. Phew!

She looked at the bed again. "He didn't bring this up, did he?"

"He did," nodded Grandma Georgina. "We didn't speculate anything, though."

Violet gave Charlie a side glare before continuing to talk. "I'm not related to Mr. Wonka at all. I was just put into a lodging in his factory temporarily. I'll come home later."

"Oh," Charlie remarked, confused. "Why are you staying there, then?"

Violet turned to him again and snapped. "Mind your own business."

The grandparents gave her sudden, unsettling looks. Oops. Her rudeness had just shown again. "I mean, I don't want to talk about it," she recovered quickly.

"You know, this may seem like an odd request, but, as you know, I am a Wonka fan. Since he already has unlocked for one person, do you think he'll be willing to let a guest in for one day? I'm not so sure, but I really would like to try to ask, just in case."

Violet thought of her own restrictions that she had been given: no production rooms, playing rooms only, leave them neat when you're done, an Oompa-Loompa will be watching you every time to make sure that you don't enter a production room. Mr. Wonka really was ultra-protective of his recipes. Who could blame him after the Slugworth incident, though? "I don't know. I'll ask Mr. Wonka if I can, but I doubt it. If he's not relaxing someplace, then all bets are off."

Just then, Mrs. Bucket entered the shack, carrying a small, wooden tub of water that she had filled from the pump out back. "Oh, hello, Violet!"

"Hi, Mom!" Charlie greeted. "I was just asking Violet if she thought that I might be able to explore Mr. Wonka's factory today, now that I know someone who's lodging there."

"Well, now, that sounds like a fun way to spend the day! What did she say?"

"I'm not quite sure yet," Violet answered. "Mr. Wonka actually hasn't let me in most rooms, but I still am going to ask. Oh, and by the way, if Charlie jumped to any conclusions last night and blabbed them to you, I am NOT his daughter or niece or whoever. I'm just living there temporarily. Don't ask me why." Her last three sentences were said in an increasingly impatient tone, as if she were about to snap at Mrs. Bucket to get off her case, but she didn't.

"Oh, okay," Mrs. Bucket remarked. "We'll keep our fingers crossed that it will be okay, then!"

"Say, speaking of family, I don't believe that you've ever told any of us your last name, Violet," Grandma Josephine remarked.

"Beauregarde," Violet answered. "B-E-A-U-R-E-G-A-R-D-E. I'm from Montana. It's a state in the Northwestern United States."

"We know," said Grandma Josephine. "We've taken geography classes."

"Have you gotten any culture shock yet?" asked Grandpa George.

Violet had a multi-flashback to a montage of her blowing up into a blueberry from premature sunsets, and a bunch of subsequent physical problems. "Oh, yeah," she remarked uncomfortably, her eyes widening while her teeth clenched together, ignoring her gum for a few seconds.

"Well, if Mr. Wonka says that it will be okay, then I will be fine with it," remarked Mrs. Bucket. She set the wooden tub near the stove and proceeded to insert some cabbage. "We're having double portions of meals today, so if you won't be back for lunch, then there won't be a shortage for the rest of us. I wish the rest of us could come, but being bedridden for twenty years isn't going to change overnight, and I certainly can't leave Charlie's grandparents alone without care for an entire day."

"Okay, I'll ask," said Violet. Turning to Charlie, she informed him, "There is one catch that I know for certain, though. You absolutely, positively MUST leave the premises before nightfall. I cannot stress that enough. Do you understand me?" She tried and succeeded not to hiss.

Charlie nodded. "I do. I'll have to head to my newspaper route late this afternoon, but if I come back from that, then I'll try to pay attention. Say, out of curiosity, did you get your gum passion from him? I've never seen you not chewing gum."

"No," Violet answered. "It developed a few years ago, back when I was still at home. Many of my pieces aren't even Wonka's."

"Ah, I get it. Coincidence."

"By the way, Violet, I like your outfit!" Mrs. Bucket said when she had her body turned back towards the two adolescents. "The color contrast really makes it pop!"

If "pop" wasn't a trigger word before, it was now. Violet flashed back to her terrifying nightmare, where Charlie had popped her in cold blood. She stood unsettled for a moment.

"I mean that it stands out," Mrs. Bucket clarified.

Violet focused on reality again. "Yeah, I know. It's just that my mind was wandering." She sighed to compose herself again. "Well, I'll try to get Mr. Wonka and ask about a visit. If I'm not back momentarily, then either he's too busy or he said no."

"Okay!" Mrs. Bucket smiled. "I'm about to get breakfast started anyway, so feel free to take your time. It doesn't normally take us long, but we often like to talk on the weekends, and we always get double portions on Sundays. Breakfast is usually our shortest meal, though." She would have offered Violet to stay for it, but Mrs. Bucket remembered Violet saying rather rudely last week that she hated cabbages. It was a polite tactic of diplomacy.

"Well, I'll be going and asking him now!" Violet headed back to the door, collected her cold weather garments again, and headed outside.

Charlie hoped sincerely that she would be back with the news that Mr. Wonka had said yes. Just a few days ago, this prospect would have seemed silly to him, but now he felt that there was a chance.