Disclaimer: I only own Mrs. Brooks and, with the exception of Terrance, Willy and Ronnie's classmates.

A/n: Here's my New Year's gift to you, the next chapter of Confusion! This chapter is also a bit longer than the previous ones, which I hope you'll enjoy. As always, please keep those reviews coming (flames, of course, will go straight into the chocolate river!)! They're what keep me writing!

"Strawberry Bedroom, here we come!" Willy announced as he pressed a button in the elevator. Ronnie giggled. Obviously he, like her, was just a little over-excited! "I just hope the elevator behaves itself this time!" Ronnie commented. "The Oompa Loompas better behave themselves, too," said Willy. They both laughed. "They sure are mischievous!" said Ronnie. "Believe me, you don't want to see them on April Fool's Day!" Willy replied. Ronnie laughed even harder. "They like to pull pranks, I take it," she said. "I think it's their hobby," Willy remarked. "Do you ever get them back?" Ronnie asked. Willy grinned. "I have a couple of times. Once, I pushed all of the clocks, except for the Buckets', in the factory forward one hour, so they thought they were all late to work! They were falling all over themselves trying to apologize to me for showing up late to work!" he said.

By now Ronnie was laughing so hard she was afraid she'd fall over. Instinctively, her hand reached out to grab something to steady her. Since she was in the glass elevator, however, there really wasn't anything to grab onto. So, to Ronnie's extreme embarrassment, it was Willy that her hand grabbed! "Sorry about that!" she apologized as she took her hand away. "Don't worry about it," Willy assured her. "At least I didn't fall while I was grabbing you and pull you over with me!" Ronnie remarked. Both she and the chocolatier burst out laughing once again, remembering what had happened in the elevator earlier that day.

Not long after that, the elevator arrived at its destination. Ronnie and Willy stepped out into a hallway that Ronnie could only describe as delicious-looking! The wallpaper was decorated with just about every kind of candy and treat you could imagine. Several doors opened off the hallway, and each one had a picture of some type of candy or other sweet treat. They passed by a Wonka bar door, a lollipop door, a candy cane door, a licorice door, and even a gumdrop door. Then they walked by a candy corn door. "The Halloween Candy room," Ronnie guessed. Willy grinned. "You guessed it!" he said. Then his smile became a frown. "I wish I had been allowed to eat my trick-or-treat candy, like normal kids! Every year I thought that maybe this time my f-f-f-...well, you know, HIM, that he'd be reasonable and let me eat at least some of it. But no, he always had to go and burn it in the fireplace!" he burst out.

Ronnie felt horrible for Willy. She had known that his father hadn't allowed him to eat candy, because he'd said so at school. But she hadn't realized that Dr. Wonka had actually BURNED his son's candy! She also realized that not being allowed to eat candy had affected Willy even more than he'd originally let on. After, this was the first time she could remember seeing the chocolatier angry. "It must have made you so mad when we went trick-or-treating together and you knew the rest of us would be able to eat our candy," she said. Willy gave her a grateful look. "It DID make me mad. But what made me even madder was that I thought no one else even cared that I wasn't allowed to eat candy. So I felt I couldn't tell anyone how I felt," he said.

"And you also thought you'd just get teased if you did say how you felt," Ronnie finished. Willy smiled. "You cared, didn't you?" he replied. "I most certainly did! I thought it was horrible that your father wouldn't let you eat candy, and I wished there was something I could do about it," Ronnie said. "You always were different than the other kids at school. You never teased me, and you may have been shy like me, but you stuck up for me a few times," Willy commented. "I never understood why the other kids teased you. You were a little bit different than other kids in some ways...but that's why I liked you. You weren't afraid to march to the beat of your own drum. And you still aren't, which is one of the reasons I..." instead of finishing her sentence, Ronnie leaned over and tenderly kissed the chocolatier.

Willy happily returned the favor. Then, just as he and Ronnie were finishing up their kiss, a loud beeping sound jolted them out of the moment. Willy reached into his pocket and pulled out his pocket watch. "Darn little bugger!" he scolded it. "It's midnight. I set my watch alarm for that time to remind me to stop working and go to bed. It was Charlie's and Mrs. Bucket's idea," he explained to Ronnie. Ronnie giggled. "It seems that it can be very inconvenient at times, though," she commented. "That it can," agreed Willy.

Not long after the watch incident they arrived at a door with a picture of a strawberry on it. "Here we are, the Strawberry Bedroom!" Willy announced as he opened the door and ushered Ronnie inside. As Ronnie looked around the room, she thought she'd faint from happiness. The room was even better than she'd expected! The wallpaper had pictures of both plain and chocolate-dipped strawberries, the bed was shaped like a gigantic strawberry and featured pillows designed to look like strawberry leaves, the dresser was decorated to look like a strawberry bush and had strawberry drawer knobs, and even the bedside table lamp was shaped like a strawberry.

"Do you like it?" Willy asked eagerly. "I love it!" Ronnie exclaimed. Willy clapped his hands and grinned. "And you haven't even see all of it yet. Go check out the bathroom," he replied. Ronnie didn't need to be told twice. She did as Willy suggested...and found that it was even better than the actual bedroom! It featured a strawberry bathmat, strawberry towels, and even a strawberry toilet seat cover and toilet paper with pictures of strawberries on it. On the sink were strawberry-themed toiletries, including strawberry toothpaste, strawberry lotion, strawberry soap, and strawberry lip balm. But the best thing of all was the strawberry jacuzzi (complete, of course, with a bottle of strawberry shampoo!).

"It has strawberry bubbles, too!" Willy said happily (it hadn't taken him long to notice Ronnie admiring the jacuzzi!). "I love this room!" Ronnie gushed as they headed back into the bedroom. "I'm glad. By the way, that wallpaper is my special lickable wallpaper," replied Willy. Ronnie wasn't sure quite what to think of that. She liked the idea of lickable wallpaper...but the thought that a lot of other people's tongues had touched it was definitely NOT appealing! Willy noticed the look of disgust on Ronnie's face and quickly said, "Don't worry. We clean it with special non-toxic, non-taste removing sanitizer after someone has licked it!"

Ronnie sighed with relief. "I'm very relieved to hear that!" she said. "Come on, did you really think I would let the wallpaper become a germ factory?" Willy teased. "Well, no," Ronnie admitted, feeling rather embarrassed that she'd gotten so carried away. "I'll bet Willy tastes even better than that wallpaper!" she found herself thinking. Willy's cheeks turned pink. "Er, thanks. I've had lots of people write to me and tell me how tasty my candy is...but I've never heard anyone call ME tasty before," he said.

Needless to say, Ronnie was extremely mortified. It was bad enough that she had been thinking such dirty thoughts in the first place, but the realization that she had actually spoken those thoughts aloud made her wish with all her might that the floor would open up and swallow her. She couldn't believe she had basically just told Willy that she wouldn't mind going a bit further than simple kissing! "Did I really just...I didn't mean to say that out loud!" she stammered. "Hey, don't worry about it. I don't mind that you said that," the chocolatier assured her.

Before Willy or Ronnie could say anything more, Willy let out a huge yawn. Now it was his turn to be mortified! "Excuse me," he apologized. "Don't worry about it. I think that's a signal to us that we should get to bed," said Ronnie. Willy laughed. "Yeah, probably. Goodnight, Ronnie," he said. "Goodnight, Willy," Ronnie said.

Once Willy had left, Ronnie put on the nightgown Mrs. Bucket had loaned her and climbed into bed...only to discover that she couldn't get to sleep! She groaned as she got back up. "Now what am I supposed to do?" she wondered. She briefly considered having a soak in the jacuzzi, but then realized that wouldn't be very practical given how late it was! She needed something that wouldn't take that much time. Finally, she settled for sitting in the armchair (which was, of course, shaped like a strawberry) and just letting her mind wander. It wandered right to what Willy had said earlier about her having stuck up for him a few times at school. One time in particular stood out to her...

"Do they HAVE to serve this awful stuff?" "Yeah, really. I can't believe they actually expect us to eat this!" "We should make THEM eat it! Then maybe they'd start fixing stuff that's actually eatable!" "No wonder most of the teachers bring their own lunches!" "Yeah, I wish my parents would let me do that. But no, I have to eat the hot lunch unless the main dish is a food I've tried several times before and still can't stand!"

It was noon on a weekday, and that meant only one thing for Ronnie and her schoolmates: school lunchtime. The conversations going on around Ronnie were the same ones that went on every day at lunch. Complaining about the hot lunch had become a school tradition (so was practically whispering those complaints to insure that the teachers on cafeteria duty wouldn't overhear!). Although Ronnie didn't normally join in the conversations, she didn't feel any more affection for the hot lunches than the other students did.

Today's lunch was no exception. "Ugh!" she thought as she looked in disgust at her overcooked noodles with glue sauce. Well, that's what she thought it should have been called. The menu had listed it as pasta Alfredo. But over cooked noodles with glue sauce was definitely a much better description! As she reluctantly began eating, she noticed that, just as she was sitting by herself, a boy was sitting by himself at the next table over. It was Willy Wonka, and Ronnie noticed that he was barely eating. Instead, he was just picking at his food.

If he had been any other kid, she wouldn't have thought anything of at. After all, no one liked the hot lunches. But Ronnie knew that, just like with so many other things, Dr. Wonka was super-strict about meals and expected Willy to clean his plate (Willy had mentioned that in class once during a discussion about the importance of healthy eating). So she knew that something was up with Willy. But before she had time to ponder that any further, Willy abruptly get up from his table with his still mostly-full tray of food.

"Hey, metal head, aren't you supposed to clean your tray?" a boy at a neighboring table taunted. "You'd better hope daddy doesn't find out!" taunted another. "Was the food too awful for tinsel face?" that taunt came from Terrance, one of Willy and Ronnie's classmates and one of the worst when it came to teasing Willy. Ronnie felt her blood boil. She didn't understand how those kids could be so awful.

Unfortunately, after recess, something beyond awful happened. Ronnie normally enjoyed the period right after recess, because it was her favorite subject, art. But that day's art class was one she would rather have forgotten (she knew Willy wanted to forget it, too!). At first, it was like any other art class. Mrs. Brooks was explaining that day's art project, and Ronnie was listening eagerly.

But right in the middle of Mrs. Brooks' explanation, Willy jumped out of his chair and began running out of the room. "Willy, what do you think you're doing?" Mrs. Brooks asked, sounding understandably shocked (after all, if a student needed to leave the room for some reason, he or she was obviously expected to raise their hand and ask permission, not just run out of the room!).

Willy stopped in his tracks. But before he could even start to answer Mrs. Brooks, what is perhaps every kid's worst nightmare happened: his pasta Alfredo ended up all over the floor. Ronnie felt terrible for him. It was bad enough that Willy had gotten sick in front of the entire class, but he had obviously been trying to get to the bathroom in time. "EWWWWW! That's disgusting!" exclaimed one of Ronnie's and Willy's classmates. "YOU'RE disgusting, barf-mouth! And what a baby! You couldn't even make it to the bathroom on time!" Terrance jeered.

Ronnie couldn't take it any longer. She leaped out of her chair. "For your information, Terrance, Willy was obviously TRYING to make it to the bathroom on time. And how would YOU like it if someone called YOU 'barf-mouth' and 'disgusting'?" she retorted. "Awww, isn't that sweet, Ronnie's sticking up for her little boyfriend!" Terrance taunted. "I'm sticking up for him because he's a good person, and he doesn't deserve to get ripped apart like this!" Ronnie exclaimed. "Sure you are!" Terrance sneered.

"Terrance, that's enough! One more word and you'll earn yourself a trip to Mr. Wilkins's office! " Mrs. Brooks said sternly. Mr. Wilkins was the principal. Naturally the last thing any student wanted was to end up in his office! Terrance quickly quieted down. "Mrs. Brooks, I can walk Willy to the nurse's office," Ronnie offered. "Thank you, Ronnie. I appreciate that," Mrs. Brooks replied. Then she turned back to Terrance. "And Terrance, would you please go and find the janitor?" she asked. It was all Ronnie could do not to giggle. "Serves him right!" she thought. As she led Willy to the nurse's office, he flashed her a grateful smile...

Ronnie was jolted out of her flashback by a knock on her door. As she hurried to answer it, her first thought was that there was some sort of emergency (Ronnie wasn't normally the panicky type, but she couldn't figure out why else someone would be knocking on her door at the hour!). She flung open the door, expecting to find an Oompa Loompa or one of the Buckets. Instead, it was Willy that she came face-to-face with. He was wearing his bathrobe and a pair of slippers and he looked a bit sheepish.

"I hope I didn't wake you up," the chocolatier apologized. "You didn't, because I can't get to sleep," Ronnie replied. "I can't either. That's why I stopped by. I was wondering if you'd like to take a walk or something," said Willy. "Of course I would!" Ronnie said eagerly. "'Kay then, let's go!" said Willy. "It would be nice to take our walk in the Chocolate Room, but I suppose we'd better not. The Buckets probably wouldn't be too happy if we woke them up," Ronnie commented as they headed for the elevator. Willy giggled. "No, probably not. But that's okay. I was thinking we could walk in the Wintergreen Room," he said.

"It sounds like a lovely room. I can't wait to see it," Ronnie said. Willy grinned. "I think you're going to like it," he told her. They had reached the elevator by now, and Willy stepped into it. As Ronnie did the same, she realized something that she couldn't believe she hadn't thought of earlier. She was in stocking feet (having taken her shoes off when she was getting ready for bed), the elevator was completely made of glass...and glass and socks is about the worst combination you could possibly have.

Unfortunately, she had realized it too late, as the next thing she knew she was slipping and sliding all over the elevator floor, struggling to keep her balance. "If I don't crash into the wall, I'll probably knock Willy over, knowing my luck!" she thought, feeling disgusted with herself for not stopping to put on her shoes before leaving her room. Luckily, Willy was thinking more clearly than Ronnie. He quickly reached out to grab her hand to steady her.

But because Ronnie was slipping so much, he missed and ended up grabbing her shoulder instead. Not only that, but he accidentally grabbed the shoulder strap of her nightgown in the process, pulling it down. This, of course, meant that half of the top of the nightgown slipped down with it...which didn't exactly leave much to the imagination! Both Willy and Ronnie felt extremely awkward, to say the very least! Neither of them knew quite what to say.

At that moment, the elevator arrived at the Wintergreen room. That room had always been Willy's favorites. "It's so delectable and so darn good looking!" he said without thinking. Then, with horror, he realized just where he had been looking when he had said that (he and Ronnie had both basically frozen in embarrassment after the shoulder strap incident), and clapped his hand over his mouth. "I...I didn't mean...I was talking about the room, honest! And I really didn't mean to stare. I just..." he stammered. Ronnie held up her hand to stop him. "Willy, it's all right. The whole thing is my fault anyway. If I had just put my shoes on before leaving my room, none of this would have happened," she reassured him.

"Well, I should have been more careful about how I grabbed you," Willy said. Ronnie started laughing as she pulled her shoulder strap back up. "Are we going to take a walk, or are we just going to keep apologizing to each other and chewing ourselves out?" she asked. Willy started to laugh too. "I say we take the walk!" he said.

As they began to walk, Ronnie noticed that the room was filled with evergreen trees (she hadn't really had the chance to take a good look at the room before, since she and Willy had still been recovering from their embarrassment). "Are those trees made out of mint?" she asked. "How did you know?" Willy said happily. "They just looked like mint trees to me," Ronnie said. Willy beamed. "It's the wintergreen forest," he said proudly. "Well, I love it!" said Ronnie. "Well, come on then. We'll walk through it," Willy said. Ronnie grinned. "Okay, let's go!" she said.

They hadn't been walking for too long when they realized that they were both finally starting to get tired. "Why don't we sit down and rest for a little while," Willy suggested. "Good idea," Ronnie said as they sat against the trunk of one of the trees. As often happens when someone who's tired sits down, it didn't take Willy and Ronnie long to feel downright sleepy.

Ronnie rested her head against Willy's shoulder. Then she felt her eyelids growing heavier and heavier...and the next thing she knew, she was blinking them open to find the room's "sunlights" on (since virtually none of the rooms in the factory had windows, Willy had come up with a special type of lighting that made the rooms look as though they were bathed in sunlight), Oompa Loompas at work...and a smiling Mrs. Bucket standing in front of her and Willy. "Good morning, sleepy heads," she greeted them.

A/n: Sorry about that cliffhanger! It just sort of wrote itself!

Chapter 15 Preview: Willy insists on escorting Ronnie home after the blizzard stops...so Ronnie invites him to visit with her at her apartment for a bit! But is it really just a visit? Or, as the Buckets are convinced, has Ronnie really just asked Willy on a date? And Willy and Ronnie find out some surprising news about the candy shop Ronnie lives above...news that might just prove very useful to them!