Summery: Christmas time comes around again and Charlie wants to get Willy a present he'd never forget. But has trouble on his search for 'the perfect gift'.

Note: Please ignore any possible spelling mistakes or errors.

Chapter 5

It was about 5 in the morning, but it was too hard to tell in the dimly lit factory, the only knowledge of it being that time was the clock hagging above the creaky bed of the grandparents; which was dangling by a nail.

The Oompa Loompa's were still snoring away which told Charlie that it was just way to early to start the day, and it was a Sunday, so what was the point of waking so early?

Charlie rolled over to peep his still drooping eyes out the small gap in the hole of the roof at the magical Chocolate Room that lay outside, the lights were still out, and the lights only lit from 7 in the morning to 9 at night so the room looked like a Haunted Forest from his view.

Charlie yawned and rolled back over; realizing why he had woken up so early, he was gonna get his surprise today.

He kicked the sheets off himself and quickly got himself up, but fell back down once he steadied himself up. It was seriously much too early to get up, even for chocolatiers in training like himself. But he couldn't pass a surprise from the one and only Mr. Willy Wonka, his mentor, his teacher but most of all; his best friend.

Charlie was able to get himself up the second time, now that he'd been awake for so long now, he couldn't possibly go back to sleep. He kicked his shoes on and examined himself in the cracked mirror, parting his hair and running his tongue through his teeth to clean them the best he could.

It could be anything. He thought to himself as he creped down the ladder and to the front of his crocked house. Maybe just another lecture, something boring, or maybe he's just trying to get me out of the house.

Charlie closed the door behind him, tightening the lock so the mysterious ivy candy couldn't grow itself into the house like it had done many times before. The time when Mr. Bucket had left the door open when going to work the first morning after Easter Break and it creeped itself into the house and all over Grandma Georgina; who looked quite a sight with all that green candy spinning itself around her small, frail body like a snake, but it was lucky that both Grandma Josephine and Grandpa Joe had woken up to the weird feeling of the creeping candy tickling their feet in the morning and had just managed to rip it off her in time to save her from the worst.

And then there was the time when Willy had been in a bad mood and had slammed the door so hard that it fell off it's hinges and they couldn't help but let the candy creep itself in, in the end, Willy had named it the 'Creeping Candy' after the mishaps that had happened with it, and it now was one of the best candies for the pranksters who wanted to prank their parents when they were going the gardening.

He looked around the quiet factory, the only noise was the soothing motions of the chocolate fountain. He watched as the warm chocolate fell from all the way at the top of the room, telling him to sleep, it didn't matter about the surprise anymore, as long as he slept to the sound of it's chocolate falling from the rooftops...

His eyes started to droop again, his excitement fell and he couldn't help but fall backwards and just have one quick rest; it wouldn't hurt now, would it?

"Charlie..."

"Charlie."

"Charlie?"

"Earth to Charlie, come in Commander Charlie."

He squinted his eyes to the burning light that now filled the room, along with the heaters blowing on his face, making the Oompa Loompas, who were hard at work, feel like they were at home.

Charlie rolled back his head and sat straight up, rubbing his sleep filled eyes and getting to his slightly limb feet who still wanted him to sleep; talking about sleep, how long had he been asleep for?

"You ready for your big surprise, Charlie-Boy?" Willy asked eagerly, leaning towards Charlie on his nerd-filled-cane and giving him a look as if to say 'I know your gonna love it'.

"Wha? What time is it?" Charlie asked through a yawn that could beat a lions any day of the week.

Willy quickly rolled up his velvet navy-blue coat and peeped quickly at his watch, then covered it again, looking straight up at Charlie.

"Seven-thirty." The pale chocolatier said quite quickly, then, with a squelch of his purple gloves, he straightened up and started on a quickly pace passed all the candy trees and over to the darkest side of the whole room; Charlie running quickly behind.

"Excuse me, Mr. Won-Willy! But where are we going?" They walked over a bridge and into the darkness where Willy suddenly came to a halt, but because of the darkness, Charlie was not able to stop himself and flew right into the back of his mentor. Willy let out a small yelp in surprise but let it pass, as he was quite used to Charlie banging into him from behind.

"Now, my Li'l Man," Willy informed him, taking out his big ring of keys and flipping through them. "This is like, one of the oldest rooms in the whole factory I haven't changed a bit-"

"Why?" Charlie asked, staring at the tall wooden door.

Willy shrugged and continued looking through his keys, but didn't give Charlie a reasonable answer.

"Ah ha! Found it!" Willy suddenly called out gleefully, examining the old key in his glove-covered hands. "Now, don't go playing hide-and-seek in here. It's dark, dingy and eerily disgusting inside and I don't want your mother getting a vendetta against me because I gave you asthma or something of the sort."

"But what room is it-?"

Charlie was once again cut off by the loud creaking of the tall mahogany door opening and he thoughts were broken by the dark abyss in front of him. Willy stepped in and switched on a light switch, but it was so heavily built by cobwebs and dust that even the light couldn't fill the whole room.

Willy moved back and quickly gentlemanly let Charlie through into the dark room first before letting himself in, locking the tall wooden mahogany door behind him.

It was so cold and quiet, and the foul stench of wet carpet filled his nose, making him sick to his stomach. He passed many tables where blueprints were made out of new candies, bottles of old hard boiled lollies which were obviously been eaten once before, some cups and mugs along with dully colored aprons which had once been as bright and loud as any other in their day. He continued down the room until he got to another part of the room, it was more brighter than the rest of the room but the light flickered on and off every few seconds while moths buzzed around it. Charlie looked down at the desk in front of his face, there, sat an old picture of some man in his early 20s, he picked it up and rubbed his fingers on it to get the dust off to get a better look of him. The man had a short yet rounded chin and messy brown hair and mutton-chops along with a small beard and mustache that made him look like an art student. He looked deeper into the dirty old picture and examined everything about the man and picture as quickly and deeply as he could, the man was wearing a tux and had someones arm draped around his shoulders, but it was too hard for Charlie to tell who it was; as the photo had been ripped in half.

It was a brisk, cold day, but the sun still showed itself upon the beautiful day it was. A white tent was pitched up in the middle of a park, and it was packed with people wearing tuxes and beautifully made dresses of all sorts, a few children were playing tag while the adults were just generally talking to one-another.

One young man was standing alone by the catering table, a half empty glass of champagne grasped in his hand as he took small sips now and then mainly out of bordem. He quickly moved out of the way to let an elderly woman through to the pastries but as soon as she left, he returned to his position by the table.

"Well, look who's hiding in the shadows!" A loud voice called over some chattering girls, the man's attention went from how bored he was to the man who was heading over in his direction; a young man with messy brown hair and mutton-chops, an empty glass in his hand and an askew tie. The man trotted his way over and right next to the other man at the catering table, a wide grin on his face proved that he was kinda drunk.

"You gonna drink that?" The drunk man asked, pointing directly at the talk empty glass in the other man's hand.

"No," The man said quite simply, passing it to the other man. "I'm quite full anyway."

The man put his empty glass down on the table and drank down the champagne in one big gulp, he let out a giant sigh and smiled to himself.

"Well, I guess it's all over now." He explained. "No more freedom, it's just gonna be Julia this and Julia that. But then again, I married her, so why should I be complaining? Anyway, besides that, an onto you." He leaned a little closer to the other man who was starting to feel a little unsure about his friend.

"You got anything on mind?"

"As in?"

"Well, you know." He started sipping up all the remains of champagne in the glass before hitting it down on the table. "Family, ever thought of looking at something besides the candy?"

The pale man started to feel a little displeased, his eyebrows furrowed and he started staring at the ground.

"Wife? Children? You know, raising a family. Don't always think that your dream job can come true, Willy-"

"What makes you think that?" The other man butted in quickly, looking even more furious.

"Okay. I had a dream job, an Astronaut. But then I found that you had to be able to do all these mathematical things and go through all this training that would make me sick in a instant."

"So what your trying to say, is that I should give up?"

"Well...Yeah."

"Mr. Wonka?"

Willy smiled over at his little apprentice and hurried over to his side quickly, his cane echoing on the hard cement flooring of the giant room.

"Yeah, Li'l Man?"

Charlie waited till he was close enough to give him the photo, through Willy didn't much enjoy taking it off him, as it was dusty and quite old and eaten by moths.

"I'd like to know who that man is."

Willy turned it over in his purple covered glove before he could see who the man in the photo was, once he saw who it was, he gave a quiet yelp that sounded bigger in the darkness and quickly dropped it on the ground, it flitted down and under the desk. When it was unreachable, Willy turned on his heels and quickly said to the small boy behind him:

"Just some guy I knew before I started up the factory, it was his wedding and he asked me to come; so I came."

The chocolatier then trotted off in the direction of the mahogany door, mumbling to himself, but Charlie was sure it was about the candy star. As soon as Willy was out of sight, Charlie bent down and reached under the desk, grabbing the photo and pocketing it. He then got to his feet and ran out after his mentor.

A/N: The first chapter of 2006! I feel so happy for me! And that flashback thing that I don't think happened to Willy, that was the dude in the photo and Wonka (actually, I think that was quite obvious). Well, read, comment and...enjoy!