Title: Cell Block F

Author: The Island Hopper

Summary: The last room at the end of the hallway holds proof that competition can be an ugly thing…

Author's Notes: A lovely person named Tina Wang drew some fanart for this story unprompted and out of the goodness of her heart, and you can see it here: http/ photobucket. com/ albums/ a259/ IslnHopp123/ (remove the spaces and you'll be good to go).

EXTRA CHAPTERS: This wasn't originally going to be a one-shot, and so there are about two extra (though sketchy first-drafts) chapters to this story that I wrote before I realized this worked much better as a one-shot. It will remain a one-shot on this site, but if you'd like to read the next couple of chapters, email me and I will send them along to you.

The hallways always smelled like sickness and broken dreams. It was something Charlie had long ago come to accept as an inescapable part of every visit he made to Cell Block F, as integral to the experience as seeing the patient he came unfailingly every month to see.

"Name?" drawled the voice of the receptionist behind the bullet-proof plate glass.

"Charlie Bucket."

"Name of patient you wish to see?"

"William H. Wonka."

"Is this for business, family or pleasure?"

Charlie only hesitated for a moment before saying, "Family."

As if in approval, a worn, crinkled orange visitor's pass popped out of the receiving tray. "Keep that visible at all times please," the receptionist said with the boredom of someone who had repeated this process a thousand times over. "No sharp objects. No strings, ropes, or anything that could be used to asphyxiate. No prescription drugs, no firearms, no alcohol, no tobacco."

"Sounds like a laugh a minute in here," Charlie said with a small smile just to goad the bull-faced lady. She looked up at him with dull eyes, not amused in the least.

"For the safety of our patients – "

"I know, I know," Charlie said quickly, pinning the bright colored piece of laminated paper to his shirt. "But I get the same lecture from you every month. I know it by heart now."

"It wouldn't matter if you came in every day, sir," she said, her teeth set. "I'm required by state law – "

"Every day? I would if I could – Ethel," Charlie responded briskly, reading the lady's nametag. "But Cell Block F is restricted. I know the rules by heart, too. Remember? 'The first Tuesday of every month, beginning at noon and ending at one o'clock p.m. are patient visiting hours…'"

"I didn't make the rules, so don't get smart with me," Ethel said as she passed Charlie a clipboard. He quickly signed at the bottom and handed it back to her. "The doctors just feel that patients in Block F can't handle too much commotion. If you ask me, they should have tossed that Wonka guy in and thrown away the key."

Charlie's jaw tightened but he managed to stay calm. He would not make a scene today. "Well no one did, did they?" he said evenly.

Ethel stiffened slightly but nevertheless sounded the admittance bell that unlocked the main door to Cell Block F. A chubby, uniformed caretaker appeared in the doorway and nodded to Charlie with a smile. "Hey Charlie," he said cheerfully. "Come on in."

"Hi Daniel. How is he today?" Charlie asked fervently as he passed into the patient ward, trying his best to ignore the sobbing from the first cell they passed.

"He's tired," Daniel answered simply, walking with Charlie side by side to the end of the hallway, where Wonka's cell stood. "The screaming stopped about three hours ago. The doctors weren't going to let you see him today, but I told them that I'd calm him down. I gave him some breakfast and talked him back into coherency. I think he's feeling better now. And he's always thrilled to see you."

When he snaps out of his dazes long enough to notice I'm there, Charlie thought sadly. "Thanks, Daniel. I know it isn't easy seeing him like that. I wish there was a way to repay you for all the kindness you've shown him, and me. It gives me peace of mind to know you're here when I can't be."

Daniel grinned. "Charlie, even if I had to do this every day for the rest of my life, I'd still count myself as lucky to be able to help. I'm glad to do it."

About a year ago, Charlie had vehemently insisted that Daniel be transferred permanently to Cell Block F, and put in exclusive charge of Wonka's keep. Daniel cared for Wonka almost as much as Charlie did, and often would come in in the middle of the night to care for a hysterical Wonka, or stay several hours past his scheduled shift to "calm down him down," as Daniel put it gently, after one of Wonka's screaming fits. Daniel didn't mind and was always honored that Wonka trusted him more than anyone else at St. Thomas' Rest. Like Charlie, Daniel had often stood outside the gates of the Wonka factory as a child, looking up in awe at the magnificent structure and wondering what lay inside. Little did he know he would someday be a kind of guardian angel to the unseen genius he idolized in his youth. It was not a duty Daniel took lightly.

Daniel pulled a massive ring of keys from his pocket and deftly opened the heavy lock, swinging the door open wide and smiling at Charlie. "Ok, Charlie. You've got an hour."

Charlie mustered a small smile of thanks before heading into Wonka's cell. The door slammed shut behind him, leaving deathly silence in its wake. He took a deep breath and scanned the room; there, laying on his little cot, was Willy Wonka, curled up in ball, fast asleep. For once his sleep looked peaceful and not tortured by nightmares; Charlie felt a real urge to leave him be, to sit quietly in the corner, and to let his battered mentor enjoy some much needed rest. But with one hour visits once a month, Charlie couldn't afford to be idle. He shook Wonka's upturned shoulder softly and was greeted by the opening of a pair of violet eyes. Wonka smiled at his protégé in a way that suggested he was unaccustomed to smiling these days; the smile looked stiff and somewhat out of place. "Charlie," Wonka said in a raspy voice. "I tried to stay awake, but I was so tired…"

"It's all right. You needed the sleep, Willy," Charlie said in a soothing voice, taking hold of one of Wonka's hands and holding it tightly. He gazed at his mentor sadly; each month that passed seemed to take with it more and more of Wonka's life force. His skin was somehow paler than it had been even in the factory, and now with the addition of huge black bags beneath Wonka's eyes due to lack of sleep, it gave him the look of the walking dead. Never big to begin with, Wonka was now scrawny and seemed somehow smaller than when Charlie had first met him. It was not only in stature that Charlie felt his mentor had shrunk; his whole being gave off a feeling of reluctant forfeiture. It was as though he had resigned himself to his fate and was now just waiting for the end. If Charlie hadn't seen Wonka since the days of his time in the factory, Charlie doubted he would even recognize him now.

Charlie had been there when Wonka was first admitted to the hospital a little over ten years ago. He was terrified to say the least, but felt that any fright caused by watching Wonka be admitted to a lunatic asylum couldn't begin to match the cold, hard terror he felt upon discovering his mentor screaming and writhing on the floor of the factory one afternoon in late May.

Charlie watched as the staff of St. Thomas' Rest threw Wonka into a seat, strapped him down, and shaved all but about a half-inch of his jet-black hair off in four, swift strokes with an electric buzzer. Next they replaced his flamboyant, velvety clad clothes with a simple, white cotton uniform with his patient number stamped on the front and the back, tossing his beautiful old clothes in a garbage bag and throwing them down the incinerator.

In under five minutes, Charlie had watched the eccentric man of his childhood become a carbon copy of everyone else in the place, no different or more special than any of the other madmen in the hospital. It was a transformation Charlie found he was repulsed by.

"I'm so glad you're here," Wonka gasped. The screaming fit of a few hours before had taken its toll on his vocal chords. "It's always so good to see you, dear boy. I thought you might not come. You must be so busy at the factory."

Charlie's face fell; the factory had closed many years ago, but most days Wonka didn't remember. He managed a weak smile. "Yes, very busy, sir. We're doing you proud, I think." At this point in Wonka's illness, it was better to just let the frail man believe. "But I would never miss a chance to come and visit you. You know that."

"I know. Such a good boy," Wonka said, placing his cold palm affectionately against Charlie's cheek. Though Charlie was now a full twenty-seven years of age, in the feeble mind of Willy Wonka, Charlie would eternally be twelve years old. Wonka managed to sit up and lean his tired body against the wall behind him. "Tell me about some of your new inventions, Charlie. I want to hear all about them."

"Well, the suckable pens are selling very well. School children are buying them by the boxful."

"Ah! I knew they would."

"Fantastic Flames are doing quite well, and we've begun to make them in other flavors than just spearmint. Cinnamon looks like a winner."

"What about chocolate flavored?"

"It melts," Charlie said with feigned sadness. "Hot, boiling chocolate in a wrapper isn't much fun to eat."

"No," Wonka said, looking lost in deep concentration. "I suppose you're right there." He suddenly looked bright. "And how are the Oompa-Loompas?"

"Fine, sir."

"And your family?"

Charlie swallowed hard; all of his grandparents had died long ago, though the years made it no less hard on him. "They are all fine, Willy." He cleared his throat, eager to change the subject. "And you? How are you doing?"

Wonka gave Charlie a genuine smile. "I'm as good as I can be, Charlie. Daniel takes care of me. He's such a wonderful person. He's very kind to me. You shouldn't worry."

"How can I not?" the words tumbled from Charlie's mouth.

Wonka thought for a minute before saying, "Daniel is the Charlie when you're not here. He'll always take care of me, just as you will always take care of me."

Charlie laughed a bit. "Ok, that's good to know, sir."

Wonka got unsteadily to his feet and gripped the bars on the small window that looked out over the skyline that used to be lorded over by the imposing Wonka factory. The factory had been sold to a local stone company many years ago for a sadly miniscule amount that was probably nowhere near the cost of construction, and was picked apart piece by piece, stone by stone, until nothing remained of the once magnificent factory but a huge concrete platform which had been the foundation. This, too, was drilled away to make room for an upscale housing division called "Oak Park" despite the definite absence of both oak trees and parks. Charlie often drove through the subdivision on his way home from the hotel where he worked as a night auditor, and tried to imagine what fantastic machines and amazing rooms used to inhabit the space where bright, cookie-cutter new homes now stood. He wished he earned more than his modest income so as to place Wonka in a better institution. As it was, St. Thomas' Rest could not be called the worst mental illness hospital by any stretch of the imagination, but it could not be called the best either. Charlie felt Wonka deserved the best; he just couldn't afford to give it to him.

The accusations had started off small and seemingly unimportant, but before long they overwhelmed the Wonka factory in scandal that the media gave incessant attention to. Looking back on it all now, Charlie felt that it was a deep-seated jealousy that gave fuel to the fire; the media, other candy-makers, other businesses, even the general public looked to Wonka's empire as somehow better than they, in their meager jobs and lives, could ever be. Where this once was a source of great joy and wonder to the public now became a bitter feud of what should be done with those whose genius dared shine brighter than the rest.

It started with the four other golden ticket winners suing Wonka's for "restitution for the psychological and physical damage sustained during the Tour." Wonka had paid very little attention to it, other than to joke with Charlie about how ridiculous it was, and quickly put it out of his mind until the media started reporting possibilities of contamination in Wonka's chocolates. Where they had gotten their sources was unknown, as no one had ever been poisoned by Wonka's candies before, and Wonka quickly pointed out, in several frantic press statements, that eating too much of any candy will inevitably make you sick. Things continued to escalate until a report of a child named Willowbough Edwards, aged eight, had been poisoned and died from eating a contaminated chocolate bar from Wonka's factory.

There followed a few days of desperate testing, searching, and research to pinpoint when the contamination had taken place, what had been contaminated and how, and how it could have happened that only one bar – instead of the whole batch – had been contaminated. Wonka despaired heavily over the death of the little boy he assumed his candies had killed, and often times retreated into his room for days at a stretch. During these times, Charlie would do a little sleuthing of his own. It wasn't long before he discovered a crucial fact:

There was no Willowbough Edwards.

Before Charlie could get this vital fact to the proper authorities, the rival candy-making companies of Fickelgruber, Slugworth and Prodnose announced publicly that they had put aside their petty differences and would lend their expertise to the investigation by touring the Wonka factory themselves, and finding the cause of the "fatal" contamination. Right from the start, both Charlie and Wonka fought this tooth and nail, knowing that anything the likes of Fickelgruber, Slugworth and Prodnose "found" in the factory was sure to be planted evidence. No matter how many legal loopholes they found, no matter how many court orders they applied for, Charlie and Wonka could not keep the "investigators" from invading the sanctity of the Wonka factory.

It had been a devastating day for Mr. Wonka, Charlie was sure, the day that Fickelgruber, Slugworth and Prodnose showed up in front of the factory, wearing grim smiles and smug glints in their eyes as they stared down their greatest rival, who had been ordered by state mandate to let them in and investigate his precious factory. What's more, the mandate also stated that neither Wonka nor "any other Wonka employee or apprentice" be allowed to follow the three men in their search. It must have been humiliating to Wonka to let the men in; for so many years he had fought to keep his secrets, and now, he was required to stand by quietly as they filed right past him, coming in as easily as if it had been no effort at all to gain admittance. It came as no surprise whatsoever to read in the paper the next day that Fickelgruber, Slugworth and Prodnose had found "substantial" evidence to suggest that anything coming out of the Wonka factory was indeed dangerous. It also came as no surprise when, a couple of weeks later, imitations of candies not yet released by the Wonka factory began to be manufactured at the factories of Fickelgruber, Slugworth and Prodnose.

The decision immediately came from the State to close down the entire Wonka factory and liquidate its assets. Simple as that.

The way Charlie had found out about it was by coming into his mentor's office one day and finding him underneath his desk, sobbing uncontrollably and screaming, clutching a yellow piece of paper bearing an official seal, ordering Wonka to immediately close his factory and cease all production of goods under penalty of law. The screaming and sobbing for the loss of a lifetime of work had not ended even three full days after this and Wonka was beginning to claw at himself like a wild animal; this was when Charlie reluctantly called St. Thomas' Rest and asked that a William H. Wonka be admitted to psychiatric care that same afternoon. Wonka hadn't seen the outside world since then.

"It's so lovely, isn't it?" Wonka whispered, looking down on the little town below. "Sometimes I stand here and think that I must have the best view in the whole world."

Charlie, still emerging from his thoughts, couldn't help but bite his lip and let a tear fall down his cheek. Wonka caught this and put his hand on his protégé's shoulder as an older brother might a younger.

"I'm so sorry this is the way things turned out," Wonka said in a different voice than before, one that let Charlie know he was having one of his increasingly rare moments of reality. "I'm so sorry, Charlie. I didn't mean for it to be this way."

"I know," Charlie whispered, wiping his nose on the back of his sleeve. "I don't blame you, Willy. I don't."

"It's gone, isn't it?" Wonka whispered in a shaking voice, looking at Charlie deep in the eyes. "The factory. They got it. They finally won. It's gone, isn't it?"

Charlie nodded and smiled a little in relief. The times when Wonka could be said to inhabit the same world as Charlie were becoming fewer and fewer as the years went on, but once in a while Wonka seemed to acknowledge knowing more than he let on. "Yes, Mr. Wonka. It's gone."

Three weeks after Wonka was admitted to the asylum, Fickelgruber, Slugworth and Prodnose released a statement, under urging from the state government, stating that the evidence they found was "unfortunately false," that "our companies started the rumors of contamination," that "competition got the better of us" and that "we regret our actions have caused a mental collapse of unarguably the greatest candy-making genius of our time." It didn't do much to console Charlie, who at seventeen years old, was now homeless once again and could only see his mentor once a month for one hour, at the end of Cell Block F.

All because "competition had gotten the better of them." For many months afterwards, Charlie felt that if he ever saw Fickelgruber, Slugworth or Prodnose on the street, he would kill them without hesitation.

Many in the public had urged Charlie to re-open the factory, but deep in his heart Charlie knew it was impossible. For one, there was no money with which to even open a corner shop, let alone an entire factory; the Wonka fortune had disappeared with the red tape as fast as the factory itself. Secondly, Charlie didn't know how he could take it upon himself to continue on in Mr. Wonka's tradition after all of the ugly, terrible things that had gone on in the last few months, and to which not even the great Wonka could escape from. Thirdly, Charlie had a very real feeling of the public not deserving Wonka's candy anymore. It's almost as if he were saying, You want to turn your back on someone like Mr. Wonka, who only lived to bring joy to your life, because of a few false accusations from lesser candy-makers? Fine. But you will never taste another Wonka candy again because of it. Look what you did to him. Are you happy now?

Wonka gripped the bars on the window tighter, staring out at the landscape and sighing. "I'm sorry I couldn't save it for you, Mr. Wonka," Charlie said, fighting back tears. "I tried, I…"

"You exceeded all my hopes and expectations, Charlie," Wonka said, turning to Charlie and giving him a smile. "If keeping my factory meant never having met you and your family, then I would have chosen you. Every time."

Charlie's face broke into a grin and he wiped away a few more tears. "You've still got a funny haircut, you know," he said, ruffling the half inch of still jet black hair on top of Wonka's head and laughing.

Wonka laughed too, and patted Charlie on the head. "You're still short you know," he said jokingly, despite the fact that Charlie was a good six inches taller than his mentor now.

"Oh, yeah? And how do you explain my being able to do this?" Charlie said as he patted the top of his mentor's head.

"I must be shrinking!" Wonka replied merrily. "It happens to the best of us, you know."

Charlie laughed and pulled Wonka into a hug. It was good to be joking with his mentor again as he had so long ago. Wonka was smaller and skinner than he had been in those days, but every now and then Charlie still saw that decisive Wonka spark in his eyes that reminded him that his childhood hero was not so far away after all. "Tell me what you see when you look out the window, Charlie," Wonka said quietly, still hugging the man who used to be a boy in his beloved factory.

"I see a huge factory out there in the distance," Charlie said without looking out the window. He pulled Wonka tighter. "With smokestacks that rise up a hundred stories in the air. It's a brilliant white, Mr. Wonka. It's so beautiful."

"Mr. Bucket? Two minutes until visitation time is over," came a voice over the intercom.

"Is the factory working, Charlie? Do you see smoke coming out?"

"Oh, yes, Mr. Wonka. Big white smoke. It's in full swing. It's churning out the best candies in the world at every hour of the day and shipping them all over the globe to lots of hungry people."

"One minute, Mr. Bucket."

"And who do you see in the windows of the factory, Charlie?"

"I see a man in a red velvet coat. He's holding a cane and wearing a top hat. He's smiling. There's someone standing next to him. A boy. A twelve year old boy. Behind him is his family."

"Tell me about them, Charlie. Please tell me."

"They're the happiest family in the world, Mr. Wonka. You made them that happy. No one can ever change that."

A buzzer sounded over the intercom. The heavy metal door of the cell clicked. It was time to leave.

"Thank you, Charlie," Wonka whispered, pulling Charlie closer. "Thank you, thank you, thank you…"