AN:

Dear Fiyero,

I apologise a million times for almost always giving you the shorter chapters. On the other hand, you have more readers, so I hope that makes up for it!

Sincerely,

The girl who has so much fun screwing with you and your loved ones xD

The companion chapter in the Elphie-version is: "A Moment Too Soon"

Happy reading!

xoxo MLE

Chapter Twenty-Five: Conspirators

Glinda woke to the shouting of guards and the clomping of heavy leather boots – there was a real commotion going on outside her quarters. Her first reaction was to hide her head between two fluffy pillows while hoping that the tumult would soon pass. Several clock-ticks later, however, the noise seemed to only have increased. With a frustrated sigh, she tossed the pillows aside and got out of her bed. She waved her hand in an angry motion and her robe came floating through the air, where she caught it and smoothly slipped into it.

"It's six in the morning," she screeched with a somewhat hoarse voice as she flung open the door, placing her hands on her hips, "who dares to –"

The surprise left her speechless for a moment.

"Master Scarecrow?"

She looked from the poor, battered straw-man to the two guards who usually stood by her door, for they were the men she knew best. The other three Gale Forcers shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other, trying to brush away the scattered straw without attracting too much attention.

"What is the meaning of this?" she asked with as much authority as she could muster.

She had to admit that she enjoyed seeing these pinheads wither and cringe under her gaze. As much as she preferred being loved, in this tough environment at the Wizard's court, it paid to be feared at times.

"We very much apologise for this disturberance. You see, Your Goodness, this scoundrel demanded to talk to you, and when we denied him access to your chambers at this unholy hour, he insisted that it was urgent and was about to break in. That was when we called for reinforcements."

"Because two strong men like you can't take it up with a blundering, staggering bag of straw?" Glinda remarked pointedly.

The guard inclined his head and blushed furiously.

"Did you ask Master Scarecrow, who, as I'd like to remind you, is his Ozess' personal guest, what he wished to discuss with me?"

This time it was the second guard who attempted to answer, yet not able to come out with a single word, he simply shook his head and also turned red, just as his colleague had.

"What a useless bunch you are. You three are dismissed," she said, addressing the remaining guards before turning her attention to the Scarecrow, who was now crouching on the floor to gather scraps of his filling and stuff it back inside his trousers and shirt.

"Please, Master Scarecrow, accept my apologies for the incompetence of my staff. But now tell me, what is it you wished to discuss with me?"

The Scarecrow looked up and seemed as though he was about to say something, but then changed his mind and lightly shook his head.

"Please Glinda, if we could talk about this in your room."

Well, he was quite an insolent fellow, the good witch suddenly had to agree. Who did he think he was; addressing her so casually, even without using any sort of honorific! In fact, even most of the Wizard's closest confidants addressed her at the very least as 'Miss Upland' or 'Miss Glinda'. But she cleared her throat and offered him a tight smile.

"I do hope you're not wasting my time so early in the morning," she half-threatened him in her sweetest tone of voice, then gave her guard a nod to open the door for them.

Once inside, she waited for the door to snap shut before she turned around to address the Scarecrow.

"So, you remem-" she began, but she was almost instantly interrupted as he howling dropped to the ground mere inches before her feet.

"We killed Elphaba!" he cried, grasping for her robe for support.

Glinda took a step back to escape his hands and stared at him with bewilderment. This turn of events was certainly most unexpected. Suddenly hearing her friend's name, she had not been able to hide her terror – which, luckily, the Scarecrow would not have noticed, of course – and but a few seconds into this private audience she already felt like dismissing the inconvenient visitor.

But even though she was not at all keen on discussing the green woman's murder with someone who had helped her along with meeting her untimely end, something compelled her to at least listen to what the man (or whatever she should call him) had to say first.

"Well," she almost whispered while the Scarecrow was still on his knees, sobbing dry tears, "this is hardly anything new. I rather thought the potion might have helped you remembering something that happened before all this."

The sorry thing on the floor only shook his head.

"It's all my fault," he muttered, rocking back and forth, then repeated his words several times.

Glinda began to wonder whether he was still talking to her, or whether he might have gone insane. Perhaps, she had made a mistake with the potion? Or what if the potion had unanticipated side effects on non-human life forms?

"I was there," he finally said a little louder, his voice dry and coarse as though he had cried - which in reality, he couldn't. "I should have stopped them, I should have helped her. I should have known, I should have remembered!"

No, maybe not insane, the good witch decided. She still had to fit all the pieces of the puzzle together, yet she had the uncanny feeling that there truly was something to the Scarecrow's story.

"Well, you didn't remember, but I don't think that was your fault."

Seeing in how much pain he was, how the guilt plagued him, she knew her words to be hardly adequate, but until he would help her to understand what exactly had happened, this was all she could do for him. Hesitantly, she took a step forward and lightly laid her hand on his head. When he grabbed it, she almost pulled back, but she bit her lower lip and allowed him this small measure of comfort.

He kissed her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze, as if it was suddenly him trying to comfort her.

"And now the two of you will never get a chance to make up."

His second hand came up to also hold on to hers.

"But I promised her," he said, swallowing hard. "I promised her that you'd forgive her.

"And you should never have been angry with her to begin with – it wasn't her fault. Nothing was her fault; it was mine. Mine alone.

"The night in the throne room, the engagement, the day you returned to Shiz, all by yourself. Without her…."

Glinda turned white as a ghost. Her breath caught in her throat and she had to draw her trembling hand back to stifle the sob that was about to escape.

"It all went wrong," the Scarecrow continued, not noticing the tears in the blonde witch's eyes. "Nothing of this was supposed to happen the way it did. It's all my fault! If I only had been man enough and-"

His rambling speech was disrupted by an elegant finger on his painted lips. Now kneeling on the floor just in front of him, Glinda cupped his cheek with one hand and blinked away the tears that seemed unstoppable, gushing down her cheeks like the mountains' snowmelt in spring.

"Shhhhht," she cooed. "Shhhht, Fiyero."

Hearing this name, he quickly looked up and into her unbelievably blue eyes.

What had been more or less just a hunch seconds earlier, was now as good as confirmed and Glinda almost choked on the anticipation.

"Fiyero? Is this really you?"

When he offered her just the slightest nod, she laughed despite the tears and flung her arms around his neck. She laughed and cried, all at the same time, and slowly Fiyero closed his arms around her slender waist.

It took a good while until they were both ready to really face each other again, and when the moment had finally come, there was one question that was dominating Glinda's every thought.

"But… how?"

"I don't really know," Fiyero replied, carefully using his gloved hands to dry some of her tears – with little success, for fresh ones still kept spilling every now and then.

"I believe it was Elphaba. I think this is how she saved me, but once I came around, I had already lost all my memories. I was hanging on this pole, not knowing where I was or who."

The blonde nodded slowly.

"We all thought you dead. I think Elphie did as well…"

Her words trailed off there and her gaze became distant. A terrible idea had just crossed her mind and she did not dare voice it on front of Fiyero who was already blaming himself enough. But what if she told Dorothy to kill her because she thought herself responsible for Fiyero's presumed death?

A huge sob wrecked her body and she crumpled down, tightly wrapping her arms around her upper body.

"What is it?" Fiyero asked alarmed, but she shook her head and sniffling told him that she had just thought of her poor Elphie again and how much it still hurt.

They both missed breakfast and could easily have spent the entire day in Glinda's apartment, trying to comfort each other. By eleven, however, Glinda decided that they could not allow themselves to behave too conspicuous. She first sent Fiyero back to his quarters, then began her elaborate morning routine. With a quick glance at the clock in her salon, she noted with some relief that she still had one and a half hours left to compose herself and transform her tearstained face into the ivory mask everyone expected her to wear. At lunch, she and Fiyero were just cordial enough with each other, but generally avoided talking as much as possible.

In the late afternoon that same day, Dorothy's departure was scheduled. Once more, it seemed like the entire city had come to witness their little heroin's final appearance.

She stood on the richly decorated stage, looking exactly the way she had an the day the Ozians had first met her: brown, curly pigtails with blue ribbons, a blue and white checkered dress and her little pooch in her arms. The way she had arrived in this fantastic land would also be the way she would leave it again. Of course her house was not fit for flight anymore, so the Wizard had agreed to donate his hot air balloon for this noble cause. He had enchanted it, Glinda the Good told the crowd that had gathered, to ensure the girl's safe return to her own world. Privately, she wondered whether Madame Morrible had done anything of that sort, or whether this was just another of the Wizard's blatant lies.

Before Dorothy would climb into the basket, her three brave companions were called to the stage to say their farewells. The Tinman gave her a yellow flower, which she happily tucked behind her ear, while the Lion surprised her with a silken scarf. Fiyero had brought her no present, but far from resenting his forgetfulness (or thoughtlessness – depending on individual judgment), the child pulled him into a firm embrace, which he very hesitantly and absolutely awkwardly reciprocated.

Madame Morrible – in deputize for the ever-absent Wizard – spoke a few final words and then it was time for Glinda to say good bye to the little girl and help her into the basket. Still standing on the stage, next to his supposed friends, Fiyero could barely stand the wait anymore. In this moment, he wished for nothing more than the innocent murderess' leaving. But he had to watch how the good witch, instead of hurrying things along, hugged Dorothy affectionately, whispering something in her ear.

One last humble bow to the crowd and the girl finally boarded her balloon. Glinda ignited the flame with a flick of her wrist, making the easily impressed mob go "ohhh" and "ahhh" and then the huge thing, including the witch-slaying girl and annoying mutt took off. For a few clock-ticks they could still see her waving down to them, then the silhouette of the peculiar aircraft became smaller and smaller as it ascended into the cloudless sky, until it was but a tiny dot on the horizon.

Releasing a deep sigh, Fiyero was the first to clumsily stumble off the stage. The crowd was already dissolving and everyone went their way, which he greatly appreciated. He made eye contact with Glinda, who was still on the stage, talking to the Tinman and Morrible. When she met his gaze, she hesitated for a brief second, then nodded nervously and motioned for him to wait in a shadowy corner. He casually walked towards a group of trees, leaned against one of the trunks and folded his arms, waiting.

The blonde came rushing over to him, quickly taking a look over her shoulder to make sure that Morrible was otherwise engaged.

"I don't know how you do it," Fiyero said, seemingly nonchalantly, but his eyes fixating her with a serious look. "I swear, you made everyone believe that you and this girl were almost as close as sisters. There was so much warmth in this embrace, I almost ignited into a bonfire - that would have been a lark!"

"But it really wasn't her fault," Glinda defended her actions and earned herself another frown from the Vinkun Prince.

"She had not much of a choice and after all-"

Her faltering was too obvious for Fiyero not to notice, and he watched her curiously. But for whatever reason, she wouldn't continue her sentence. Instead, she coughed quietly to clear her throat and smiled a little flustered.

"Well, let's face it, she simply didn't know any better."

He was disappointed. That was all she had to offer after acting all chummy with her best friend's killer?

However, he had other matters to discuss with her and, since Morrible obviously was keeping Glinda on a short leash, apparently very little time to do so.

"Listen Glin," he said, putting his annoyance and anger aside and grasping her hand. "I'm going to leave the city soon and I want you to come with me. First I'll go back to Kiamo Ko and do... well, I don't really know what, but I just feel like I should go back there. And then I thought, maybe together we could do something. For the Animals or... or… I don't know. Just something. To make Elphaba proud."

Glinda shook her head sadly.

"I can't. I can't leave this place."

Anticipating his frustration, she placed her hands on both of his shoulders and gave them a firm squeeze.

"It's not like back then. I'd leave, please believe me, I would!

"But I can't."

She let go of his shoulders and carefully sneaked another peek at Madame Morrible, who was still talking to some important baronet.

"I made a mess of things," she admitted quietly. "I saw an opportunity and tried to get the Wizard to resign. Only my plan backfired and now I'm as good as powerless. I'm still their poster child, a figurehead, but Morrible barely ever leaves me out of her sight. I can be glad that the people of Oz adore me so much, or I'd probably rotting away in Southstairs already."

Shocked, Fiyero cupped her cheeks.

"I'm sorry Glinda," he said, but not entirely sure what exactly he should be apologising for.

"For leaving you behind and all alone with those monsters," he finally decided, still not completely certain that this really was what he should be sorry for, but feeling that his words offered the petite blonde at least some degree of comfort.

"You can't stay with me this time?" she asked somewhat hopefully and he forced a tortured smile.

"Perhaps I could," he conceded and immediately he could see the relief written all over her pale face.

He would stay. He would stay for her. However, there would be conditions.

"But this time we have to do something," he insisted.

Looking to the ground, Glinda nodded eagerly.

Not yet satisfied, he grasped her hands, holding them tightly.

"I mean really do something."

She looked up and held his gaze for a while before taking a deep breath in and out. Then she nodded just once, but firmly. Now he was convinced she would do whatever it took.