A/N - I went out on a limb today to write this today. It's been floating around in my head ever since March, so I finally had to write it. Tell me if you like it or nay, because I'm not going to waste my time on something that people won't read. Also, the title "Just Jump In" comes from the song "Let Go" by Frou Frou. So yea.

Prologue-

For years now, Elphaba Thropp had been having the same dream. It had haunted ever since she was eight years old, and she was sure she was going to lose her mind if she had it one more time. She hadn't always been the scapegoat - of course, she had never been exactly…well, loved. But never the scapegoat. That is, until Nessarose was born.

'Pain. Was she really able to hear it? Yes. The sound of a tremendous, hideous, shudder some sound of Pain filled the room. Elphaba was frightened. She wasn't sure why, though. Her mother would be fine, she told herself. She'd heard women give birth before, but had their screams ever been so horrible? Elphaba didn't think so, so she locked herself in her room, trying to block out the sounds of her mother's screams of pain.'

Elphaba sat up in her bed. Confused, she looked around. Where was she? This wasn't her room. The splay of golden girls shining in the white moonlight answered her question. Shiz. She was at Shiz. A college for conformist prejudice students. Of which Elphaba was not.

'"Where's Mama, Papa?" little Elphaba asked. She was frightened for her mother now. Once the screams had stopped, the green girl's blood ran cold. Something was wrong, and Elphaba knew it.

"Fabla," he said quietly, "sit. You have a new sister. Her name is Nessarose."

"Papa, you don't sound happy. What's wrong?" Elphaba tried to appear unfazed. But her worry was beginning to show through on her sharp green features.

"Fabala…" His voice trailed off. Was he not able to say more? Why, though? Why? "Your mother is dead." Frex dropped his head to his breast. Elphaba could see that tears were beginning to fill the folds in his eyes. Elphaba gently reached out to wipe them away, despite her intolerance to water. The tears burned her fingers, but she hardly noticed it. A part of her had died with her mother.'

From then on out, everything was her fault. Everything.

The early morning sun rose slowly. A euphoric ball of burning tragedies - at least, that's how Elphaba saw it. She watched it rise, the sky lightening with each passing second. She stood, stretching her long green legs from beneath the crisp sheets. She grimaced at them, how she hated them.

Walking to the window, Elphaba noticed a smattering of people. She looked to the old clock that stood lonely in the courtyards: five-thirty in the morning. She shook her head, her ebony hair whirling back behind her. People obviously didn't not understand the concept of sleeping in. Then again, Elphaba had classes that day, and had somehow had managed to fall asleep doing her homework. It baffled even her.

She shrugged and pulled herself away from the window. She didn't really care what was going on - probably some frat party gone wrong. Served them right. Besides, blonde bubbly Galindy would be awakening and would probably be expecting a serenade from Elphaba. The green girl rolled her eyes at the thought - No matter how plausible.

She heard a small, lady-like yawn from where she stood, and Elphaba watched as Galinda stretched and popped out of her bed, her blonde curls immediately bouncing into their place.

Elphaba shook her head at her eerie beauty.

"Good morning, Miss Elphaba," the small Gilikinese said to her.

Elphaba presumed that it was one of Galinda's good days - there were days when she would completely ignore Elphaba, and days when she would be remotely friendly to her. Elphaba wasn't sure which one she liked best.

"Are you so sure about that, Miss Galinda?" Asked the emerald girl, always the pessimist. And Galinda pointed it out.

"Why so pessimistic?"

Elphaba nodded to the window. "I think someone's been shot. Or, at least brutally wounded. The radicals are starting their protest against The Wizard sooner than anticipated. I'll join with them and become a vegan," she said dryly, pulling out a plain skirt and blouse.

Galinda grimaced at Elphaba's choice in clothing. "Goodness, Miss Elphaba. You're sooo depressing. Can't you ever put a little color into your outfits? And why so-"

"Stop there. Am I not already colorful enough, Galindy?"

"Please don't call me Galindy, it makes me feel soo…Um…."

"I'm not even going to put in the list of adjectives I have, alright?" Elphaba said, pulling on her skirt and adjusting it to fit her thin frame.

Galinda nodded and began to shift through her closet, deciding on which poof-ball dress of hers to wear for the day. "We have life sciences today, don't we?" she asked, flinging a powder-blue dress to the floor. Elphaba watched as it floated down gently.

"Yes, we do. we've been here long enough for you to know our schedule by now, don't you think, Miss Galinda?"

Galinda blushed as she tossed a light green dress over the bed. "Well, my memory isn't as superior as yours, so I'm sorry!"

Elphaba shook her narrow head and began to pick up Galinda's dresses. After all, Elphaba had the time that Galinda wasted on making herself more beautiful than she already was.

Elphaba was envious of her.

"Elphaba," Galinda said, ignoring the formality of 'Miss', "why don't you wear some form of makeup? I've got some face powder you can-" She looked at Elphaba's face, remembering that she was green. "Nevermind."

Elphaba had to hold in a snort. "Yes, never mind. Why don't you stop focusing on your already perfect hair and already perfect face to actually apply yourself? This is college, Galindy," said Elphaba, looking pointedly at Galinda's open book and blank papers.

Galinda only glared. "You're cruel," she said.

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Galinda wandered off to be with her pseudo-friends, and Elphaba, eyes locked on the back wall, avoiding any human contact, walked to the back to sit alone. Which was how she liked it. She sat at the top, and opened her life sciences textbook to the last two questions she had forgotten to complete.

"Good morning, Miss Elphaba," said Boq, sitting down next to her.

"So I hear," she said dryly. "How is that no matter where I go, you find me?"

"Intuition, I guess," he replied, shrugging his shoulders.

"Of course."

Nikidik entered, and Elphaba found herself glaring at him as he took his place at the front of the room. Who cared if he couldn't see her? That wasn't the point. No one, much less he, could take the place of Dr. Dillamond. And Elphaba thought that he knew it.

"He looks a little insecure up there, doesn't he, Master Boq?" she asked him, practically petitioning.

Boq studied Nikidik for a moment. "Slightly. But you're just mad about the Dr. Dillamond ordeal, Elphaba."

"Yes, and he's a bad teacher."

"Oh, what are those?" Boq asked, leaning forward to see what Nikidk was holding in his hands.

Elphaba squinted, not all that interested. He held a shiny pair of antlers, bleached and glittering like the morning sun. "I wouldn't be surprised if those are Animal antlers," Elphaba pointed out. She looked at Boq. "Boq! Did you hear what I said?"

"Yes, Miss Elphaba, I did. I just choose to ignore it." He turned and smiled at her. She rolled her eyes and shook her head, sticking her quill behind her ear and leaning back against the wall.

"Yawn," she said, closing her eyes. "Wake me if anything interesting happens."

"Well, have a nice sleep, Miss Elphaba, because I doubt anything interesting will happen. I don't even think that Nikidik knows that he's holding those antlers," said Boq, nodding to where Nikidik was waving the antlers around. "I hope he doesn't hit his head."

"Why?"

"You're so spiteful."

"Goodnight, Master Boq."

"What's Nikidik doing with those antlers now? Wait, I think that they're magicked!"

"How riveting," replied Elphaba, completely without interest.

Boq clutched Elphaba's hand tightly and whispered, "Look! A Winkie!"

And so it seemed, a student from the Vinkus, in strange ceremonial garb, coming late for class, opening the wrong door, confused and apologetic, but the door had shut behind him and locked from this side, and there were no nearby seats available in the front rows. So he dropped where he was and sat with his back against the door, hoping, no doubt, to look inconspicuous.

The antlers suddenly took a convulsive twist on the wall, and wrenched themselves out of the oaken paneling. They tumbled and clattered to the floor, to the shrieking and laughing of the students, especially because for a minute Doctor Nikidik didn't know what the uproar was about. He turned around in time to see the antlers right themselves and wait, quivering, twitching, on the dais, like a fighting cock all nastied up and ready to go into the ring.

The antlers stood on their points and skittered, crablike, across the stage. As the students rose in a common scream, the antlers scrabbled up the body of the Vinkus boy and pinned him against the locked door. One wing of the rack caught him by the neck, shackling him in its V yoke and the other reared back in the air to stab him in the face.

Doctor Nikidik tried to move fast, and fell to his arthritic knees, but before he could right himself two boys were up on the stage, out of the front row, grabbing the antlers and wrestling them to the ground. "That's Crope and Tibbett!" said Boq, jouncing Elphaba in the shoulder, "Look!" At last they succeeded in breaking off one driving tine, then another, and the pieces, still twitching, fell to the stage floor without further momentum.

"Oh the poor guy," said Boq, for the Vinkus student had slumped down and was volubly weeping behind his blue-diamonded hands. "I never saw a student from the Vinkus before. What an awful welcome to Shiz."

"All welcomes are awful welcomes when you're being welcomed to Shiz," replied Elphaba, now leaning forward to watch the Winkie. She found him sort of intriguing - behind his barbaric-looking attire. "I wonder what he's doing here, entering now and all."

"Since when do you care, Elphaba?"

"Since never, Boq. I'm just being curious. Is that all right with you?"

Boq put his hands up in a mock surrender. "Yes, yes, it's fine. Really, it's fine. Just strange, that's all."

"Whatever," said Elphaba, watching as Nikidik apologized to the new student. He helped him away from the antlers that lay still on the ground, and pointed up to a seat a couple of rows away from the front. After all he had just been through, Elphaba couldn't imagine why he'd want to sit up front anyway.

As the Winkie walked up, his intense sapphire eyes met with Elphaba's. Her breath caught in her throat, and she could not pull her eyes away.

And so it had begun.

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