Kelly Warner entered the Reptile House and caught sight of her quarry. She almost had to do a double take on the woman, aglow in the dim green light this wing of the Zoo was constantly bathed in. The new girl looked so at home in here, it was almost eerie.

"Hey, Ellie!" the young redhead greeted her. "Tom's waiting for you by the boas; said he's gonna show you to extract the little baby snakes without getting the blood cut off from some vital body part…"

The tall, lithe brunette nodded with a tight smile. Sure she was odd, but she seemed nice enough… To each his own, and all that, Kelly thought, leaving the newbie to find the zookeeper on her own.

Wandering through the reptile house, Elphaba frowned. "Ellie" was the name she was forced to give to her co-workers at the Lincoln Park Zoo, as her own name was becoming more and more recognizable for some Oz-unknown reason…

Elphaba shook her head and continued on her way, past the rest of the lizards and snakes, stopping at the discrete door marked "Employees Only" between the iguanas and the geckos. Sliding the door shut gently, she turned to face the Keeper of the reptile house slipping into grey-blue coveralls.

"Hello there, Ellie!" The witch rolled her eyes, but forced a smile. "So, Misses Hiss here has laid herself a couple of eggs, and today you get to figure out how to safely extract the eggs before they hatch and the mother eats her youngin's."

Elphaba recoiled violently at that. "Are you saying that the mother would eat her own babies?"

Tom nodded gloomily. "It happens."

"I don't believe it."

"Well," Tom scratched his head, "It's not that uncommon a thing in nature, as I understand it. A lot of animals are cannibalistic, ya know…" He leant in close to his new apprentice and whispered, "Personally, I think being locked up in a tiny cage like this drives 'em a little bit loopy."

Elphaba stared strangely at the man. She definitely heard a strong note of sympathy for the animals from the wiry old man, but he still fully accepted them as being beneath himself. To think that these animals, some of whom were actually born in captivity, not only couldn't talk, but that they would become so mindless and savage that they would actually eat-- .

Elphaba's train of thought was almost thankfully derailed as Tom thrust a pair of coveralls into her hands.

The undercover Ozian sighed and slipped her new work clothes over her ripped jeans and plain top, getting ready to face a, by all accounts, mindless beast. She sighed for the second time in 10 seconds.

She was in for a lot of work.

----------

"No, no, no. The shelf above that one. Above it!"

Glinda blew a stubborn golden curl out of her eyes. "There's a perfectly good, perfectly empty shelf right in front of my belly button; why do you insist I put the heaviest Oz-darned box on the highest Oz-begotten shelf!"

Madame Morrible, former Headmistress of the prestigious Shiz University and resident expert on Renaissance dress at Chicago's Field Museum, smiled tightly as she sipped her tea.

"Because I can."

Working hard to stifle a stream of very angry, very loud curses, Glinda settled for a dirty, somewhat deranged look consisting of pursed lips, red cheeks, and one eye squinted to a considerably more severe degree than the other. The Ozian had contemplated braining the old crone with various priceless relics in one of the Museum's sub-basements, but she always managed to catch the attention of a coworker or security guard before the deed could be done. As it was, after so many attempts at witch-icide, Glinda now had her very own guard assigned to her, to keep her out of trouble with the occasional stern glare or conspicuously cleared throat.

The blonde blew the same tuft of golden hair out of her eyes and held her breath, tightening her seldom-used muscles in an attempt to force the heavy box overhead and onto the high shelf. Finally pushing it further in, to rest firmly between a different set of heavy-looking boxes, Glinda's shoulder's sagged and she let out a long breath.

"I have never been so exhaustified in my entire life," she mumbled, wiping a hand at her forehead, then pulling it back in disgust. "Oh, sweet Oz, I'm sweating!"

A deep, rasping chuckled made her look to Morrible, whose shoulders were starting to shake, causing her teacup to clink lightly against her saucer.

"Don't be ridiculous!" The old witch scoffed. "A little hard labour is good for you! Think of it as an exercise in building character."

Glinda took a deep breath, readying her voice-box for another bout of screams and insults, but a distant, tinny announcement sounded, halting a half-formed curse in her throat.

"Okay, ladies and gents. All visitors have been cleared out, so get ready to punch out and go home; Bobby wants to lock up in a half-hour, tops."

It took a moment for Glinda to mull over the announcement, taking her time to decipher any words belonging to this new, ever-growing string of slang terms but, once she'd realized the general meaning was that she was free to go, the smile that spread across her face and the swell of joy in her heart was indescribable. She quickly composed herself, catching her breath and making her way to the locker in the break room where she'd stashed her coat and bag, when a withered hand grasped her by the forearm.

She turned back to see Horrible Morrible holding out her teacup and saucer, smiling sweetly.

"Be a dear and leave this on the sink in the break room, would you?"

Glinda bit down on her tongue, showing her teeth in a horribly forced show of politeness, and roughly took the offending dishware off of her hands. She decided to simply be accommodating, so long as it meant she could get out of there all the more quickly. Glinda quickly strode out of the room, her brilliant smile coming back at the thought of being done flittering through her head.

"Oh!" The old woman called out again. "And I'll see you tomorrow, dearie!"

A shrill scream and the sound of china breaking echoed in the hallway outside.

----------

"4-8-7-0-3-6-8. Hello, is this 'Sam?' Oh. Sorry. 4-8-7-0-3-6-9. Hello, is this 'Sam?' No? Sorry to bother you. 4-8-7-0-3-7-0. Hi, is there a 'Sam' there? Damn it!"

Fiyero slammed the receiver back onto the phone, his frustration beginning to get the better of him. Billy had promised to show him how to place a phone call the following night, having been way past due to go home already, but Fiyero had grown impatient. It had taken him a while to figure out how to use the telephone, but he'd done it, and was now enacting his brilliant plan; dialing every combination from one of the desk phones in the theatre in an effort to find this mysterious 'Sam,' the one who'd left the note and taken his beloved Elphaba to their home.

Shuffling baby Galinda into his other arm, as she'd started fussing in her sleep after his outburst, Fiyero sighed and picked the receiver up, calm and ready to start again.

"4-8-7-0-3-7-1. Hello, is 'Sam' there? Really?! Can I speak with them!"

There was an agonizing pause as distant voices spoke to eachother, and a new speaker came on the line. "Yeah, this is Sam."

"Sam!" Fiyero practically sang the name. "Boy, am I ever glad to talk to you! How is she? Where are you? Will you put her on the phone?"

"What?" The voice on the other line sounded confused, if also a bit tired. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Well now, you wait just a clock tick!" Fiyero's elation had quickly given way to confusion of his own, and then anger. "You said you're name was Sam! The note I received said 'Sam.'"

"Well, maybe you dialed the wrong number," the voice supplied helpfully.

"But you said you were Sam!"

"I am! But maybe it's a different 'Sam!' Ever think of that, genius?"

Fiyero paused, holding the phone away from his ear as if he were afraid it was going to bite. "Hold on! You mean there's more than one 'Sam?' Oh, for Oz's sake!"

----------

The sound of jingling keys alerted the Ozians to their benefactor's arrival. A moment later, a sluggish Sam came through the door, kicking her bag across the threshold as she shrugged off her jacket and let it fall to the floor, uncaring. A low moan escaped her lips as she collapsed onto the couch, a hand coming up to her forehead. She closed her eyes and sniffed loudly.

Glinda, who had been raiding the freezer for ice-cream, went to close the door she'd left open, concerned at her roomie's behaviour. After dead-bolting the top lock, she came to sit on the low coffee table across from the couch.

"Sammy?" Her inquiry was met with a stifled grunt, but the blonde pressed on. "Are you alright?"

Sam turned her head slowly, deliberately, to glare at Glinda through bleary eyes. "Do I look alright?"

"Actually, you look downright rotten."

Sam grunted again, turning her head away and closing her eyes, fully intent on ignoring everyone and everything around her.

Glinda furrowed her brow and turned to her side, surprised to see Elphaba already giving her a flat look from the open window, where the green woman had been cooing in hushed tones to the orange house-cat. "Alright, so maybe that wasn't the best answer I could have given." She turned back to face Sam, her blonde curls bobbing as they often did when she was flustered. "Well, Sammy," she leaned in close and grasped her friend's hand, causing the younger girl to give her a wary look through one slitted eye, "if there's anything I can do for you, you know I'd be happy to help."

Samantha opened both eyes as her eyebrows raised in disbelief. She pushed herself up into an upright position on the couch. "Well... Thanks, Glinda. That really means a lot to me-- ."

Glinda sprang from the coffee table and sat beside Sam, wiggling herself deeply into the cushions and pressing her roommate into the armrest. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, just wait until after I finish this level."

Samantha rolled to her feet with a groan as Glinda lunged for the remote and un-paused her video game. The bouncy blonde had developed a real penchant for taking out virtual terrorists through a sniper scope. Sam wondered if there was any sort of underlying issue therein which should concern her, but she put it out of her mind as she stepped over Boq, who was lying on the ground, flipping through a comic book and no doubt trying to decipher the story though pictures alone. She halted in front of Elphaba, and the older woman's hushed tones halted as she realized that her rather one-sided conversation with the cat was being intruded upon.

"Can I help you?" Elphaba asked, annoyed at the interruption.

The cat made a sort of hissing, wheezing cough of a sound, drawing a look of concern from Sam. "What are you doing to my cat?"

Elphaba raised one eyebrow as she turned back to give the orange furball a scratch behind the ears. "Streaky and I were just talking."

"Oh, well, of course you were," Sam rolled her eyes and continued on towards the bedroom. "I'm going to go relax for a bit. Glinda, you want to make dinner tonight?"

"Pizza rolls are already in the microwave!" she heard the blonde call back between high-powered rifle blasts.

The cat made hacked again, this time with a slight gurgle, and Sam swore that she saw a smile blossom onto Elphaba's face.

"Oh, yes, she is a culinary genius," Elphaba spoke quietly.

"Whatever, I don't care what we're eating," Sam said, taking off her outer sweater to reveal a low-cut tank top, on which Boq's gaze lingered briefly. "I'm just glad to be home. You would not believe the day that I have had."

Elphaba scoffed. "Yeah, well you should see the things that go on at that Zoo place.."

----------

"Ten thousand numbers, Billy. I called ten thousand numbers. There were one hundred and fifty seven places where someone named 'Sam' lived, but none of them were right. None of them had my Elphie….. Did you know Sam was both a man and a woman's name? What kind of place is this? What kind of people allow that? Some of them didn't even speak this language! Some homes had more than one Sam living in them. Are you all so unoriginal that you run out of names so quickly?"

Fiyero sat slumped against a wall in the security office, his head lolling back and forth. Billy was watching the sad sight, bouncing Galinda on his knee, while Janet sat at the desk, dutifully trying to un-baby-drool the wad of paper the kid had spit up, but with little to no success.

Finally, she threw her hands up, disgusted with herself. "I'm sorry. It can't be done. Whatever paper was still intact, the ink is long gone, probably swirling through the midget's intestinal tract as we speak." Her arms stretched above her head, before one settled to start rubbing the back of her neck and the other fell limply to her side. "We can only hope it was non-toxic." At her uncle's horrified look and subsequent scrutinizing of the baby, she added. "I'm kidding. Jeez, I'm sure it's not that big a deal."

"I just don't understand it!" Fiyero near exploded. "Every number! Every possible combination! I even watched six hours of something called 'infomercials' to figure out which symbols in your language corresponded to numbers in Ozian! Six hours! I'm not even sure what a 'Ginsu' knife is, but I feel the urge to own one, and it won't go away!"

Billy's eyebrows knitted together, thinking the situation over. He stared blankly at Fiyero, pathetically sprawled out on the floor, looking as exhausted as a man who didn't need sleep could. Then a realization struck him.

"Say, did you remember to dial the area code first?" He asked, causing Fiyero's head to stop rolling from side to side, instead slowly turning his gaze to look up at the security guard with a somewhat vapid expression.

"Huh?"

"Did you dial 7-7-3, first? Did you dial seven numbers for each call or ten?" He explained.

Fiyero shook his head, straightening his posture a bit. "What? No, I-- Uh, Seven. Why would I-- ."

"Well, you need to dial the area code!" Billy laughed. "That's your problem! You dialed a whole set of wrong numbers!"

"Uncle Billy, don't laugh!"

"What? I can't help it; I'm relieved."

Fiyero sat, watching them speak for a moment, before speaking up. "Wait! Hey, no! You said the area code is only for different areas! You said this would be in this same city; therefore, in the same area. Why would her phone number be in a different area?!"

"Well, no. You don't understand. The city's so big, about ten years ago, they had to add a second area code, so now we have '7-7-3' and '3-1-2.' So it is the same city, but it's so big, it needs more than one area code."

"The city would have to have ten million people to need a whole extra code!" Fiyero exclaimed. "If this city is that big, I'll never find my Elphie!"

"Oh, no, no. There are a couple million people in the city, but most people have more than one number," Janet began, continuing at Fiyero's disbelieving look. "Yeah. You've got your home phone, your work phone, cell phone, secondary lines, a line for fax machines, and some people still have dial-up…" She counted the types off on her fingers.

Fiyero groaned. "Dumb it down for me; what does this all mean? What do I have to do?"

"You'll have to do it again, starting with '1-3-1-2-4-8-7-yadda yadda yadda…'" Billy explained, waving him off.

"You mean I wasted all that time since last night?"

Billy could only smile, and Janet could only shrug sympathetically.

For the first time in a while, the Scarecrow truly wished he could feel pain… If only to feel the sensation of his head banging repeatedly against the wall behind him.