Author's Note: I do not own any WICKED characters or places etc etc.
An speedier update because we're reaching my favourite parts of the story! I loved writing this chapter, it is sad and happy in equal measures. Basically, everything kicks off!
Enjoy! xx
It was perhaps the most terrifying situation Oscar had ever been faced with when Elphaba blasted open the doors to his suite, flanked by Galinda and Fiyero, and watched as she angrily dismissed every other person from the immediate vicinity. He had felt the powerful wind that accompanied her entrance, the shivering of the table and the clinking of loose glass from above. He tensed. For any other person, no such atmosphere would have been created, but he was well aware of what she could do when she was angry, and it made his knees far too weak for his liking.
She seemed to be seething like a boiling kettle on a hob. They closed and locked the doors and though sometimes Elphaba had been calmed down by her friends for overreacting, this time their faces were just as sombre and furious as hers and Oscar lost hope that Elphaba was merely overreacting to some injustice. In Elphaba's hands was a brown paper package. Oscar felt faint when he realised what must be about to happen.
"Elphaba . . ." His voice wavered, attempting to remain calm and civil for as long as possible. "I - I wasn't expecting any of you today . . . what a . . . a pleasant surprise this is!"
"Shut up, Diggs. None of us could give a flying monkey about your welcomes. We have something to talk to you about." Elphaba said, switching from a threatening tone to a mock-kindly voice, which made her seem all the more vicious. Galinda stepped forward and helped her friend empty the contents of the box. When he had first met her, he never gave Galinda the courtesy of supposing she would be much a of a strong figure but he had clearly misjudged her; over the years that he had corresponded and worked with her he came to see the power she had, more subtle than Elphaba's. She was more immediately likeable and he saw how dangerous it could be to make an enemy of any of them, so he sat down in submission.
"You know exactly what we're about to show you." Fiyero stated, silencing him with a raised hand when Oscar attempted to respond. Fiyero walked forward and leaned above him. His voice was barely above a whisper. With a heavy heart Oscar saw how wonderful he would be as a leader. "No more lies. None. Or they'll blast you to kingdom come." Warily Oscar stole a glance at the girls, and regretted it.
Elphaba handed the letters to Fiyero and, one by one, they placed each in front of him and explained what it told them. Every memo was detailed and when he tried to stop them, tried to explain that he knew what they had seen, Elphaba would whisper under her breath and he would lose his voice for a minute of two. he suspected she was stopping short of removing his powers of speech altogether.
When they got down to the last one, Elphaba sat down, too, across from him at the other end of the table. Her anger seemed to have dissipated and she looked crushed. Galinda stood behind her, sad. "Under these new laws you have put in place, we should have you carted to SouthStairs this very moment."
Panicking, Oscar blurted, "You can't do that to me! I'm the Wizard! Who would listen to you?"
"May I remind you Mister Diggs that you have given us Power of Elect. We're your advisers, your council. You quite wonderfully put an awful lot of power in our hands not two months ago. If you were to break the law, we are in the position to remove and rule you." Galinda's simplicity frightened him; she was right. In an effort to impress them and make them his allies, he had effectively destroyed his single dictatorship and spread the power evenly. Now he was their sitting dunce.
"Why?" Elphaba asked, leaning back into her chair. Though she spoke softly, it was evident that she meant for him to answer her quite plainly. "I want you to tell us exactly why you've done all this. You see, we've gone through all of these for hours and though what you've done and how you've done it is now almost second nature to us, what has remained a mystery is why. So enlighten us, please. Why would you do this?"
He rapped his fingers on the desk, knowing that if he told her, she probably wouldn't believe him. "I need to show you something then, Elphaba. And since I imagine you won't let me fetch it myself, I'm going to tell you where it is and you'll bring it to me." Fiyero shot a look to the girls and they shrugged; Oscar told him to search in his private desk. "Bring the bottle in here. The green one."
Elphaba's face suddenly snapped. Galinda's jaw dropped, very unlike her Gillikin upbringing and Fiyero bounded into the other room to bring what had been summoned. As the three sat in silence, Fiyero rolled the bottle in his hands. It was the very same one Elphaba said had been owned by her mother. "Fae, look at this." Fiyero walked slowly to her, catching eyes with a worried Galinda and attempting to hide the bottle from Diggs' view.
This was not the moment he had wanted to tell his daughter where her paternity and more importantly, he guessed, her verdigris came from. But since fate seemed to have dictated that he would no longer be allowed the luxury of a lie, he let down the drawbridge and could only hope she would see how truthful it was. "That bottle is not your mother's Elphaba. It's mine. I made quite a few of them." Oscar said as it was handed to Elphaba and she studied it carefully, with wide eyes.
Suddenly, Elphaba slammed her hands on the table and stood, sending splinters of wood flying up around her. "STOP LYING! Where did you get this? WHERE? Did you steal it? Have you had someone go through our things? Watch us? Have you been to my house? And what in Oz does this have to do with these letters?"
She was fuming, and Fiyero had to sit her down and hold her shoulders for a minute. "Fae, I think maybe we should let him finish." It was perfectly plain to Elphaba what Oscar was going to say, and she sat in front of Fiyero, burying her head in his shoulders. She could have been crying.
"I met your mother twenty-two years ago now. She gave me shelter and I gave her that bottle. And now . . . finally, she's given me you." Elphaba shivered. "Frexspar Thropp may have raised you, but I'm your father."
"That doesn't make sense." Elphaba pleaded, Fiyero kissed her forehead; he could feel tears on his hands.
Oscar half-stood, half-leaned over the table, in a desperate effort to be closer to her. Had he hoped she would let him embrace her? Kiss her? Oscar realised that in most of his daydreams of this moment, not one of them resulted in a positive reaction from Elphaba. He wondered how they would be in twenty years. "It does. I only wanted to give you what you had been missing. I knew how you were treated at home, and I also knew how brilliant you were. Are. You deserve so much more and you have earned this!"
"This?"
"Oh Elphaba I know what I did was wrong, I know that, why do you think I tried to cover it up? I learned from you and I wanted to make Oz a good place. You have to understand what it was like for me back home. I was bullied, too. I was segregated. I came here and all of a sudden everyone loved me. It's a very powerful thing. So I did under the circumstances what I thought was best."
"You think exterminating an entire race of beings is a good thing? You think that I would want that? Moron! You're an idiot! I hate you!"
"Elphaba I couldn't see any other way of changing what I had done without endangering my life."
"You mean your position." Galinda chimed.
"Well why not? Is that so bad?" He gripped the table as though it would will them into seeing it from his point of view, but it was fruitless.
Elphaba coughed. "Enough." Fiyero said, standing. "We don't want to hear anymore now. We're locking you in here, until we decide what is to be done with you." Oscar tried to speak once again, but this time Galinda rasped a spell and he lost his voice completely.
"I feel sick." Elphaba croaked once they had reached locked themselves in another state room. Galinda magicked over an empty vase and held her friend's tresses while she threw up. Fiyero poured several glasses of water for her and she sloshed them about in silence. It was almost too soon to talk. Too ridiculous to even contemplate.
"I want to know how he knows all of this about me. I want to see everything he has on us." Elphaba said eventually. She sat by an open window, the breeze acting as a glorious contrast to the heat and sweat on her skin. She felt dizzy and no one ate.
"I wouldn't be surprised if Morrible had had something to do with this. She seemed awfully interested in you, and not in an entirely innocent way." Galinda offered, sipping luke warm water and turning her glass absent-mindedly in her hands. Fiyero topped off his own drink and opened another window; it was too hot, too closed in. "Though she never did anything innocently."
"Do you think she knew, Elphie?" Fiyero asked gently. "About Oscar and . . . and the bottle?"
"Don't know." She responded, quietly. "I just want to see what he has on us." They nodded. "And it's not even important. It's not. I know what he wants; he thinks that since he's given all of this to me he can claim some kind of pathetic father-daughter relationship. Well I don't want it. I've managed perfectly well without it all my life and I don't need that. He's trying to deflect; I don't want to even begin talking about that bottle until we know what he's been doing with the animals. We need to start right now."
Fiyero knew she would need some council to absorb what Diggs had said about his relationship to her, but seeing her jump into action to save who they could of the Animals did calm him; it would occupy her. Apart from anything else, she was right; they shouldn't be wasting that precious time with personal issues when there were potentially millions of innocent lives at stake. Though it would probably take years to fully integrate Animals back into a tolerant and accepting community, at least keeping them safe was a start.
They knew there were certain members and factions of the Gale Force who knew nothing of the camps where Oscar had imprisoned Animals. Fiyero sent immediate dispatch orders to them and to his father's forces in the Vinkus with as clear and simple a summary of that mornings events as possible. He asked them to send either themselves or Evard to the Emerald City to help.
Galinda and Elphaba drew up draughts and notices deeming the camps illegal and sent them to their respective locations. Galinda also contacted the Gillikin Minister for the Wizard in the Uplands, Lord Guirr Hills, and her parents; the former to issue a governmental statement and the latter to raise powerful societal connections, whom they would desperately need to counter any anti-Animal protests. They needed their actions to be well-received. Galinda also wrote out her own statement to be issued to the public and contacted every press house in the city informing them that she would be holding a conference on the Wizard's balcony later that day.
Elphaba wrote her father and her sister with no less than several orders that they would fully investigate any suspicious anti-Animal acts in their area and announce a statement detailing the government's discovery or face an Emerald City investigation themselves. As an N.B., she also invited her father to the palace for a private meeting.
Fiyero convinced Elphaba not to travel to the camps herself, at least not for the time being, as they had been informed later that evening by express post from the Vinkus that Evard would personally accompany his men to the areas in question and see to the victim's freedom and initial recovery. They had dispatched thousands of aids and set up several donations funds to pump money into medical supplies, transport and rehabilitation. Elphaba would be kept busy enough in the City. Moreover, she had only just been able to keep her food down but would eat nothing. Fiyero found her nightmares returned and he counted down the minutes before his parent's arrival.
Over the next few weeks, Fiyero never appreciated his bed so much. They hardly ever made it home before midnight and would, Elphaba's constitution willing, try to leave every morning before seven o'clock. It was exhausting, and each of them tried not to let themselves dwell on it for too long, lest they lose momentum in there work. For the few hours they would rest, however, it was blissful. At least, Fiyero and Galinda found it so.
Elphaba never feel asleep before Fiyero and never slept past him in the morning. It was her retching that would rouse him more often than not. Every time she came close to sleep her mind would fixate on Oscar's revelation and her stomach would turn painfully. She had no proper meals for she could not keep them down and she was positive she looked more and more deathly every day. After two weeks, she found it only took her an hour to drift off, and she hoped eventually, her pain would pass.
One of the things the couple had both missed was the chance to be alone with each other, to talk, to just be together. Fiyero wondered if that was partly why they felt so stressed. So when, one night, he felt Elphaba turn into him and lean on his chest, he held her close and tighter than usual.
"How is she?" Came a sleepy voice. Fiyero mumbled in confusion as to what she meant, but Elphaba only repeated herself, louder this time.
"I don't know what you mean, Fae." He said, thinking maybe she was just talking in her sleep. He kissed her hair, and she was silent for a bit.
"How tired are you, Yero? Has she not been crying then? Or have you just been too tired to listen?" She was sitting up now, and he had to squint to focus on her irritated expression.
"Elphaba, what are you talking about?"
She started, and shook her head at him as though he was being ridiculous. He was worried. "Fiyero! Our daughter, who else?" She whined, rubbing her eyes.
Fiyero only stared at her, completely stunned into silence and stone. She must have woken from a dream, and thought it was real. He took her hands. "Elphaba," he began gently, "we don't have a daughter." She frowned. "We don't have a child." She stared back at him for a moment. "Are you alright?"
She turned her head and studied the room, which was beginning to light up with the dawn. There was no crib, or evidence of anyone having lived in the room other than themselves. She buried her head in her hands in mortification. "Oh Oz. I don't know what's wrong with me. I thought . . . it was so real."
"Your dream?"
"No, Yero, it wasn't a dream. It was a vision. I put a little girl to bed in this very room and climbed in next to you. You kissed me goodnight, we . . . we fell asleep together." She explained quietly, feeling his arms wrap around her. This vision meant it might be true, or some part of it at least. "She looked so beautiful."
Fiyero smiled, and kissed her. "Like her mother, then." Elphaba smiled and hugged him. She hadn't had the chance to be with him for so long. "It's alright, Fae. Quite funny, actually. You were so annoyed at me."
"Well I though you were just being a bad father." She said, cuddling into him under the covers, warm, safe and happy. They did not discuss that it had been a vision; there was no time at all for it and both chalked it down to a desire in Elphaba's subconscious that one day she wanted children with Fiyero. That was reason enough for now. As their eyes closed, Elphaba spoke softly once more. "But that's impossible, you'll be wonderful father."
Elphaba's sudden loss of appetite following her sickness frightened Galinda a little, and though she remembered well enough how stress would affect her best friend, it had never been so bad before. She took comfort from Fiyero's promise that if there was one woman who could bring Elphaba up to the surface again, it was his mother. Their arrival had never been so eagerly anticipated, and Fiyero ran to the entrance hall to greet them when they did.
"Morning, Mam, Dad. I'm sorry to have to bring you here for this, make you leave the Vinkus." Fiyero apologised, receiving a handshake from his father and a kiss from his mother.
"It's not a problem. To be honest when you sent express post I think we were expecting something a little more joyful," Minas admitted with a wink, which seemed to alleviate some of the tension, "but this is important and we're here. It's about time Evard began to learn how to manage the people himself anyway. The time will come when it's your brother you address as King." They smiled and he led them into their conference room.
"It seems you have the entire country up in arms, Miss Upland!" Nanda said as she greeted sweet Galinda with a kiss. "You have managed this beautifully." Galinda thanked her and returned to work on her press releases. "And where in Oz is Elphaba? I had so been looking forward to seeing her."
"And she you, Mam, but she's . . . well she's not been well. Very sick actually." Fiyero said sadly. "She did tell me to bring you up to her though." Nanda smiled and let her son lead the way to a cool and dimly lit drawing room where Elphaba seemed to have been sleeping. A maid curtseyed past them as they stepped in, carrying a pot with unhealthily sloshing liquids in it. "Fae, Mam's here."
"Oh my dear, aren't you an ill one!" It was an observation, and Elphaba smiled weakly, glad to hear Nanda's soft voice near to her. "Fiyero, do give us a minute, will you?"
Fiyero nodded. "I'll see you in a bit, Fae." He kissed her lips and hands and shut the door behind him. Nanda waited until his footsteps had completely gone until she spoke.
"How are you feeling?" She asked simply.
Elphaba rocked herself back and forward a bit, trying to replicate the motions of her stomach and trick her body into thinking she was actually still. "Terrible."
"Yes? All the time?" She asked probingly. Elphaba stilled, and eyed Nanda carefully. She shook her head.
"Not quite. The mornings." Elphaba waited for Nanda's response, fervently willing it to be fair. Nanda had known it would be this that was making her so stressed. It was not an ideal situation at all, she would have preferred them to be married and did not quite understand why they were not yet so, but it was really none of her business and she counted on Fiyero to do the right thing and stand by her.
Nanda's calm voice and gentle touch made Elphaba feel safer. "I didn't think so. I always know. It's quite plain to me what is making this all so difficult for you."
Nanda's words brought tears to Elphaba's eyes and she sobbed loudly into her shoulder. "I'm sorry. I don't . . . I mean I . . ." Nanda quieted her and dried her tears. "I'm not sorry, I'm just afraid, a little."
"It isn't me who should be comforting you about this, Elphaba. Fiyero is terrified. He thinks your illness, as I suppose he calls it, has been brought on by what you've found out about the Wizard." Nanda did not really consider her son to be terrified, but she could see that Elphaba would struggle to get the words out and actually tell him, and since they both knew he deserved to know, Nanda decided Elphaba needed a little push.
"It did turn my stomach, and it made me feel dizzy. But only for a moment." Elphaba explained. "I've woken up for quite a few mornings feeling sick, but it was only a few weeks ago that I had a physical reaction. And I didn't really know, I had hoped you'd tell me."
"May I?" Nanda asked, signalling that she wished to feel Elphaba's stomach. Sure enough, there was a subtle roundness. It made Elphaba's heart leap and Nanda found her qualms disappeared as she realised she would be a grandmother. And to such a wonderful daughter-in-law, though it was not yet official. "You should be happy, my dear." She said, pressing Elphaba's chin.
"How far along do you think I am?"
Nanda smiled and rubbed Elphaba's hands. "Well firstly, I am no doctor, so you must tell Fiyero and arrange an appointment with one. Secondly, I think you need some light and fresh air." Nanda silenced Elphaba's protests. "No, no. I won't hear of anything else; I know you think it will make you feel worse but I have had many children and I promise you nature at this point is your best friend."
"You make it all sound so normal." Elphaba whispered, allowing the light to sit warmly on her face, eyes closed.
"It is normal, believe it or not. And you must start eating as soon as you feel you can. Until then, dry toast and water. Cranberry juice, if you can manage it. I shall call a midwife for you." Nanda rang for the maid to bring them her suggested foods, a bill of the best doctors in town and Fiyero from the conference room. When he arrived, Nanda left to call for those who were needed and Fiyero began commenting on how much better she looked, even after only half an hour with his mother.
"She is magical, like you." He said sweetly, kissing her and smiling. It broke Elphaba's heart to see how happy he was now, and know that her strange behaviour had been so concerning him, yet he had hidden it as best he could from her. She knew what she had told him about the vision had unnerved him a little, and he had been on edge ever since. They all had.
"I have something to tell you, my love." She said as happily as she could. But her voice broke and her hands were wet with sweat, so it was obvious how nervous she was.
"You're practically shaking, you should eat some toast." He went to bring some from the table to her, but she squeezed his arms and got him sitting again. "What is it? Are you nervous or something? Are you ill?"
"Calm down, Yero, I'm fine I think." She said with as much ease as possible. "This has just been a bit of a stressful week . . . well, month." He frowned at her time logic. Not knowing what else to say, or how else to put it, she placed a hand on his neck and tried to smile, hoping he would, too. "I'm . . . pregnant."
"What?" He said quickly, as though he had not heard her.
"I'm pregnant. With a baby. Yours." She added, stupidly. Her breathing came in short bursts as he sat simply looking at her, like he had been paused in real life. Quietly, he asked her if she was sure. "I think so. Your mother said I am, and she's gone to arrange a doctor for us." He nodded. The only sound in the room came when they breathed, both irregularly, both out of time. Elphaba gasped when he placed his hands on her stomach and traced out the gentle bump that had begun to develop.
"Sweet Oz." He said, and finally smiled. "You are." He acknowledged and looked up at her, then down again to kiss the baby. Elphaba shut her eyes, and let the tears fall again freely. "Hey, it's alright! Fae, don't cry."
"But you're happy?" She choked, stroking his face where he wore a huge grin.
"Yes! Yes!" He said, cupping her face and kissing her urgently through her own smile and allowing her tears to fall, too, now that they were happy ones.
Thoughts?
