A/N: There is nothing I can say that could possibly excuse the unacceptably long delay in updating. I could whine about writer's block, or how my new job has consumed literally every spare second of my free time (to the utter delight of my mother, I might add), but you've heard any excuse I could give a million times over. So I can only offer my deepest and most abject apologies and say that I hope the chapter is worth the wait I put you all through.

You may recognize some of the dialogue from the catfight scene from the musical (one of my favorites!), but, as with the ALAYM chapter, I really tried to keep it as original as possible. Hope you like!

Disclaimer: I don't own Wicked. It owns me.

"I don't like this wind," he said anxiously, holding her a little tighter.

"Neither do I," she agreed as she instinctively pressed closer to him. "It's just the right kind of weather for a…"

She hadn't even finished her sentence before they heard a tremendous rushing noise behind them. They turned to look…

"Cyclone!" they both cried.

Knowing there was no time to lose, Fiyero and Elphaba pulled apart. He quickly doused the fire, and then the two of them grabbed everything they had brought with them and raced to find shelter. They spent a hellish few minutes huddled together in the lowest spot they could find, which was a dried-up creek bed, clinging to each other for dear life. But finally the twister passed overhead with a gigantic roar and was gone, moving eastward, and they were both still alive, in one piece, and together.

"That proves it," Elphaba declared firmly as they climbed out of the creek bed. "Something awfully strange is going on. I don't care if it's the middle of the night; we've got to leave now. We can't wait until morning."

Fiyero didn't argue, but simply nodded, for which she was grateful. They made their way out of the forest as quickly as they could, and then got on the broom and soared off in the direction the cyclone had taken. Hold on, Nessa, she thought anxiously as they flew, fear and adrenaline combining to leave her as wide awake as she had ever been. I'm coming…

Shortly after dawn began to glow ahead of them, they found themselves flying over the farms and villages of Munchkinland at last. Off in the distance, they could see a throng of people collecting on the ground below. The crowd seemed to be gathering around some sort of building – a small farmhouse, from the looks of it – that appeared to have been literally dropped out of the sky. It had landed more or less on its foundation, but wasn't exactly level, as the bottom of one end of the house had apparently been driven into the ground by the force of the impact. The people of Munchkinland had never seen such a thing before, and were turning out in droves to investigate.

"I'm not going to say 'I told you so'…" Elphaba began with a self-satisfied smirk, glancing over her shoulder at Fiyero.

"I know, I know," he replied, rolling his eyes with a chuckle. "But you did."

"Exactly."

"From now on I'll believe you when you say you see houses flying through the sky."

"Thanks a lot." She surveyed the scene below them critically. "We've got to get down there. This has something to do with Nessa, I just know it."

"It might be better if we land a little farther from the house and walk," suggested Fiyero. "We've got a better chance of finding out what's going on if no one sees us right away."

"You're right." She began to guide the broom down towards the ground, searching for a secluded spot to land.

"That's twice in two days," he pointed out, teasing her.

She laughed and shot back, "Yes, well, don't get used to it."

"Very funny." He pretended to be hurt, but his tone assured her that he was only joking.

"I thought it was," she replied with an innocent shrug.

They landed well away from the mass of people and covered the rest of the distance on foot. Now that they were on the ground, they could hear that there was some sort of celebration going on. However, by the time they got close, the local citizenry was already beginning to disperse, having apparently seen their fill of the strange sight for the time being. Elphaba and Fiyero stayed hidden in the cornstalks near which the ill-fated structure had fallen, watching for an opportune moment to sneak over without being seen.

"So, Munchkinlanders really are tiny," Fiyero observed, peering after a group of them who were waving goodbye to someone on the other side of the house. "I thought that was just an old fairy tale."

"No, surprisingly, it's true," she confirmed. "Although all the important families married into height somewhere along the way."

"Which explains why all the students from Munchkinland that I knew at Shiz were normal-sized."

"That it does. But on the whole, yes, they're much shorter than the average person. And they're incredibly small-minded, too. They're like sheep – where one goes, the rest are bound to follow. They act like little kids a lot of the time, fighting over the stupidest things. And they scare so easily. Sometimes it makes you want to jump out and yell 'boo!' just to see their reactions." She grinned at the look he gave her. "Not that I would know, of course…"

"Of course."

Finally there was a lull in the steady stream of people leaving, and the two of them seized the moment to dart across the open space to the relative safety of the crashed house's shadow. Not until they were almost close enough to reach out and touch the worn boards of the walls did they notice the pair of human legs sticking casually out from beneath the wreckage. For a moment, all they could do was stare at their discovery, appalled.

"Well, someone's having a bad day," Fiyero quipped finally, trying to make light of the situation.

Elphaba, on the other hand, thought she might very well be sick right then and there. She felt all the blood drain from her face as one hand flew to her mouth. "Oh, sweet Oz… no…"

"Elphaba, what's wrong?"

"Nessa… we're too late…"

"Nessa?" he echoed, as though trying to make sense of what she was saying. "You can't mean that that's – " He broke off and gestured to the legs. Elphaba could only nod rather numbly. "But how can you be sure?"

"Those stockings," she told him, her voice and her hand shaking as she pointed to the black and white stripes that clad the lifeless limbs. "I gave them to her as a sort of going-away present when we left home for Shiz. They were her favorites. That's Nessa, I'm sure of it. She's dead. My sister is dead…"

Saying the words aloud somehow brought it home to her that it really was her baby sister who was lying there squashed flat as a pancake underneath the wreckage of the house. One of the last links she had had to the slightly happier times in her past. Nessarose, her little Nessa, who used to ask Elphaba to sing her lullabies, who used to bring her little bouquets of wildflowers when their father would take the wheelchair-bound girl out for a walk, who used to sneak her older sister little presents now and then to try to make up for their father's obvious favoritism. And she realized that even though her sister could often be a royal pain, and even though she secretly resented all the love and attention the younger girl had gotten over the years that Elphaba never had, she really did love Nessa.

Suddenly she was hit by a grief too deep for words, and she bowed her head for a moment, her eyes squeezed tightly shut, fighting the urge to collapse next to her sister's body and cry herself dry. Grief was an emotion that Elphaba refused to allow herself to indulge in. There had been far too much in her life that warranted such sentiments, and if once she allowed herself to start feeling them, she would never stop. No, grief was far more productive when converted into anger. She could control anger; she could harness it; she could use it. Anger was a far more effective motivator than grief would ever be. So she channeled all her sorrow over her sister's death into a finely-controlled rage. When she finally looked up again, she knew her eyes were smoldering.

"So this is what they were all so happy about," she observed bitterly. "They're glad she's dead." Then she ventured another glance at Nessa's remains, and noticed that, although she was wearing stockings, any sort of footwear was conspicuously absent. "The shoes… where are her shoes? If those blasted Munchkins took them as some sort of perverted trophy, so help me…" The hand that wasn't around the handle of her broom clenched itself into a fist at her side. "I have to find out who did this."

"Elphaba – "

She turned to him, her dark eyes flashing fire. "I can't just sit back and let someone get away with murdering my sister!"

"I never said you should!" he assured her hastily, and laid a hand on her shoulder. "But we have to be careful. There are still people out there. They'll hear us."

As though to back up his argument, one of the voices on the other side of the house suddenly raised itself above the others. A voice that they both recognized instantly. They looked at each other in surprise. "Glinda???"

"What in Oz is she doing here?" Elphaba frowned.

Fiyero shrugged helplessly. "I don't have any more idea than you do."

But her agile mind, with the help of her anger, had already made a connection. "My sister is murdered, and Glinda the Good appears on the scene as soon as she's dead. Maybe it's just me, but that hardly seems like a coincidence."

"Well, maybe not, but – "

"The only way for her to have gotten here so fast would be if she knew beforehand that it was going to happen!"

"Elphaba, I'm sure Glinda didn't – " he tried again.

"No, Glinda may not have been directly involved," she conceded, cutting him off once more, "but I'll tell you who was – the people whose puppet she is! It was the Wizard, Fiyero! The Wizard and Madam Morrible! They did this!"

"We don't have any proof of that… "

"Proof? We're talking about Morrible here, Fiyero – weather magic is her specialty! She's the one who caused that cyclone! They killed Nessa, and now they're going to pay!" Elphaba stepped over Nessa's legs and strode resolutely around the corner of the house, Fiyero right on her heels. They crept along the shorter side of the building until they reached the next corner and could peek around to see what was going on.

"That's right! You just take that one road the whole time!" Glinda was calling after someone who stood a short distance down the Yellow Brick Road. The figure turned at the blonde's words to give her and the remaining Munchkinlanders a final wave, and Elphaba and Fiyero got a good look at the person. It was a young girl, not more than ten or eleven, wearing a blue-and-white gingham pinafore, her brown hair tied back into two neat braids. She carried a small rectangular wicker basket hanging from the crook of one elbow, and with the other arm she held a small, black, furry creature that, from their vantage point, could have been a terrier or a rat. And on her feet…

A pair of sparkling jeweled crimson shoes, glinting in the early morning sunlight.

Elphaba stiffened in shock and grabbed Fiyero by the arm. "That little girl has Nessa's shoes!" she spat through clenched teeth, barely able to get the words out in her fury.

"Those are the shoes you told me about? The ones you enchanted so she could walk?"

"Yes! And that little brat stole them!" Then her gaze drifted back to Glinda, and her eyes narrowed. "And she had help."

Fiyero caught her by the wrist. "Elphaba, calm down!" he pleaded.

But she was far beyond the point of listening to reason. This was the last straw! Those shoes rightfully belong to ME! She jerked out of his grasp. "Don't tell me to calm down!" she hissed. "My sister is dead, and that girl stole her shoes, and Glinda helped her, and I'm going to make her regret it!"

"For Oz's sake, this is no time to go flying off the handle!"

He might as well not have spoken, for all the effect his words had on her. "If it's a Wicked Witch they want, it's a Wicked Witch they'll get!" And with that she spun on her heel and stalked into view around the corner of the house, sending the Munchkins scattering before her with shrill cries of terror.

"Oh, I hope they don't get lost," Glinda was murmuring to herself, shielding her eyes with one hand as she watched the girl and the dog fade out of sight. "I am so bad at giving directions!"

"Well, well. How good of you to come, Glinda," Elphaba drawled, her tone dripping with such obvious sarcasm that even Glinda couldn't fail to catch it.

The blonde turned at her voice and met her gaze steadily, looking unsurprised to see her. "I was wondering how long it would take you to get here."

"Tell me, are you here to mourn Nessa's death, or to celebrate it like the rest of Munchkinland? What spin did your wonderful boss and his esteemed press secretary tell you to put on it?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Oh, come on, Glinda! Surely even you can't be so utterly stupid that you don't see what's going on here."

"Elphaba, I understand you're upset," soothed Glinda, placing a hand on Elphaba's shoulder. "It's dreadful, it is, to have a house fall on you, but accidents will happen…"

The green girl shook off her hand, eyes blazing. "You call this an accident?"

"Yes!" the blonde insisted. Then, at the withering look Elphaba gave her, she quickly amended, "Well, maybe not an accident…"

"Well, then, what would you call it?"

"Well… a regime change," Glinda offered with a small, tentative smile. Then, clearly pleased by her own cleverness, she added, "Caused by a bizarre and unexpected twister of fate."

"Oh, so you think cyclones just appear, out of the blue?" Elphaba stepped closer to Glinda, growing angrier and angrier.

The blonde backed away before Elphaba's wrath. "Well, I don't know, I never really – "

"No, of course you never!" interrupted Elphaba. "You're too busy telling everyone how wonderful everything is!" Her voice rose in pitch, and she spat the last few words in a tone of pure venom.

"I'm a public figure now! People expect me – "

"To lie?"

"To be encouraging!" countered Glinda defensively.

"And did your instructions specifically include giving away my sister's shoes, or did you come up with that little addition all on your own?"

"Oh, Elphaba, you always did get upset over the silliest things. I mean, come on! They're just shoes – let it go!"

But Elphaba would not be silenced so easily. She was livid, and she refused to be stopped until she had had her say. "I wanted something to remember her by. And all that was left of her were those shoes. And now, thanks to you, that wretched little farm girl has walked off with them! So don't you tell me to 'let it go'!"

"Why do they even matter to you?" Glinda wanted to know, sounding genuinely curious. "If you really wanted something to remember her by, you could've just raided the Governor's Mansion. What's so special about those shoes?" She paused for a moment before adding, as though to herself, "I didn't think they were all that stylish, to tell the truth…"

"It's the principle of the thing!" snapped the green girl. "Those shoes were my sister's, and since I'm her only living relative, they rightfully belong to me. They're not yours, or that little girl's, and you had no right to give them away!"

At this, the blonde narrowed her eyes. "Yes, well, a lot of us seem to be taking things that don't belong to us lately, don't we?" she asked quietly in an extremely pointed tone.

Elphaba understood the implications of Glinda's question at once, and stiffened. "You leave him out of this!"

"If you have the right to be angry about your shoes being taken without your permission, I think I have the right to be angry about my fiancé being taken without mine!"

"He wasn't your fiancé. He told me himself that he never actually asked you to marry him."

"Well, maybe not directly, but it was implied!" retorted Glinda with an offended air.

Elphaba ignored her and continued as though she hadn't even spoken. "And besides, a pair of shoes is hardly comparable to a person, Glinda. A pair of shoes can't make a conscious decision to walk off."

"Well, just because a person can, it doesn't mean he did."

"Oh, please! As if I could make him do anything he didn't want to! For your information, he asked to come with me."

"That's what you want me to think, anyway."

"Excuse me?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about, Elphaba."

"No, actually, I'm afraid I don't. Why don't you enlighten me?"

"You think you're so smart! Well, I know all about your little love spell!"

"What in Oz's name…?!" Elphaba gave the blonde a completely flabbergasted look. Love spell? What is she talking about?

"Oh, don't try to play innocent with me!" Glinda cut her off. "You cast a love spell on Fiyero to make him leave with you! Admit it!"

"Wait a minute… you think I…" As she finally realized what had the blonde so upset, the green girl recoiled as though she had been slapped. "Honestly, Glinda, you've come up with some outrageous ideas before, but that one tops them all! I can't believe you really think I would do something so… so wicked!"

"Well, wicked is as wicked does."

"I'm going to pretend, for the sake of your health and physical well-being, that you did not just say that."

The blonde shrugged carelessly. "Fine. It's still the truth. It's not my problem if you won't listen to it."

"Are you trying to make me angry?" wondered Elphaba, her voice dangerously quiet. "Because we both know what happens when I get angry. I can't be held responsible for what I might do."

"Oh, go threaten someone who cares," Glinda frowned dismissively. "You don't scare me any more than you ever did."

The green girl raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?"

"Yes."

"I have one word for you, Glinda."

"What would that be?"

Elphaba grinned, not very nicely. She took a sudden step towards Glinda and shouted, "BOO!"

"Ahhhh!" shrieked the blonde reflexively. Then, realizing what Elphaba had just done, she glared reproachfully at her. "Elphaba!" she chided petulantly over the green girl's laughter. "Now that was just mean!"

"Not mean," Elphaba corrected her, pleased at the reaction her little trick had produced. "Wicked."

"You know, maybe they're all right about you. Maybe you have changed."

"You know me better than that, Glinda. You can't honestly believe I'd really stoop so low as to use a love spell to make Fiyero come with me. I wouldn't hurt you like that. Or him." She was more than a little offended that the blonde didn't think her capable of winning Fiyero's love without the use of magic, but she diplomatically decided to let it go until they had established the more important fact that she was innocent of what Glinda was accusing.

For the first time, a hint of uncertainty appeared in the shorter girl's eyes. "No… it didn't seem like something you would do," she admitted slowly. "But… oh, I don't know! It made so much more sense when Madam Morrible said it…"

Elphaba froze. "Wait just a clock-tick… Morrible gave you that crazy idea? And you actually bought it?"

"Well, it sounded reasonable at the time…"

"So did her and the Wizard telling me to cast that levitation spell on poor Chistery," the green girl reminded her sharply. "Glinda, when will you ever learn not to listen to anything that woman says?"

"I was distraught, Elphie, all right?" the blonde protested defensively. "I was looking for Fiyero because he'd run off from the engagement party, and I ran into her and the Wizard in the throne room, and they told me the two of you had left together. I was so upset, I hardly knew what was going on after that. Morrible told me you had used magic to make him go with you, and…" She paused to give a defeated sigh and then continued in a small voice, "Well, I guess it was easier to believe that than to accept that… that he chose you over me."

The admission encouraged Elphaba. Maybe her friend wasn't completely in Morrible's clutches after all. "Don't you see, Glinda?" she asked, stepping forward to take the blonde by the shoulders for emphasis. "She was just trying to turn you against me! She knows how close we are, and with the influence you have over the people of Oz, she knows you could be a real threat to her 'Wicked Witch of the West' propaganda if you put your mind to it."

"I know that, Elphie," Glinda agreed with a nod. "I guess I knew it all along. I just… I was hurt, and angry, and… and I wanted to get back at you for… oh, I don't know, for making him fall in love with you. And believing that you would use magic to do it was the only way I could think of to get revenge."

Elphaba smirked. "Very subtle of you. I'm impressed."

"Well, like I said, I wasn't exactly thinking like myself at the moment. I mean, just look at what happened right after that! Morrible and the Wizard were trying to think of another way to capture you after you escaped from under the executioner's nose – I can't wait to hear how you pulled that one off, by the way – and I told them…" She stopped abruptly, and her blue eyes grew huge, as though she had suddenly realized something. Staring over Elphaba's shoulder at the crashed house, she pushed the taller girl aside and took a couple of steps toward the wreckage. "I told them… oh, sweet Oz…" she murmured weakly.

"What is it, Glinda?" demanded the green girl, unnerved by the change in the blonde's demeanor that her apparent revelation had caused. "What did you tell them?"

"I… I told them to… to use your sister. To make you think she was in trouble. I knew if you thought she was in danger, you'd be here in less than a clock-tick. And then that cyclone… Morrible must've done it… oh, Oz… Nessa…"

Elphaba felt as though she'd been kicked full-force in the stomach. All the air seemed to have been sucked out of her lungs. Surely her best friend couldn't have been so cruel! "Glinda… how could you?" she gasped.

"Elphie, I'm sorry! I didn't think they'd actually hurt her!" Glinda wailed. "I didn't mean for this to happen! You've got to believe me!"

"I can understand you being angry at me… but what could you possibly have had against my sister?"

"I told you, I wasn't thinking! If I'd known they were going to… to… to do this, I never would've said it!"

"Well, it's a little late now to start thinking about what you would or wouldn't have done," Elphaba pointed out bitterly. All her fury at her sister's death had come flooding back with a vengeance, and now that she had a person on whom to focus it (regardless of the fact that said person was her best friend), it was stronger than ever.

"Elphie, please… I'm sorry…" The blonde rushed forward and grabbed both of Elphaba's hands in her own, pleading desperately.

But the green girl pulled her hands out of Glinda's grasp, unmoved. "'Sorry' isn't going to cover this one, Glinda. You were my best friend. You, of all people… I thought I could trust you. Obviously I was wrong."

"Don't say that, Elphie! You can trust me! I swear you can! How can I prove it to you?"

"After this, I don't honestly know if that would even be possible."

"Elphie, please… there's got to be something I can do…"

Glinda's efforts to come up with some way that she could possibly earn back the green girl's trust were interrupted when they suddenly heard the sound of many pairs of booted feet tramping up the Yellow Brick Road towards them. Elphaba stiffened and Glinda paled as they both suddenly remembered the other aspect of the blonde's betrayal, the part that was even worse than her being responsible for Nessa's death – the fact that the whole thing was a trap set up to capture Elphaba. She gave the shorter girl a look that clearly said, And how exactly do you expect me to trust you now

"Get out of here," Glinda suddenly ordered almost frantically. "Both of you. You should be able to get away safely if you leave now. I'll take care of the guards."

Part of Elphaba's mind was insisting that the blonde was only helping them to try and assuage her guilt over her involvement in poor Nessa's untimely demise, that she didn't really care whether Elphaba and Fiyero escaped or not. But her practical side (luckily the much larger part of her) reminded her that an escape route was an escape route, no matter why it was provided. So she nodded her acceptance of Glinda's proposal, but not without warning, "Don't think for a clock-tick that this in any way erases what you've done."

The blonde nodded solemnly. "I never expected it to." She paused for a moment before offering bleakly, "Elphie, I know it doesn't help, but I really am sorry."

"I know you are," Elphaba conceded, finally softening a bit. She let out her breath in a long sigh. "And maybe someday I'll be able to forgive you. But it's going to take a long time."

"I understand." Glinda reached out and gave the green girl's hand a quick squeeze, which Elphaba returned. "Now go, before the guards get here."

Elphaba nodded again. Without another word, she turned in a whirl of black skirts and walked over to where Fiyero had been standing the whole time watching them. He took her hand reassuringly, and after a last glance over her shoulder at Glinda, she led him around to the other side of the house. They mounted her broom and took off, and just in time, too, because as they rose, they could see the blonde below them, addressing the soldiers that had come marching up mere moments after they lifted off. Elphaba squared her shoulders and pointed the broom westwards towards safety, letting the wind dry the tears that were now flowing freely down her cheeks.

I'm leaving today (Wednesday) to go on vacation, but I'll be back on Friday. An inbox full of loverly reviews would be fantastic to return to. (hint hint…)