The Land of What-Might-Have-Been

by Straightjacketed

After spending so many years wishing that things had been different, what happens when, halfway through their final meeting, Elphaba and Glinda find themselves unexpectedly plunged into the worst of all possible worlds? AU.

23. Matters Of The Heart

A/N: Aaaaaaand we have passed the 292,559 word count and surpassed The Shattering of Oz in length!

(Streamers, vuvuzelas, fireworks, etc, etc, rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb)

I hope I can make The Land of What Might Have Been just as interesting as past readers found it - perhaps even moreso - and that I can one day surpass its review count as well. But that I leave in your hands, ladies and gentlemen.

In the meantime, this latest chapter is another dream memory, and quite frankly the story has gone without one for too long: it's time to return to the supposedly happier days of Oz! However, I must warn all readers that this chapter will include my clumsy attempt at writing a sex scene - the key word being "attempt." Brace yourself for the worst, and I pray that you can find it in your hearts to enjoy the chapter in spite of my hamfistedness. Feel free to provide constructive criticism on my writing style, subject matter, and the errors that invariably creep in as a result of writing this at four in the morning.

Anyway, without further ado, the latest chapter: read, review and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: Wicked be notte myne, forsooth and buggeration.

---

Looking down at the glittering spires of the metropolis below her, Elphaba can't help but marvel at the newfound spectacle this place suddenly presents to her, now that her eyes are cleared of all delusion and a new day dawns upon the Emerald City (figuratively and literally).

Once upon a time, back in the worst days of her combined ugliness and naïveté, she'd seen it as beautiful for the pettiest of reasons – its elaborate architecture, the many millions of emeralds that had gone into decorating those magnificent skyscrapers, and of course the dazzling array of people that had shared the streets with her on that first glorious visit. Once she learned the truth about the Wizard, it hadn't taken very long for her to apply the man's fraudulent nature to the rest of the city and perceive it as little more than a pompous façade under which the worst excesses of Oz's corruption, hypocrisy and intolerance lurked: for years on end, the Emerald City had been emblematic of everything she'd hoped to destroy in her attempted rebellion – as if she could have accomplished anything so righteous in her flawed condition, with such defective, self-destructive thoughts ruling her mind!

After she'd been captured and Purified of her monstrous afflictions, her perceptions of the Emerald City changed once more: in the months she'd spent in the service of the Wizard, she'd seen this place as a city and nothing more – grander than most, as befitted the capital of Oz, but nothing truly worthy of praise or condemnation. Her self-righteous indignation had cooled; her intelligence was no longer hampered by unreasoning fury, nor troubled by the bitterness of a disfigured outsider... and for the first time, her goals were entirely unfettered from her warped, backwards sense of morality.

She now understands that it was no coincidence that this clarity of thought had emerged at the same time that she'd shed her ugliness and stood reborn before the people of Oz: beauty was truth just as truth was beauty, as countless long-departed sages had pontificated; thus, as she had escaped from the nightmare of distorted flesh she had been born into, she had begun to awaken to reality. Nor was it a coincidence that she'd finally started to succeed in her goals around this time: fortune smiled upon the righteous, and beauty in all things was the highest virtue one could aspire to.

But back then, Elphaba had thought no such thing. She'd deluded herself with thoughts of humility instead of embracing her true righteousness. She'd been content to act in the name of necessity rather than that of good. She'd failed to realize the more important service that her Think Tank of magicians and researchers could – and should– provide once her enemies had been deposed and Oz cleansed of administrative corruption. She'd refused to believe that her targets had deserved their transformations as punishments for their abhorrent nature. She'd even made the mistake of ignoring the voices when they'd first begun to echo, not realizing that those voices had belonged to her own conscience.

She'd possessed clarity of thought.

She had not yet gained clarity of vision.

True, she had inklings of the truth; the Wizard must be deposed, a better government must replace him, Animals must be freed from slavery and intolerance, and the Plague of Transformation must continue to motivate the people of Oz. But she had not understood the true virtue of beauty, or why she'd failed in her first attempt to stop the Wizard.

It took last week's accident to purify her sight and open her eyes to the fact that the problems she'd sought to correct were but a drop of water in an ocean of ugliness and grotesquery. If a solution was to be found for the corruptions that beset Oz, it would have to one that brought an end to the root cause of those evils… and it could not stop at Oz's borders, either. And as a being redeemed of ugliness and made beautiful in form and thought, armed with magical power cleansed of the Wicked Witch's insanity, it was her duty to find that solution.

To bestow beauty upon all.

It is with this purified vision and newfound understanding that she looks out upon Emerald City: she knows now that this city is more than just a collection of expensively-decorated towers and palaces; it's a monument, not to the Wizard, not to the new reality he had helped to usher in, not even to the Land and Peoples of Oz, but a monument to the very notion of beauty – the desire to elevate above the plain, the crude and the ugly. Many cities around the world stood as lesser monuments to beauty in the way they'd cleansed themselves of baser elements over the decades, moving away from dull practicality to the peak of civilization; the Emerald City was different: the Emerald City had been built to be magnificent. Every aspect of its construction had been a work of art: designing, quarrying, carving, erecting… and of course the hardest tasks of mining, cutting and setting the precious emeralds. By its very nature, this place stands as a ringing denial of ugliness, an act of defiance against the decay and impermanence beauty is so often cursed with.

This city is, in many ways, a labour of love.

And yet, for all its beauty, it's not perfect: even if this place were not the hub of the Wizard's tottering regime, the imperfection is present in every inhabitant of this city and every citizens of Oz; ugliness infects them all in one form or another. Ugliness rules this city, its officials either born repulsive or made so through the excesses of ugliness in thought and deed – their bodies bloated and diseased with excess, their thoughts polluted by avarice, arrogance, and spite. The common citizens are all too often base and crude, either plain from the moment of birth or rendered so through unedifying labour and drudgery, their minds dull and eyes blind to the fact that the world could be any better than its current state. And all too often, a mind of nobler thoughts is born to a repulsive form – as Elphaba was – and infected as well, cursed to become just as foul as the body that houses it, every virtuous thought corrupted and twisted towards ugliness. And even the beautiful men and women of this city are led astray in one form or another, inevitably stripped of purpose and made ugly in mind and actions; Glinda, Fiyero and Nessarose have all journeyed dangerously close to this corruption, and Elphaba will have to work hard in order to ensure that they do not stray from the path.

Everywhere she looks, she finds ugliness marring the beauty: scarring and pockmarks alongside the fair and elegant; pettiness, ignorance and intolerance befouling the aspirations that formed this city; intelligent life was meant for more than this.

But she knows that this needn't last forever.

Beauty will triumph.

For now, she has work to do: plans are to be set in motion for Oz to transcend this ugliness, and for that to happen, the Wizard must be removed from power as originally planned and his people freed from the fraudulence and bigotry of his administration. For the time being, the Plague of Transformation will also continue: it will be more than just an instrument of fear to direct public opinion, though; this time, it will show the people of Oz how potent their own ugliness has become, until the time comes for them to be purified of it. And of course, her researchers will have more than just secret weapons to design and manufacture: they will be tasked with finding the ideal form of transcendence, of Purification.

Of course, it's not all going to be hard work and no play: with Morrible no longer able to threaten the Wizard directly, the fear that gripped the city has faded at long last; the state of martial law has finally been rescinded; Elphaba's department has been able to improve the quality of life for Animals all over the city; and in the celebrations soon to come, accolades are to be delivered to all those who played a role in the downfall of the dreaded "Plague Witch" (another sign that Elphaba remains beyond suspicion), with Glinda receiving a dozen new titles and awards, and Fiyero being promoted to the newly-created post of "Commander-Administrator."

Best of all, now that the Plague has finally left Emerald City and the reign of terror is over, the long-delayed and long-awaited marriage between Fiyero and Glinda has finally been set: two months from now, the loving couple will finally be united before the Emerald City. And even at this early stage in development, it's already promising to be unforgettable: the most glorious venues have been chosen for both the ceremony and the party that will follow; master craftsmen and renowned entertainers are being summoned from all over Oz to lend their talents to the event – fashion designers, jewellers, chefs, musicians, and only the best photographers. Invitations are already being prepared for the upper crust of Ozian society, but it's guaranteed that half of Emerald City will be surrounding the building anyway, so Elphaba's been given the job of conjuring a set of magical viewscreens for the street level audience.

And with luck, she'll have much more prepared for them on that joyous evening.

Before her vision had been purified, she'd thought that the best wedding present that she could have given the two would be a world free of the Wizard; now she knows of a gift much grander by far – the dawn of a future cleansed of ugliness, in which Fiyero and Glinda would stand as paragons of beauty and perfection.

Elphaba smiles to herself. And whoever said that great undertakings are entirely without joy?

---

In the days she'd been comatose, the Asylum had changed very little: with her loyal assistants well aware of the schedule they had to keep to, neither the day-to-day operations of the hospital itself nor the experimental application of the Plague had suffered; if anything, things are going even better than before. As planned, they're discharging just enough patients to keep the government and the general public satisfied with their efforts, while at the same time retaining many more as permanent residents just to ensure that nobody will ever doubt the fact that the Plague is a serious condition; thus, with the gas being released in select locations across Munchkinland and Quadling Country and Morrible now taking credit for it, the Plague of Transformations is always present in the minds of Oz's citizenry, even if the terror has left Emerald City behind. As such, the Asylum (now officially known as the Recuperative Institute for the Transfigured) commands greater power than ever before.

Sometimes, that power is purely social: more than once on this morning's commute to work, Elphaba finds herself approached in the street by relatives of the infected, thanking her for curing the plague-ridden and praising her for having the courage to risk infection herself. Others ask after her health, overwhelmed with concern after "the Plague Witch's" attempt on her life. And barring those well-wishers, her carriage travels unopposed through the city, waved to by pedestrians and given right of way by every other driver on the road in much the same way that an ambulance would. There's even a small cluster of ex-patients waiting outside the gates of the Asylum, thanking her for formulating a cure for their strain of the Plague.

More often, that power is political, as she discovers when she reaches the Asylum itself. High walls strung with barbed wire border the facility on all sides, and the defences offered by the heavy iron gates are augmented by armed guards and sentry towers. Regular patrols keep the grounds secure at all times, and they are but facets of the small army of new staff members now maintaining control over the Institute – all of them Animals and every last one ferociously loyal to Elphaba's cause. There are some very important people being treated here, and their safety is paramount; more to the point, Morrible may be hundreds of miles from the city, but nobody wants to find out just how much supernatural influence she has over her victims, especially with so many of them being brought in from the eastern regions every week.

Looking out at the institute, Elphaba cannot help but smile at the sight of the beautifully-restored hospital buzzing with life: its once-crumbling walls rebuilt and resplendent beneath the dawning sun, windows once smothered with ivy now clear and glittering in the light; overgrown grounds have been mown and fashioned into verdant lawns, and on them, the security guards in their handsome uniforms patroll with all the perfect efficiency of a clockwork mechanism. Even the name of this place exists in defiance of ugliness: had it been applied to anywhere else, "Asylum" would conjure images of ramshackle prisons full of ravening inmates held in check through brutal discipline and crude restraints; this asylum is elegant, well-organized, and above all, beautiful.

Inside, the story is the same: the corridors are clean and spacious, patrols by guards and nurses are regular, and a ward for every single variety of transformation inflicted upon the victims – mammalian, avian, amphibian, reptilian, piscine, or invertebrate; best of all, with just enough of these patients being discharged, overcrowding is not an issue for the time being.

Granted, the patients themselves are quite hideous, but this is to be expected and tolerated for now, especially in the case of who are in transition as Elphaba drifts by: several are actively dwindling away into their enormous clothes, their shrinking bodies bristling with fur even as wormlike tails coil around their rapidly-shortening legs; others scurry frantically away from the light as their skin hardens into glistening brown carapace and whiplike antenna spring from their foreheads, running made even more difficult by the growing number of legs along their chitinous flanks; several warble grotesquely as their skin takes on the clammy sheen of a frog, their eyes swelling almost out of their sockets, their throats bulging ludicrously with every croak (despite their best efforts to hide their worsening afflictions behind bulb-tipped fingers). Those who transform back are little better: snakes appear to split into quarters as their limbs return to them; bears shed their fur and then their body mass, layer after layer of fat and muscle dissolving into weak human flesh; slugs expand horrifically as they revert to their normal height, slime-coated flesh oozing into almost-human shapes with a rhythm almost akin to breathing – a hand briefly emerging from the boneless mass before dissolving back into it, a nearly-human face taking shape to replace it, before it too melts away... And as for those who retain elements from their transformations, well, most of them are committed to the Asylum on a much more permanent basis, and for good reason: those who remain as permanent residents are those who can draw the most attention, both to the seriousness of the Plague, and to the consequences of their original ugliness.

She passes by some of those terminal patients on the way to her office, now clustered together in their own private ward. First along the corridor is Lizzelanti Lakefold, now slumped across her bed and groaning in agony as the last vestiges of her porcine form slowly melt away for the morning, her body shrinking and deflating until she is human once again and almost swimming in her oversized dressing gown (her garment of choice for days when the transition from pig to human lags). She's eating very carefully these days, and behaving a good deal less frivolously than before her infection, apparently in no small thanks to the memories of her pig self's gargantuan dinners at the trough. By all accounts, she's beginning to understand what her old behaviour has wrought; more importantly, she's learned that beauty so corrupted in spirit cannot be cleansed without pain.

Branderstove is not so open. His enormous body is currently trapped between human and octopus form, and now floats at the surface of his tank, unable to live underwater but unable to live comfortably on land; having managed to acquire a typewriter and position it close enough to the water's edge for him to use, he is now awkwardly thudding out a letter to his administrative assistants with slimy, boneless hands (a task made even more difficult by the fact that his fingers are tentacles). Alas, it seems that even when separated from all the vices of his old life and reduced to controlling his ailing empire by mail, the blubbery plutocrat still hasn't comprehended that this grasping avarice is exactly what brought him to this sorry state – that and his repulsiveness of form. He will learn in time, though.

And last but not least, the chameleon. Boq has been in captivity for almost a month, and as per Elphaba's instruction, not a drop of the Plague cure has reached him in all that time: the "official" diagnosis is that he's simply been exposed to a more resilient form of the Plague, and most inquirers seem satisfied by this. The one exception to this rule is, of course, Boq's only regular visitor. Nessa spends about four hours a day here, silently watching the object of her obsessions amble slowly across the tree branches of his vivarium, and frequently pestering the doctors about how soon he can be returned to normal. According to the handlers, she's frequently asked if she can hold him, too.

And up ahead, behind a guard checkpoint and a very thick door, her office.

Every time she steps into this room, Elphaba has the uncanny sensation of being underwater; maybe it's the sapphire-coloured carpets and the deep blue wallpaper; perhaps it's the way the sounds of the outside world seem muffled and distant. Even the furniture – her desk, her shelves, her cabinets – calls to mind the shapes of coral reefs and sunken ships. Normally, she leaves the drapes open, flooding the room with warmth and light and making it seem rather reminiscent of a sunbathed lagoon. Today, she leaves them shut for the sake of privacy, and the office is now the murky depths of the ocean, at once beautiful and yet ominous. There are important matters to be dealt with here, most of them unfit for public consumption – especially what with Glinda's charity visit to the Asylum later this morning.

The first item on this morning's agenda is a telegram from her "friend" in the Ozian Transit Department, informing her (in code) that the last of Morrible's old associates has been successfully sedated, restrained, connected to life support and crated up; the magician is now on his way to the Emerald City via the luggage compartment of the 8:15 from Gillikin, and should be arriving around midday. Nothing unexpected so far; by now, the porters from her private research group should be at the train station and hauling back to the laboratories.

The second is a letter from the research group itself, once again written in code: Progress down here at the pottery is as well as can be expected, it reads, but staffing problems have begun to emerge. It's not enough to have clay and master sculptors anymore: we've filled out our quota of both, and to be brutally honest the sculptors are getting a bit long in the tooth – or just plain uncooperative in the case of Miss Emma. What we need are assistants, labourers, apprentices and journeymen, along with presses, wheels, glazes, and kilns. Even if you can't find anyone qualified or experienced in pottery, as long as they have the temperament and the ability to commit, it doesn't matter; we always need additional pairs of hands around here, no matter how dumb they are. Then again, who knows? Prodigies can be found in all sorts of places.

Elphaba considers this for a while. Then, she begins drafting a letter to one of the Animal community leaders; with paying work still a difficult prospect for Animals, finding plenty of help for the magicians of the research department shouldn't be a problem.

Halfway through the letter, she realizes that there might be another source for new recruits right outside her office: provided that they can be kept out of the loop or better still convinced of the righteousness of the cause, the patients of the Asylum itself might serve as additional workforce. In fact, one in particular…

She shakes her head, deciding to resolve the matter later in the day; she finishes off the letter, and waits patiently for the next item on the agenda to arrive at the door – more specifically, the first meeting of the day.

---

Exactly thirty seconds later, Fiyero strides in, uniform immaculate and boots so polished they almost glow. This meeting is apparently just for the sake of a few minor security concerns regarding the Asylum, but Elphaba could tell by the tone in Fiyero's voice when he arranged the interview that he clearly has something very different in mind. The look on his face when he sees her only strengthens this particular impression, especially once she recognizes it as a rather distinctive combination of fondness and longing; it occurs to her that he's worn lesser forms of this expression before, but never this severe… and the timing of this meeting can't be a coincidence either.

They go through almost two minutes of small talk until he's certain that nobody's listening in: they go on about the search for Morrible (not going well), how nice it is that Fiyero's being promoted for uncovering the Plague Witch in the first place (much better, considering it means that he's getting a desk job as a result), and just how excited Glinda's managed to get about the wedding (still bouncing off the ceiling)… and then Fiyero leans forward and whispers, "It's actually because of the wedding that I'm here."

As I thought.

"I wanted to talk about… about us."

Hmmm?

"I know we've never really spoken about how we feel about each other, but with the wedding coming up soon, I just need to get all this off my chest. Me and Glinda, we've… well, we've been together for almost four years and it feels as though we've been engaged for about half that time, and she's a lovely girl – she's one of the best friends I've ever had, but…" Fiyero sighs deeply. "But I can't do this. I know it's not fair on her after all this time, but I don't love her…"

Ah. I see where this is going.

"I love you."

A long silence follows, as Fiyero struggles to give voice to his sentiments, and Elphaba waits patiently for him to find the words.

"I love you," he continues. "I have ever since the day we rescued the lion cub. That was when I looked past the green skin and I saw you – the real you; I saw things about you that most of the other students didn't notice or didn't want to notice. I mean, I knew you were brilliant from the moment I met you, but that was when I realized that you were more compassionate than anyone else in the class put together. Maybe more than anyone in the entire university, truth be told. I don't think I've ever met anyone in the world like you – no-one as intelligent, as caring or as brave; I know for a fact that nobody else in the class tried to stop what happened that day. And nobody I've ever met would have dared to rebel against the Wizard."

He takes another deep breath. "Everything I learned about you that day… it fascinated me. It drew me in. I couldn't stop thinking about you, even when I was with Glinda, even after they started calling you the Wicked Witch. It was why I joined the Wizard's forces, you see: I wanted to find you again. Well, I eventually did, and it…" If anything, Fiyero's expression looks downright wretched. "When Harnley shot you down, I… it almost killed me to see you like that. I never thought I'd forgive myself for what happened to you, even once we started talking again, even after the Wizard had you pardoned. Somehow, I did. But I never forgot the fascination: I kept an eye on the Wizard just to make sure he wasn't planning anything against you; I had Harnley and the others stationed as far away from you as possible, and I made sure that you weren't disturbed by the guards; I did everything I could to keep you safe even if I could never bring myself to tell you. I never forgot the reasons why I fell in love with you… and the reasons why I'm still in love with you."

There's another long pause.

Problematic, to say the least, Elphaba notes. Saddening. Tragic, even… but that doesn't change the fact that it can't be tolerated.

But Fiyero evidently isn't finished yet: over the last few minutes, he's been leaning forward across the desk, and now he broaches the remaining few inches between them, as if he intends to kiss her. "And," he begins, "I-"

"You believe that I love you too," Elphaba finishes, gently pushing Fiyero back into his seat. "And you're absolutely right; as a matter of fact, I fell in love with you on the very day that you did. But," she adds, just as Fiyero's face lights up, "What do you intend to do?"

"Pardon?"

"The wedding is still on, Fiyero. Do you really want to go back to Glinda's room and tell her that you love someone else?"

"I… I don't know. I ran through this in my head a dozen times, and it always ended with us just… vanishing away into the night. I mean, you're a witch: you could send us hundreds of miles away from here without anyone even noticing. I mean, there have got to be places outside of Oz where nobody would find us or even think to look for either of us. We could find someplace like that, a city too big for anyone to search, a forest too deep to be explored; we could find a house – or even build one of our own; change our names, magically disguise ourselves; we could start a new life for ourselves out there. We could… we could be together."

"We could," Elphaba agrees, and for a moment, she returns his gaze just long enough to make Fiyero wonder what might happen next.

"But do you think you could live with the price you'd have to pay?" she asks coldly.

"Price? W-"

"Could you really live with the fact that you'd betrayed the trust of a woman you consider one of your closest friends? Could you live with yourself, knowing that you'd broken Glinda's heart?"

Fiyero's brow wrinkles as he considers this problem. "Would it really be any better if she ended up stuck in a loveless marriage?" he asks. "If and when she notices that I've only been pretending to love her, she's guaranteed to be heartbroken. Wouldn't it be kinder in the long run if I just told her the truth? I mean, it'll hurt her, but there's no way we can get through this without someone getting hurt. This way, we let her down gently, so at least she'll have a chance to meet someone who'll return her feelings once things have settled down. This way, you and I can be together."

No, Elphaba hisses silently. Inappropriate for long-term designs. Unpredictable results. Disruptive to public morale. Undesirable. Unacceptable. Ugly.

"I'm afraid the time for letting her down gently has long since passed, Fiyero," she whispers; there's a note of sorrow to her voice that, had she voiced it a year or two ago, might have been genuine. "The Plague of Transformations was hard on Glinda, and not just because she ended up getting infected: that was the first time she had to deal with a direct threat on her life, and she almost cracked under the pressure. That argument you two had didn't help matters much," she adds disapprovingly.

"Look, I didn't mean to shout at her, Elphaba – I was just tired and nervous and-"

"-so was she. Glinda told me as much herself. And you know what else she said? One of the only things keeping her from breaking down altogether was the fact that we were there for her; we were the only people she knew in the entire city that she could trust without hesitation and – these were her exact words – the only people she knew would never hurt her. Her best friend and her fiancé out of everyone in Emerald City."

(This is more or less the truth, though Glinda had never said all of it in one sitting, and not all during the Plague; it only required the slightest bit of exaggeration to make it truly jab at Fiyero's conscience.)

"So tell me, just how do you think that Glinda would react if she were to learn that you were either going to call off the wedding or just elope with me in the middle of the night?"

Suddenly, Fiyero can't make eye contact with her. "I wasn't actually-"

"Please don't lie to me, Fiyero. Now, imagine her reaction: she's fresh from being driven to the point of a nervous breakdown by the Plague and her fight with Morrible, barely into the healing process… and she discovers that the two friends she'd thought worthy of her unquestioning trust – one of whom she was planning to spend the rest of her life with – had betrayed her. And worst of all, the man she loved had never loved her in return; she'd know for a fact that everything she'd been dreaming of since she fell in love with you had never been possible, and that the one hope that had kept her sane during the worst moments of her life had been based on a lie." Elphaba pauses for effect. "You wouldn't just be breaking her heart, Fiyero. You'd be breaking her. Now tell me, do you care so little for her that you're willing to destroy her that thoroughly?"

"I…" Fiyero blinks rapidly, eyes suddenly shining in the dim office light. "No," he says at last.

"Then for her sake, I have to do right by my oldest friend, and you have to stay true to your fiancé."

"B-but-"

She doesn't give him the chance to finish: clasping his face with her hands, she tilts his chin up until he can once again meet her eyes. Then, she leans forward and kisses him – on the lips, and with all the languid passion of the lover that Fiyero no doubt wishes she could be. Fiyero himself reacts first with surprise and then with enthusiasm, returning the kiss and reaching up with one hand to grasp her shoulder and trace a path across her face with the other; she feels his fingers in her hair, along the back of her neck and down her spine. Indeed, he looks as though he might be on the verge of getting out of his chair, tearing her clothes of and consummating their relationship right there on the desk; but then Elphaba – having drawn out the kiss for just under half a minute – lets a thimbleful of magic slide into her right hand, just enough make her touch like ice. Jarred by the sudden chill on her face, Fiyero almost jumps back into his seat in shock, expression shifting wildly between shock and lust-induced confusion as Elphaba finally slides away from him.

"Do you really love me, Fiyero?" she whispers. "Enough to lie, commit espionage, even risk your own life for me, as you say you have?"

"Of course I do."

"Then if any of the love I felt in that kiss was real, you'll do this for me: give Glinda the happy ending she deserves. We owe her everything at this point. Without her, Morrible would have never been discovered and might never have been captured; don't you think she's worthy of your love after saving my life, your life, and those of your fellow guardsmen? Don't you think she's worthy of this sacrifice?"

And somewhere behind Fiyero's eyes, his resistance to the idea is already waving a little white flag. All the same, he still has plenty more to say on the subject: "But how can we just pretend that you and I don't love each other?" he says plaintively. "How am I supposed to love Glinda – or even pretend that I love her, which is what you're asking me to do - when my heart's not in it?"

"Fiyero, you said yourself that the first things about me that you truly loved me for were my compassion and bravery; Glinda's hardly lacking in either: I'm pretty sure you didn't miss the months she spent helping me recuperate from my arrest, or her part in bringing down Morrible. Come to think of it, she's more intelligent than she's willing to admit, even to herself. My point is, if you could see traits in me that nobody else was willing to notice, can't you find it in yourself to discover those traits in Glinda… and love her for it? Can't you bring yourself to realize that, under all those hard-learned mannerisms, she is so very much like me?"

As Fiyero considers this, an idea strikes Elphaba: perhaps noticing similarities may be the key to solving this little drama. It may take some careful timing, but this difficulty may yet be resolved in by far the most elegant and permanent manner possible.

"In other words, I just have to close my eyes and pretend that I'm kissing you?"

"Maybe so, maybe not. Have you ever considered the possibility that you might actually be able to love her in the same way you love me?"

"… not really."

"Then try. You'd be amazed at what you can accomplish if you put your mind to it."

"I don't think anyone's ever a made a conscious decision to wholeheartedly love somebody, Elphaba."

"Have you ever tried? You can do so this evening, if you like: you've got plenty of time now that you've been rewarded with a desk job, and I'm sure Glinda wouldn't mind a night of romance. And at the risk of sounding tawdry, you're probably going to be enjoying plenty of those on your honeymoon, so you might as well get into the habit before the wedding."

At long last, a smile – half of amusement, half of surprise – emerges on Fiyero's face. "I never thought I'd ever see the day when you'd end up playing matchmaker to someone, Elphaba." He sighs. "Alright. I'll try… for you."

"That's all I ask."

One last awkward pause follows.

"We still love each other, though, right?"

"Always."

She kisses him again – just to keep the meeting from ending on a melancholy note.

But as Fiyero gets out of his seat to leave, his eyes widen in sudden realization. "Damn," he gasps. "I just remembered – I've been meaning to talk to you about this ever since I found out about it, but there was always something getting in the way – if it wasn't work, it was the Plague, and if it wasn't the Plague, it was just me being forgetful, and I didn't even figure out what it meant until a couple of weeks ago and then I forgot about it anyway…" He pauses for breath. "I told you I'd been spying on the Wizard for you; now, I didn't find out literally everything about the man, but I did see something interesting after your second meeting with him – the day after you were reintroduced. He had two little green bottles with him, and he was-"

Elphaba holds up a hand. "You've heard about my little green bottle, I take it?" she asks carefully.

She'd almost forgotten about it: after so much time and so many changes in her life between now and her arrest, the loss of a childish trinket had been of little importance to her. In fact, the last she'd thought of it before she'd lost interest in it altogether had been in the first month after her purification, and back then she'd thought it had been shattered during the fall from her broomstick.

"Only by accident," Fiyero admits, almost sheepishly. "See, a couple of weeks ago, I was looking through a registry of confiscated items from around the time of your arrest, and I found the bottle listed among the things they took from you. They've still got your hat and robes, by the way, both laundered. Not the broomstick unfortunately – that was broken and nobody bothered to-"

"Nevermind that. You said the Wizard had two bottles with him?"

"Yes. One of them was obviously yours – it looked cracked, and the registry did mention some damage from the fall. He looked as though he was comparing them, or something like that. He was talking to himself too, saying something about asking where you got them, as far as I can remember. And…" His brow wrinkles with the effort of dredging up a half-forgotten memory. "He mentioned the name "Melena." Does that mean anything to you?"

Elphaba smiles. "It does. I think his Ozness and I will need to have a little chat about this. I trust that the details will be… interesting; I'll be sure to share them with you when the time comes. Thank you for telling me this…" She kisses him once more. "Now," she says briskly, "you have a very relaxing day to spend as you please, and your future wife to share it with. Run along and enjoy yourself."

Fiyero's departure is a good deal more light-hearted than anyone would have expected given the last minute's dispute; no doubt he imagines that he'll be able to change her mind if given enough time to make use of his legendary charm. Elphaba finds the thought amusing, but sadly not acceptable. Once upon a time, she'd have jumped at the chance to return his feelings; in the days before her Purification, she'd been so desperate for attention she'd have flung herself at anyone who'd be willing to ignore her ugliness. But those days are long dead along with her imperfection, and with her mind cleansed of selfishness and bile, she now has greater responsibilities to think of.

After all, even if she weren't emotionally invested in Glinda's well-being, even if the two of them weren't perfect for each other, even if the marriage wasn't an exemplary example of the beautiful marrying the beautiful, the wedding is still too important to the morale of Oz as a whole to disregard. Things need to be kept in careful balance if the current set of problems are to be resolved elegantly, and depriving Oz of one of its fondest distractions will mean more ugliness than Elphaba is prepared to deal with - unless she can find a way to redirect that unrest towards an appropriate target, of course.

If necessary, the Wizard might very well be that target. But until it is necessary, she'll keep that plan in reserve and ensure that the wedding goes as planned; with any luck, such a blunt strategy will only be needed as a last resort.

However, she'll have to move quickly if she wants to ensure that both the bride and the groom are enjoying a sincerely happy marriage: with the pressures of the last few months weighing upon them, the two of them aren't nearly as good at acting as they used to be, and it would be better for all parties concerned if Glinda and Fiyero were wearing sincere smiles upon their wedding day. For that to happen, Glinda will have to be reassured that Fiyero truly loves her, and Fiyero will have to have his fixations carefully altered in Glinda's favour. There are many love potions that might do the trick, but most of them operate by subverting the victim's will in a crude mimicry of love; what this marriage needs is genuine romance, not slavery.

Fiyero needs to be convinced, for lack of a better word… and the best way to do that may not be in enslaving his will, but in altering his perceptions. It'll be tricky to accomplish correctly, but it's certainly not impossible.

Truth be told, Elphaba's just glad this problem was brought to her attention before it grew any worse: if Fiyero was so desperate for answers about her little green bottle that he resorted to checking prison records before asking Glinda about it, their relationship is in desperate need of assistance.

And speaking of which, that conversation with the Wizard is guaranteed to be stimulating: she has a number of ideas why the old man would have a green bottle of his own, why he was obsessing over the one she'd once owned, and how he knew her mother's name, and all of them have some very interesting connotations.

Interesting, but ultimately irrelevant to the greater agenda.

For now, that meeting can wait. She has another, far more pressing concerns to deal with.

In order of appearance: ridding her sister of unwanted attachments, preventing disruptions on the wedding day, and – with a little luck – expanding her workforce.

Once she's certain that Fiyero's out of the building and Nessarose isn't due to arrive for another four or five hours, she calls for the orderlies to bring in some towels, some clean clothes, a kettle of restorative tea, a dose of the Plague Cure, and last but certainly not least, the most concerning among her current crop of patients.

---

His return to cognition is slow and painful: at first, his thoughts are basic, concerned only with identifying and catching insects, avoiding detection by predators, and finding mates. But as the seconds drag on, questions start to trickle into his mind; they are simple questions, but most beyond anything he'd normally dwell on: Where is this place? What are the things outside the walls? How did the insects get inside these walls? What colour is he right now? Who was the face staring back at him for the last few weeks? How long as he been here? Why is he here? Where did all these memories flooding his brain come from? Who is he? Who is he?

And as his thoughts get bigger, he himself begins to grow: it's subtle at first – an inexplicable heaviness about his body, and a vague sense that room around him seems oddly smaller. Suddenly, he's inflating like a balloon – his limbs extending dramatically outwards and thickening with muscle as they go, his torso stretching along with them as if it were made of elastic, his skull bulging grotesquely with sprouting hair, lips, chins, nostrils, and ears as it struggles to keep up with his rampant transformation. Even his hands grow more complex, growing from two pincer-like digits to five articulated fingers on the end of each arm. But he's also losing things: his eyes are growing smaller and smaller as they draw back into his head, becoming motionless and blind by comparison; his tail is shrinking away, curling further than it's ever curled before, until it simply melts into his spine; even his scales – having settled on yellow and blue at his last check – run like candlewax and soften into dull, pink, permeable flesh.

When it finally stops, he finds himself lying on the floor, freezing cold and curled into a foetal ball; his head is pounding with information he can barely make sense of, his limbs ache, and his stomach is clenched so tightly that even rolling over feels like it might make him vomit.

And then, just as he's started to wonder what just happened, a voice from overhead murmurs, "Boq, can you hear me?"

"Urrrrggh…."

"Boq? I think you'll find that you're no longer a chameleon. Can you understand me?"

Suddenly, the vast accumulation of meaningless details scattered around the inside of his head make perfect sense: his name is Boq; the last thing he remembers was transforming into a chameleon, a what he now understands to be a result of the Plague of Transformations; the visions of glass walls and staring faces he's been recalling are memories from what can only be his time in the Asylum. Judging by the fact that he's now human again, he's obviously recovered. The voice he heard belongs to that of Elphaba, who is now sitting behind the desk immediately in front of him and peering down at his prone body with something akin to concern.

And then a new fact occurs to Boq, one concerning said prone body: he's completely naked.

Struggling to cover himself, he lurches upright – only to immediately collapse again; but before he hits the floor, strong hands catch him by the shoulders and help him to his feet. White-uniformed orderlies do their best to prop him up, even with his legs wobbling like a flan in an earthquake.

"Easy, now," Elphaba soothes. "You've been transformed for a very long time; it's going to be a while before you're ready to walk on your own again. In the meantime, you must be cold…"

The orderlies silently help him into a dressing gown, welcome insulation in the cool air of the office; once they're certain that he's snug and warm, they carefully lower him into a chair directly in front of the desk. Then, just as Boq is about to ask one of the many questions that's occurred to him since his return to human thought, a cup of steaming hot tea is pressed into his hands.

"Drink up; it'll ease the pain and speed up your return to normality. Not too quickly, now - you need to give the restorative time to settle the side-effects. Now, while you're working your way through that, tell me… how are you doing? Mentally, I mean."

For the next twenty minutes, Boq obediently sips his tea, answers Elphaba's questions, and relaxes as best as he can. It's odd: he knows this interview is clearly part of an investigation into the Plague and its aftereffects, but what with being carried around, rugged up and given distinctly lemon-flavoured tea, it feels more reminiscent of his childhood than anything else. Being like this conjures memories of the times he'd been kept at home by colds, bouts of the flu, and other illnesses; of his mother constantly hovering over him, of doctors taking his temperature and bombarding him with questions ("Unusually tall for a Munchkin, aren't you?"). And with him the way he is right now, tired, nauseous, shaky, and currently possessing all the strength of a week-old kitten, he might as well be five years old anyway.

Eventually, both the tea and the questions are finished, and Elphaba strongly advises Boq to get some rest. Boq wearily agrees – after all, even if he was thinking of staying awake he probably wouldn't have been able to manage it; in fact, he only manages to keep his eyes open long enough to see one of the orderlies draping a blanket over him before he sinks into a very deep, cosy sleep.

---

For a time, he dreams.

He's dancing with a woman, but not like the upbeat manoeuvring he witnessed that night at the Ozdust; this is slower, more romantic, his partner so close to him that they're almost embracing. But there's something very odd about his dance partner: one minute he's pretty sure that it's Glinda; but when he looks again, it's Nessarose; then, a moment later, it's Elphaba. Then without warning, her dark hair turns blonde and suddenly he's looking at Glinda all over again.

But there's something odd about himself, too: wherever the two of them are dancing, the walls are mirrored, and those many thousands of reflections slowly waltzing across the room all show the same thing; Boq's own face is changing. One minute, he's himself; the next minute, he's Fiyero Tiggular; then his face turns green and scaly, eyes bulging like those of the chameleon; then he has no face at all – just a smooth porcelain domino mask over a blank expanse of skin. Then the mask falls off, and suddenly-

---

Boq's eyes flicker open.

He's still in Elphaba's office, slumped in the chair and still shrouded in blankets. A quick glance at the clock on the wall reveals that about an hour has passed since he nodded off, but it feels more three months to him; whatever the case, he's certainly feeling a lot better.

And then Elphaba steps into view. "You know, Boq," she says coldly, "it occurs to me that you've been the cause of some considerable distress to my sister."

Oh shit.

"She visited you every day you were recovering here, and spent about half of that time asking us if we'd managed to cure you yet. Quite touching, if you were in any way inclined to return her feelings; sadly, I know for a fact that you aren't."

"I-"

"Please don't interrupt, Boq. Now, I'm familiar with how you two become romantically involved – or more accurately, how she became romantically obsessed with you; suffice to say, I also know that it emerged from your failed attempt to impress Glinda. Now, I suppose I could direct some of the blame towards Glinda for using Nessarose as an easy way of getting rid of you, but I think the blame lies with you, don't you agree? After all, you could have admitted the truth any time you liked while there was still time to let her down gently. Instead, you lied to her. You lied to a lonely, emotionally-vulnerable girl who'd never been in love before in her life, and you didn't give the slightest thought as to how your deception would hurt her. The only thing you were thinking of was how your selfless chivalry would make Glinda love you… which, I would imagine, might explain why she still has no idea who you are and why Nessarose is so desperate to keep you around she's turned it into a matter of indentured servitude. Would you say that your deception was worth it?"

Boq can't answer; his mouth is currently doing its best impression of the Deadly Desert.

"Perhaps I haven't made myself clear: was breaking my sister's heart worth it?"

"… no," Boq whimpers.

"Then tell me: why did you bother to play along so diligently? Why did you shy away from telling the truth that night at the Ozdust? Why did you tell Nessa she was beautiful, and why did you bother to dance with her if you only had eyes for Glinda?"

"Because… because…" His jaw flaps aimlessly as he struggles to find an answer. "She was already expecting to be told that I didn't really like her, you see; she thought the only reason why I'd invited her out to the Ozdust was because I felt sorry for her. Because of the wheelchair," he adds, somewhat unnecessarily. "I could tell she was already sad, and… well… I didn't want her to feel any worse."

"So you lied to her."

"It was the only thing I could think of! What would have been the alternative? "I'm sorry Nessa, but the only reason I asked you out in the first place was because Glinda said that I'd be her hero if I invited you to the Ozdust?" I mean, you're her sister – you've seen the way her eyes look when she's sad; I mean, I tried to say something, I tried, but… she just looked so miserable and I didn't want Glinda to think I'd been mean to her, and I just…" Boq sighs. "I told her what she wanted to hear; it was stupid and selfish, but I didn't want to upset either of them. Okay?"

"I'm glad you're willing to admit to your mistake, but the problem remains."

"I know, I know, I'm sorry – I know I've kept quiet for too long, but I promise you I'll do whatever it takes to… to set things right."

"You haven't tried beforehand?"

"Of course I tried! I've tried hundreds of times to get her to understand that I don't really love her, and she doesn't listen to any of it! I mean, maybe I was a bit slow on admitting things even the first time I tried to leave her, but I tried. But if you can help, it might work: I'll admit the truth to her, I'll apologise, I'll do whatever has to be done – so long as you're there to help."

Elphaba shakes her head gravely. "I'm afraid it's likely that she'll only ignore me. You see, Boq, your deception was allowed to go on for far too long; Nessa is so fixated on the idea of you being in love with her that there's simply no way to end the relationship in any normal fashion. If I were to help you break up with my sister, I would be ignored and you would be kept under lock and key for the next five months to prevent me from "turning you against her," as she would no doubt put it; if I were to release you from Nessa's service and try to force her to live without you, she'd probably start hiring bounty hunters; if I tried to appeal to her father, he'd ignore me and take Nessa's side. The list goes on and on."

"But surely there's something you can do-"

"And almost all of those somethings would be futile," says Elphaba bluntly. "Even if I tried using the Wizard's authority to separate you two, Nessa would likely never recover – from your departure, from my perceived betrayal, and the fact the highest authority in the country was against her being in love. There's only one way we can safely end this relationship and allow Nessa to heal… or more specifically, there's only one way you can safely end it."

"What do I have to do?"

"Vanish."

"What?"

"You heard me."

"But I thought you said that she'd hire bounty hunters to-"

"I didn't say you'd have to spend the rest of your life on the run; I said you'd have to vanish. There is a substantial difference."

"And what exactly does vanishing entail in this case?"

Elphaba sits down behind her desk and fixes Boq with a look of such dire seriousness that he actually feels his stomach lurch with nerves. "For all intents and purposes," she intones solemnly, "you disappear from public life. You will spend the rest of your life under the protection of a new identity; you will be relocated to an area of my choosing, where you'll be provided with suitable living quarters, regular meals, a salary, and reasonable opportunities for advancement in the career that you will be granted. And in return, you make no contact with anyone from your former life except for me: Nessa will never see you again, to say the least, and neither will-"

"Glinda!" Boq yelps, heart leaping with realization.

"There's no need to shout, Boq, it shouldn't be that surprising."

"I know, I'm sorry, but I-I-I…" Boq takes a very deep breath, and asks, "Did the wedding happen while I was transformed? Is Glinda married yet?"

"No. The wedding isn't due to take place for another two months."

"Then there's still time!" Suddenly galvanized by hope, Boq all but leaps out of his chair, flings aside his blanket and makes for the door. "ThankyoufortakingmeinandlookingaftermeElphababutIhavetotellGlindahowIreallyfeelaboutherandIhavetodoitquickly, bye!"

But before he can so much as reach for the doorhandle, something grabs him by both shoulders and hauls him away from the door, roughly shoving him back into his chair. "And just where do you think you're going, Boq?"

"I'm going to find Glinda! I've got to tell her what I should have told her years ago, and I've got to do it before it's too late!"

"Boq, calm down for a moment and think about this: you're still recovering from the Plague, you've yet to be formally cleared to leave, and you're wearing nothing but a dressing gown. You're in no condition to go anywhere."

"Okay, okay... I see your point. But I need to get myself discharged as quickly as possible: I've gone for too long without ever admitting to Glinda how I really feel about her; she needs to know that I love her, and she needs to know before the wedding. This might be my only chance to make her understand that I'm-"

"Yes, yes, yes, I'm familiar with that line of thought. You've clearly got your sights set on convincing Glinda to abandon her marriage to Fiyero and spend the rest of her life with you. But unfortunately, that would require a certain degree of… publicity, for lack of a better term. So, how do you propose to keep yourself hidden from Nessarose while courting one of the most prominent celebrities in all of Oz?"

Boq has a response ready for this very question: it's going to be bold, and it's going to be positive; it's going to defy the cruel logic of Elphaba's words; it's going to show that he's ready and entirely capable of beating the odds against him; it's going to make the entire Asylum collapse in on itself through sheer force of personality, and make passers-by wish that somebody had been able to record it; and it's going to be the stuff of romantic legend. Unfortunately, that response seems to have had plans on being elsewhere today, because all Boq can muster is a befuddled mutter of, "I… I don't know. I was sort of hoping that Glinda might be able to help with that."

"I'm afraid that's not terribly likely: if you're hoping that Glinda would be able to exert some kind of legal influence in your favour, Nessa wouldn't be above using not-so-legal methods to retrieve you. And if you were hoping that she'd literally just hide you in her bedchamber for the rest of your life…" Elphaba sighs very deeply. "I'm sorry, Boq, but what exactly makes you think that Glinda would want to be with you?"

There.

It's been said.

The problem at the core of every single one of Boq's romantic aspirations has finally been voiced, and it hurts. Even though the more cynical parts of Boq's brain had always told him that he'd never been able to make her notice him, let alone love him, he'd always managed to convince himself that he'd be able to change Glinda's mind with time and effort, and the doubts he'd harboured had only existed inside his own mind. Now, someone has actually given voice to those doubts and they seem all the stronger for it.

"You don't have to be afraid of answering, Boq. Exactly how you propose to make Glinda abandon her marriage to a man she has been infatuated with since her university days? What do you think she would find desirable about you?"

"I… I… I'm…"

Boq flounders: he desperately needs to come up with some positive character traits, but his self-doubt is weighing in so heavily that he can barely think of anything vaguely laudable about himself. Eventually, he manages to blurt out, "I'm… I'm sensitive..."

Yeah, you're sensitive alright. You're so sensitive you decided to use a disabled girl as a stepping stone to getting laid. You're a real nice guy.

"…I'm intelligent..."

So intelligent that you mistook Glinda's attempt to get you out her hair as an attempt at genuine romance. Why, you're such a bright spark, you even imagined that you might actually have a chance with her even when she couldn't have given damn whether you lived or died.

"… and I'm… I'm persistent."

No denying that. The fact that you're still drooling after Glinda even after all this time is evidence enough. If you could only muster the same amount of determination in convincing Nessa to let you go, you might actually be getting somewhere in life.

"And you aren't exactly hideous either," says Elphaba – and here, Boq honestly can't tell if she's being sarcastic or not. "Having seen the reports from Shiz, I'm glad to say that you were quite correct. But I'm afraid that those three might not be the virtues that attract Glinda, and while I hate to be unnecessarily critical of you at this point, you do tend to be somewhat lacking in good sense and tact when in love. As a matter of fact, the three traits you suggested would make you more useful as one of my newest workforce that as a suitor to Glinda."

"That's as maybe," Boq grumbles; his temper is flaring a little now, and his stubbornness is beginning to dig in its heels as well. "But I'm still going to see her and tell her how I feel before I give anymore thought to this idea of disappearing."

"You want to see if your love for her can win out in the end, I take it?"

"If you like."

"Then all you need to do is wait. You will have the chance to express your true feelings to Glinda…" She glances in the direction of the clock. "… In about five minutes."

"What?"

"Well, she had a charity event scheduled here today, and from what the guards tell me, she's almost past the security at the front gates. She's going to stop by my office first, so if you really want to explain to her how you feel, you can do exactly that."

"You mean-"

"Yes."

"But I'm in a dressing gown! This isn't – how am I supposed to be taken seriously when I'm wearing this?"

"Well, we've got some clothes for you over there behind the changing screen, if you think that'd look more respectable-"

Once again, Boq is out of his chair and hurtling towards the changing screen before Elphaba can finish her sentence; as promised, there's a fresh set of clothes waiting for him – button-up shirt, long trousers, socks and shoes. All of them are clinical white and all of them have clearly been recycled from earlier patients here, but that doesn't matter: they fit well enough, and the colour seems sober enough for the situation. So, he dresses as quickly as possible, always keeping one ear in the direction of the door, listening for the sound of footsteps.

And then he heard it.

"Oh Elphiiiiieee?"

"You needn't hover in the door, Glinda; come on in."

And with that, Glinda Upland saunters in; maybe it's some magic she's been practicing, maybe it's just the fact that he's been stuck in the body of a chameleon for Oz only knows how many weeks and still getting used to seeing things through human eyes, but Glinda seems even more beautiful than ever before. Her skin is radiant, almost glowing with energy; her hair looks as though it's been made from molten gold, the impression so thorough that Boq deliriously wonders how Glinda hasn't been burned; and her eyes look more like sapphires set in her delicate face, but no gemstones could ever show the depth of feeling that he sees now. Even her movements seem too elegant and graceful to belong to any ordinary human being, and while she may be dressed in the same wide-skirted dress and bejewelled tiara she normally wears while on official business, somehow even this familiar look seems new and magnificent to Boq's eyes.

This can't be real. And yet the fact that he doesn't appear to have died in the last few minutes suggests that he is actually still in Oz and he's not witnessing some kind of godlike presence drifting by. This is indeed Glinda: this is the woman he's admired, longed for and (judging by the direction his eyes are moving) lusted after for so many years, the woman who still means the world to him. And she's just ten feet away.

Suddenly, he feels faint. Sweet Oz, he's seeing double. Mopping a thick skein of sweat from his brow, Boq takes a very deep breath and tries to steady his heartbeat. He needs to concentrate on what he's going to say when the time comes; he needs to make sure his collar's straight and his fly's been properly buttoned; he has to be absolutely perfect for when he's finally unveiled.

For five awful minutes, Glinda and Elphaba exchange smalltalk: what Glinda's going to be doing here today, their overarching work, what they've been getting up to in their spare time, how Fiyero's been, and the details of the upcoming wedding (Boq's blood boils ever so slightly at the mention of it).

And then, just as Boq thinks he's gotten his nerves under control, Elphaba remarks loudly, "As long as you're here, one of my patients has been interested in meeting you in person. Isn't that right, Boq?"

Doing his very best to ignore the unending chorus of oh shit oh shit oh shit echoing around the inside of his skull, Boq takes a deep breath and steps out from behind the screen. He has his speech rehearsed, he has his replies memorized, and he knows for a fact that – thanks to the absence of his hat – he looks different enough from his usual self to be almost presentable. So, plucking up his courage, he opens his mouth to say what a pleasure it is to see Glinda again, and how beautiful she looks, and how much he loves her…

And the word, "H-h-hi," tumbles out of his mouth.

Glinda shakes his hand, smiling warmly and very nearly causing Boq's head to explode. "Pleased to meet you, sir. What's your name?"

"It's Boq, Your Goodness."

He looks for some sign of recognition in her eyes, some sign that she remembers him from Shiz, or even from their more recent encounters at the palace. But no: it seems that even his transformation hasn't left much of an impression on Glinda's memories.

"So, how did you end up at the Institute?" she asks. "What were you transformed into?"

"A-a chameleon, Your Goodness." Come on, you idiot! Here's your chance – tell her what you really think, what you really feel! This isn't the time to parrot monosyllables at her! This is the time for action!

"Call me Glinda, Biq; you don't need to be formal here. A chameleon? I think I might have actually seen someone transmogrificated into a chameleon before… at a party up at the Wizard's palace, I think. Would that have been you, by any chance?"

"As a matter of fact, it was. I-I was working for Nessarose Thropp at the time and-"

Glinda's eyes light up. "Oh!" she says excitedly. "You were the man pushing her wheelchair! Yes, I remember you. Nessa was so upset when she saw you transformed; she was almost in tears, poor girl. She obviously cares a lot about you, Biq; I hope you've had a chance to tell her that you've returned to normal."

"Not yet," Elphaba interjects. "But not for lack of trying; she's visited him every single day he was here – about four hours every time."

"Really? She's clearly more than just your employer, then. How long have you known each other?"

"Since university, Miss Glinda."

"Wait a minute…" Glinda's eyes narrow, as if remembering something else. "You were at Shiz?"

"Yes, Miss Glinda."

The flash of recognition at last. "Wait… you were… that Biq? The one who dated Nessarose that night at the Ozdust?"

"That's right, Miss Glinda; at your recommendation." Stop talking like a robot! Tell her how you feel. And for a moment, Boq almost manages to ready the words "but I wanted to be with you instead and I just about ruined my life because I couldn't be honest with you or her." But then the fear kicks in harder than ever, and all he can say is, "We… got a little attached that night."

"Wait a minute, are you saying you're in love? You mean that Nessa's had a boyfriend and she never told me?!" Glinda almost squeals with mingled outrage and amusement. "Elphaba, your sister is unbelievable! She's been in a relationship for this many years and she never gave me even the slightest hint of it?" She laughs. "Well, whatever the case, I'm very happy for the both of you. As a matter of fact, the two of you should come along to the wedding…"

NO NO NO NO! Boq screams inside his head. I love you? Do you hear me? I love you! I've loved you from the moment we first met, and I will never stop caring for you as long as I live! You might be marrying Fiyero, but he won't really love you, not really. He won't care for you like I will. He won't give you the attention you deserve. I can give you everything you want and everything you need – you'll see, if you'd only give me a chance! The only reason why you think that Nessa and I are in love is because of a stupid mistake I made when I was at university, and I will make up for hurting her by being the best lover – no, the best husband that you could possibly find in all of Oz! Do you understand me? I LOVE YOU.

But the words won't come out.

Even if fear wasn't throttling him into silence, there's a look in Glinda's eyes which pretty much silences any thought of disagreement – a hopeful, wide-eyed look of optimism and trust. It was one of the many things about her that Boq fell in love with all those years ago, but now that it's directed at him, he suddenly finds himself unable to say those crucial words.

He can't bring himself to ruin that expression.

Instead, all he can say is, "Nessa and I would be very happy to come along, Miss Glinda. Um, congratulations on your engagement."

Say something say something say something SAY SOMETHING!

"Thank you for taking the time to see me," he says numbly, well and truly on autopilot by now.

"Not at all, Biq; I've got to move on, now – but I'll see you again at the wedding. It was wonderful to meet you again…" And then, unbelievably, Glinda hugs him: it's something that he's wanted to experience from her for what feels like centuries, and it's delivered with all the intimacy and love of a clerk's handshake. He returns the hug all the same, wishing that he could just kiss her and let his actions speak for him; but Elphaba is watching him very closely, now, and he can tell from the stern look on her face that he's expected to remain on his best behaviour. After all, he's had his chance to speak, and he's blown it.

Then without another word, she turns and strides out of the office with barely a wave over her shoulder. Even at this distance, Boq can tell from her expression that Glinda is already putting the incident out of her mind. And though he'd like nothing more than to charge after her and try to set matters straight, once again he found his own body betraying him: his legs might as well have turned to stone for all the good they were doing him right now.

A terrible silence follows, as Elphaba looks down at Boq with something that looks uncannily like pity.

"Well, Boq, you had your chance. Why didn't you take it?

"I… I… I tried," Boq stammers wretchedly. "I've always tried. But whenever it gets to the point where I'm going to say something really important, I just… fall apart. I mean, it's when she looks me in the eyes that I really lose my head. I try to keep everything under control, but I just… just…"

"It's alright," Elphaba soothes. "I understand. It's never a pretty picture when fear and desire collide head-on. Truth be told, you're doing quite well by comparison – you didn't actually run off, for a start."

"I'll be better," Boq promises nobody in particular. "I'll be stronger. I'll show her how much I love her. I show her that I'm worthy of her."

"And if you do, what then?"

"What?"

"She's in love with Fiyero, in case you hadn't noticed."

Boq flounders again. "Well… he doesn't love her back!" he replies, lamely. "And when Glinda finds out, then-"

Elphaba sighs. "I take it you really aren't going to be satisfied until you see it for yourself?"

"See what for myself?"

"Proof that Fiyero and Glinda love each other, and that Glinda will never return your feelings no matter how hard you try. I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is."

"And it leaves me stuck between working for Nessarose for the rest of my natural life, or changing my name and spending the rest of my natural life working for you. No offence, but can you blame me for being sceptical?"

"No. But how much of that is due to completely-justified suspicion, and how much of it is due to unerring trust in your own delusions? Believe me, Boq, the choice I offer you is only way you'll ever be able to truly live your life: you might think that a lifetime of indentured servitude to my sister would be torture, but a lifetime wasted on a woman who'll never love you back is far worse."

"Then prove it!" Boq snaps. "Show me just how much those two love each other – show me that I'm wasting my time. Then, maybe I'll consider your offer."

Elphaba smiles – almost sadly. "I had a feeling you might say that. Follow me…"

---

First, she deposits Boq in a small but well-furnished guest room on the uppermost floor of the Asylum, and tells him to wait there; as the room is equipped with a larder and plenty of books, the Munchkin should have plenty of opportunities to relax and recuperate until the time comes to observe the evidence.

Then, she heads back to her office, and informs Nessarose that she'll have to cancel her daily visit: the excuse is that Boq is on the verge of a full recovery and needs some time to adjust to his return to humanity, which isn't entirely divorced from the truth all things considered. Chances are she'll never see Boq again, but at least she won't be wondering why his cell is suddenly empty on her next visit.

Thirdly, she enjoys a light lunch while sorting through the rest of the day's affairs; by large, most of them are relatively simple. The most personal ones are concerned letters from the families of the patients and the occasional invitation to some gala event or masquerade. The rest consist of surveys, permission forms, requisition orders, financial statements, paperwork, bureaucracy, red tape, misused toilet paper – regardless of what it was called, it all required the same approach: careful examination and even more careful filing. Once she's sorted through them, she thinks upon the next stage of the plan, to be enacted once she's certain that Boq is out of the picture and the wedding can proceed as planned.

Fourthly, she tours the Asylum for a while, making sure that none of the staff or patients are experiencing any difficulties. Then, once she's certain that Glinda has left the building, she hurries back to her office for the final phase.

There is a lot of subtle and complex magic involved in this part, most of it also temporary, thank goodness. To begin with, a very gentle tweak of Fiyero's perceptions of reality, to be activated when the two of finally get intimate and to deactivate itself once Fiyero loses consciousness; then, another tweak of perception-altering magic to prevent Glinda from hearing anything unwanted; finally, she conjures an invisible scrying eye to watch over the soon-to-be bride and groom's bedchamber, to ensure that Boq doesn't miss what happens next.

Not for the first time, she thanks divine providence that Morrible is no longer around to monitor her use of magic, and waits.

She can't be exactly sure of what Fiyero will see when the time comes; after all, this isn't an illusion she's manipulating, but Fiyero's innermost thoughts and desires. That said, she at least has certainty that the results will be the same no matter what he sees.

One way or the other, it's guaranteed to be interesting.

---

Fiyero takes a very deep breath, and tries not to wish that he'd left this suggestion for another day.

It's not as if he hasn't had sex with Glinda before; he hasn't been saving himself up for Elphaba – after all, he's not that much of a romantic, contrary to popular rumour. It's not as if he doesn't enjoy it, either; as well as being a lot kinder than first impressions would indicate, Glinda is still one of the most beautiful (and playful) women he's ever encountered in his short but colourful life.

But the events of this morning are still casting a very long and decidedly gloomy shadow over him: he might be able to sleepwalk his way through this sexual tryst easily enough even if Elphaba had only politely turned him down, but now that she's fully expecting him to actually love Glinda with all his heart, it's gone from mildly depressing to utterly miserable. And the advice has only made it more irksome: Glinda might possess all the traits that Fiyero fell in love with, but trying to perceive them isn't going to help. If anything, it's probably going to result in him calling out the wrong name at a critical moment… and then the awkward questions will start, followed by tears, screamed recriminations, arguments, slammed doors and Glinda ending up heartbroken anyway. It'd almost be funny if it wasn't so damnably worrying.

So, it's with a heavy heart and an extremely frayed set of nerves that Fiyero finds himself standing by his bed, waiting for Glinda to emerge from the bathroom. He's unbuttoning his shirt with shaking hands, trying not to think of all the worst-case scenarios that might occur, and wishing that he could have made the fatal suggestion tomorrow. By then, he might have been able to put Elphaba's polite rejection out of his mind; he might have been able to take some solace in the fact that she loved him back (loves me, he corrects himself, she still loves me) and get on with pretending to be a loving fiancé without too much difficulty. But no, he'd wanted to patch things up this evening just like Elphaba had said he should, and now there's no way of cancelling at the last minute without hurting Glinda's feelings.

But at least he didn't screw things up immediately, he can take some comfort in that: they'd had a very nice meal here in the apartment and both ate and drank heartily (nervousness gives Fiyero an appetite, he finds); they'd enjoyed a few glasses of the Emerald City's finest wines; they'd even chatted about the politics at work, and laughed with genuine mirth. So no matter how badly this went, at least he knew that it had started off nicely.

And then the bathroom door swings open, and all thoughts of how wonderful the evening had been leave Fiyero's brain as Glinda tiptoes into the room.

There's no denying that she's beautiful.

Right now, she's dressed in nothing but a silk gown, with every contour of her shapely body visible beneath the cloth. In the dim light of the flickering candles, her skin looks even smoother than usual, somehow surpassing even its normal resemblance to porcelain and making her features seem all the more delicate. Her golden curls glint faintly in the same candelight, and for a moment, they seem to almost glow. And her face looks even more glorious than ever; even if she had only that face, she'd still be the most desirable woman in all of Oz.

But that doesn't change the fact that Fiyero doesn't love her, and no matter how hard he tries, he can't talk himself into doing so. The expression on Glinda's face only makes this understand even worse: with those eyes glittering like gemstones and her smile alight with excitement, she looks so happy and loving that Fiyero feels ashamed to be deceiving her like this, even if it is to save her feelings.

There's a pause, just long enough for them to take in each other. Then the two of them finish undressing, Fiyero doing his very best to keep his smile on his face as he pulls his trousers down.

But as Glinda parts her robe, something very odd catches his eye: just below her collarbone, above the swell of her breasts, there's a tiny, almost imperceptible mark on her skin. At first, Fiyero thinks it might be just a scar, and absent-mindedly wonders where or even how Glinda could have ended up getting wounded in such a way. But then Glinda slides fluidly out of the robe, and the mark changes: it's not scar tissue at all, but colour.

Green.

Haunting, mesmerizing emerald green.

Fiyero blinks, fully expecting the patch of colour to be gone when he looks again. But no, it's still there. In fact, it almost looks like a sheepish blush, except green instead of red… and then, no sooner has the thought occurred to him, the green begins to creep outwards – just like any other blush.

By the time the robe hits the carpet, the rogue colour is spreading across Glinda's skin, staining every inch of her body deepest green. It flows down across her breasts, over her belly, down her legs, inching across her toes; it slides upwards, along her arms, around her shoulders and up her slender neck, over her jawline and conquering her entire face. For her part, Glinda doesn't seem to notice that her entire skin has just changed colour, and if she does, she doesn't appear to care; she's still tiptoeing towards him, still naked as the day she was born and very much in the mood for the romantic evening in she was promised. It's just that now she's green from to toe.

Green…

… just as Elphaba had been, so many years ago.

Fiyero's mind lurches. Suddenly, he finds himself inexplicably recalling his first day at Shiz: he remembers almost running over a girl with skin as green as emeralds, a girl who'd been mocked and bullied by the rest of her classmates, a girl who… looked utterly identical to Glinda. Yes, her name had been Glinda. Glinda had been the one who'd been embarrassed at the Ozdust, by Elphaba - the girl he'd promised himself to, the popular girl of the class. How could he have forgotten all this? How could he have forgotten that he loved Glinda?

But then the memory changes, and suddenly Elphaba is the one standing humiliated on the dancefloor, and Glinda is the one he promised himself to.

Back in the real world, Glinda is changing again: the proportions of her body are beginning to shift ever-so-subtly, and the features that make her so distinctive even through the green skin now warp beyond recognition; the level of her cheekbones, the jut of her chin, the size, shape and even the colour of her eyes; the cast of her shoulders, her breasts, her waist, all of it is changing. Even as she reaches out to touch his face, her arms are getting longer, her tiny doll-like hands sprouting long, elegant fingers. And sweet Oz, she's getting taller too: Glinda's a full head shorter than Fiyero unless she wears high heels, but the woman that's taking shape before his eyes is almost at eye level with him. But it's not until Fiyero sees her hair darkening – the golden curls melting and flattening into straight hair as dark as night – that he realizes that Elphaba is now standing before him, green as she was before her reintroduction.

And before his eyes, the green simply bleeds out of her skin, leaving her as pale and as perfect as she was after the operation.

And then she begins to change again: she shrinks down back into Glinda's body, who then become as green as Elphaba used to be, before sprouting back into Elphaba, until the naked figure in front of him is a different person with every second that passes, a constantly-shifting blur of identities drawing closer and closer to Fiyero.

His memories give another flip-flop: now it's Glinda who had green skin all along, who was bullied and taunted, who rescued the lion cub, who defied the Wizard, who Fiyero fell in love with. A moment later, it's Elphaba who did those things. Then Glinda again. Then Elphaba, then Glinda, then Elphaba, then Glinda, until the two are exchanging places so quickly that he can no longer tell the difference.

The two are the same.

They've always been the same.

Same heart. Same mind. Same courage.

And he's always loved them the same.

A mad and terrible lust seizes his thoughts.

Elphaba puts her arms around him, and Glinda leans in to kiss him. Fiyero returns the kiss, running his fingers through Glinda the Wicked's hair; then, coming up for air, he begins slowly kissing his way along Elphaba's the Witch's neck, towards her breasts, his hands moving wildly across her naked body; Elphaba the Purified moans with pleasure, and as she does so, Fiyero hoists her off her feet, hauling her deftly towards the bed. Glinda lands on the mattress with a shriek of delight, giggling excitedly even as her skin blushes green; then, Elphaba reaches up, grabs Fiyero's shoulders and drags him down onto the bed – on top of her.

Had Fiyero been capable of rational thought at this point, he might have thought something suspicious might be afoot, something involving magic; he might have suspected that Elphaba had gone overboard in her attempts to play matchmaker, or that Morrible the Plague Witch was trying to take some kind of petty revenge on him and Glinda.

But Fiyero's perception of reality has left the building, and taken all logical concerns with it.

---

Boq watches the scene play out in disbelief.

The viewscreen only appeared about half an hour ago, and the lovemaking has only been playing for about eight minutes, but he already knows that Elphaba has successfully proved her point.

He'd thought that the initial hesitation might be a clue that Fiyero didn't really love Glinda, that he still had a chance to win Glinda's heart. But then the two of them had kissed, and in that moment, Boq's hopes had imploded: the passion in that kiss was too real for him to dismiss it as play-acting; any remaining doubts had been smothered to death by the mad frenzy of lovemaking that followed.

Glinda loves Fiyero, and Fiyero loves Glinda. Boq doesn't have a chance in hell of even getting Glinda's attention, let alone getting her to love him.

He'll never be Boq, the love of Glinda's life; he'll always be Biq, the man too insignificant to have his name remembered correctly.

And even after having every last one of his comfortable illusions smashed to pieces, all he can do is sit here on the edge of the bed, gaping like an idiot as he watches the girl of his dreams screaming towards a climax.

In that moment, he wants to feel like a jilted lover: he wants to feel rage and pain and hatred; he wants to scream, swear, cry bloody tears, howl threats at nothing, break furniture, smash his fists open on the walls; he wants to summon enough anger to climb out a window, make his way to the palace, and kill Fiyero where he sleeps.

But he can't. He can only stare.

He can't feel angry.

He can't feel sad.

He can only feel…

Numb.

"Is this how you want to spend the rest of your life?"

Boq almost tumbles off the edge of the bed in surprise; for about half a second, his eyes frantically scan the darkened guest room for anything he can use as a weapon, before he finally realizes that the voice belongs to Elphaba. She's standing in the doorway, a palely glowing orb nestled in her right hand – the only source of light other than the ghastly magical viewscreen.

"I asked you a question, Boq: is this really how you want to spend your remaining years? Spying on Glinda, pretending that she loves you, imagining that every time that she and Fiyero fuck, that it's really you in Fiyero's place? Does wasting your life on a lie of your own creation sound inviting to you?"

Boq can't answer: even if he could think of something to say, his throat won't let the words escape.

"This isn't a trick, if that's what you're thinking. They love each other; they've loved each other for many years, now, and I'm afraid there's not a lot you can do about it. If you're entertaining any mad fantasies about murdering Fiyero, then I'm sorry to say that the only thing you'd be doing would be breaking Glinda's heart. So, do you really think that holding a torch for a woman who won't love you back is worth the effort?"

Some tiny spark of anger finally works its way free of Boq's frozen heart, and he chokes out the words, "Why did you make me watch that?"

"To make you understand. You'd have been more than happy to waist your entire life on your obsession if I hadn't opened your eyes: if it was within your power, you would have left Nessa's service and taken a job anywhere that would allow you to be close to Glinda; you'd spend your every waking hour following her, hoping that she'd turn around and notice you; you'd ignore every opportunity for a happier life that came your way – money, a job, a marriage – and all because you believed that being fixated was the same thing as being in love, and that being in love meant happiness. You would have died alone, friendless and destitute, certain that Glinda would finally declare her love to you on your deathbed and shepherd you through the last painful hours of your life."

"Stop," Boq whispers.

"And you'd lapse into your final coma still thinking that Glinda would be there in just a moment, ready to kiss you and hold you in her arms until your life finally dripped away. You'd die, still wrapped up in your joyless delusions, and with nothing to show for a life spent in worship of a woman who never knew you existed."

"Please, stop…"

"Your life and death mean nothing to her now, and never will. It's not your fault; it's not hers, either. It's just… beyond anyone's control. And don't fool yourself into thinking you could have made her love you if you'd moved quicker; you never had a chance with her at all. So in the end, you lose nothing by giving up on your obsession and gain everything-"

"Would you please just stop talking?!" He's crying now; the numbness is gone, and suddenly the hurt is real and slicing through his heart.

For a moment, Elphaba says nothing. Then, she begins slowly drifting towards him, the light in her hand floating into the air, illuminating the two of them as she draws closer.

"I'm so sorry you had to see that; I didn't want to hurt you… but sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. And there were other reasons for this, I admit: I wanted their marriage to go unopposed; I want to rid my sister of her own unfortunate obsession; but most importantly, I did this because I want to make you a better person. Even after so much self-degradation and waste, you still have potential for growth. You're driven, hard-working, and intelligent – once you're no longer distracted by self-delusion, of course. And, though you probably don't want to admit it, you are very good at avoiding attention. I didn't want to see all your energy go to waste, either on Glinda or on my sister; as deeply as you hurt her, I don't want to see you enslaved to her or own misplaced desires. Even you deserve more in life than that."

"Oh really? Then what do I deserve?"

"The same things that everyone else has a right to: success; happiness; and beauty."

An even long silence follows. Elphaba's right beside him now, her expression warm and gentle; already taller than him, now she downright towers over him.

"Don't you want to be happy?"

Boq can't bring himself to speak, so instead, he nods.

"Then, do we forgive each other?"

Boq nods again.

And then, much to his surprise, she hugs him.

---

In the end, the act that will change his life is decided in a small basement room somewhere beneath the Asylum, and as Elphaba warned, it hinges on him changing his name.

"But what is it that you want me to do?" he asks plaintively. "What's the work I'm being hired for?"

"Strictly confidential for the time being, I'm afraid; top-secret work for the Wizard and the good of Oz, most assuredly not public consumption. Needless to say, if you want out now, I'll have to erase your memories of this conversation. If you want to be a part of this work, I'm afraid you'll have to abide by the conditions I've set. Having your name changed is non-negotiable."

"Even if I never leave the workplace?"

"Even if you never leave the workplace. The secrecy of the organization I administrate depends on my workers avoiding the public use of names likely to get them noticed by intolerant citizens, and that means that my workers have to treat their aliases – and those of their fellow workmates – as their real names. One use of your real name in a marketplace somewhere could spell discovery for us all; I already told you that Nessarose might send bounty hunters, don't forget. Trust me, it's safer this way, at least until you've finished your first major project."

"What is this, high school? Alright, what is this first project about?"

"Relax; it's just a simple matter of judging your abilities and determining your starting place in the group. The less time and assistance you require to finish the job, the higher the starting position. It's nothing serious – just a bit of pottery, when you think about it."

"And what am I being asked to make?"

"Your corpse."

Boq's jaw clatters open. "… what?!"

"I'm afraid Nessarose will need conclusive proof that you're dead; she won't be satisfied with just "disappeared." Relax, you've got plenty of time to properly craft it."

"But how am I supposed to craft my own dead body?"

"With diligent research and careful technique. Now, do you have a specific name in mind, or would you just like to settle for the alias I've provided for you? Please keep in mind that this is a covert agency, not a boy's adventure magazine: names like "Rip Thunderfists" or "Dirk Thornmuscles," or "Jack McToughness" will be automatically rejected."

Boq almost laughs. Once again, one of the most important moments of his entire life has somehow ended up coming dangerously close to comic farce; every single idea he had for a name sounded like it tumbled out of one of those adventure serials, all of them custom-designed to make him sound more impressive than he really is. He only needs to imagine saying them out loud to realize just how pathetic they'd sound in real life.

Not that the suggested name sounds much better: if the others sounded like the products of ridiculously macho pulp fiction, this one sounds like the product of equally cheesy romance novels; and as nice as Elphaba's been in the last few hours, she's still very intent on mocking his past stupidity, the name being no exception.

Still, at least it sounds fitting, if nothing else.

"I'll take the name you picked out," he says at last.

"Are you sure? This is your life we're talking about, Boq; it's your decision to make."

"No, I'm sure. It's either that or spend the next few days trying to think of a name until Glinda kicks down the door and finds me."

"Very well then. I'll begin making the appropriate arrangements with my workers: they'll be expecting you tomorrow morning. Until then, I suggest you head back upstairs to the guest room: you're going to need all the rest you can get. After all, your potential's been left idle for too long: it'll soon be time to see just how much you can accomplish…"

---

At 11:30 PM that evening, the Munchkin known as Boq dies peacefully and of his own volition. Nobody mourns him, and nobody misses him; the only person who might do either had yet to hear the news. His body is disposed of without incident, his personal effects transferred to more deserving owners, and his last thoughts left unrecorded – for who would ever be interested in a nobody like Boq?

And at the same time, a man named Mr Heart is born to replace him.

---

A/N: Well ladies and gentlemen, this chapter has featured my first warped attempts at a sex scene. I apologise if anyone's been traumatized. Feel free to review and express your feelings.