Disclaimer: I own nothing from Wicked except the soundtrack and the ability to look up everything I can about it on the Internet.

Title: Your life could end up changing.

Rating: PG – 13/T

Warnings: Alternate universe. Alternate ending. Based entirely on the original Broadway cast/soundtrack and an online transcript of the show.

Pairings: When I know you'll know.

Summary: Alternate ending. What if Elphaba didn't get invited to the Emerald City straight after I'm Not That Girl?

Author's note: The first chapter is only my interpretation of the classroom scene leading up to the song. The alternate ending events begin in chapter two.

Chapter One

Elphaba stood in the History classroom; she dressed in an outfit that Galinda had talked her into wearing and trying to flip her hair when she noticed Fiyero Tiggular looking at her.

What does he want? She wondered as she blushed, though it wasn't noticeable, put her hands on her hips and said:

"What?"

"Nothing, it's just... you've been "Galinda-fied". You don't have to do that, you know?"

Well what would he know? I heard him when I went into the ballroom; he's just like everyone else!

She was about to reply sarcastically when Doctor Dillamond entered the classroom.

"All right, take your seats class!"

She sat in the back row and, with a quick glance at Fiyero who was now ignoring her, removed the bright pink flower from her hair as Doctor Dillamond continued talking.

"I have something to say, and very little time to say it. This is my last day here at Shiz I am no longer permitted to teach."

"What?" exclaimed Elphaba, standing up in shock. How can he be leaving? 'Not permitted to teach', just like that!

"Please Miss Elphaba." The Goat said wearily then continued. "I want to thank you for your sharing your enthusiasm, your essays, no matter how feebly structured, and even, on occasion, your lunch."

This is wrong! Why isn't anyone doing something? How can Madame Morrible permit this?

At that very moment Madame Morrible rushed into the room and addressed the Professor.

"Doctor Dillamond! I'm so dreadfully sorry."

Surely she can do something!

"Madame. You can't permit this!" Protested Elphaba loudly.

"Miss Elphaba, don't worry about me." said the Goat in a reassuring tone. "They can take away my job, but I shall continue speaking out."

Two strange men in long coats entered the room and grabbed the Goat to lead him away.

"Come on, goat..."

"They are not telling you the whole story! Remember that, class!"

"Doctor Dillamond!" shouted Elphaba, but she was the only one who made any kind of protest. She looked at Madame Morrible who seemed to be doing nothing about it, and in fact looked like she was entirely unconcerned.

Surely if we all do something…but no one is, they're all just sitting there!

She looked around the class in disgust and verbalised her thoughts.

"Well, are we all just going to sit here? In silence?"

"I'm afraid, there is nothing else we can do, my dear." Said Madame Morrible in what was intended to be a soothing tone. " Please, please, take your seat."

By the time the fuming green girl sat down a new Professor had entered the room with a wheeled table and begun speaking.

"Good afternoon, students! More and more every day, with every tick of the Time Dragon Clock, in every corner of our great Oz, one hears the silence of progress. For example: this is called a cage!"

He pulled the cloth off the 'cage' to reveal a lion cub, causing the class to gasp in surprise.

A 'cage'? It looks like a metal box, the poor baby he looks far too young to be away from his mother…he must be a Lion, there are no wild lions near Shiz! How can Madame let him bring a helpless baby Animal in here!

"Now, we will be seeing more and more of them in the near future. This remarkable innovation is actually…"

He tapped the cage in two different places with a pair of tongs or the like.

"…For the Animal's own good..."

The Lion cub was trembling and cringing away from the man.

"Hey!" yelled Elphaba, standing up in outrage. "If it's for his own good, why is he trembling?"

"He's excited to be here, that's all."

Elphaba started to turn to her seat when he hit the cage again, she winced and wanted to protest again but she couldn't think of anything else to say so she returned to her seat.

"Now, as I was saying, one of the benefits of caging a Lion cub this young is that he will never, in fact, learn how to speak."

"Oh no!" exclaimed Elphaba, turning for some reason, to face Fiyero.

"That's right! Come closer!"

This is dreadful - he can't be serious!

Everyone in the class, except Fiyero and Elphaba, went to look at the cage. The pair of them stood up and Elphaba exclaimed:

"Can you imagine a world where Animals are kept in cages? And they never speak?"

She rolled her eyes as Fiyero shrugged indifferently.

"Now, he may seem a bit agitated." Said the man in the background.

"What should we do?" said Elphaba urgently, speaking more to herself than Fiyero.

"We?" repeated Fiyero staring at her in bemused amazement.

Why doesn't he care? She wondered, getting angrier and angrier. Why doesn't anyone care?

"Well, somebody has to..." she turned around to face the class and shouted. " Do something!"

She felt an uncontrollable surge of the power she had been trying so hard to learn how to restrain over the past months at Shiz then sparks flew through the air and the people, except Elphaba and Fiyero, began moving around uncontrollably as if they were dancing.

"What's happening?" demanded Fiyero.

"I don't know!" replied Elphaba. "I got mad...and..." she threw her arms up in the air and the people started moving again.

"Uhh…all right just don't move!" he half shouted, holding his hands out in front of him. "And don't get mad at me!"

I am mad at him, why didn't the spell affect him as well?

Elphaba watched, frozen in shock by what she had done and his actions, as he ran and grabbed the cage then yelled out to her as he ran past, towards the door.

"Well are you coming?"

Shaken out of her retrospection Elphaba ran out of the classroom with him then led the way through the back passages of the university to the back door and then a large green area under a bridge in Shiz City.

"Careful!" she scolded Fiyero because it was the only thing she could think of to say.

"What?"

"Don't shake him!"

"I'm not!" protested Fiyero as she took the cage from him and put it on the ground.

What am I doing? She wondered in the privacy of her mind as she continued to lecture the Prince.

"We can't just let him loose anywhere, you know. We have to find someplace safe..."

"I realise that. You think I am really stupid don't you?" he exclaimed, gesturing towards her with one hand, Elphaba made a dismissive gesture as she looked around for somewhere to take the cub and said exactly what she was thinking.

"No, not really stupid."

"Why is it that every time I see you you're causing some sort of commotion?" He emphasised his point by wiggling his fingers at her.

What the whole one time he's seen me before today?

"I don't cause commotions!" protested Elphaba, walking towards him frowning. "I am one!"

"That's for sure."

Why the nerve of this…this stupid man!

"Oh! So you think I should just keep my mouth shut! Is that what you're saying?"

"No, I'm saying…"

"Do you think I want to be this way? Do you think I want to care this much? Do you think I don't know…"

"All I meant was…"

"…how much easier my life would be if I didn't?"

"Do you ever let anyone else talk?"

"Oh, sorry..."

He opened his mouth to start talking and she interrupted.

"But can I just say one more thing?"

Maybe I shouldn't point this out…but I want to know!

She hesitated as he gestured for her to continue having realised he wasn't going to get a word in until she was done. She pointed back towards the university and said.

"You could have just walked away, back there."

"So?"

That's all he has to say? Ha!

"So, no matter how shallow and self-absorbed you pretend to be..."

"Excuse me, there's no pretence here. I happen to be genuinely self-absorbed and deeply shallow."

"No you're not..."

He shrugged at her rebuttal.

"…Or you wouldn't be so unhappy."

Sweet Oz! What made me say that, I mean I noticed it but I didn't mean to say it!

"Ha, all right, fine, you don't want my help..."

Fiyero started to walk away and, without thinking, Elphaba grabbed his hand to stop him.

"No, I do!"

Both of them stopped completely still when they realised what she was doing, Elphaba let go and quickly knelt down next to the Lion cub.

"His heart is pounding…I didn't mean to frighten him."

Oh why can't I do anything right? I was trying to help!

Fiyero knelt down next to her and asked a question that had been bothering him since it happened.

"What did you mean to do? Why was I the only one you didn't do it to?"

What can I say to that? WonderedElphaba as she turned to answer him. She gasped when she saw a cut on his face.

"You're bleeding!"

"I am?"

She pointed to his face with an expression of genuine concern.

"It must have scratched you!" she told him, feeling guilty for getting him involved even though she knew, logically, that he had chosen to help her.

"Yeah... or maybe it scratched me...or something"

Elphaba leaned over and ran her hand over the cut carefully, Fiyero jerked his head away and stood up stammering.

"I'd better get to safety... I mean the cub..."

"Yes of course!"

Look what you've done now, Elphaba, scared him away!

"Get the cub to safety!"

He tried to walk to the cage and nearly crashed into Elphaba trying to get out of his way.

"Sorry." They both murmured apologies as she moved out of the way then he picked up the cage and left

"Fiyero!" She called his name just as he disappeared from sight.

He didn't hear me…or he didn't want to. It hardly matters which it was, at least he was willing to help even if it was just because I intimidated him. Cursed magic why did it have to be today that something happened? I thought I was doing so well in my lessons and then this!

Elphaba tried to distract herself with different thoughts; wondering where Fiyero would take the cub, what Madame Morrible would say when Elphaba got back, if she would even be allowed to study at Shiz any longer, what if Madame Morrible told her father what had happened, what would Nessa say when she found out what had happened while she wasn't in class, what Galinda was going to say – it seemed unlikely she would be interested in being friends anymore.

In the end it all boiled down to one thought, indirectly related to Fiyero:

Why couldn't I be the beautiful one?

She closed her eyes and remembered the way it felt when she held Fiyero's hand in hers, before he pulled away then she imagined him looking at her, not as the strange green girl, the way he looked at Galinda.

Hands touch, eyes meet,

Sudden silence, sudden heat,

Hearts leap in a giddy whirl.

He could be that boy,

But I'm not that girl.

Elphaba stared longingly in the direction Fiyero had gone, wondering briefly where he was taking the cub, and lamenting the fact that he had gone, gone back to his friends and to Galinda.

She brushed an errant strand of hair out of her face and found herself imagining that it was Fiyero's warm hand brushing over her cool skin. She shivered involuntarily then dropped her hand to her side she couldn't, she wouldn't, allow herself that…not even in the privacy of her mind.

You're dreaming, anyway, you stupid girl! Look at the way he reacted when you just touched his face for a moment. How can you imagine that he would want to touch you?

Don't dream too far,

Don't lose sight of who you are.

Who am I? The daughter of the current Governor of Munchkinland, the sister of the future Governor. An outcast, an aberration, a freak! She made herself look at her hands, her bright green skin, the thing that set her so far apart everyone else. He deserves better than this. He deserves her!

Don't remember that rush of joy.

He could be that boy,

I'm not that girl.

Every so often we long to steal,

To the land of what-might-have-been.

But that doesn't soften the ache we feel,

When reality sets back in.

If only she'd been born normal, a Governor's daughter would hold the same rank as a Prince if she were in line to inherit the position. If only her father could have seen past her differences and treated her as he would any other firstborn child instead of making her an outcast in her own family. If only Fiyero was someone who could love her, if only anyone could love her! If only she was someone who could dare to even consider loving him.

Harsh reality pulled her back from that place. Reality: she was different, she would always be different, there was no way to change what she was, and she had to accept that.

It's quite simple, really, you stupid girl. Galinda is perfect for him; he's perfect for her. They've found everything they want in each other and nothing you could do will change that so why try? After all you're you and Galinda is…Galinda is beautiful.

Blithe smile, lithe limb,

She who's winsome, she wins him.

Gold hair with a gentle curl,

That's the girl he chose.

And heaven knows,

I'm not that girl.

The sounds of footsteps on the bridge above her made her look up to see Fiyero and Galinda walking together.

I didn't think I'd been here so long!

She bolted under the bridge in the hope that neither of them would see her. There was a dull boom of distant thunder and the sound of muffled words, Galinda trying to coax him into doing something perhaps?

Thinking the pair had moved on, she heard their footsteps heading n the opposite direction, Elphaba stepped out from under the bridge and looked up to see Fiyero staring straight back at her. Galinda obviously didn't look back or she would have called out to the girl and Fiyero said nothing as Galinda pulled him out of sight.

The earlier "If only's" filled her mind again and Elphaba found herself wiping away a trickle of moisture from her cheek before she even realised she was crying. The tears burned like fire in all her life she'd never cried over anything that hurt quite as much as having something she'd always know, but tried to ignore, so brutally reiterated to her.

Don't wish. Don't start.

Wishing only wounds the heart.

I wasn't born for the rose and the pearl.

There's a girl I know,

He loves her so.

I'm not that girl.