Skin Deep

Chapter 10

A/N A thank you to James Birdsong, who has reviewed my every chapter and I can't pm to say thanks :)

And to everyone else who reviewed. You all know a review really has the power to make a day, so thank you :)

Turned out it was only one man.

Keegan had seen his Captain walk the dingy streets by himself, in full uniform and carrying his rifle and he wasn't sure why, really but since he'd had nothing better to do and quite liked the Captain, he'd figured he might as well follow along. Something could happen that would make the Captain need some help, after all and getting in his boss' good graces couldn't hurt.

He'd watched his superior enter a rundown building and remembered from the pub that this was where the fortune teller did her business. He remembered because, even though he'd smirked and snorted with them, he'd been secretly intrigued. He thought it quite strange, too, for all his colleagues to be so skeptic about it. After all, they didn't doubt the magical powers of the Wicked Witch. If she had actual powers, then why not others too? But he'd said nothing of course. He was part of a whole and generally liked and he wanted to keep it that way.

Keegan didn't know what the Captain was doing there, as he had been so openly disdainful of the notion that a fortune teller was doing business in town and he supposed, for a fleeting second, that it was rather strange that the Captain would go there alone, at this time, but Keegan also knew it wasn't his place to question his boss. So he didn't think anything, didn't say anything and tried not to make a noise. He'd just wait outside, to be sure, to be safe.

He couldn't hear what was being said but he assumed that if a fight broke out or if any crisis situation would occur, he'd notice or hear something. He'd be able to do something. He could help.

For the longest time, he didn't hear anything, and though he tried to be patient and tried harder not to think anything of it, it didn't sit right with him. He climbed up a garbage can to try and look through the dusty and boarded windows but found it was too dark. He climbed down again and leaned against the door, pressing his face against it, let his fingers search for a slit, a crack, a hole...anything, but came up empty.

He knelt and tried to peek through the keyhole.

He didn't see much, but he kept his focus. Sooner or later, he'd see something.

He didn't have to wait quite as long this time.

As his eyes, or eye rather, adjusted itself to the darkness, he could make out the glittering gold of the Gale Force uniform and realized he was staring at his Captain's back. The Captain stood there, obviously doing something but the room was too dark to see.

He heard a moan and stiffened. Was someone hurt?

He tried to look closer.

Maybe someone had gotten hurt...

Or...

He couldn't be sure and he thought he had to be wrong, had to be, but...

But...Was...was the Captain ….Keegan didn't even want to finish the thought. He tried to come up with a different explanation, any explanation, but came up empty handed.

He was...kissing someone.

There was no way around it.

His boss hadn't come here for a confrontation with the Witch in question. He hadn't come to arrest anyone. He hadn't even come to have his fortune told.

He had come to...to kiss someone. And whatever would follow. Keegan didn't really want to know, but he couldn't stop staring.

But...but...he was going to be married to Miss Glinda. Everyone knew that. Why would he need to kiss someone, someone that Keegan knew was not Glinda, if he was about to get married? And to someone that looked like Miss Glinda?

He was about to pull back, thinking that he'd leave Fiyero Tiggular's business to Fiyero Tiggular, because this obviously was not any 'Captain of the Gale Force' business, when he saw arms come up and wrap themselves around his boss' neck. Long, black-clad arms, that he might never have distinguished from the darkness that surrounded the pair, if he hadn't seen the hands.

Green hands.

Keegan didn't hesitate. He didn't pause to contemplate why his Captain, the hunter of the Wicked Witch, would be kissing Oz' greatest enemy.

He got up in one fluid motion, got his rifle and reached for the door.

It opened easily and almost right into the tall and rather imposing form of his Captain, staring right at him. He wanted to say something, thought somewhere in the back of his head that he should, but all he could focus on was the green.

The green of the woman still on the other side of the room, who had whirled around and looked between him and his Captain, quickly, wildly, as if she was trying to decide something.

He noticed, and he didn't know why he noticed, how much younger she seemed. How much younger she was, than she'd appeared on all the posters, in all the stories.

The Wicked Witch.

This was the Wicked Witch.

She was young, and...well...green. Green, but her hair was so long and she looked at him as if she was afraid, and then at the Captain as if she was...hurt? And she was so young...

"Elphaba!"

The Captain's voice.

Who was Elphaba?

But the green woman turned her head and Keegan understood.

He didn't understand any of it, at all, but he knew there was more going on than he'd ever know.

He also knew that his job was to catch the Wicked Witch of the West.

And this was her.

She didn't look it right now maybe, but this had to be her.

Who else had green skin?

He pointed his rifle at her, and heard it go off.

And then realized he hadn't even pulled the trigger yet.

How had it gone off?

But then his stomach hurt, and he understood that it wasn't his rifle that had gone off.

It was the Captain's.

And it hadn't aimed at the Witch.

She heard a gunshot and whirled around again, only to see that the gun that had been pointed at her, was now on the floor, next to the boy that had been holding it. Her eyes searched for Fiyero and he was looking at the same sight, his hand still gripping the gun he'd fired not moments ago.

For one brief moment, when she'd seen the uniform in the doorway, she'd suspected, she'd feared, that it had been a trap. That it had all been a lie. That Fiyero had lied to her to capture her. That he had changed.

But one look at his face, eyes wide and panic-stricken and his body trembling as a result of the shot, removed all her doubt.

He'd shot a man.

One of his soldiers.

For her.

"Fiyero!"

He met her eyes.

"I..." He shook his head, in disbelief, in guilt, in panic. But also in determination, conviction and...relief?

"He was going to kill you."

He was right, of course, but somehow that didn't make it easier.

But the past three years had had Elphaba on alert non-stop and with survival first and foremost in her mind, and that was a habit not easy to shake. Focus on staying alive and whole, everything else, everything she was feeling, could come later.

Especially now.

He'd shot one of his own. If the boy lived, he'd make Fiyero a fugitive too. If he died...

Well, that would make it easier...

As cold and detached as it sounded even to her own ears, she knew it would be better for Fiyero's chances if the boy died. The people would blame it on her, they'd be able to make up some story about how Fiyero had tried to save him...every Ozian would be glad to believe it.

It would be a lie, a big and terrible lie and she was so adverse to lying the thought alone made her sick, but it would keep Fiyero safe. For Fiyero's safety...for Fiyero...she'd lie.

Only...she couldn't just let him die. The boy. He was Gale Force, he was the enemy, he'd wanted to kill her...but...he was so young and she wasn't a murderer. No matter what the Wizard said, no matter what the papers wrote, what the people feared...she was not a murderer. Not yet.

She ran over to the boy, bleeding on the floor and he tried to get away from her when he saw her coming closer.

"Oh, stop moving." She snapped. Really. Here he was, already bleeding to death from a wound she hadn't even caused and he was worried over her mere presence. She'd never had much patience for the stupid and situations such as these did not help matters.

"I am trying to help you, though I am starting to question why exactly."

Her words were harsh and her tone cutting but she sank to her knees beside him and lifted his shirt with a worried look on her face. It wasn't good. If he stayed her much longer, without any help, he would certainly die.

"Fiyero. Get water and towels. And gauze, and I need..." She took the time to look at the man she was speaking to but he didn't respond. He was looking at the blood that spread around Keegan's body. He hadn't been prepared for this. How could he have been?

"Fiyero!"

She was about to get up when he looked at her.

"Yes! I'm sorry. Of course. Shit. Keegan."

He looked at Elphaba and moved in her direction.

"He's twenty. Twenty. He doesn't know anything."

He pleaded for the other man, even as he hated him for aiming that rifle at the woman he'd only just found.

"I know, Fiyero. I'm going to try but I need some supplies...and my book. Hurry!"

He ran towards where he suspected a kitchen-like area was but never made it there because suddenly another voice carried through the room, calm and clear.

"I am here, I am here. No panic needed now." Yackle walked into the room, so quickly and agile it seemed inappropriate for someone her age. Though, Elphaba realized, she had no idea how old Yackle was. "No panic needed, and no book either."

She put her shawl on a chair, and surveyed the room, watched as Fiyero stood in the doorway to the kitchen, in doubt. He was always in doubt, it seemed.

"I told you it was best I stay, didn't I?" She didn't look at Elphaba, but it was clear she was speaking to her, continuing an earlier discussion.

"But you refused, as a bullheaded young thing." She stopped next to Elphaba and joined her on the floor. The two didn't look at each other, only at Keegan, as Yackle's hands replaced green ones to examine the wound, "Refused to see sense and let me stay."

"As I was right to do, you meddling old woman. This was my business."

"Ah, but it is my house. I stayed, as is my right. And good thing too."

"Don't tell me you knew this would happen." Elphaba moved to the side, but only slightly.

"Of course not, silly girl. I said I wouldn't look, did I not? But I know you well enough to know there's always trouble." She looked at the green woman now, but there was kindness and understanding in her eyes.

"And I saw enough of him" She nodded in Fiyero's direction, "to know he wasn't going to help much in preventing it."

Yackle looked from Elphaba to Fiyero, who still stood, unsure, at the far end of the room.

"I suppose it has worked out for the better? Seeing as how there is only one other Gale Force soldier here and he is currently bleeding all over my floor."

There was no sarcasm there. Yackle did not seem worried about Keegan. Fiyero didn't know if that was a good or a bad thing.

"Nothing worked out for the better. Someone was shot and nothing has changed." Elphaba still hadn't moved from her place beside Keegan, but she wasn't truly focused on the boy anymore. Now that Yackle was there, the other matters at hand needed to be dealt with.

Fiyero stepped forward then, feeling the need to make his presence knows. To speak up and be accounted for.

"That's not true, is it? I changed. Everything changed."

She looked over at him.

"I have to leave."

Yackle saw the hurt on Fiyero's face, with anger and panic and weariness fighting for dominance. She took pity on him. She was sure it could not be easy to love Elphaba as he did. The old woman found she rooted for him. He was young, but he knew who he was and what he wanted, which was more than could be said for most his age. Aside from that, the silly green girl, as much as Yackle respected and sympathized with her , could use someone like him. Someone who could take her down a notch or two, simply by loving her.

"You both have to leave. This boy will live, but along with him will the news that the Captain switched sides. Master Tiggular is a fugitive too now."

"He doesn't have to be! We can think of something!"

Elphaba knew she was panicking, but couldn't stop it. Oz, she couldn't do this. How could she leave with him? How was she supposed to deal with all this, with him? She couldn't.

"Yes, we can. I can let this boy die." Yackle removed her hands from Keegan's stomach and looked at them calmly.

"If I do, then so will what happened here tonight. You can carry on the way you have. Both of you could."

"No."

Fiyero was all attention, and anger took over. Anger and frustration at being left out of the argument. The fact that Keegan could be, would be, fine had him focused once again on what he had come for in the first place.

Elphaba looked at him, exasperated.

"Fiyero. Of course, she will not let him die." She looked at Yackle then, sharply.

"You will not let him die. There are other ways. You have the power to make him forget. Just make him forget what he saw and heard and it will all..."

"No!" He stepped forward and grabbed her shoulder, forced her to look at him.

"No. Elphaba. I don't know how many more times you need me to repeat it. I am coming with you. You are not leaving me. I am not leaving you. Ever."

He didn't allow her to look away.

"Ever."

Yackle resumed her work on Keegan.

"There now. All settled. You two go on and take off now. I will handle this." She didn't look up from what she was doing anymore but her voice changed.

"Tomorrow, whatever this boy may say, the hunt for the both of you will start. Make sure you get far enough away." It was both a warning and goodbye.

Elphaba looked as if she wanted to say something, but she seemed to change her mind at the last second. She marched across the room to grab her broom, her bag, her book. Then turned around to the man still standing stock-still in the middle of the room.

"Fiyero!"

He looked at her. Waited for her to argue. Expecting her to run. But she looked back at him, an undefinable look in her eyes.

"We have to go!"

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