Disclaimer: I do not own Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It belongs to Roald Dahl. This is based off of the 2005 version of the film, so you could also say it belongs to the writers of that film, as well.

Eighteen year old Charlie Bucket was walking home from school. The weather was warming up, and Charlie was beginning to get a case of spring fever. That, plus the fact that he was a senior and had only one more month until he graduated from high school, made it very hard for him to concentrate on his work...either school work or chocolatiering work. He chuckled to himself as he remembered how Willy had caught him daydreaming just a few days ago. He didn't think he'd ever forget seeing a purple gloved hand wave in front of his face and Willy's voice say, "Hoo hoo! Anybody in there?" (A/N: I had a teacher do that to me and my classmates once. It is pretty funny, and it does bring you out of a daydream if you happen to be daydreaming.) Several times that day, that same memory had pulled him out of his daydreams with a chuckle.

Charlie reached the corner of the street and began to turn it and head towards home when suddenly there came a loud explosion. The ground shook. Charlie threw himself to the ground, protecting his head. Windows of the nearby buildings and cars, and the light fixtures in the street lamps shattered.

When everything settled down again, Charlie peeked out from under his arm. Other people slowly began to stand up and check themselves for injuries. Charlie stood up, too, and checked himself all over. Surprisingly, he was unhurt.

"Huh," he said to himself, "I wonder what that was all about?" With a shrug he continued walking.

He rounded the corner and...Holy Buckets! There was a huge, gaping hole in the wall of the factory building! He ran towards the factory, running even faster than the day he'd brought the Golden Ticket home. He reached the side gate and began digging frantically in his pockets for his key.

Now, as everyone knows, when you are in a hurry to find something, that something is always very hard to find. So it was with Charlie. He searched both his left and right pockets with no luck. Then he emptied out his backpack. Still, no key. Finally, he remembered a small pocket on the side of his backpack that was meant to hold a cell phone and checked in there. His fingers closed about the small piece of metal and he gave a sigh of relief.

Unfortunately, made clumsy by his worry about his family and Willy, Charlie's fingers dropped the key onto the pavement as soon as he'd pulled his hand out of the pocket. Muttering a swear word that he probably first heard from Grandpa George, Charlie snatched the key from the ground (almost dropping it a second time), stood up, and inserted the key into the gate.

After hassling with it for a good five minutes (Why did things have to choose the worst possible times to rebel?), Charlie got the gate open. By this time, he could see his family outside the factory doors. He jogged over to them. "What happened?" he asked.

"We don't know," Mrs. Bucket answered with a shrug. "Your father had just arrived home and then suddenly alarms went off. Some oompa-loompas came and told us we had to get out."

"What about Willy?" Charlie asked, looking around for his mentor and friend. "Where is he?"

"He hasn't come out yet," Mr. Bucket answered.

"Besides," added Mrs. Bucket, "He's probably helping to figure out what happened. He'll be out to give the 'all clear' soon, I should think." Charlie headed for the doors. "No, Charlie, you can't go in."

"But Willy needs me," Charlie protested.

"The oompa-loompas said that if you arrived home before we were clear to go back inside that we were to keep you out, too," Mrs. Bucket replied.

"Willy probably told them to say that," Mr. Bucket said.

A few minutes later, an oompa-loompa came out the door, walked over to the Buckets, and tugged on Charlie's pants to get his attention. Charlie looked down. All clear, the tiny man signed.

"We can go back in now," Charlie told his family.

They all headed into the factory. Just as Charlie was going to follow his family into the Chocolate Room, the oompa-loompa tugged his pants to get his attention again. When Charlie looked at him, the tiny man signed There's something we need to tell you. Charlie nodded and followed the oompa-loompa off to one side where two others waited. Charlie saw that one carried Willy's top hat and the other one Willy's cane. You might want to sit down, the oompa-loompa signed. Charlie sat on the floor. Willy was...the oompa-loompa bowed his head for a moment before looking up and continuing, killed in the explosion.

"No!" Charlie exclaimed.

All we found were his hat and cane, which he had obviously laid to one side before doing whatever-it-was that he did in there, the oompa-loompa continued. His body, his clothes, everything else was utterly destroyed by the blast. The other two oompa-loompas handed over the two objects.

Charlie accepted the hat and cane. He looked at the three tiny workers. "Do you think you could get all the oompa-loompas assembled in the Chocolate Room in a few hours? There's something I want to do. To…to say goodbye."

The oompa-loompas nodded and left. Charlie stood up, clutching the hat and cane, and went into the Chocolate Room to share the news with his parents.