Rifiuto: Non Miriena

A/N: Elphaba's grandfather is kind of funny, isn't he?

Thanks to lizziemagic for reviewing 11.

"Just who the hell are you, anyway?"

Both turned, to see Kensad kneeling in front of the stone.

"I... I'm Fiyero Tiggular... I... I'm a student as Shiz University... I..."

"I don't care about that. What I want to know-" He started, climbing to his feet. "Is how you found my little frog."

Fiyero bit his lip.

"I... I was in a car accident a few weeks ago... and... we... my friends and I... we picked up a girl... on the side of the road... she caused... she caused our crash... my friends were killed... the... the girl was... was..." He gestured towards Elphaba's headstone, embarrassed.

"Elphaba? You picked up Elphaba?" He nodded.

"Impossible. My little frog's dead. She's been dead for twenty-seven years. There is no way-"

"Kensad. Let the boy talk." He shared a glance with his wife, before turning back to Fiyero.

"I... I got it on tape..." After several minutes, Fiyero opened his laptop, put the dvd in and hit PLAY, allowing the couple to watch the footage. When it came to Elphaba, he stopped it, allowing them to take in the detail of their granddaughter's face. She stared at them, frightened, unsure, yet so familiar...

"Oh my Oz." Partra covered her face with her hands, as tears began to prick at her eyes.

"Little frog." When Fiyero continued to play the tape, and they saw what she became after, he knew he'd made the right choice in showing them the footage.

"Has... has Frex seen this?" Partra asked, wiping tears off her cheeks. Fiyero nodded.

"I'm sorry..."

"She looked exactly like that when we saw her at the morgue... her face was so swollen and cut up that... for a while, we doubted it was her. She was so beautiful... and that... that beauty was gone... in an instant... in the blink of an eye, she was reduced to a bloodied corpse... we couldn't have an open casket... we had to keep it closed..." After several minutes, Partra turned towards her granddaughter's stone.

"Her death nearly ripped Frex and Melena apart. They'd tried for so long to have a baby..." Kensad told him, resting a hand on his wife's shoulder.

"Fabala was their miracle."

He nodded at his wife's words, never taking his eyes off the stone. "She was the light of our lives. She lit up this whole town. She could walk into a room and make everyone fall in love with her."

Fiyero listened, realizing that what Mr. Thropp said was right. Though he hated to admit it, he'd also fallen in love with the raven-haired beauty. What made it worse, was not the fact that she was dead, but more the fact that she had caused his friends' deaths. Yet he couldn't help the fact that he was falling for her.

After several moments, Partra turned to Fiyero and said, "Come on, we have something we want to show you."

Forty minutes later, he found himself sitting on the sofa in the Thropp's small house, staring at family photographs, children's art projects and little knick-knacks.

"Here we are." He moved over as Partra sat down, a photo album in her hands. When she opened it, she pointed to a photograph in the top left corner of the page. "Here's Fabala on Kumbrica's Eve, when she was eight. She went as the Kumbric Witch... she had so much fun trick-or-treating, she ate so much candy she got sick and had to stay in bed for two days."

Fiyero chuckled softly, as she turned the pages, showing him photographs and telling him stories. When she got to a full-length photograph of a man and woman, she stopped.

"That's Fabala at her senior prom, with Tersan."

"Wait a minute,Tersan Mecyi? The guy who was driving the night of the crash?" Partra nodded.

"They'd known each other since daycare. They were best friends. We were all certain they'd get married and have babies after college, but..."

He turned back to the photograph.

Elphaba stood next to Tersan, a big smile on her face. She was dressed in a beautiful, strapless black dress with an uneven skirt. Her long raven hair was piled in curls on the top of her head, and she smiled at the camera with a one hundred watt smile. Tersan was in a nice suit, and they looked the perfect picture of bliss. She turned to another page, telling him the stories that went along with the photographs. Eventually, she got to a senior portrait, with a graduation invitation for Nest Hardings High.

"She graduated Valedictorian of her senior class." Kensad told him. "Brightest little thing in the whole world. Sweetest girl... she was going to be a singer. She had the most beautiful voice you'd ever heard. The voice of an angel. She was going places, our little frog. And then... they took her from us too soon."

Kensad seemed to drift off, back to the night his precious granddaughter died.

"They?"

"Those three friends of hers. Tersan, Baxiana and Merku... Merkan... whoever they were. They stole her from us. They flipped that car, and when she died, they didn't even bother to check to see if she was still breathing. When we got there, Frex and Melena had just arrived, and... the paramedics were covering her with a sheet and loading her onto a stretcher. As they started wheeling her towards the ambulance, her hand dropped and hung, swinging back and for as she was taken away. It was like a half-hearted goodbye. Almost as though she didn't want to go, but didn't have a choice. They loaded her into the ambulance, slammed the doors and took off, and I just remember hearing Melena scream. It wasn't just of grief; she was dieing, along with her daughter; Melena, Frex... we all died that night. When they killed Fabala, they killed us. We've never been the same."

Fiyero listened, picturing the paramedics taking her away. After several minutes, he said,

"I'm sorry."

Gently, Partra patted his hand.

"It's not your fault."