Disclaimer: Wicked and RENT are not mine. Dedication to GirlInTheMirror121, who got me to update. I'm not sure if this is a crowning glory chapter, it's got some serious themes in it anyway... One Short Day will definitely be happier. Story Time! -LostOzian
Alternate Title: Fiyero, Take Your AZT!
Joanne hopped down from the MMToSL, and gathered up all the little props as Collins and Mark dragged the table off stage. Mimi, Benny, and Roger started hanging out onstage, talking about random stuff, and Maureen finally entered, wearing her white jacket that appeared in Over the Moon and desperately trying to learn how to flip her hair.
"Toss, toss," she repeated, tossing her hair behind her shoulders only to re-arrange it in front of them again. Roger looked over at her, and excused himself from Benny and Mimi. Maureen tossed her hair again, and Roger bit back a laugh. Maureen turned to look at him.
"What?" she asked sharply. "What are you looking at?" Roger held up his hands in surrender.
"Nothing, it's just…" He smiled an 'I'm a rock star, worship me' smile. "You've been Galindafied." Maureen made a face, like an admission of 'yeah, you got me'. Roger looked up again, continuing with his line. "You don't have to do that, you know." Maureen was just about to ask what he meant when Dr. Thomas-Dillamond-Collins the Goat Man entered with the inside-out sheepskin jacket.
"All right, take your seats, class!" he said, and everyone sat down on the floor, Mimi and Benny on one side and Roger and Maureen on the other. "I have something to say, and very little time to say it." He took off his beanie and pressed it against his two hoof-fists.
"This is my last day here at Shiz," Collins said. Mimi and Benny just looked at each other, Roger's jaw dropped, and Maureen… Maureen was livid. "I am no longer permitted to teach. I want to thank you for sharing your enthusiasm… your essays, no matter how feebly structured…" Collins looked at Maureen with a kind of fatherly affection. "And even, on occasion, your lunch." Angel entered with the mutilated Pussy Galore wig, concern gushing off of her.
"Doctor Dillamond, I'm so dreadfully sorry," she said, patting Collins' back.
"Oz, I actually believe she's sorry!" Elphaba complained.
"Madame, we've got to do something!" Maureen stood up suddenly. Everyone looked at her strangely, but Collins walked up to her, placing his hoof-fists on her shoulders.
"Miss Elphaba, they can take away my job, but I shall continue speaking out." Collins gave her a decisive nod, and the Drama Queen looked hopeful, until Mark entered wearing a pair of Benny's yuppie scum sunglasses on top of his usual glasses, so he had two pairs of glasses dangling off of his abnormally pale ears.
"Get a move on, y'old goat," he said in a nasally used-car-salesman voice.
"Wait, isn't he Boq?" Glinda asked, pointing to Mark.
"No, he's not wearing the scarf-tie," Elphaba said. "Remember the swing parts."
"Oh." Collins was yelling about not seeing the whole story, and Mark finally forced him off stage.
"Doctor Dillamond!" Maureen cried. Mark went to the other side, silently picking up a box with a cloth on the top. She turned to her classmates, angrily clenching and unclenching her hands. "Well, are we just going to sit here? In silence?" Benny and Mimi shared another look, and Roger started fiddling with a shoelace. Angel patted Maureen's shoulder, looking a lot like she had when she was comforting Collins.
"Miss Elphaba, there's nothing we can do," she said. "Please take your seat." With a sniffle, Maureen sat down next to Roger again. Mark set up his evil operation of cardboard box, cloth, and lethal-looking scissors.
"Gooood afternoon, students!" he said, beginning his solicitation. "Every day, with every tick of the Time Dragon Clock, in every corner of our great Oz, one hears the silence of progress. For example," Mark lifted the cloth off the top, but nobody could see inside. All the students stood up to get a better look, including Maureen and Roger. "This is called a cage!" There were several gasps as everyone looked at the 'cage'.
"They're not going to show us the cage?" Fiyero asked.
"The Cub probably doesn't move," Elphaba said.
"This remarkable innovation is actually for the Animal's own good..." Mark was saying.
"If it's for his own good, why is he trembling?" Maureen demanded. Mark looked down at the cage-prop for a moment, coming up with a plausible excuse.
"Well, he's just excited to be here, that's all," Mark said. He snapped the lethal-looking scissors around in the box with loud clicks. With each click, everyone onstage but Mark winced. "Now, as I was saying, one of the benefits-" click "-of caging a Lion cub-" click "-so young-" click "is that it will never, in fact," Mark hid the scissors behind his back as if they had never been there. "Learn how to speak!"
"What?" Maureen squeaked, horrified. Fiyero bit his lip.
"You just squeaked," he whispered to Elphaba, who poked him. Mark motioned the students closer, but Maureen kept backing up away from the cage. Roger looked from her to Mark a few times, before approaching Maureen. She grabbed onto his arm.
"Can you imagine a world where Animals are kept in cages?!" she said, not noticing how bewildered Roger was. "And they never speak?!"
"Now, he may seem a bit agitated…" Mark took out the scissors again, snipping them in the air. "…but that's easily remedied…" Maureen put her hands over her mouth in horror.
"What should I do?!" she cried. Roger was looking at her helplessly.
"I- I don't know," he said.
"Well, somebody has to…" Maureen looked around for someone who would help, before realizing she was the only one with the ability to change things!!! "Do something!"
She raised her arms, and Mark, Mimi, and Benny were 'blasted' back from the cage, and started to imitate heavy metal dancing, with lots of arm flailing and crazy spastic spinning.
"Freak-ay," Glinda said. "I'm kind of glad I wasn't in class that day."
"What's happening?!" Roger asked Maureen.
"I don't know, I got mad, and…" she threw up her arms to indicate 'then things got freak-ay'. Roger looked up at the two other students and Mark the Twisted Propaganda-Packed Professor, attempting to formulate A Plan.
"Alright, just don't move…" Benny, Mark, and Mimi all gave a particularly violent spasm. "And don't get mad at me," he added as an afterthought. Not knowing what else to do, he picked up the Lion Cub's 'cage' and headed toward offstage until he realized Maureen was still standing onstage. "Well, are you coming?" Maureen suddenly ran off after him, leaving Mark, Mimi, and Benny to dance around on stage a little, before finally clearing stage.
What followed would forever be remembered as the sweetest Fiyeraba scene in history. Roger and Maureen, being insanely attractive people to begin with, while also possessing a fair amount of skill at acting, gave the scene a tragic sense of propriety preventing them from making out then and there. The Ozians watched in silence, Fiyero and Elphaba rather pleased, Glinda choosing to focus on how those were actors onstage, not her friends, and Boq finally realized Nessa was still holding his hand when Maureen touched Roger's.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked Nessa.
"If you forgot about it, obviously it wasn't that terrible," she said. Boq just folded his arms and watched Maureen and Roger kneeling by the Lion cub cage.
"What did you mean to do?" Roger asked. "And why was I the only one you didn't do it to?" Maureen looked up, suddenly realizing that it was rather strange that she had spared him without intending to. Instead of answering his question, she pointed to his upstage cheek, because there had been no time to put fake blood on him.
"Oh, look! You're bleeding… It must have scratched you…" she said.
"Yeah… Or maybe it scratched me… or something," Roger said pathetically. Maureen reached out to wipe away the blood, and had only just touched his face when a rather annoying beeping started. Roger and Maureen froze with 'oh, shit' looks frozen on their faces. Maureen retracted her hand, using it to cover her face as she attempted to not burst out laughing again as Roger pulled out his beeper and shut it off. There were a few snickers backstage, and Mark finally shouted out, "Fiyero, take your AZT!" Fiyero himself looked very confused, wondering why people wanted him to 'take AZT'. Elphaba, in her infinite pool of knowledge, understood immediately.
"The actor takes medication," she told Fiyero. "And they're kind of trying not to break character completely." The Green Witch was exactly right, but it was becoming increasingly hard the longer Roger and Maureen remained onstage. Roger stood up and stretched, sliding his beeper back into his back pocket.
"Well, Elphie, it's been fun, but Auntie Boq is getting on my ass to take my AZT, and he's probably going to chop off my straw-filled head with an ax if I don't go, so I'll just take the Cub and…" Runoffstageasfastashumanlypossible. Maureen was now alone onstage as Roger joined the backstage Pill Swallowing Party with Mimi, Angel, and Collins, and a big Tylenol bottle re-labeled 'AZT'. Mo pulled herself together quickly, standing and looking after Roger.
"Fiyero?" she called quietly, before turning to herself. "I didn't even know he took AZT…" 'I'm Not That Girl' began, Maureen doggedly repeating the words in her head so she wouldn't think about the fact that Roger had brought his beeper on stage, and not only that, it had gone off. She just sang sorrowfully, taking one moment in the middle of the song to lie flat on the stage as Joanne and Roger went past, with Roger looking distant and moodified. There was a tad bit of eyebrow-raising on the 'gold hair with a gentle curl' line, but it was left in because that's how the song goes, so suck it up.
When suddenly, Madame Angel came onstage with Joanne's bubble-umbrella, or the BubbleBrella, to break up the adolescent angst and save the day!
"Hey, who gave Morrible my bubble?!" Glinda bounced in her chair in protest.
"It's okay, they probably just didn't want another prop to keep track of," Nessa said.
"Oh, Miss Elphaba, I finally heard back from the Wizard!" Angel said, taking Maureen's hands.
"The Wizard?" Maureen said, as if there could be any other Wizard.
"…is a bastard," Elphaba 'finished' Maureen's sentence.
"Yes, he wishes to meet you!" Angel started smoothing out Maureen's hair, which would have been really creepy if the real Morrible had done it, but do I have to go over the fact this is Angel one more time? "I know how devastated you were for our poor Doctor Dillamond, but I can assure you dear, as one door closes, another opens." Maureen stood there looking confused for a moment before Angel whipped out a piece of green construction paper.
"Kapow!" she said, giving the prized invitation to Maureen, who proceeded to glomp her headmistress in excitement.
"Oh, Madame, how can I thank you?!" Angel laughed a little, before straightening the BubbleBrella a little.
"Careful, dearie," she said, letting Maureen hold onto the handle. "Mustn't get wet. I know…" Angel stepped out from under the BubbleBrella, and waved her hands in the air. Maureen looked out from the BubbleBrella, and folded it because supposedly it wasn't raining anymore, giving Angel a look like she was surprised.
"Didn't I tell you?" Angel asked. "Weather is my specialty. Now, Oz-speed, my dear! And make me proud!" Maureen gave back the umbrella as Angel exited.
"I will!" she assured the Nicest Boho In Town, before looking down at the 'invitation' again, and adding, "I'll try." A miniscule reprise of 'The Wizard and I' started.
"And there we'll finally be, the Wizard and I…" Maureen sang.
"Well, at least not much else can go wrong," Boq said.
"Don't say that, it'll jinx them!" Nessa hissed.
"Too late, he said it," Fiyero said.