Hello, its the Wicked Witch of the East here. I congratulate you if you have managed to survive this far as this is a rather challenging read due to format and content. Me and the Witch of the West would love to hear what you think, even if you curse us for our acts of insanity, so if you feel like commenting, please do leave a review.


Elphaba was crying. What did that mean? She tipped her head, as if curious, her thoughts and stable mentality slowly returning to her along with the memories. Of course Elphaba didn't, wouldn't do such a thing. But the actions she had done, they had triggered the memories, intentionally or not. And Glinda had shown Elphaba her darkest secret. She had never told anyone what had happened that night.

Those tears must be hurting her, but she let them fall. She must be punishing herself, for what she did to me. Even though she did nothing at all, even though the cause of this was me, had always been me.

"Elphaba" She whispered, staggering to her feet, "You will hurt yourself."

Brown eyes followed the blonde as she stood and seemed to be calm now, but Elphaba didn't dare move lest she set off another episode.

"I'm so sorry," her voice barely left her lips and she was sure Galinda had not heard her. "I didn't mean to- I didn't know- I'm sorry Galinda." Her face burned as more tears dug deeper into her skin, she winced at the hiss of her skin burning away but still she refused to move.

"I didn't want you to know. I didn't want anyone to know" she said, unable to stop herself, a final confession of her guilt falling from her lips.

"But it isn't your fault "She said, and watched as more tears dug into Elphaba's skin. Taking a deep breath she forced herself to walk over to her, having to assure herself all the time that no harm would come to her.

"Do stop crying" She said, dabbing at the tears gently with the cuff of her sleeve, "Red doesn't go good with green."

Elphaba flinched at the contact of the blonde's sleeve with the burns on her face. She studied the blonde's face something was off in her eyes, the way she had walked over. A cold hand gripped Elphaba's gut and twisted hard as she realized what it was.

"It wasn't yours either," Elphaba hoped the duel meaning to her words were picked up on. She didn't move still not wanting to risk it as she tried to hold back the tears, not sure how she would explain the burns to whoever dared to ask.

Glinda froze. It was her fault. Elphaba didn't know.

She chose to ignore the statement, "We need your oils, for the burns"

She turned away, scanning the bathroom for the little glass bottles.

Elphaba saw the pause and wouldn't let her get away with ignoring her, not now, she had to make the blonde understand.

"Galinda, trust me, I know."

"No" Was her only reply, as she moved over to the cabinet, pulling it open and rooting amongst the bottles for the right one.

"'No' what? No, it wasn't your fault? No, I don't know? Galinda, the life of a green skinned woman is not an easy cake walk." Elphaba slowly stood and moved behind the blonde and reached over the blonde's arms rummaging around her oil bottles to grab the one for really bad burns in the back. She always used the more powerful healing oils on her face to reduce scaring.

Oh yes this stung, sharing her deep dark past felt like a cold smooth stone was being pressed into her neck until she couldn't breathe past it, but she knew from the many, many books she had secretly read since that time that she had to tell to help the blonde.

"Being shunned by society doesn't make you anything like me" she said, flinching as a green hand shot past her to grab a bottle.

"You affliction is no fault of your own. My actions were."

Elphaba noticed the blonde flinch and cursed her self silently again, she just couldn't stop could she. She stepped back away from the blonde and looked into the bathroom mirror as she poured some of the oil onto a dry face cloth.

"Oh, you'd be surprised how many things were my fault,"

Elphaba hissed as the oil touched the burns and pulled the cloth away not expecting it to hurt that much. She looked back to mirror examining the burns, they were worse then she first thought.

"My green skin may not be of my own actions but plenty of things were."

"It doesn't compare" She said, getting slightly angry at Elphaba's continued persistence. Nothing she could have had done to her could even compare to what she had experienced. Nothing Elphaba had ever done could possibly compare to what she had let be done to herself that night.

Elphaba put the cloth down and faced the blonde.

"Then what happened Galinda? What have you done so wrong and we'll see if it compares to getting yourself gang raped in an alley because you were too stubborn to accept a ride from a friend." Elphaba paused, she hadn't intended for that last part to be voiced, the blonde didn't need to know that now. She started to step back to the door knowing that the conversation she started now may not be the one she wanted to have at the moment, or ever about the details.

"What" She breathed. She hadn't realised Elphaba had actually been. she just thought she was referring to something else.

"Elphaba I'm so sorry, I didn't realise" she stopped, but in her head the sentence continued, I didn't realise you were the same as me.

She saw Elphaba start to back away and hurried forwards, grabbing her hand.

"I gave myself to my uncle" She whispered, tears starting to form.

She couldn't get mad at her slip now; self loathing will have to wait till later. Elphaba waited a minute as she swallowed the bile rising again at the memories and thought of what Galinda had gone through too. Elphaba took half a step towards the blonde, bending slightly so she didn't tower over her before she gently moved to hold both of Galinda's hands in her own.

"What do you need from me now? What can I do to help?"

She didn't want to ask what happened just yet. The blonde had gone through enough this morning and she knew that reliving it while telling someone any form of detail was a torturous hell that would have to be dealt with later.

"I don't know" She said quietly, "I've never told anyone before."

She looked up at Elphaba, "Should I tell you?"

"If you wish," Elphaba looked around realizing they were still in the bathroom. "Would you like to move to your bed or the couch and sit down?"

"Yes, that would be better" She said, walking unsteadily into the other room.

She settled down on her bed.

"Does telling people help?" She asked in a small voice, laced with fear.

Elphaba followed and stood beside the blonde's bed not quite sure if she should sit or not, she had never been allowed over here up to this point. Elphaba heard the fear in the blonde's voice.

"I- yes, it does. I'm not sure of the exact reasons as to why but I'm guessing it's just support of others will help anyone in any situation. But it can be painful, I had flashbacks and episodes and it took days to tell who I did." She had to warn her if she didn't already know. "but after I felt like I wasn't alone, even after she left." 'Sometimes rebreaking a bone is a necessary evil to heal it the right way.' She recalled the words that had been told to her. Elphaba wanted nothing more than to take the blonde's pain from her and the fact she couldn't was almost killing her. Was this how the older woman had felt while talking her through this?

"Okay" She said, looking as if she was preparing herself for some onslaught of pain.

She took Elphaba's hand, pulling her to sit beside her.

"Well, he was visiting with his wife, it was the summer. We had been outside, on the lawn, but I had retired, feeling as if I had had rather to much sun. I was in the library, though I know you will laugh to hear it, I did enjoy my books when I was younger. He came in, said he was checking on me…."

She paused, "He made me stand up and face him. Said he wanted to check properly, tilting up my face and looking into my eyes. It was then I felt his hand on my leg."

Elphaba settled beside the blonde as she started to speak. She made sure to not be touching her other then where the blonde had initiated. She remained quiet and listened, her guts twisting as she realized Galinda must have been young when this happened. Elphaba didn't dare think how young. Elphaba watched Galinda's face as she felt her guilt return, how in Oz had she managed to create a twisted parody of that moment?

Glinda continued amidst little gasped breaths, "He had his hand on my throat telling me to be quiet, telling me how he would ruin my life if I ever told anyone what he had done. told me that even if I did, no one would believe me."

She grabbed Elphaba's hand for support, choking out her next few words, "I couldn't stop him. It was all to fast, I was too young, too weak to stop him. I couldn't push him off. I let him do that to me. It was all my fault. If I hadn't gone inside, if I hadn't dressed so casually that day, if I had fought back harder, he might have stopped, height not have done it. But I let him."

Elphaba held the blonde's hand firmly in hers trying to keep Galinda grounded here and not pulled back to that moment. She didn't think her stomach could stand another kick from the petite blonde.

"Galinda, look at me." She said softly as she held herself back from placing her hand on her roommate's shoulder. "That wasn't your fault," the urge to hug the blonde was great but Elphaba made herself stay where she was,

"This may sound harsh and terrifying but he would have done it anyway, even if you had dressed differently, had you waited to go inside he would have waited and followed you anyway. You did not let anything happen, he threatened you and he hurt you in the worst possible way. He is to blame not you." Elphaba tried to recall how she had been spoken to but her situation was slightly different, strangers in an alley compared to a trusted uncle. Elphaba fought of a wave of nausea as she couldn't imagine it.

"But I let him" She whimpered

"I should have screamed but I didn't. That must have made him think it was all right to do it."

She suddenly turned to Elphaba and spoke without thinking, "Did you scream?"

Elphaba paused at the direct question. Memory coming back all at once in the start to a flashback she knew she didn't have time for right now. She held to Galinda's hand tighter as she fought to keep herself for a moment. After a second she looked to the blonde.

"Yes," her voice was soft as she admitted it, she hadn't even told the old woman so long ago that she had cried out for the men to stop in desperation, that level of detail was unnecessary at that time. "To be quite honest I begged, and fought but it continued anyway. That's how I know for a fact that you did not let him do anything, if you had screamed he would have beaten you."

Elphaba realized that the blonde may be just as stubborn as she was, and if that was the case getting her to believe that the attack was not her fault may prove to be difficult.

"But you screamed. You told them to stop. I didn't tell him to stop" She said, getting hysterical.

"He wouldn't have beaten me, he didn't want mumsie or popsical to know it happened, so he wouldn't have left marks. if I had screamed he would have stopped." She said, breaths coming in short gasps.

Her hand left Elphaba's and flew to her neck, as she remembered him pressing down.

"I should have screamed!"

"Galinda!" Elphaba moved to grab the blonde's hands again but stopped herself. Touching hadn't helped last time. She faltered a moment not knowing what to do to stop the blonde from having another episode. Oz she felt useless.

She couldn't focus, she didn't want to remember again. Why had she started talking.

"No" She moaned, feeling phantom hands caress her limbs, "No stop it!"

She was struggling to breathe now, the memory of strangulation overriding the reality that nothing was blocking her airway. She needed to be slapped back to reality.

Elphaba watched as the blonde struggled to breathe as the memory took hold of her, "I'm sorry," Elphaba whispered in advance as she slapped the blonde across the face, just hard enough to sting.

Glinda screeched, jerking backwards and falling off the bed. She hit her head on the floor. If the slap hadn't snapped her out of it, that did.

She looked up at Elphaba, "I'm sorry" She whispered, "I can't do it. He comes back to me when I think about it. I can feel him. He never stopped haunting me. He just waits for me to think of him, and then he's there."

Elphaba was on the floor next to Galinda in an instant. Worried for the blonde.

"I know it feels that way but he's long gone Galinda, he can't hurt you now."

"No he's here. You don't get it. Whenever I think of him he's here!" She pleaded, grabbing her hands, trying to make her understand. This is why she didn't tell anyone. They would all think she was insane.

She knew they weren't just memories. It was different. Memories couldn't hurt you like that in the night.

"He's here now. I can feel him standing over us. We have to stop thinking about him. I shouldn't have told you. He might hurt you to!"

Elphaba looked to the blonde and nodded, she was used to letting people believe what they will, growing up with Nessa and her father.

"Alright Galinda, if you believe he is haunting you what do you suggest we do?" She might as well play along; they could just as well work through the nightmares and memories in trying to get rid of this 'ghost'.

"Don't mock me!" She said, "This is serious, he is here." She felt a cold hand brush along the back of her neck. She shuddered.

"We need to get out of this room. And we need to stop thinking about him."

Didnt' Elphaba understand how much danger they were both in. Glinda dreaded the almost inevitable visit from her uncle tonight, knowing she would be hurt again, in ways she didn't want to imagine. But now Elphaba knew. She was so worried that he would hurt her as well. She didn't want Elphaba to be hurt.

"Please Elphaba don't think about him any more"

Galinda looked truly panicked and Elphaba had to hold back a sigh, hadn't she put up with this enough with Nessa's never ending praying and her father's never ending preaching?

"I'm not mocking you, and ghost or not I refuse to let him frighten you anymore." She thought back over the grueling months of her father ranting and raving about the house they had been renting being haunted. "If you are truly scared of him then I know from my father's lectures that he cannot touch you if you declare a space safe ground and I declare that when ever you are in this room or with me that he cannot touch you." Elphaba hoped that would help the blonde calm down and stop worrying about the ghost. Maybe she would have to check out some books on how to cast out ghosts from the library tomorrow to help Galinda work through this her way.

It sounded like a lot of nonsense to Glinda, she could almost hear her uncle laughing. In fact she was sure she did. But Elphaba didn't appear to be responding to the noise. Maybe Elphaba was right, maybe the room was safe. She told herself that, even though she knew it was a lie. Something was so wrong, much more than before. But the feeling wasn't for her, it was for Elphaba. Oh, how she dreaded to sleep tonight. How she worried what would happen to both of them when they did. The words Elphaba had spoken were dangerous ones indeed, though it did not occur to Glinda at the time. She had said that the ghost couldn't hurt Glinda, she had never said anything about herself.