A/N: Second chapter up, ladies and gents! Read, review, and enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Wicked, and to be brutally honest, I wouldn't know what to do with it if I did.

The cart stopped in a town several miles southwest of the governor's mansion; as the driver strolled off to chat with the shopkeeper he was offloading to, the back of the cart stirred, and a horribly mangled shape tumbled out from under the cover and crashed to the ground with a muffled yelp of pain.

Across the road, two men sitting outside the local tavern looked up from their beers just in time to see it awkwardly hauling itself upright. The creature was dressed in the bloodied remains of a tunic and trousers; later on, the men would say to the guards that "they looked ripped 'n burst, too, like it'd grown while wearin' 'em."

Neither of them could get a good look at its face, but one of them did mention that the upper right-hand side of the thing's head looked "kinda silvery." Another witness- a horrified pedestrian standing stock-still amidst a heap of fallen groceries- reported the same thing when the guards interviewed her.

In any event, the creature only stayed long enough to steal the tarpaulin from the cart, which it wrapped around its twisted frame before hobbling off towards the opposite end of town, whimpering quietly.

Less than an hour later, a local doctor reported a break-in: a half-demented man wrapped in a tarpaulin had crashed through the door- apparently ripping it off its hinges single-handedly. The "patient" had spent his visit wailing incoherently and fumbling for pen and paper; eventually, he'd tired of this, and decided to just show the doctor what was wrong with him, whereupon the doctor had fainted clean away. When he awoke, the patient was gone, along with a large supply of laudanum.

"Great Oz," the ashen-faced doctor had said to the guards, "he should have been dead. He was shedding flesh for Oz's sake! And as for what happened to his face, I haven't the slightest clue- it looked like prosthetics gone wrong: he had a metal eyeball in the left side of his face, but it moved, it swivelled, it saw me..."

After more descriptions (along with much repetition), the guards asked him if he'd any idea where the perpetrator might be going. "I'm just guessing, but if he came to see me, he might try the other doctor in town. If Rolson can't help him- or passes out like me- he'll have a few miles to walk before he can find another doctor."

Sure enough, Doctor Rolson's surgery was broken into; unfortunately, the rogue patient had been even more violent than before: Malthsparrick Rolson was found slumped in a corner of the dispensary, almost lost in a sea of broken glass, his skull crushed. Obviously, he'd tried to defend himself, for the bottom half of a large syringe was found clutched in his hand. Perplexingly, a bloodied note was found lying in the dead man's breast pocket; on it was scrawled a single word that even the terrible handwriting couldn't disguise:

SORRY

The dispensary itself had been just about overturned in what had doubtlessly been a fit of ferocious pique on the part of the intruder; for good measure, several bottles of laudanum had been emptied, but handling syringes had obviously been a bit beyond the man's capacity, because he'd broken just about every single one- either crushing it whole or snapping the needle in two.

Whoever or whatever the patient was, he'd also made a mess of the doctor's records in the search for the next doctor he could visit: filing cabinets had been overturned, cupboards had been torn apart, and papers had been strewn across the office in their thousands. Most of them were smeared with blood and other fluids that the guards didn't even want to guess at, all products of the patient's frenzied inspection; however, after about an hour of sorting, they realised that only one thing had actually been stolen- the contents of a folder marked "Atherston."

Or, to use his name and title, Abel Atherston, MD.

As it happened, Abel Atherston MD had left work early to enjoy the public holiday as best as he could before another load of barroom casualties arrived in his surgery; so, the guards had taken a detour to his house, fully expecting to find it painted with the good doctor's blood.

On the contrary, Atherston and his wife were very much alive, if badly bruised and deeply shaken: apparently, the marauding patient had actually managed to knock on the door without breaking it down, and through judicious use of hand signals and some scrawled instructions, had requested a check-up. With the Hippocratic Oath ringing in his ears and only a miniature flintlock pistol to defend himself from the intruder, the doctor had agreed.

Being a touch more coherent than the last two, he was later able to give a much better description of his patient- in particular, his head: bald, misshapen, and covered in long rips in the skin that exposed the metal beneath, with the exception of his left cheek, which had been pierced from within by several tiny thorn-like spikes. The skin itself was concrete grey, rife with infection and thick with squirming maggots; obviously, the last few hours spent outdoors under the blazing sun had done him no favours. But that wasn't the worst of the horrors to be found in that face; the most shocking was one that easily encompassed the entire right side of its face, given that it was almost completely devoid of flesh. However, what emerged from beneath the tattered scraps of flesh was not a metal skull, but a metal face with almost beautifully articulated features; quite conversely, the right eye was perfectly normal, if painfully livid and bloodshot, while the left was little more than a swivelling metal sphere in a gaping socket that looked uncannily skeletal.

With almost nothing reassuring or helpful left to say, Atherston had asked the hapless creature to indicate what part of his body hurt the most: as it happened, this turned out to be its stomach, which was covered by a tunic- one ripped at the shoulders and coming apart at the seams, but still mostly intact. Unfortunately, the thing was so soaked with blood that the patient was unable to remove it. On close inspection, it had also been punctured from beneath by no less than twenty-four solid metal protrusions; also, something heavy had slumped against the blood-sodden fabric. So, pausing only to cover his mouth with a handkerchief, the doctor had drawn a pair of scissors from his bag of tools, and began cutting down the middle of the tunic.

"And then," Atherston reported, "His guts fell out."

Evidently, whatever had happened to the man had ripped his belly open; now without his internal organs, all that remained was a gaping void in the patient's chest, framed by his curling, spear-like ribs. "The strangest thing, though," Atherston had noted, "was that I checked the cavity and the organs on the ground, and there wasn't any sign of a heart in either."

In any event, the heartless patient had taken one look at the immense heap of gore and metal at his feet, and started to scream. The screaming had attracted the attention of a local woodcutter passing the house, who'd decided to try and play hero by attacking a creature that was at least three-quarters metal. In the ensuing fight, (which Atherston and his wife barely managed to escape) the woodcutter had been brutally pummelled by the infuriated patient's wildly flailing limbs, flung from one end of the house to the other, thrust headfirst through a wooden bench, and finally decapitated with his own axe. After that, the patient had gathered up his tarpaulin and hobbled out of the house, using the borrowed axe as a crutch.

"Would you have any idea where he was going?" the interviewing guard asked.

"None," said Atherston shortly. "And judging by the way he was walking, I'd say he didn't either."

Everything hurt.

His skin, his eye, his half-converted legs, what little remained of his muscles... all of them felt as though they were on fire. The rest of his body felt only numbness, and would never feel anything ever again. In his worst moments of delirium, Boq was inexplicably glad that he didn't have a headache; at first he didn't understand why this was such a good thing, but then he thought for a moment and realised that, if pain could only be felt in the parts of his body that were still human, still vulnerable, still... rotting... his brain could be falling apart inside his skull, a putrescent mess of feasting maggots and ragged tissue and fading thoughts and forgotten memories and and and and...

Boq's moments of delirium were mercifully rare, but as time went on, he began to wonder if they weren't spells of pain-induced delusion at all, but lucidity.

At present, he was staggering down a hill towards the road, hoping to find another cart to hitch a lift in, and hoping that nobody would notice him and approach. There were surely people who'd thought it odd that anyone would be wearing a tarpaulin on such a hot day, but thankfully none of these people seemed to be around. In any event, he'd long-since given up all hope of finding a doctor that could help him: the first one had fainted, and with good reason- though Boq hadn't had a chance to look in a mirror, he knew he probably looked absolutely hideous by now. The second one... looking back on what had happened, he could scarcely believe that he'd killed the man; as far as Boq could recall, he'd meant to try and knock the syringe out of his hand- a dreadful mistake with his natural clumsiness.

As for the third... great Oz, why hadn't he just run for it? Why had he lost his temper? And what in the name of Oz had happened to his stomach? Another strangled whimper escaped from his misshapen lips, as he heard, again, the wet thud of his own internal organs landing in front of him, and the shrieking metallic wail that he had produced as he stared down at them. And come to think of it, what had happened to him to begin with?

Boq remembered that last conversation in the study; he remembered that for some reason, Elphaba had been there, and for an equally unfathomable reason, Nessarose had somehow been able to walk; he remembered that there'd been an argument that had ended with Nessarose reading furiously from a spellbook. Then, he had felt a clenching pain in his chest, as if someone had seized his heart in an iron grip and begun to squeeze, and he'd collapsed; he'd awoken to an even worse pain that started in his bones and pulsed furiously into his flesh and muscles.

And Nessarose had been staring down at him in horror, a spellbook open in her hands.

The rest was all a blur, up until he reached the road and found the cart; he'd obviously lost consciousness again while hidden under the tarpaulin, because he couldn't remember just how many hours he'd lay there. In the hours since then, Boq had been wandering up and down the countryside in a daze, either making abortive visits to doctors, or trying vainly to inject himself with the drugs he'd stolen: as a result, not only was he sick with worry and groggy with pain, but he felt like a total idiot. Why would he even think that the laudanum would work on him when he didn't even have a heart, let alone working veins?

As if that wasn't bad enough, he wasn't even sure what to next, apart from "hitch a ride in the back of another cart and hope for the best." Assuming that the driver didn't find him, assuming that they weren't heading in the direction of a checkpoint, assuming that they weren't stopped by brigands, what the hell was he supposed to do next, anyway? Flee from a rampaging mob of villagers with pitchforks and torches? Have an encounter with a blind hermit?

He toyed with the idea of somehow finding a way into the Emerald City and approaching Glinda- just as he had in the last few seconds before his transformation had begun; he wildly fantasized about creeping unnoticed over the walls of the City and into the palace, where he'd meet Glinda: she'd recognise him in spite of all the malformations of his face and body, and she would help him- after all, she was called Glinda the Good for a very good reason, wasn't she? But then reality set back in with a vengeance: he knew that he'd never be able to sneak or fight his way past the Emerald City guards, and he knew that Glinda wouldn't recognise him. As for whether or not she could help him, it was a moot point. So he went back to thinking.

Eventually, after much daydreaming and desperate speculation, the answer came to him: Nessarose. She had done this to him- wether she had meant to or not- perhaps she would be able to help him! Even if she couldn't undo whatever it was she'd done, she would at least take him in; after all, she'd wanted to keep him around her at all times, and no matter how oppressive that future had seemed before, it was beginning to look like a vision of paradise compared to his current predicament. But he'd have to hurry, before the local guards picked up his trail... before his transformation got any worse.

Hobbling toward the nearest road, he found that the prospect of spending the rest of his life in Nessa's service was beginning to look more and more inviting with every step. After all, Nessa might be obsessive and a more than a little bit unnerving at times, and yes, she was responsible for the current crop of laws that had just about curtailed any rights the Munchkins had left, but damn it, she was a friend. Back at Shiz, even when the decision to date her had been made by Glinda, he'd found himself liking her because, quite frankly, she never judged him and never rejected him- not for his appearance, his habits, or his opinions.

And look how you repaid that.

In every conversation, she'd always wanted to know about him, what he thought, what he enjoyed; whenever the topic swung in her direction, she'd blush, dismiss it and change the subject back to him. And though it was a touch disarming, and though it had eventually devolved into sheer obsession, her sweetness had never truly left her character.

Yes, Nessa was a friend. More to the point, she was the only friend he had left: quite apart from the fact that he'd never been adept at making friends, he'd been shunned by most of the other staff at the Governor's manor as "the cripple's favourite lackey." And the way he was right now, he'd be lucky if he could approach people without being shot, let alone befriend them.

Yes, Nessarose would help him, and he'd never protest any decision she made ever again.

She had to help, otherwise...

Boq's thoughts rebelled again, and he hurriedly went back to thinking about how much his human half hurt.

Once he got his bearings and actually managed to determine where precisely the Manor lay, Boq set about finding a cart that was headed more or less in that direction. Of course, nobody wanted to actually visit Governor's manor, but there were several transports moving towards Centre Munch; it might be possible to walk to the manor from there. Unfortunately, stowing away aboard one of them took a ridiculous amount of time, partly because he was barely able to catch up with the convoy even with the aid of his axe-crutch, but mostly because his new body gleamed brightly in even the faintest torchlight. Even huddled in the darkness of the hindmost wagon, he didn't feel at all hidden or safe: it was only a matter of time before the driver noticed that his cargo was twitching or that there was a horrible smell of rotten meat wafting from the pallets of apples.

On the other hand, one of the few benefits of his new body was the fact that he was swiftly running out of sensation in it: he didn't feel the chill of the evening, he didn't feel the splintery wood he was lying on, he didn't feel the maggots wriggling around in what little was left of his flesh... even the pain of his transformation was starting to fade.

His other senses didn't seem dulled, however: he could very clearly hear the draymen shouting to each other about the "Wicked Witch of the East," and arguing amongst themselves about how it wasn't safe to talk in the country during the day. Over the next few hours, he lay in the back of the wagon, listening to one farfetched rumour after another: because most of it was just boring expansion on what had already been said about Elphaba, Boq grew unexpectedly calmer- almost sleepy.

Sleepier still; Nessarose, he thought drowsily, don't worry. I'll be home soon...

He awoke to find the cart had stopped.

Risking a quick peek out of the cart, the moment his eyes adjusted to the morning sunlight, he realised that the driver had left the cart sitting right in the middle of the road, as had the other fifteen in front. As to why they'd done so, Boq hadn't the slightest clue: after all, it looked as though they were just on the outskirts of their destination.

In the distance, somewhere among the houses there was the sound of a gathering. Stretching creakily, he rose, slipped out of the cart, wrapped the tarpaulin around himself once again, and began staggering into the town as quietly as possible. This was easier than he expected, as most of the townsfolk appeared to be massing in the square, though for safety's sake, he decided to travel only by the alleyways and backstreets.

As he drew closer and closer, he thought he could hear voices raised in exaltation; what could the locals be celebrating? What could possibly be worth celebrating at a time like this, unless the Wizard and Glinda had decided to extend the public holiday by another twenty-four hours?

When he finally arrived at the edge of the town square, he saw immediately what they had gathered to see: there, sitting just north of the town centre, was a house.

A house.

It looked slightly battered, and it obviously had no foundations- as if it had somehow fallen from the sky. And judging by the whisperings of the townsfolk, it had; perhaps what had gotten the attention of the draymen was the sight of the house plummeting through the air. But there was obviously something more to this than an impossible sight, if the cries of joy were any evidence.

His suspicions were proved correct a moment later, for he saw that at the front of the crowd stood none other than Glinda. Boq hurriedly fought back the urge to run to her, knowing that he'd be killed if he tried to approach her with a crowd like this watching; as he did so, he saw that she was ushering a child out of the house- a girl, accompanied by a small dog, to be exact. The spectators were welcoming the girl with obvious reverence, some even bowing low to her.

What the hell was going on?

And then, as he drew closer, he saw what had kicked off the celebrations: protruding from beneath the house were two human feet... clad in blue and white striped stockings, and a pair of ruby slippers.

Oh no.

Oh no...

He was too late.

Nessarose had... she'd...

... Because he'd left her here, because he'd run away from her when she needed help, she'd...

Unable to finish this line of thought, he backed away from the mouth of the alleyway, walking backwards until he hit the wall with a soft clank.

Suddenly, the world felt painfully cold.

Even though it was already gone, he felt as though his heart had been torn out.

And all he could think of, amidst his choked metallic sobs, were the words "You're alone now; your last remaining friend is dead. And it's your fault."

Time passed.

The celebrations ran on.

The ruby slippers were stolen.

And Elphaba arrived to mourn.

Once the confrontation with Glinda and Elphaba had come to a close and the girl departed, Boq began crossing as discretely as he could to the fallen house.

He was blearily aware that the townsfolk wouldn't stop at celebrating Nessa's death; they'd want to mutilate the corpse, to dangle it from a pike for all to see and use it as a warning for all future "witches." And that was something he didn't think he could bear to see or even hear of.

From the jagged recesses of his tin brain, a mad solution began to emerge: he would take the body as far away from here as possible- to her home, or to Shiz, or anywhere apart from here, anywhere that Nessarose had once been happy. There, he'd bury her with all the respect that he could render. And without warning, he found himself preparing to do exactly that.

To his surprise, he found that, once he had crept to the house, removing the corpse from beneath the house was easier than he'd thought it would be. In fact, all he had to do was grasp the house by its western side and lift it sharply upwards until the whole thing was lying on its eastern wall. Then, scarcely daring to look at the body, he'd wrapped her in his tarpaulin, scooped her up in both arms and began staggering away as quickly as he could.

More blurring.

More damn carts, and more worrying that the driver would notice the two figures stowed away in the back.

More blurring.

After their third cart, Boq awakened to find the driver standing over him, screaming in terror. Pausing only to cleave the man's skull open, (When had he stopped feeling remorse?) he'd clambered out of the cart with Nessarose in his arms and his axe secured to his bones, ready to start hitchhiking yet again. Then he realised why they'd stopped in the first place.

Stretched out before the two of them was a hellish landscape of blazing grassland and charred trees; the skies were dark with stormclouds, and occasionally, a lightning bolt of brilliant emerald would split the air in two. And also, somewhere in the distance, there came the distinctive pulse of magic; Boq had been around too much of it- and on the receiving end of it- not to recognise the energies washing over the plains.

And it might have been delirious imagination at work, but the road ahead appeared to be dotted with the mangled corpses of anyone unlucky enough to be outside at the time.

Up ahead, though, beyond the road, beyond the grasslands, and surrounded by jagged-tipped mountains, was a castle- undoubtedly the home of whoever had set the countryside aflame.

Not entirely sure what he was doing, Boq strode onwards towards the distant gates of the castle, Nessa still clutched tightly in his arms.