A/N: I haven't the faintest clue where this idea came from. It's been sitting partially completed in my files for quite some time, and for some reason I got inspired to drag it out and finish it.

I sincerely apologize to all the Catholic readers I may have for any mistakes I made in the details at the end about the procedures for confession. Any errors were certainly unintentional, and were made only because I am not Catholic, and thus am not completely in the know about such things. If you can correct me, please do not hesitate to do so!

Disclaimer: I definitely thought I owned Wicked. Then I woke up.

Close your eyes, for your eyes will only tell the truth,

And the truth isn't what you want to see.

In the dark, it is easy to pretend

That the truth is what it ought to be…

"Music of the Night," Phantom of the Opera

xXxXx

I am a very good liar.

The secret to being a good liar, I've learned, is to be an honest person the vast majority of the time. If people believe you to be trustworthy, they will never suspect that you've lied to them. Even those closest to you can be deceived almost effortlessly; the trick is to employ a lie so rarely and so believably that when you do, it cannot be distinguished among all the truth you otherwise speak.

It isn't hard to lie to others. People are easily taken in by the right tone of voice, the proper expression of the eyes, the perfect tilt of the head. Haven't you ever wondered why children can get away with murder? It's because they just happen to naturally give off the signals we subconsciously look for when deciding whom to trust. In other cases, if one hears a lie enough times, it becomes the truth. After all, what is history except lies that men have agreed upon?

You ask how I can so easily and willingly deceive my fellow human beings. You wonder why it doesn't unsettle my conscience. The answer is surprisingly simple. I have no conscience. You see, when you have no conscience, no soul, as I have none, there is no right or wrong. There can be no question of morality or ethics, no passing judgment on others and no danger of being judged by anyone else. When there is no judgment, who is to say what is the truth and what is a lie?

Of course, having no soul also makes it much easier to lie to myself. In fact, I often reflect that I am the principal victim of my own deceit. Without a soul, that accursed immortal being that most everyone believes all people (and Animals, though I suppose some would argue that point) possess, I cannot give my lies away to myself. If I had a soul, it would be impossible to deceive myself. I am too aware of myself; I would know in an instant that I was hiding something. But, lacking a conscience, I have nothing within myself to watch for those subtle but distinctive signs of a liar. And so I can convince myself of almost anything.

And do I lie to myself often? Oh, more than you can possibly imagine, about things that you could not even begin to guess.

I spent my entire childhood lying to myself, telling myself that somehow, in some way, my father must have loved me. After all, he was my father; and I thought I had heard somewhere that fathers were supposed to love their children. But this was a necessary lie; you must realize that. Had I let myself accept the truth of the situation, I would never have been able to last until I left home for Shiz University without breaking down.

I continued my pattern of habitual self-deception at Shiz where my roommate was concerned. I told myself that I cared nothing for her, for her ceaseless chatter, her wardrobe full of dresses that could easily have passed for top-notch confections in any bakery in Oz, her never-ending quest to prove to herself and to the world that she was important, that she mattered. I think, at first, that I really believed I felt nothing for her. And even after two years as roommates, when I had begun to realize that it might not have been strictly true, I kept up the pretense both to her and to myself because it was easier than admitting the truth. And the time came when I was very glad of it. When I bid her goodbye at the door of the carriage after our disastrous meeting with the Wizard, it was only by reminding myself firmly that she meant nothing to me that I was able to remain emotionless. I could never have left her otherwise.

When I joined the Resistance I found, for the first time in my life, that I did not have to lie to myself. The people I met there didn't care who I was, what I looked like, where I had come from, or what I had done before I came to them. They asked no questions of me, so I was released from the burden of having to deceive them about my past. And familiarity with each other outside of the meetings of our little circle of rebels and anarchists was hardly encouraged. As long as I carried out my designated assignments, no one pestered me to give anything more. I was left alone, which was just the way I liked it. Or so I thought. So I told myself. Until the late summer evening about three months ago when he came back into my life.

I had known him back at Shiz. He had been part of our little group since the day he arrived at the beginning of our second year, but he was always hovering on the edges, never quite fully accepted. We were old friends, as I said to him the day he found me in the Chapel of Saint Glinda and followed me home, but not especially good friends, which was why it seemed odd to me that he should be so eager to renew our acquaintance. And yet, I couldn't deny that he had intrigued me from the moment I first laid eyes on him. I had never known anyone from the Vinkus before, had never met anyone with markings like his blue diamonds. I thought they were beautiful against his dark skin, no matter what anyone else said.

I told him that first night that he could never see me again. I forced myself to believe that I didn't want to see him again. And the vicious cycle of self-deception began anew. Except this time I knew that I was lying to myself when I told myself he didn't matter to me, because I relented enough to allow him to come to my flat a second time. And another time after that. And still another time after that. And in the course of one of these visits, we went from old university pals to lovers in what seemed like the blink of an eye. To this day I haven't the slightest idea how it happened, but I will not say I regret it, because I do not. I never let him see it – and perhaps I even hid it from myself at the time – but I know now that it was the happiest I have ever been.

Of course, being with him was painful, too, in a way. His innocent questions forced me to acknowledge the fact that I had been lying to myself ever since I left Shiz. I was lonely, and there were times I did regret leaving. But I had become so adept at keeping my own lies from myself that I hadn't noticed – or had simply refused to. He filled my emptiness, an emptiness that I had denied existed, and yet somehow made it more acute as well, because I knew that what I had with him could not last. And to protect myself from the pain of this eventual parting, I practiced the biggest self-deception of my life.

I insisted to myself that I did not love him.

How could I love him, I asked myself in an attempt to justify the lie. I've certainly never been shown a great deal of affection from anyone; how could I know that I was even capable of loving someone else, when I had never truly been given love in the first place? And besides, I had no business loving him. He was married, with three children and five willing sisters-in-law; how could I ever hope to compete with them for his affections? No, I had to be content with what I could get, and not expect anything more.

It was this greatest lie of all that finally tipped the scales. For the first time in my life, one of my deceptions became too much for me to maintain, even to myself. And when that one lie crumbled, it brought all the rest of them crashing down around me. It happened at the worst possible moment, too – just as I was preparing to carry out my part in the Resistance's latest mission. That accursed flock of schoolgirls passed directly into my line of fire as I awaited my intended target outside the theater on Lurlinemas Eve, and I simply collapsed. I had been telling myself all these years that nothing done as part of a Resistance campaign could possibly be wrong, but at that moment, all my conceptions of right and wrong seemed to shatter in an instant, leaving me helpless and broken. Not knowing what else to do, I ran.

If only that had been the end of it. But the real nightmare was only just beginning. The scene that greeted me when I returned to my flat above the corn exchange is one that I know will haunt my dreams for the rest of my life no matter how deeply I sleep. The only way I was able to pull myself together enough to get to safety was by telling myself that it was all just a horrible dream, and that sooner or later I was bound to wake up. But once I was tucked away among the community of maunts attached to the Chapel of Saint Glinda, I could no longer deny the truth, no matter how hard I tried. My lover was dead, doomed because of his association with me, and I was left all alone once more.

Now I sit here in the little room that the maunts have been kind enough to let me use, wondering what good all my self-deception has done me. It was intended to shield me from pain. In that regard, it has failed most miserably in its purpose. If anything, in fact, damming up the truth within myself for so long only resulted in me being very nearly drowned beneath the flood of it when the dam broke. And now here I sit, contemplating whether I have the energy and strength of will to lie to myself about one last thing: the child I am carrying.

Many sets of soft footsteps shuffle past my closed door. The sisters of Saint Glinda's are on their way to their Saturday afternoon service, and then to their weekly confession. They used to ask me to join them when I first came – confession is good for the soul, the aged mother of the community once said to me. But of what concern is the good of one's soul to one who has no soul? Now, after weeks of my refusing, they have finally realized that all their invitations and pleas will do no good, and have stopped bothering me.

But even though I do not participate in the archaic and impractical ritual of confession, I know well enough what goes on. I saw it often during my childhood, watching my father administer the rite to the poor Quadlings he so zealously converted. And later my sister used to go every week when we were at Shiz, and often dragged me along with her. The maunts will come one by one to kneel in the small wooden booths that line the walls of the sanctuary, lean close to the small screen on the inside wall, and whisper to the waiting priest the wrongs they have committed against the Unnamed God and against their fellow human beings. This is one of the many reasons why I simply cannot submit myself to religious practices such as this. When a person confesses to a minister, how can they be sure that their confession will reach the ears of whatever deity they choose to make it to?

However, I reflect, even if I have no soul and subscribe to no belief in any god, certainly I have done things that warrant a confession. If nothing else, my many instances of self-deception fit the bill. After all, lying is generally looked upon as a wicked act, or at the very least something to be avoided. I do not know to whom I am speaking, but I find myself almost unconsciously whispering the words that the sisters downstairs are perhaps speaking even now in their confession booths.

"Forgive me, for I have sinned…"

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