Exhaustion took hold of Elphaba as she finally backed away from the Girmmrie. She had no idea if the spell she case to protect Fiyero had worked but she was to drained to keep trying. Dragging herself to her bed, she collapsed onto it and fell into a deep sleep. She didn't stir until Christy came into the room to wake her. The Monkey seemed excited by something and wouldn't give up on waking his mistress until she was sitting up and looking at him.
"What is it Christy!" Elphaba snapped.
The Monkey thrust something into her hands. "Look!" Christy replied. "Look!"
In her green looking glass Elphaba could see a small girl and three others. The child wore her sister's shoes, and at least one of her compactions was familiar to her. "Boq."
"They come for you." Christy said worriedly.
"Let them come." Elphaba replied as she got to her feet and walked to the window. "In fact," She whirled around, her long black dress dusting the floor at her feet. "Bring me the girl!"
Christy nodded and went to get some of his companions.
She really didn't know what she was going to do with the child when she got her there, but Oz wasn't safe for a small girl to be roaming with merely a tin man, a scarecrow, and a Lion. Especially since it appeared the Wizard had stooped to using children in his games. She was pacing in a swish of black fabric when her Monkeys returned.
"You're the wicked witch." The girl muttered when she was set down.
Elphaba turned and looked her over. The girl wasn't more then twelve years old. "My name is Elphaba."
Dorothy blinked. "You have a name?"
"Of course I have a name you daft child." Elphaba replied with a bit of a snap to her voice.
"But the Wizard, he said, he said you were…" Dorothy stuttered out.
"Wicked?" Elphaba replied. "Yes I know."
The girl titled her head and took all of Elphaba in and then she hung her head, tears welling in her eyes. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to! It was an accident! I don't even know how I got here! Please Miss Elphaba, please don't hurt me."
"But you've come here to hurt me have you not?" Elphaba asked coolly.
The girl looked up. "He said, he said he'd send me home if I… If I… I don't want too! I don't want to hurt you! I never meant to harm your sister!"
"How did you know the Witch of the East was my sister?" Elphaba asked.
Dorothy sniffled and hiccupped. "Glinda told me, when she gave me these shoes that won't come off."
Elphaba looked down at the shoes and her heart ached.
"Please don't hurt me." The child repeated. "I'd take them off if I could."
"Stop sniveling." Elphaba sighed. "I'm not going to hurt you."
The girl blinked. "You're not?"
Elphaba groaned. This child was annoying. "No, I'm not. You can't always believe what you hear."
"But even the Tin Man said you were wicked." Dorothy said as she relaxed just a bit. She really didn't sense danger from this woman; she was just scared in general.
Elphaba rolled her eyes. "The Tin Man and I have issues from our past." She explained.
"Oh." The child replied.
Sitting on a chair Elphaba began to rub her forehead. She was getting a headache. When she looked down she saw that the girl's small dog had come over to her. She reached down and scratched its ear. "Kind of cute for a annoying dog."
Dorothy smiled. If Toto liked the witch then she must be ok. Then she frowned as she sat on a step close by the green woman. "He can't send me home can he."
It was a statement, not a question, but Elphaba nodded anyway.
"Then I'll never see my aunt and uncle again." The girl began to cry again.
"We'll find a way to send you home." Elphaba told her as she put a hand on the girl's shoulder.
The girl looked up at her and nodded.
By the time the girl's three companions had shown up the child had fallen sleep. Elphaba was in her workroom when the three busted in wearing Monkey customs. She barely suppressed a cackle.
"Where's Dorothy!" Demanded the Tin Man.
Elphaba rolled her eyes. "She's sleeping, Boq, so be quite." The Lion and Scarecrow looked at the Tin Man and blinked.
The Tin Man raised his ax. "You did this to me!"
"I had too!" Elphaba shouted back. "Nessa said the spell wrong! If I hadn't you'd have died!"
"You should have let me die!" The Tin Man raged as he lunged forward. "Instead of living a life as a man of tin!"
The Scarecrow stepped in front of him and held the ax in a wobbly grip. "Don't be a fool, Boq!"
That voice, it took Elphaba by surprise. She stood there in shock for several moments before she whispered, "Fiyero."
The Tin Man looked at the Scarecrow and then stepped back. "Fiyero?"
The Scarecrow nodded. "She saved our lives." He said as he looked at both the Tin Man and the Lion. "Your heart would have disappeared." He looked at the Lion, "And that professor would have tortured you if she hadn't run from the classroom with you. You've both been so positioned by the Wizard that you can't see past the hate and hoopla!"
"You say this only because she bewitched you to love her!" The Tin Man protested.
"Why would she do that when she loves another?" The Scarecrow asked.
Both of the other men blinked. "Who?"
Elphaba opened her mouth to answer when she felt a tug on her cape. When she turned she saw Dorothy standing there holding a book to her chest and a scroll in her hand. "I didn't mean to knock this over." She offered the items to Elphaba. "Your talking cat came into the room and Toto chased it." The dog was cowering in its basket. "He stopped when the cat talked to him, he's never been talked to by a cat before, but not before he knocked these off the desk." The child yawned. "The pictures are very pretty. One kind of looks like Glinda."
"Glinda?" Elphaba asked as she looked down at the book. It was one of the old ancestries from Fiyero's library. She opened the book and flipped through the pages. She stopped when a familiar picture started back out at her. It was of that same young woman she'd seen while speaking to her father. Only this picture had a name under it. "Upland." She whispered.
Dorothy pointed at the scroll. "I had to roll that back up. It's got Upland on it too."
Elphaba unrolled the scroll and read it over. "Sweet Oz."
"Elphaba?" Fiyero asked.
"This has gone on long enough." She announced as she put the book, scroll, and Girmmrie into her bag. She grabbed her broom and mounted it, holding out a hand to Dorothy. "Your not safe here. I know you trust your friends, and so do I, but they need to get back to the Emerald City and I can't fly all of us."
The Tin Man stopped Dorothy but she smiled up at him. "It's ok. She's not so wicked after all." The girl climbed onto the broom.
"Are you three coming?" Elphaba asked.
Fiyero nodded. "We'll meet you there."
Elphaba nodded and then looked at the Tin Man. "I never meant to leave you that way, Boq." She pulled out a piece of parchment from her bag and handed it to him. "It's not finished yet."
He took it and looked it over. "What is it?"
"A spell to change you back." She answered.
He looked at it again and then handed it back. He wasn't sure if he believed her or not.
Elphaba simply nodded. "Hold tight." She told Dorothy before the broom lifted off the ground. "It's time to set things right."