AN: Thank you. My feet are very clean now from all the kissing. (But yes, Musicgal, they were already clean before the kissing, don't worry :P.)

Seriously though, thank you all so much :) for both the congratulotions and the reviews! I had a wonderful day, and I decided to end it with an update (though I doubt whether it will make you happy. Actually, I think not).

Moreanswers24: Thanks for the gagged Fiyero whom you hit with a frying pan! :D I'll deal with Elphaba, don't worry. Fiyero is MINE.

So. Cliffy. Because I have to live up to my name on my birthday. I'M ON TOP OF THE WORLD, MWAHAHAHA.

Chapter 6. Desperate Times

'Now don't scream, okay?'

Graydon slowly removed his hand from the child's mouth. Immediately, she opened it and started screaming.

He quickly pressed his hand against her mouth again. 'Shut up, will you?!' he demanded in exasperation.

She glared at him quite impressively for a five-year-old and squirmed until he released her. 'My Mommy and Daddy will come and look for me!'

'Sure they will,' Graydon said in a soothing voice. 'Don't worry about it, kid. All they have to do is pay some money and you'll be back with them in no time, okay?'

She stomped her feet. 'I want to be back with them now!' she yelled, and he stared at her. 'Sweet Oz, this is harder than I thought,' he muttered under his breath.

The plan had been simple. A week or so ago, Graydon's older brother had approached him, telling him about the plans. Sortres, as his brother was called, and Graydon himself were orphans, and they had spent most of their lives learning how to make a living for themselves. They'd never had much and that was why they had joined the small group of people that rebelled against the King and Queen of the Vinkus. Not because they truly disagreed with the way the King and Queen ruled, but because it offered them an opportunity to get money, power, and prestige.

Sortres, however, had always been more ambitious and ruthless than Graydon was, and so he had quickly made it to the top. Now he was Graydon's superior and one of the most important members. He no longer executed the plans; he made the plans.

And now he had made this particular plan. A plan that involved kidnapping the daughter of the Crown Prince and his wife and keeping her with them until her parents – or grandparents – paid the ransom for her.

Sortres had explained to his younger brother that there was barely any risk involved for him; he already had some other men who would take the girl from her room, and all Graydon had to do was keep an eye on her and prevent her from escaping until the money was paid and Sortres would come to pick the girl up. Sortres had offered his brother a generous percentage of the ransom money in return, and Graydon had immediately agreed. He could live with a kidnapping. No one would be killed or hurt, and in the end everyone would just return home safely; and in return, he would be able to build a home for himself and his wife and daughter.

The truth was that there was barely anything he wouldn't do for money at this point. He hated not being able to give his wife a piece of jewellery or even buy his daughter a new dress. They lived in a tiny cottage that only barely managed to stay upright, and there were nights when they had to go to sleep with empty stomachs because there wasn't any money for food. He didn't want that for his family. He wanted to give them more.

And so he had agreed to Sortres' plan. Two men had brought the princess to him a few days ago, and now here he was, in a small cottage with the most stubborn five-year-old he must ever have come across.

She crossed her arms and glared at him, and he sighed. 'Listen, kid. I don't want to hurt you. Just work with me here and you'll see your Mommy again really soon.'

He wished he had asked Sortres for more details, but his brother had kept those to a minimum, claiming that the less Graydon knew, the safer he would be.

He was jerked from his thoughts by a hard kick against his shin-bone. He yelped in surprise and pain. 'What in Oz was that for?'

'Let me go!'

'No!'

'I have magic powers,' the small thing threatened. 'If you don't let me go, I'm going to change you into a toad!'

'If you could do that, you would have already done it,' Graydon pointed out.

Elyssah faltered at that, because he was right. Changing the colour of a stone in a necklace was not at all comparable to changing people into animals, and her magic wasn't that strong – or developed – yet.

Graydon grumbled under his breath, then took the girl's arm and pushed her into a room. 'Stay there until you've cooled off a little,' he told her, before closing and locking the door behind her.

She pounded on it with her fists. 'Let me out!'

He didn't respond, just leaned against the door and rubbed his face tiredly. This would be a few long, long days.

'It's the cottage at the outskirts of town,' the elderly man told Elphaba. 'I'm pretty sure that's where he took her.'

Her heart was pounding in her chest. 'And it was a little girl? About five years old, waist-long black hair, bright blue eyes?'

The old man covered her hands with his in a calming gesture. 'I know what your daughter looks like, Your Highness,' he said gently. 'I've seen her when you visited our village last spring. It was her. I'm absolutely positive. The only thing I'm not positive about is where she is right now.'

Elphaba shook her head. 'That's alright,' she told him, relief washing over her. 'Just the fact that you've seen her at all is a huge help to me. Thank you so much.'

'Anytime, Your Highness.' He bowed and she led her horse further down the street, moving through the village until she reached the cottage the man had mentioned.

'Are you ready to behave again?' Graydon asked, opening the door just a crack.

His heart sank when he realised the princess wasn't angry anymore. Instead, she was crying.

Now, he could deal with a little girl's tantrums – he'd had enough practise with his own daughter. What he could not deal with, however, were a little girl's tears. He hated it when his own daughter cried, and this little girl reminded him so much of her. He hated it. He couldn't look at it.

She turned her head to look at him. Her face was stained with tears and she was sobbing. 'I want my Mommy!'

He sighed and sat down on the only bed in the room. 'Look,' he said as gently as he could. 'I'm really sorry about all this, kid. But I promise you that it's not going to last much longer. I could go and get you your favourite food, if you want,' he offered. Sortres had given him some money to take care of the girl.

She shook her head, raven hair dancing around her shoulders. 'I want Mommy. And Daddy.' She sobbed again, and he took a deep breath. Then he moved over to sit next to her in the window seat, patting her back a bit awkwardly.

'It's going to be okay,' he said in what he hoped was a comforting manner. 'Everything is going to be okay.'

She cried silently for a while, then wiped her nose with her sleeve. They sat in silence for a few moments.

'Are you sure you don't want me to get you anything?' Graydon asked. 'Some candy, a toy, a teddy bear? Anything?'

Suddenly, Elyssah sat up straight. 'Mommy.'

He sighed. 'We've been over this, remember?' he said patiently. 'You'll see your Mommy soon enough, but I can't go and get her for you.'

The girl shook her head. 'No,' she said mysteriously. 'Mommy is here.'

He stared at her. 'What do you mean, Mommy is here?'

Just then, someone banged on the door.

Graydon cast one glance at the raven-haired girl on the bed, then moved into the other room, pushed the curtain aside and peeked out of the window. When he saw the person that was standing outside, his eyes widened.

'Oh, Shiz.'

'What if they've taken her too?' Fiyero demanded, completely panicking. 'What if they decided that just Elyssah wasn't enough for them?'

'Now, Fiyero, let's not-' Paro began, but his cousin wouldn't listen.

'I have to go after them. I have to save them!'

'What if she wasn't taken?' Galinda said quietly, and Fiyero's head whipped around. 'What?'

'I said, what if she wasn't taken?' The blonde girl looked up at him. 'What if she left?'

Fiyero was stunned. 'You mean… voluntarily?'

'Well…' Lori said hesitantly. 'I could see her doing that. I mean… She wants to find Elyssah, and…'

'Yes, well, so do I!' Fiyero snapped. 'But I don't run off in the middle of the night without telling anyone where I'm going, do I?'

'Fiyero, calm down,' Lori said sternly. 'We don't know for sure what happened.'

Fiyero tangled his hands in his own hair. 'So she was taken,' he said in a high voice, and Lori strode over to him and shook him briefly. 'Fiyero. Stop this and think. Don't panic right now.'

'Too late,' Galinda muttered under her breath, and the prince snapped at her. 'Shut up, Galinda! You don't know what it's like! My daughter is kidnapped, I have no idea what happened to my wife-'

'Then stop whining about it and do your best to find out!' she yelled back at him.

Paro stared at his wife in amazement for a moment. 'Since when did you get all practical in crisis situations?'

'Since Fiyero got shot,' Boq muttered under his breath, and Lori cringed slightly at the memory. Galinda did, too. 'Yes, well, when everyone loses their head, nothing will happen,' she said. 'Someone has to stay calm. And though I admit that I'm usually the first to lose it, I can handle it when everyone else around me is breaking down. And right now, Fiyero, you are breaking down. You have to snap out of it and think. What could have happened? Start at the beginning.'

'The first question would probably be: did she leave voluntarily or not?' Paro offered. Galinda nodded. 'Thank you, dearest. That's true. What do you guys think?'

'I think she did,' Nessa spoke up a bit hesitantly. She blushed a little when everyone turned to look at her, but continued nonetheless. 'Leave voluntarily, I mean. I think… I think if she was kidnapped, Fiyero would have noticed something. Anything. He was sleeping not a meter away from her, for Oz's sake.'

Hamold looked at his son. 'Was there anything unusual when you woke up?' he asked.

'Despite the fact that my wife was missing?' Fiyero growled, and Hamold gave him a stern look. 'Yero. I mean things like… an open window. Objects that seemed to have been moved. Any sign of a struggle at all?'

He hesitated for a moment, thinking about it; then he shook his head. 'No.'

'I could see her leave on her own,' Galinda agreed quietly. 'She knows, Fiyero, that you would never allow her to endanger herself, and so she didn't tell you. She just heard that there's been a tip about the whereabouts of her daughter, and you, Hamold, told her she couldn't go and look for Elyssah herself because it would be too dangerous. We all know Elphie. I think she felt trapped and restricted, and that's why she left without telling anyone.'

Fiyero thought about all the times she hadn't told him something – all the times she had had these horrendible nightmares and didn't tell him, the times she sacrificed herself or submitted herself to her father to save him, or Galinda, or someone else. She never talked those things through with him first – she was too passionate and too impulsive for that.

He nodded slowly. 'Okay. What's next?' he asked, trying to keep himself calm.

'I think we covered the 'where did she go',' Boq chimed in. 'Clearly, she's gone to wherever the tip about Elyssah being spotted came from.'

'So we go there, too,' Fiyero concluded. 'Right?'

Hamold shook his head. 'No. I'll send word to the squad that went to the village to keep a look out for Elphaba,' he decided.

Fiyero's face fell. 'That's it?'

'Yero, it's too dangerous-'

'I don't care!' he suddenly yelled, startling everyone in the room. 'For Oz's sake, stop telling me that everything is too dangerous! I don't care! Do you hear me? This is Elphaba we're talking about! My wife! And my daughter! I would scratch out my own eyeballs or cut off my own limbs if I could keep them safe that way! I already failed as a father. I'm not going to fail as a husband.' With a few big steps, he reached the door. 'I'm going to find them if it's the last thing I'll ever do.'

The moment a man opened the door, Elphaba braced herself, expecting some kind of savage; but she was surprised to find that he was just a man in his thirties, with brown hair and not unfriendly gray eyes. 'Can I help you?'

'That depends,' the green girl said through gritted teeth. 'Do you or do you not have my daughter?'

In reality, she knew he had her. Ever since she had given birth to Elyssah, she felt like they shared some kind of magical bond; Elphaba suspected that was because of the fact that they had combined their powers a few times when she was still carrying Elyssah. She wasn't sure exactly how it worked or what it meant, but what she did know, was that she could feel it if her daughter was nearby, and the other way around, too. And right now, Elyssah was nearby. Very nearby.

'Your Highness.' The man bowed before her. 'I am very sorry, but I have not seen your daughter.'

'Oh, really?' she sneered, already raising her hands to – she wasn't sure to do what, exactly. Punch him, perhaps. Or try and see if her powers would work with her to knock him down.

Anyway, before she could move, there was a sound from inside the cottage and a small person came dashing from a room and towards the open door. 'Mommy!'

Elphaba's eyes widened. 'Elyssah!'

Graydon panicked. This wasn't supposed to happen – how did anyone even know the little princess was here? Someone from the village must have tipped off the King and Queen…

He knew what to do in these sorts of situations. Sortres had given him explicit instructions and the means to execute those instructions. And even though Graydon really didn't want to do it, he felt like he didn't have a choice. If he gave in now, not only would he not get his money, he would end up in prison. Possibly for the rest of his life. And he couldn't do that, if only because he couldn't do that to his family.

And so he decided that these were desperate times, and thus they called for the desperate measures Sortres had told him about. He reached inside his pocket and took out the gun, before reaching out and roughly pulling the girl towards him, pressing the gun against her head.

Elphaba froze.

'One more move,' Graydon told the emerald witch standing just outside the door, 'and your daughter is dead.'