A/N: Okay, I am really not sure about this one. It is entirely AU. I'm a Bessa fan, but I've never written anything other than Fiyeraba before. I decided to try this one-shot - what if Boq met up with Nessa the day the tornado was to hit? And they fell in love? Again, I must warn you, AU, so don't ask where Elphaba is, or anything like that. May seem a little unrealistic. I did my best.

Nessa's POV.

Disclaimer: I don't own Wicked.

Lose Your Heart to Me

The sky was blue, the sun was bright, and the birds were singing. And I was walking. Walking for only the third day in my life. But despite all this, I wasn't happy. Nothing was going right. My sister was gone once again, my subjects hated and feared me, and Boq…well, he was gone, too, and I was sure he hated me most of all.

I couldn't blame him. At the moment, I hated myself. I sighed and made my way into Munchkin Square, where the Yellow Brick Road began. The area was empty; the inhabitants had probably all seen me coming and escaped inside.

I was about to head back to the mansion when movement to my left caught my eye and someone stepped out from the shadow of a tree. In disbelief, I recognized Boq – now the Tinman.

"Boq?"

He stepped forward stiffly. "Madame Governess. I wanted to speak to you."

"Yes?" I asked hopefully. He approached me slowly, stopping about two feet away.

"I'm sorry."

"What?"

"I'm sorry for running off like that the other day." He explained.

"You were frightened. It's understandable." I said, wanting to go on but hesitant to say too much.

"My behavior was inexcusable," he said.

"Your behavior? Boq, please stop treating me like your mistress!" I pleaded.

"That's what you are."

"No! No, it's not!"

He paused, and then shook his head. "Never mind. It was stupid of me to come back." He turned away.

I reached forward desperately, grabbing at his arm. "No, Boq, please don't go…" He spun to face me again, and a jagged piece of metal from his arm snagged mine and made a shallow slice across the pale skin. Gasping in surprise and pain, I reached into a pocket quickly for my handkerchief.

"Oh, Nessa, I'm so sorry!" he moaned, taking the cloth from me and gingerly dabbing at the blood running down my arm.

"You-you called me Nessa," I whispered, my eyes brimming with sudden tears.

He looked up, surprised. Then he smiled, his formal manner disappearing rapidly. "I suppose I did. Is...that all right?"

I laughed, a real laugh, for the first time since I could remember. "Of course. Boq, we're...we're friends." The word stuck in my throat.

"I'm never sure what we are anymore…" he mumbled.

I sighed and bit my lip. "Boq…I owe you an apology." I met his gaze. "I never wanted you to be reduced to my servant. I would never have wanted that. I just wanted you to love me like I've always loved you. But I was wrong to force you. I'm sorry, so sorry, for everything that has happened. I know it's not enough, but it's all I can offer you right now."

I wandered away a few paces, taking a seat on one of the stone benches decorating the center gardens. He followed me a moment later, sitting awkwardly beside me.

"I owe you an apology, too," he confessed. "I only invited you to the Ozdust Ballroom that one night because Glinda made me believe it would make me her hero. I'm not blaming any of it on her – I shouldn't have done it, but I was rather obsessed with her at school."

"What do you mean, 'was'? You were leaving me to stop her marrying Fiyero, remember?"

"I remember. When Elphaba turned me into this." He gestured miserably at his tin body.

I swallowed. "It wasn't her fault. She saved you, you would have died otherwise." I twisted my fingers together, forcing myself to continue. "It was my fault."

He shifted, joints squeaking. "How so?" His tone was light but meaningful. This was news to him. Could he possibly have thought it was Elphaba's fault? Of course, I realized, my heart falling, I had meant for him to think that at the time.

"You must have been…distracted at that point, Boq. You told me you were going to leave to go to Glinda, even after Elphaba gave me the power of my legs and I finally thought I was good enough for you...and the spellbook was lying right there…and I wasn't thinking. I cast a spell. It shrunk your heart." My eyes filled with tears of self-loathing as I remembered what I had nearly done to my love. "…you would not have made it if Elphaba hadn't been quick enough to save you."

He stood up quickly, moving away, perhaps afraid of me now. More likely furious. I hid my face in my hands, willing myself not to start weeping right here, where anyone could see. It would never do for the Munchkins to think they had a weak ruler when they all hated me so much. A revolt was not what I needed on my hands.

A sudden shadow over my shoulder made me jump and look up. Boq stood over me.

"Sorry," he muttered guiltily.

"Do you hate me?" I blurted suddenly.

He flinched. "…no."

"No?"

"I rather think not." He shook his head, retaking the seat beside me.

"How could you not?" I asked quietly. "I hate myself for what I did to you."

"And I hate myself for leading you on," he admitted. "But do you hate me?"

The question was ridiculous. "No!"

"Then we're even."

We sat in silence for a moment. Then I stood.

"You should go," I said stiffly, "Go to Glinda, Boq. Please. I am sorry for all the pain I've caused you and the other Munchkins. I'm going to do my best to start over. You have my word, if that's still worth anything." I started back toward the governor's mansion.

"Nessa, wait!" He caught up to me. "I…I don't want to go to Glinda."

I whirled, shocked. "What?"

He paused. "I…I've changed, Nessarose. And she has, too."

"How do you know?"

"You read the papers, don't you? Listen to the gossip?"

I shook my head. "Not really…"

"Well, you should. If you did, you'd see Glinda is hardly the blonde she was back at Shiz. She's really thriving as a politician. And I've changed as well. Grown up. I had a schoolboy crush on Galinda, but now that she's just Glinda…well, we've come a long way since Shiz."

"But you wanted to go find her just a few days ago!" I protested disbelievingly.

He nodded. "I know. But…well, I didn't, not really. I've known for some time that I no longer cared about Glinda that way. The first sign was that I lost interest in knowing where she was at every minute of the day. I pretended to want to go to Glinda because I wanted to leave." His eyes dropped uncomfortably. "You…you're not the way you used to be, Nessa. Or you weren't up until now. The Munchkins are my people, and to see them abused so…I thought I could get away and maybe get the Wizard to help us. If I had known what your reaction was going to be…well, I really did think you wouldn't care if I left. I suppose I believed you only wanted me with you because you relied on me. I never realized you still felt so strongly."

"I wanted you to stay with me," I said shakily. "I knew you didn't love me, not the way I loved you, and I was afraid of you leaving. I thought if I could walk, maybe you would think differently about me..."

He moved closer. "Nessa…I…I think…I think I do."

"Do what?"

"Think differently about you. Not because you can walk, but because…because you're Nessa again." He moved his hand to the small of my back, and despite the fact that he was tin and therefore it could hardly have been less sensuous, I felt a thrill run through me from my head to my toes.

"You don't have a heart, how can you feel?" I protested weakly.

"I don't need a heart to feel, Nessa," he chided me.

"But how can I be sure? How do I know you're not simply telling me this to make me feel better? We've had years, Boq, and all the time you looked away from me and longingly at Glinda...Galinda, whichever it is."

"Maybe I was blind to what was right in front of me. What I already had. I was stupid. You-you really are beautiful, Nessa. With or without legs."

My heart fluttered, but I shook my head, and moved away, breaking our contact. "Please don't lie to me."

"It's not lying-" he began, but he didn't get to finish because all of a sudden the sky grew incredibly dark for early afternoon, and the wind picked up. Fast.

"What's going on?" I shouted.

"I don't know!" he looked as surprised as I felt. "I think – it's a cyclone! Nessa, we need to get to shelter!"

The words had barely escaped his mouth when something came rushing down from the sky. I was frozen in place, mouth open. A house. Coming right towards me. I was going to be squished by a flying house. I shut my eyes, willing death to come on impact.

Something shoved into me, knocking me out of the way, and then there was a loud, earth-shaking crash, the ear-splitting screech of metal, and silence. The wind was gone as suddenly as it had come.

I froze for a moment, waiting for the pain. There was none. Was I dead? Cautiously, I opened my eyes. No. I was sprawled on the Yellow Brick Road, and other than a few dull aches caused by my fall, completely unharmed. Realization dawned, and I spun around. The house had settled on the grass several feet behind me, precisely where I had been standing seconds before. The bottom half was crunched from the force of impact.

Boq.

"Boq!" I screeched, flinging myself at the wreckage. "Boq!" I scrabbled uselessly at the planks.

There was a creak, and I started as the front door of the house opened. A little girl dressed in a blue gingham dress and clutching a basket stepped out. A little black dog yipped at her heels. She looked astonished by her surroundings.

"You!" I croaked. She noticed me for the first time, and looked rather frightened as I advanced on her. "What have you done!?"

She stuttered, blue eyes wide. "I-I-I…I don't know, ma'am. What do you mean?"

"You landed your house right on top of someone!" I shouted.

Her eyes were wide as saucers now as she surveyed the damage her house had caused. "I-I-I…I'm very sorry, ma'am, but I don't even know how I'm here. I'm from Kansas, you see, and a twister just lifted Toto – that's my dog – and me up in the farmhouse, and we landed here. Where is here, by the way?"

"You're in Oz," I said shortly, and dropped to my knees beside the house once again. It wasn't the child's fault – her confusion was real. But it didn't help the situation.

Other Munchkins were beginning to come out of their houses now, to see what all the noise had been. When they saw the crashed house and the little girl, whispers broke out immediately. The girl looked even more surprised to seem them than they were to see her – perhaps there were no little people in Kanso, or wherever it was she was from.

"My lady?" I looked up. Bitsy, one of the maids from the mansion, was at my side now. She had always been timid, probably scared of me, but she wasn't one of the flighty ones, for which I was grateful at a time like this.

"Bitsy-" I managed, for the tears were beginning to flow. "Bitsy, the house – it fell on him."

"Who, Madame Governess?"

"Boq!" I choked. Bitsy's eyes widened. She knew who Boq was – in fact, they were second cousins or something of the sort. "Except – except he's a tinman now, so he can't be dead, he can't die, so he's somewhere under there, but he might be in pain (if he can feel pain), and I need to get the house off of him, and I need Glinda, and…" I was aware that I was blubbering incomprehensibly, and that was everyone was watching.

Bitsy crouched beside me, putting an arm around my shoulders. Someone handed her a glass of water, and she offered it to me. I downed it in one gulp.

"All right, Madame, calm down. Shh, it's going to be all right. We can move the house." She spoke calmly and kindly, and I wondered vaguely if she had had practice with this. "Now, what should we do with the little girl?"

"I don't care!" I muttered sourly. "Get someone to find out her name, give her something to eat, I don't care! Just find some way to get Glinda the Good here!"

"No need," a smooth voice came from behind. "I'm here."

I jumped up and turned. Glinda stood there, glittering in a powdery blue dress and tiara, fingering a long wand in her left hand. She smiled sadly at me. I had never been happier to see her. I flew into her arms.

"G-Glinda!" I howled into her shoulder.

"It's all right, Nessa, I'm here," she murmured, rubbing my back.

"The house – it fell on him…" I managed, stepping back and sniffling. "Boq, I mean. It came out of nowhere. He pushed me out of the way, and it fell on him. He's still alive under there, I'm sure of it!"

Her smile was a little too understanding. "Nessa, if a house fell on him, don't you think he's probably…"

"No," I said firmly. "He can't be." And in a hushed voice so no one else could hear, I told her what had transpired at the mansion a few days previously. "…So he's a tinman. He can't die. Please, can't you get the house off him?"

She was doubtful. "I can try. You must understand, sorcery is not my strong point." At my pleading look, she relented. "I'll do my best." She raised her voice. "Everyone, please stand back!" As one, the others backed away.

She lifted her wand and waved it, shutting her eyes and concentrating hard. I thought I heard her murmuring beneath her breath. The house shifted, and then with a great groan it slowly lifted into the air. It moved slowly aside, a foot or so off the ground. It wavered so much I was afraid it was going to fall – I was sure Glinda had never done magic of this magnitude before. When the house was free of the wreckage site, it thumped back down and crumbled apart.

I ran forward. And there he was, his tin body crumpled and twisted among the wreckage of what appeared to have been a bed.

"Boq!" I exclaimed, dropping to the ground beside him.

"N-Nessa?" The word came slowly, dully. Considering the condition his face was in, I was surprised he could speak at all.

"Does it hurt?" I asked tenderly.

"No," he murmured.

"You saved me," I said wonderingly.

"I would never let you die, Nessa. I love you."

"What?"

"You heard me…I love you."

The tears began to fall, fast and heavy. "I love you, too…"

"I just wish – I just wish I could have realized it when I was still human. If I had only…"

"It isn't too late, Boq."

We both looked up. Glinda smiled down at us.

"Glinda," Boq whispered. "You got my name right."

"Yes." Her smile was dazzling. "As I said, it isn't too late."

"What can we do? Elphaba said spells are irreversible." I pointed out.

"In most cases, they are. But I think there may be a way around this particular predicament. Consider why you cast the first spell, Nessa. What did you tell me?"

"I…I wanted Boq to lose his heart to me…" I mused.

"I did," Boq rasped suddenly. "I love you, Nessa. I've lost my heart to you."

Glinda nodded. "Boq lacks a heart, Nessa. If it weren't for a heart, he could be human again."

"He has mine," I whispered, taking Boq's hand. "He can have it. I don't mind." I leaned forward and brushed my lips across the twisted tin face. He made a sound in his throat and closed his eyes tightly. I knew he was trying to imagine my touch.

Glinda was chanting softly, but that awareness was pushed to the back of my mind as something pulled at my chest. I gasped and squeezed Boq's hand tighter as I struggled for air. It didn't exactly hurt – but it wasn't a comforting feeling.

"Glinda? What are you doing to her?" Boq panicked, struggling to move despite his broken body. "Stop!"

Glinda's voice trailed off. My heart was my own once again, but I was filled with a new feeling…a connection. I opened my watering eyes – and stared into Boq's blue. The hand clutching my own shifted form, becoming flesh and bone. Before my eyes, Boq ceased to be a tin man, and became a Munchkin once more.

He sat up, stared incredulously down at his body. Then his elated grin found me. "Nessa!" He pulled me to him, pressing his lips against mine. I responded with enthusiasm. Delighted, we stood, clasping hands, and turned to Glinda.

"How…?"

She smiled. "All I had to do was nudge the spell along. The two of you did the rest. The most powerful...power...in the world is love. As long as love is true, much can be altered."

"That's so cliche," Boq muttered. I squeezed his hand.

Glinda went on. "I must warn you, this is a delicate matter. I have made you human once more, Boq, only by giving you half of Nessa's heart. That does not matter – one doesn't need a heart, much less a whole one, to love. But you two are now connected, and cannot live without one another. If one of you dies, the other will die. You cannot fall out of love, because you can't afford heartbreak. Such a balance can easily be tipped over the edge."

"It doesn't matter, Glinda," I said, hugging her. "You have done us both a great favor. Thank you."

"I'll never forget this," Boq said, embracing her as well.

My eyes found the house wreckage, and the little girl and her dog. "What about them?" I asked.

"Don't worry about Dorothy – that's her name – and Dodo. I'll take care of getting them back where they came from." Glinda reassured me. "You two…enjoy yourselves."

"We will," Boq said, putting an arm around my waist.

I smiled up at him. "Yes, we will."

A/N: So...yeah. Definitely AU, right? Would completely alter Wicked and The Wizard of Oz. Mostly just supposed to be a Bessa thing, not to agree with or further already-established plots. Flames are not welcome, but kind suggestions are - I think I bit off a little more than I can chew with this one. Review?