(AN:/)

The Storm

The Tin-Man stumbled through the hall clumsily, eager to get away from the woman he hated more than anything else. He made much noise, breaking and shattering things in his way, being unfamiliar with his new, metallic body. The servants who saw him screamed and ran from him in fright. He broke into his room, feeling around with smooth, metal fingers with almost no grip. In his fury, he shattered a chest and brought his bed crumbling down. The prized ax lay just in his grasp.

When Nessa finally found her way through the chaos, she found his room in shambles, a huge man-shaped hole in the side of the wall and Boq...or whatever was left of him, gone beyond recall.

"Boq, please!" she sobbed. "No, come back!" She stumbled on broken wood and fell to the ground. She was back on the ground, as she had been before. There would be no one to pick her up now, no hand to save her. She was alone at last, little better than dead.

"I want to go home!" she cried uselessly, her feet flailing behind her, the shoes clacking against each other.

He found that he could run farther than he used to, and never tire. He would never tire ever again, for his metal joints did not grow weary as he had once done. He would not be hurt by the same means as he could have been hurt before.

He could not love the same way he did before.

He collapsed, falling to his knees. Not out of exhaustion, but shock. He realized that he could never love Glinda, now that the Witch had removed his heart. Which witch? They were so alike, he saw, that it didn't matter. East or west, they were both evil witches who deprived him of his heart.

Could he even weep if he had no heart to be broken?

"Havin' a bad day there, shiny?" a voice asked.

He turned around and saw an old Munchkin smith sitting on a log, a long-handled pipe in his hand. He didn't care; let the little man make jokes. He had no heart that could be hurt by insults.

"Hey, you might want to take this with you," the smith said, handing Boq a small, cylindrical can that seemed to be the same color of his own suit, with a tiny spot at one end. "In case you get wet, spray some of that on your joints and you'll be right as rain in no time! Oh wait, maybe that wouldn't be right for you, then."

Boq ran on, clipping the item to his belt. It seemed rather silly to be holding it on his person, but it didn't matter. He still had his main objective...

Get to the Emerald City!

When Nessarose Thropp awoke again, she found herself lying in her bed. For a moment she thought it was all a dream, that Elphaba really hadn't been there, that Boq would show up, just as annoyed as ever, once she rang the little silver bell. Looking around, she saw herself lying on top of the covers, the shoes glowing red at her feet.

No, it had been real, all of it, even the painful parts.

But how did I get back here, she wondered.

She remembered her heels clashing about as she writhed in agony on the floor. No, it couldn't be, could it?

Rising to her feet, Nessa stood up and inhaled sharply. She put her shoes together, thinking she looked rather silly. But it was worth a try.

"I want to go...to Shiz!"

She clicked her heels together once. A shower of red sparks shot from where they met, but nothing else. She clicked them again, and the sparks exploded again, even more and bigger. Once more, and she was suddenly engulfed in a flash of red light.

When the light disappeared, she found herself in the main hall of Shiz, where her sister had made her 'demonstration' in front of half of the school, including Madam Morrible. It had been such an embarrassment. But what had that one incident caused? She remembered how Madam Morrible had suddenly taken an interest in her after that incident. How she had failed with her magic, she felt.

So many memories, some happy and some of them sad, filled her as she sat about in this room.

How did she get here? She looked down at the shoes, realizing just what Elphaba had done. Not only had these shoes enabled her to walk, she could also teleport herself wherever she chose to be.

Maybe her magic wasn't such a failure, she admitted.

She put her feet together.

"Take me to Boq!"

Once, twice and now three times she was spinning off and away again. Now she was in a wood, somewhere in Munchkinland. The jarring sound of metal grinding against metal could be heard, as well as a voice crying out in frustration, in anger. With fear, she crept forward, peeking through the branches of the trees. In a clearing just a few short feet away from the Yellow Brick Road there was a woodsman's hut. Outside that hut she found her metal-clad lover, venting his frustration out on a nearby tree. He didn't seem to be tiring, for he did not take a break even once.

Her blood ran cold. He was spouting out curses at everyone - Elphaba, Galinda, Fiyero, the Wizard...

Nessarose.

"I want to go to my father's grave." she whispered, clicking her heels silently.

The sound of rushing wind could be heard just to his left. He did not care, he was too far gone to care anymore. He was angry at the world: angry at Elphaba for not stopping her sister, angry at her for turning him into this metallic nightmare. Angry at Glinda for treating him like a slave - he realized that now, she never really loved him. Angry at Fiyero for taking the woman he loved from him. Angry at Nessarose for actually making him a slave.

Angry at himself for chasing away the only woman who ever loved him.

He would never tire, and there seemed to be enough trees around here. He kept hacking at the stump before him, dark thoughts flowing through his head.

He did not notice the sun vanishing behind the unnaturally fast-moving clouds. He never noticed it, not until the sound of water droplets hitting what sounded like a metal roof rang in his ears.

Not until it was too late.

A storm was coming. He felt like something was growing in between his knees, his elbows, his hips, his hands, his neck, even his face. Casting one quick look, he saw that he had left that damned can the smith had given him on a stump he had recently destroyed. Just out of reach. He turned his head, feeling the grinding of rusty joints along what had once been his neck.

He could no longer move. His eyes stared endlessly at everything directly in front of him. All the world continued to roar about him, the sound of heavy wind, the rush of the rain, but his world had come to a halt. He was left alone with nothing more than his pain, his regret...

Center Munch.

When Nessarose finally arrived there, it was getting on towards evening. The sun vanished through the clouds far to the west. But she did not care, she had to visit the grave. She was alone at last, and tears were streaming freely down her face. She didn't care if people saw her: let the Munchkins see the Wicked Witch of the East at her lowest point. They would surely laugh and throw bricks at her, but she didn't care. They were rebels, caring only about themselves.

At the tiny bit of lawn at the head of the Yellow Brick Road, she threw herself down. The tiny, unadorned grave was all that was left of Frexspar Thropp. She knelt down at the side of the grave, threw herself upon the grass, three years old, and wept.

There was nobody left for her now. No mirror, so not even her reflection was there to mock her, to show her every fault and everything she had failed to do.

Night had fallen.

The roar of the wind sounded in her ears. She didn't care. Here she was not alone. This was Frex's final resting place, the last tie she had to her family. Her worst fears were coming true: she had chased away everything she ever loved and lost the rest. Yes, she admitted at last: I chased Boq away. I never let him live as he wanted to, I tried to force his love, and only got his hatred in return.

And so, lying upon her father's grave, alone and forsaken in the face of the coming storm, the most beloved now the unloved one, Nessarose Thropp wept. No one would mourn her passing, she knew, when she would die. The people of Munchkinland had suffered under her attempts to keep Boq at her side, they would certainly hold a parade to celebrate her death. Elphaba was miles away, doing whatever she had gone to the Emerald City to do, free the monkeys? Find Fiyero? Which ever, she was far gone to be of any help now.

No one mourns the wicked. Only she mourned herself, for, in the end, she was alone...little better than dead.

The wind grew louder and louder, yet Nessarose was in a place all of her own, totally oblivious to the world.

"Elphaba..." she sobbed into the earth. It was foolish, to think that her sister, on the other end of Oz, could hear her. But she sobbed her sister's name just the same. "Elphaba, I'm so sorry..." Here, lying on the grave of her father, she realized the truth. She had admired her father like nothing else, yet he refused to love Elphaba, and when he died, he was un-mourned by her.

Her voice was drowned out at last by the roaring of the wind. Pushing herself up off the grave and into a sitting position, she looked up. The wind shattered her bun, and for the first time in three years, her reddish-brown hair was blowing freely in the gales. Rain and tiny pellets of hail rained down upon her, and the sound of the people of Munchkinland running for cover were just faintly heard.

A shadow appeared in the darkness. Nessarose didn't even move. Elphaba wouldn't forgive her for all that she had done to her over their lives: she would be right in doing so, Nessa said. I deserve nothing from her but her hatred. The one person she had loved in her whole life now hated her and wanted her dead. The life she faced was one fraught with loneliness, which she could never endure.

And so she, the unwitting victim of a plot by her former Head Shiz-tress, stood there resolute, gazing up at the shadow that was slowly getting larger and larger.

Suddenly, her whole world was pain. She was covered in darkness, but she could not breathe, could not move anything, save her legs: ironic, that they hadn't moved in her entire life, yet they would be the last things to move. She gasped for air, but the crushing weight of the shadow forced her from drawing breath.

A painful end is what I deserve, she thought as her mind started going numb. After all the pain I've...

The pain was gone, and the shadow engulfed her world.

(AN: Not done yet, I think I've got two more chapters in me for this story.)

(Thoughts, concerns, questions?)