A/N: Do you trust me?

It was a beautiful sunset. Wintry flames of gold and indigo and pale green reflected themselves in the blank factory windows, for the Oompa Loompas were all abed, and Charlie isn’t in this story. The glowing dusk shone also in Willy Wonka’s beautiful cerulean eyes as twin distorted pastel skyscapes across the brilliant orbs. Yet somehow the beauty reflected from them only made them look sadder, for, though he lived in an eatable, edible, I mean, you could eat it fairyland unlike anywhere else in the world, and despite his own trim and gorgeous figure unmarred by the tons of sweets he ate every day, Willy Wonka was lonely.

He was sitting on the steps in front of his factory staring upwards and outwards, but also inwards, and maybe even downwards, and possibly even slightly leftwards, when a rattling noise distracted him. Looking towards his tall, iron gates he saw someone standing there, watching him. The figure rattled the gates again. He thought of just going inside—he was a recluse, after all, and he didn’t have that reputation for nothing. Really. But whether it was due to curiosity, or loneliness, or something else entirely, he went to the gate.

The figure was hunched over, huddling under its rags against the cold. In its hands was a tray of apples—no, too bright for that. Candy apples. “Buy an apple?” the stranger whispered. Willy looked longingly back to his front door, wishing he could escape from this encounter. But other than rudely turning his back on the stranger and walking away, there seemed to be no decent way out of this without buying an apple. And did it really matter whether he bought the apple or not? It wasn’t as if it would put any great strain on his wallet, anyway, because Willy Wonka was filthy rich. Well, not filthy, because that's kind of gross. But clean rich. Really really clean rich. I wish I was that rich. So he held out the money, the figure held out the apple, and the transaction was completed.

He expected the figure to continue on its way, then, but it didn’t. Instead, it seemed to be waiting expectantly. With a slightly wry look and considerable perturbation at what the shock of second-rate sweets would do to his carefully-honed palate, he raised the apple to his lips, bit down, and found, to his astonishment, that it was good.

“I know my candy-making skills are nothing to compare with yours, Mr. Wonka, but I am honored to see you partake of my humble creations, however paltry they may be compared to what you’re used to…” The figure was whispering still, but there was a sweetness in the voice that he had not noticed before, and he found himself eager to see the face of this unsuspected master of the confectionary arts—or mistress, rather, for surely it was a girl?

“My dear…” he began hoarsely, though he broke off when he heard the emotion in his own voice.

She must have heard it too, because she looked up suddenly, and he found himself transfixed by her gaze. Her eyes were the color of molten chocolate—no, one eye was the color of molten chocolate. The other—the other was violet, and such a strange color as he had only seen reflected back at him in the mirror, for it was the color of his own eyes. He gripped the iron rail of the gate and licked his lips to cool them, for his face had become suddenly very hot. But licking his lips only brought her attention to the movement of his tongue—he saw her astonishing eyes flick momentarily down to his mouth—and that only made his face blaze hotter to know she had seen as intimate a thing as his tongue.

“H-who are you?” He struggled to steady his voice.

She no longer whispered, but her voice was still low and a little husky, with the lilt of honey and sweet moonlit nights the likes of which he had never known. “My name is Theresa Katrina.” She blushed charmingly under the shadow of her hood and ducked her head with a motion like a small bird. “People that I like… are allowed to call me Terri-Kat.” She paused and fidgeted a moment. “If you like… you may call me that.”

“Terri-Kat. What a beautiful name.”

“Th-thank you.”

“I don’t mean to be forward, but… no, never mind.”

“What? What is it, Mr. Wonka?”

“Oh… I was merely going to ask, would you mind taking down your hood? I can’t quite… see you.”

“Oh,” she said demurely, “I don’t know, I’m not much to look at… my eyes are…”

“Let me…?” Slowly, Wonka reached through the bars and pulled back the shawl over her head. Her odd eyes widened, but she didn’t look nearly as shocked as he felt, as the tattered cloth settled around her shoulders, and revealed what had been hidden beneath it.

Her hair glowed in the lamplight like a purple halo, framing her beautiful, heart-shaped face. Willie thought about that. What was a heart-shaped face, anyway? Did it really have to have two lumps at the top and a sharp point at the bottom? Or maybe it meant shaped like a real heart, and so had funny veins all over it, and tubes sticking out at the top? No, that couldn’t be right, her face was far too… gorgeous to have veins all over it. He glanced at the top of her lustrous, lusty violet head that sparkled and shone in the wintry sun. Nope, no tubes.

No, just a little pert nose, and lips that shone like rubies in the dark, although rubies in the dark would be black because red doesn’t show up in the dark very well, which is why many undersea fish are red so that they look black when they’re deep undersea, so technically, her lips could have been black, but they weren’t black, they were red, and anyway, it wasn’t that dark. He wondered whether they were painted with lipstick, or maybe it was the same delicious coating that covered the apple? Or maybe that was simply the way they were, the way her hair was purple, and her eyes were purple and brown, and he desperately wanted to taste them to find out, not her eyes because that would be gross, and not her hair either, because that would get stuck to his tongue and he would have to do that annoying thing where you pick at your tongue, trying to get the hair off that you can’t quite grab, but her lips, it was her gleaming ruby lips that he really wanted to taste.

“Oh, Mr. Wonka,” she was saying, so close to him, and yet so far because she was on the other side of the gate and he very much wished that she weren’t. “I have wanted to know something for such a very long time, Mr. Wonka, and I thought that seeing you would answer it, yet now I find that it is too dark… but no, it is a silly question.”

“Ask, my dear, please ask. But do call me Willy, if you would.”

“Oh Willie, I have always wanted to know—is your hair straight, or frizzy?”

“Oh, my dear, you ask the most perceptive questions! In fact, my hair is both straight, and frizzy. It was for its very frizziness that I invented my own hair cream, which locks in moisture. You see, without my hair cream that locks in moisture, my hair curls, and flies everywhere. But with my hair cream that locks in moisture, my hair falls perfect, and straight, and develops a delightful sheen of good health, because of the locked-in moisture.”

“Oh, I would love such a thing, to try on my poor hair. Begging you know, it is so terrible for the maintenance of healthy hair. It is no way to lock in moisture.”

“Oh no, no, Terri-Kat, your hair is perfect. Like the rest of you.” The two spent a few minutes gazing deeply into one another’s eyes, Theresa Katrina’s odd ones and Willy Wonka’s chocolaty brown ones.

“Oh, Whilley,” Theresa Katrina said at last. “You have no idea how wonderful it is to finally meet you, it has been all I’ve been hoping for for such a long time. Even before my parents died, and I lost my home, and my best friend noticed that I had a purple eye and told me that if I ever spoke to her again she would burn me at the stake, and I developed unsightly boils on my back, and my left big toe fell off because my life was so sad and hard, I loved your candy, and through all the hard times, it has been the ambition of my life to follow in your footsteps, for you always inspired me with the knowledge that someone who is really really good at making candy can be superior to everybody else in the world.”

“Oh, Terri-Kat, I had thought that there was no one who understood, that my message would fall unmarked and unheeded upon the deaf and wax-filled ears of the dull populace. You give me new faith in humanity. I want to share my world with you, Terri-Kat, I want to tell you the things that I can tell no one else because they cannot empathize with my vast superiority complex. I want to show you the innermost recesses of my AAGH!”

Willy Wonka had not actually meant to show Theresa Katrina the innermost recesses of his aagh. Of what he actually meant to show her the innermost recesses is best known to him. The reason that this is so is that, at the very moment that Willy Wonka was finishing saying “the innermost recesses of my” and just before he had gone on to specify the depths of which particular item of his were to be displayed, the force of the feet of ten small men leaping through the air karate-style collided with his lower back, providing him with a much-needed loosening of the kinks and knots the stressful job of World’s Leading Chocolatier will put in one’s lower back, and also slamming him face-first into the iron bars, from whence he slumped to the ground in a violet velvet heap.

He opened his to see ten of his Oompa-Loompas gathering around him. In the dark he could not see whether they were normally skin-toned or orange. Looking down sternly, they began to sing.

Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka,
If we might be so bold,
Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka,
You really must be told,
This girl that you so idolize
Is not so grand through unbiased eyes.
And when we say biased, we don’t mean love
We suspect an artificial shove
In the direction of manufactured grace
And false perception of a perfect face.
Her name is silly, her story, sorry,
And you believed it, which makes us worry,
Believed it fully, in a snap,
Gave credence to an obvious trap;
We really are surprised at you,
Falling for such a Mary Sue!

“Damn your eyes!” Theresa Katrina shouted, her voice suddenly and inexplicably a male baritone. Willy looked up at her in surprise. Reaching up to her face, she grasped her skin and pulled, and away came a cunning mask and a wig, revealing in their place the twisted visage of Willy Wonka’s arch-nemesis, Arthur Slugworth. “I was sure injecting Mary Sue Formula 9430 into my candy apples would get you!”

“You will never best me, Slugworth!” shouted Willy. “My candy will always be superior, I will always be one step ahead of you, and I will always prevail against your wickedness!”

“Curses! But next time, Wonka, next time!” With that, Slugworth turned on his heel and stalked away. Willy watched his retreating back until it had faded into the gathering night.

“Willy?” There was a voice behind him, sweet and musical. “Willy, dear, are you coming to bed?” He turned and saw his real one true love’s slim figure outlined in the gold of the doorway. The light of the open door stretched across the cobbled courtyard and touched his waistcoat with gold. The shadow of the top of her head came just to his stomach. He touched the edge of it and smiled. Now that she was here, nothing could be wrong.

He followed me inside, his smile broadening as he went.

Disclaimer: 1) I am not, nor have I ever been, nor will I ever be, nor have I ever particularly wished to be called Theresa Katrina. I swear. 2) This was not based on anybody’s story, just the Sue phenomenon in general. 3) This was not based on anybody’s story, just the Sue phenomenon in general. 4) I don’t own Willy Wonka. Or Willie Wonka. Or Whilley Wonka. Or Slugworth. I guess I may own Theresa Katrina, but I really rather wouldn’t. 5) I’m so sorry.