Those strange feelings Charlie sensed, urging him to engage with the distraught woman on the other end of the bar, turned out to be onto something. The woman who had captivated Charlie ever since she barged into the tavern was none other than The Bad Nut herself, Veruca Salt. Apart from growing up, Veruca had not changed much since the last time Charlie saw her. She was still as ill-tempered, brash and demanding as when she maneuvered her way onto the floor of the Nut Sorting Room and got attacked by an army of squirrels. But time ages and thus changes everyone, and now that she had discovered alcohol but continued to lack impulse control, the bratty girl who threw a fit until her father found her one of Wonka's Golden Ticket was just one comment or look away from getting into a bar fight and injuring someone, or more likely herself. This was truly a historic moment for Charlie, this was the first time he had ever met one of his fellow Golden Ticket winners after the tour of Wonka's Factory. It was a once-in-a-lifetime event that brought five lucky children and their guardians together for an unforgettable experience that inevitably would have formed a bond between all of them, a bond that deserved to be commemorated by having all the parties involved reuniting at some point following the tour, such as what was now happening between Charlie and Veruca. The only problem was that this first encounter was not like how Charlie had imagined it going, in fact, this encounter was much more hostile than situations that he typically found himself in, and truthfully, no one would blame him if he got up and headed out the door instead of interacting with his fellow winner.

Yet, despite all the red flags and Charlie's own history of risk-aversion, he leaned in towards his fellow contest winner, and said, "Hold on, you're Veruca, Veruca Salt, from Wonka's factory!"

The second Veruca heard the words "Wonka's factory" she ceased drinking from her glass and began staring at the wall in front of her, a wall lined with other liquor bottles, with a horrified look in her eyes as the memories of that fateful day came back to her, and so she turned around to ask, "How do you know about that?"

"Well, it was kind of a big deal, an international race to find five Golden Tickets and whatnot. But that doesn't matter. The tour, you were a member of the tour of the factory, so was I. I'm Charlie, Charlie Bucket, remember me?" Charlie responded, giddy at the chance Veruca might still remember him.

All her large blue eyes did was scan Charlie from two stools away, but due to alcohol impairment and a tendency to not remember those who never did anything for her, all Veruca could respond was ask, "Which one were you again, the fat one or the little knobhead?"

Disappointed that Veruca did not recognize him, Charlie chuckled nervously as he tried to shift the conversation back to them, telling her, "Um, I'm the other one, remember Charlie, the last Golden Ticket winner. I was standing right next to you while we waited for the clock to strike ten so that Mr. Wonka could let us in. The media were taking pictures of us, all of us, while we stood there."

Bored by such a sentimental response, all Veruca said before facing forward and returning to drink was, "I don't remember any of that."

Despite Veruca remaining closed off, Charlie continued to prod the grown-up brat, hoping she would contribute more to the conversation, and this time adding, "Well, you must surely remember the tour of the factory. The Chocolate Room, wasn't it beautiful?"

"I told you, I don't remember! All I can recall was that it was one of the worst days of my life," Veruca barked in response, finishing the Gin in her glass and serving herself some more.

"I suppose, falling down that rubbish chute and almost dying," Charlie said, trying to justify Veruca's closed-off-ness on simply choosing not to remember such a horrifying event in her young life.

Yet, Charlie mentioning one of the most traumatic events in Veruca's life was enough to have her freeze up again, only this time Charlie noticed a tear roll down the brat's pronounced cheekbone before she snapped out of her trance and thrusted herself in front of Charlie, screaming, "Don't remind me of that, you twit! Dear God, my life went downhill from that point on!"

"Care to elaborate? I'm all ears," Charlie said, playing the role of the best friend eager to comfort her at lowest point, which unsurprisingly was the only real strategy he had when it came to forming relationships with women.

With the last drops of the Gin from the bottle now in her glass, Veruca continued on with her bender and recalled the events following the mishap in the Nut Sorting Room, "When Daddy and I made it out of the incinerator we were all whiffy and mucky, but we kept our heads held up high as we left Wonka's godforsaken deathtrap, even with those tabloid shutter nutters documenting our undignified departure. So unflattering, those images must never resurface!"

"I suppose that must have been embarrassing, but at least your life went back to normal after that," Charlie suggested, believing that to be the case since Veruca had not changed from when they last saw each other.

Yet apparently, nothing more could be farther from the truth, at least according to Veruca, who barked at Charlie, "What part of life going 'downhill' don't you understand? Everything changed from then on out. Daddy, on the car ride home, he...he...abused me."

All of a sudden, this chance encounter became too much for Charlie, his actions had caused Veruca to open an old wound and he could not bear to be responsible for that, so he reached out to caress Veruca's left arm, and cried, "Oh my, I'm so sorry. I don't want you to suffer, we don't have to keep talking about this if you don't want to."

Surprisingly enough, talking to someone about what happened to her after visiting Wonka's factory who was not being paid to listen was cathartic for Veruca, and after finishing the Gin in her glass, hoping it would ease the pain, she revealed additional information, "He...he called me a spoilt, ungrateful brat just because I asked for a flying glass elevator. I had almost died, and he had the audacity to strike me! He bent me across his lap and smacked my bum, as if I was a common peasant."

Reality immediately hit Charlie like a brick wall, the girl who expected the world to drop everything so that it may tend to her needs was referring to her father disciplining her for sending them falling into a trash-filled incinerator and then asking for something else as an act of abuse, and with a straight face Charlie pulled back from Veruca, and said, "Well, I guess you and I just have two different definitions of abuse."

In true Veruca fashion, she ignored Charlie's damning comment as she was still in her own little world, and continued to say of her father, "And do you know what he did after we got home? He gave away all my pets and told the drivers of the lorries full of Wonka's sweets who came to my home to deliver my first shipment of the lifetime supply I won to take it all back and to never return. And the next time I asked him for something, do you know what he told me? He said no. NO!"

"He tried to break me, ha, but he failed, he didn't break me. I broke him, I doubled-down and I got him to start giving be stuff again…but it was not as much as before," she frustratingly declared as she sucked her glass dry for the last drops of Gin available before lashing out in anger again.

"Bullocks Joel, another bottle! Now!" Veruca screamed across the bar as the bartender was busy attending another client, demanding more liquor as she would not be forced to revisit these traumatizing memories without the only constant in her life, alcohol.

As Veruca continued to scream for more alcohol the rest of the tavern took notice, most notably a departing patron, a large dark-skinned man who rested his right hand on Charlie's left shoulder, and facetiously whispered to him, "Congratulations on the successful fishing expedition, mate. She's a blinding catch, good luck."

Charlie watched the stranger head out the door, but as he watched Joel bring Veruca another bottle of liquor, this time Vodka, and see her chug it straight out of the bottle, he knew he could not heed the stranger's implied advice. He could not leave Veruca alone at a bar in the condition she was in, even if she hated his guts for even daring approaching her. There was also the issue of the reason he approached her in the first place, Charlie felt a strange feeling that drove him to get closer to Veruca and he was not going to turn back on that feeling now.