A/N: Be warned- this is going to a little short and dialogue-heavy compared to the last few, but hopefully the next few chapters will be more eventful. So, read and review- constructive criticism is welcome!

Also, I do not own Wicked, etc, never have, never will...


By the time Morrible awoke, Elphaba had just about laid waste to her own laboratory in a feverish search for anything that could be useful in her search for Fiyero and Glinda, and exhausted her limited repertoire of healing spells in trying to stop Morrible from deteriorating any further.

While the first had resulted in a satchel of homemade magical artefacts that ranged from the purely destructive to the broadly useful, all she'd ended up doing in the latter was delaying the ex-press secretary's encroaching death by a few hours- at the most. And worse still, Elphaba wasn't quite sure why she was going out of her way to try and save the woman's life.

She pondered this as she rummaged anxiously through her satchel, occasionally glancing at the worn figure of Morrible on the couch. Why am I even keeping her around? She asked herself. It's not as if I owe her my life or anything. It's not as if she'd ever done a single decent thing in her life after she started working for the Wizard. It's not as if she actually did a thing to stop these Nomes while they were laying waste to the Emerald City. It's not as if...

It's not as if she took you under her wing and taught you how to control your magic, a nasty little voice remarked inside her head. It's not as if she was the first person in Oz who valued your talents, who encouraged you, who even attempted to help you.

And while she was doing that, the only thing on her mind was presenting me to the Wizard as his personal servant, Elphaba sniped back. You could not have made that anymore obvious without having me gift-wrapped beforehand.

Is that why she was kind enough to accept your request to allow Glinda into the course? Is that why she overlooked you disrupting the history class on the day that Doctor Dillamond was replaced?

Another violent burst of coughing from the couch interrupted her musings. Turning around, she found that Morrible, still in the middle of wheezing blood onto her handkerchief, was looking intently at the satchel Elphaba was wearing. "So," she said, once the coughing had subsided, "You really are going to try and save the King and your friend. I wouldn't expect to be given a royal pardon or a parade thrown in your honour if I were you."

"And I'm not," Elphaba snapped. "This is about rescuing people I care about, not about trying to gain acceptance from the people or anything like that."

"Just as well then," said Morrible, "Because there's hardly any people left in Oz to gain acceptance from. The citizens of the Emerald City have all been petrified. The Nome army moves among the towns of Oz, scattering the people far and wide, and killing all those who stand in their King's path... whatever path that may be..." Her eyelids fluttered, and she gave herself a shake, as if to clear her head.

Elphaba paused in the middle of adjusting the cloak on her shoulders. "Hang on a minute- I heard what you told me just a few minutes ago: you said that all the Nomes wanted was revenge against Oz for stealing their emeralds. What else could they possibly want? Territory? Mineral deposits? What?"

"The Nomes wanted revenge, yes," Morrible mumbled, her voice wavering. "They would have wanted the emeralds returned to them; they would have wanted revenge against Oz; they would have wanted the opportunity to punish the Wizard, or his successciator. They have everything they could possibly want on this night... so the question is, what does their King want? I heard them talking among themselves... the King ordered them to find the Grimmerie... and to take Glinda with them even after she caused them so much trouble. Why?"

"Like you said," Elphaba sighed, "Those are questions I'm going to have to answer myself."

"There's one question you can answer right now, however."

"What's that?"

"Why do you care so much about the Scarecrow? Since when do you count him as one of your friends?"

For a moment, Elphaba was torn between the need to keep the secret, and the inexplicable urge to indulge the dying teacher's wishes. However, a bit of applied logic made her realise that, what with Oz having been apparently driven into the ground, Fiyero being deposed, and the only witness sure to die in a few short hours, it might not be all too unreasonable to answer Morrible's question.

"Since we were at Shiz together," she replied. "More specifically, ever since a certain aborted history class: he helped me carry a tortured lion cub out of the class, and he set it free." Morrible's face wrinkled in confusion, and Elphaba added, "You bumped into me a few minutes later with that acceptance letter from the Wizard, remember?"

Morrible's eyes lit up, and she began to laugh. "Prince Fiyero," she cackled, "Captain of the Guard! And the guards told me that he'd been executed for trying to help you escape- you must have intervened... with the Grimmerie! My, how that tome can confuse things!"

"It was a spell to protect him from the torture," Elphaba explained, the details all but pouring out of her mouth. "I enchanted him against pain, against his bones breaking, his blood flowing, even against death... but I didn't even realise it had worked until I got a letter from the Scarecrow explaining everything. And that was when I organised the plan to fake my death and..."

Morrible shriekedwith laughter, and was immediately interrupted by another blood-coughing fit. "You know," she rasped, "For someone who disapprovated of trickery and lies, you're quite adept at it."

"You do wonders for my self esteem," said Elphaba through gritted teeth, "You know that, don't you? For your information, I'd pretty much exhausted every single option available to me at the time: keeping up with my attempts to kill Dorothy and the others wouldn't have solved anything, and I've never been enough of a people person to talk down a psychotic tin man. Trickery was the only way out I had, and I know how much it hurt Glinda to have to watch my faked death, so don't presume to lecture me on the similarities between me and the Wizard."

Silence followed, and Morrible smiled mysteriously.

"And another thing," Elphaba continued, "I don't care if I have to destroy every single lie that allowed me and Fiyero to live out here in the process, but I'm going to save him and Glinda- even if I can only save them out of all the citizens of Oz, I will save them."

Morrible's smile widened. "Never forget that little vow, Elphaba," she said softly. "Hold onto your resolve, and you might actually succeed." She coughed up more blood into her handkerchief. "Good grief, how long have I been talking? I must be one of the noisiest corpses in existence."

There was an embarrassed pause.

"Well?" said Morrible. "Aren't you actually planning on carrying out that daring rescue at some point in the near future?"

"What, you just want me to leave you here?"

"Why not? It's not as if you'd actually be coercified into dragging along a dying old woman, especially one that you despise as much as me."

Elphaba foundered. "But... but you'd die here alone. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"It does indeed: it means that I won't be a burden on your limited resources, and it means that my star pupil has the speed to accomplish her goal. Besides, you forget that I spent many years as one of the least popular headmistresses at Shiz, and several more as the Wizard's chief lackey; I am more than accustomed to being alone in both the figuratory and the literary sense. Besides, it's not as if you care about what happens to me, is it?"

"Of course not! Why would I care?"

"Then be on your way."

She should have moved at that point: as Morrible said, it wasn't as if Elphaba actually cared enough about her to stay by her side.

But against her own urge to run, to take her broomstick from the laboratory and fly for the Emerald City, she stayed for another few minutes- just long enough to ask, "One last question: when you found out that Dorothy had killed me, what was your first coherent emotion?"

For the first time, Morrible's smile looked a touch melancholy. "Regret," she whispered.

"What?"

"Over the waste of such a unique talent," Morrible said quickly. "I'd never tutored a student of such power before, never seen someone who could manipulate magic by instinct alone, never even imagined that someone would be able to deciphericate the spells of the Grimmerie by intuition alone. And the thought of that glorious talent wasted on performing cheap transformations for people who'd never appreciate your power..." She sighed. "I was upset. Not upset as the Wizard, though."

The Wizard was upset? Elphaba asked herself. Why?

"Do you remember what I told you about corruption?" Morrible continued. "Sooner or later, everyone opts to take the easy way out; sooner or later, you'll be given the offer to compromise your principles in exchange for everything you've ever desired. Somehow, I doubt Mombi will make that offer- she's even less inclinated towards friendly conversation than you. But perhaps the Nome King shall..."

She sighed.

"I do have one last request before you go."

"What's that?"

"I'd like to be seated in the garden: if I can enjoy nothing else about my escape from prison, I want to see if I can stay alive long enough to enjoy the sunrise..."