Disclaimer: I don't own anything. All credits for WICKED go to Gregory Maguire, Stephen Schwartz. I own the plot, the idea, nothing else.
Thanks to Meltalviel for betareading.
Thoughts under the trapdoor
Everything had went according to their plan.
Dorothy had dumped a bucket of water over the Wicked Witch who had melted the same instant. The Wicked Witch of the West was dead! All was well again in Oz. The enemy was out of the picture – dead.
Now Elphaba – the Wicked Witch of the West – was waiting in Kiamo Ko, hidden under a trapdoor.
She didn't know how long she had been hidden already. She just had to be patient for once in her life.
Elphaba sighed as she got more comfortable in her so called prison. She let her thoughts drift back to the past. Once she had been sure that some day there would be a celebration throughout Oz that was all to do with her.
The day finally arrived.
Oz was celebrating the death of the Wicked Witch, her death.
"Yeah, the witch is dead," she muttered.
When she closed her eyes, she could still hear the scream. Every time she closed her eyes, it was there. It had been a loud and piercing scream. One she had never heard before in her whole life. It had been her own scream. Screaming her pain and her feelings out in the open.
At this moment she felt the fear, the troubled childhood and the pain again.
She was transported back in her childhood, her younger years, her time at Shiz.
She really heard the taunting voices:
"You green freak."
"The artichoke is steamed."
"Kill the witch."
"You are wicked."
"It's your fault. Your fault that your mother is dead. That your sister can't walk."
Elphaba flinched. The voices sounded as if they were really there, under the trapdoor
She had always hoped that one day the pain would go away. But it never happened. It always came back to her. There always was someone hurting her, if not her father then another person.
It hurt.
The pain was too much. She just wanted to die.
She needed someone to take her pain away. She needed Fiyero, the man she loved.
But on the other hand, what would happen if Fiyero wouldn't make it back?
Maybe she would be in here forever. Maybe until she died.
Maybe she would never be able to see his beautiful face, his smile, his sparkling eyes again.
The day she thought that she had lost him she had lost herself too. The day she thought that he had died she had died too.
It had been like her heart and soul had died but her body was still alive.
She hadn't been able to feel anything. Her heart had been lonely, her soul darkened. Every fiber in her body had been screaming.
Yes, maybe dying would be a good idea after all.
She wasn't sure if she should go on. A life like this. A life in hiding. They would never be able to go back to the Emerald City, the Vinkus or other places in Oz. Yes, death sounded wonderful. Maybe…
And then a knock on the trapdoor interrupted her thoughts.
"It worked."
She heard a voice.
Fiyero.
And then a light shown down the door as he opened it and let her climb out.
"Fiyero! I thought you'd never get here. "
She was shocked as she realized that he wasn't a man anymore. He was a scarecrow. It was her doing. Her spell that had transformed him – the one she loved – into a scarecrow.
And she tried not to cry as tears filled her eyes. She bit her lower lip to prevent from crying.
"Go ahead, touch, I don't mind. Ah, you did the best you could. You saved my life."
"You're still beautiful."
"You don't have to lie to me."
"It's not lying... its looking at things another way."
Fiyero smiled at her. A scarecrow could smile after all.
"I love you." He told her.
"Right" Elphaba said in a voice stating that she clearly did not believe that.
"I do," Fiyero insisted, "I love you, Elphaba Thropp".
Elphaba buried her face in his shoulder. Fiyero stroked her back to calm her and planted a kiss on the top of her head.
His reaction, his words, had been too much for her. She had waited too long for this moment, for someone to love her, and now she was crying in his arms.
She had never felt loved before and now she had him. He had shown her that he wanted eternity, that he wanted her.
"I always wondered about this, about being loved." Elphaba said as she lifted his head to look into his eyes.
"You don't have to wonder anymore," he whispered as he captured her mouth in a passionate kiss.
This kiss was long and loving, and it had shades of the future written all over it. A happy future. A future together.
It wasn't a future for the Wicked Witch and the Scarecrow, but a future for Elphaba and Fiyero.
TBC