Thoughts of a Scarecrow
By Watson
Chapter 3
I couldn't focus on anything for the next few days. I wouldn't talk at all and I guess it has been bugging Dorothy. She finally isn't the center of my attention; maybe she thought that we did have something going. My head was just else where after that night with Elphaba. I have started calling her that all the time now, as she isn't anything else to me now. I keep picturing how she looked that night, green eyes, black hair, her soft lips…The Tin man one day caught me thinking as Dorothy was down cleaning her face in a near by river.
"You okay?" he asked me, breaking me from my thoughts. I had been sitting on a stump just thinking and he was shining up his ax. I don't think he is much of a woodsman but still he carries around that thing. It makes me mad sometimes. He plans to use it on Elphaba I bet, so while it use to be okay with me, now it just makes me feel a feeling of anger in my gut.
"Yeah, I guess I was just lost in thought."
"Lost in thought?" he chuckled as he watched me, "Are you sure you need a brain? Because you sure do a lot of thinking for someone who doesn't have a brain."
"Funny, someone said something like that just the other day," I muttered.
"What?"
"Oh I was just wondering that myself."
"Well what ever gave you the idea that you were brainless in the first place?" he asked, "I'm surprised that you could know what a brain is if you don't have one."
"I guess I heard it somewhere," I answered, "I think I heard a farmer say it or something." I could hear him chuckle and in a way I wanted to wring his neck. I've said before that something about the guy bugs me and it's not something he has said or done, just something.
"A friend of mine use to say the same thing, you know that he was brainless and that was the best thing to be. Of course he is dead, so I guess that maybe he wasn't as 'smart' as he thought."
"That or he found a girl that he could give his life for."
"Trust me, there was a girl but not a person worth of giving up a perfect life!" Tin man laughed, "He was going to marry Glinda, what could better than that? Glinda is a goddess!"
"Maybe he wanted something more than perfect." After that we became silent once again as he chuckled again, still working hard on the silver axe blade. Didn't want to anger the guy with the weapon, now that would be really brainless wouldn't it?
"I think the witch has been about," he told me, "We better keep our peepers open for her."
"Yeah," I said, "Hey, did you ever wonder who the witch might have been, you know, before she was a witch?" At this I got silence. He stopped his polishing and looked down at the tip. I had found his sore spot, and I believed Elphaba. May sound foolish but it is true.
"Don't ever wonder about that," he said with a cool tone to his voice, "Trust me, there is no beginning to her. She is just wicked, her and that sister of hers! They are menaces to all of OZ, well this one is anyway."
"Maybe you're the menace," I said under my breath. No one would talk about Elphaba like that, especially someone that she tried to help. I had become rather defensive of her the past few days, and took no enjoyment in discussing anything about her as everything we would discuss would suggest that the witch was horrible. Once you know the truth it's not easy to just turn back and say those things. We soon picked up another traveler, a lion. Another familiar face in the crowd, but nothing I did could bring back the memories. Not that I would have wanted another friend against Elphaba. Have a problem? Just blame the witch, even if she had a heart and was just trying to do something good! Maybe I was the one with any conscious thought and the rest of the world was brainless. Finally it was night again and I could escape to our place. Luckily a lot of this part of OZ is covered by woods or it would have been impossible. I wasn't even sure that she would talk to me again but I had to try.
"Elphaba! Elphie!" I called out softly, not wanting to alert my 'companions' to what was happening, "Elphie please!" I kept thinking that I wouldn't see her; I hadn't seen her in days. Was she avoiding me? It would be a plausible explanation. I had finally really screwed up, but I didn't regret it. It just wasn't the kind of thing I wanted to take back. "Elphaba!" I called out one more time. But as nothing answered I shook my head, thinking she wasn't going to come. I turned to leave but a movement in the shadows caught my eye. I turned back and there she was, a few meters away, slightly hidden in the darkness of the trees, looking at me as if she wasn't sure what to do. She didn't have her hat, so as the moonlight glittered off her emerald features I felt my heart beat excitedly. "Elphaba," I spoke softly, "Please, trust me. If I upset you the other night I'm truly sorry, but I can't take back the feelings I have for you." She said nothing. "Please Elphie!" I begged, "I know I've done wrong but let me make it up to you."
"You haven't done anything," she answered moving into the open, "I can't expect you to understand. I don't understand how these feelings came about or why so quickly. But I had a love and his name was Fiyero. I loved him deeply and when he died I was crushed. I can't be with another man so soon after I lost him, it would be like our relationship meant nothing. But it was the greatest relationship of my life, the only one that felt true to me. He could look past the green and the lies and see me. I'm sorry but I can't do that to a man who understood me so well." I nodded. I felt hurt but her words made sense. He was the man I would never live up to.
"I understand, Elphaba. I just have one question, if it is alright with you."
"You don't have to ask my approval to ask a question."
"I know but it's kind of a personal question, and I'm not sure if you would like to answer." She paused for a moment.
"It's okay."
"I just wanted to know, if you felt anything. When I kissed you, and you kissed back, was there any feeling?" Once again she was silent, and looking unsure. I felt my heart break as she began to cry. I couldn't just let her cry so I did the best thing I could think of. I took her in my arms, holding her close as she cried.
"It's alright Elphie, it's alright," I whispered to her, "You can cry if you want."
"No, I can't," she cried into my shoulder, "I can't do this anymore."
"It's okay to cry," I told her again, "No one can tell you that you can't cry. It's going to be okay, you've been through a lot."
"Fiyero…" she sobbed, and although I felt my heart break, I held on to her. She needed someone and they all could hate me forever but I didn't care. She continued to cry into my shoulder as I gently rubbed her back. I don't know when I started singing, but the song just popped in there (as things seem to be these days).
"Maybe I'm brainless, maybe I'm wise," I sang softly, like lullaby, "But you got me seeing through different eyes…" Elphaba froze in my arms, her body as stiff as a board suddenly. She looked up into my face as I looked down into hers, with a few tears that I brushed away. We sat that was for a few moments, just looking at each other. Something so familiar and so wonderful in that moment.
"Fiyero," she whispered, as she reached up and touched my face, "Could it really be? Could it really be you? I don't want to dare to dream…" It made as much sense as anything else since this all began. I had no past; I had nothing to tell me how I came to be. All I knew was that I loved this woman and that somehow I had loved her from the beginning. I had nothing to deny it.
"I can be any one you want," I answered, kissing her hand, "I don't know who I was in the past but I can be yours now…" She continued to look at me in confusion as tears gathered. Yet she smiled and held me close, once again the most wonderful feeling.
"I thought maybe…never in my wildest dreams…Oh, Fiyero, I thought I had killed you!" she said, the tears now happy. I liked this feeling I had, she was happy again and I had made her happy. What could make a person happier than having the one they love in their arms?
"Well I think I like this side of you the best side of all," I said after letting her cry a bit more.
"What the sloppy, tear soaked me?" she laughed, trying to rub some of her tears away.
"No," I answered, with a smile, and a gentle hand to wipe away the stray tears she had missed, "I mean the lovely side of you. You are no witch Elphaba; you are someone the world has used as their scapegoat. But I promise you that I will never let anyone hurt you ever again." She smiled which made my heart fly even higher! My sweet Elphaba, the prettiest angel in existence, not mention the smartest, kindest, funniest, and gentlest. Sure ever person can say that about their love but not everyone is as right as I am.
"When I saw them carry you off…but what am I saying…" she said with a slight laugh, "You don't know what I am talking about do you."
"To tell you the truth," I answered, almost sheepishly, "I don't…but I want to know everything! I could try to be the person you knew back then! There is nothing to say that I'm not Fiyero."
"There is just too much to suggest that you are," she said, "I think the spell may have saved your life but changed you into another person or scarecrow rather."
"So this was a spell?"
"Another one that came from me thinking on my feet, they were going to kill you and I would never let that happen. I guess it worked, not the way I thought it would-"
"But it doesn't matter," I told her happily, "I am happy being a man or a scarecrow! I am happy just being with you!"
"Which makes you so sweet," she laughed, "But I know it won't be long till you want to be a man again. The first time you will want to be…well together…"
"You mean like-"
"Yes," she said quickly, "I mean that way. As we both know that scarecrows aren't built with that equipment."
"Well, it's not like I need it."
"And that would mean we would never have any children."
"We can adopt."
"And it would mean that you could never die unless you-"
"I get the feeling you're trying to back out of this," I said, with a raise of a painted eyebrow.
"Oh no!" she answered, "I just am trying to think of the future here. Although I guess we have to figure out the first mess before we figure out the other one. That's why we have to keep playing this game. You're going to have to stay my enemy-"
"I can't be your enemy Elphaba," I told her truthfully, kissing her hand again.
"You don't have to be, but you have to continue at least acting like part of the popular group. You won't have to really believe it, just act like you do. Do you understand?"
"I guess I do, just what happens when it finally comes down to the final fight?" She knew this was coming as I could see it in her eyes. She lightly touched my face again, the hay making a crackling sound underneath the cloth.
"We'll just have to wait till we come to that bridge," she said, "Just promise me that what ever happens that you'll be happy." I smiled.
"I'll only be happy, with you," I said, "And we will come out of this together, I promise."
"I can see that," she laughed softly, "At least I wish I could see it."
"You don't need to see when it is the plain truth," I answered with my own little laugh. She smiled again and my heart was happy. It wasn't happy long before there was the sound of a snapping twig which made us both jump. "You should go now," I whispered to her, "I promise that we will figure out something."
"I know we will," she said with a bit of confidence, "I can sort of see it now."
"And I can see it even without sight," I answered jokingly. She laughed. I laughed. Then we kissed. A sweet and warm kiss, not so unexpected as before but just as beautiful. Then she departed into the sky as not to be caught. I smiled watching her go, knowing I had finally found the answer. It may not answer all the questions I was and am in love, so whatever decision I was going to make was going to be around getting me and Elphaba out safely. After returning to the camp, I found Dorothy was asleep and the Tin man was waiting.
"You were gone for a while," he said, his tone not to my liking, "What were you doing out there in the woods." I could see the lion watching me from across the way, yellow eyes watching my moves.
"Thinking," I answered.
"I don't think a person like you could think that much," the Tin man said getting a bit closer, "Maybe you are thinking of turning against us for that witch." At that point our eyes locked, and the stand off had begun. Scarecrow against Tin man in a battle I knew had been coming for a while. Him with an axe and me with nothing but my fists (which, while firm, are not exactly brass knuckles), not fair but I would defend myself if necessary.
"If I did side with her, would you have to DO something?" I asked coolly.
"I would have to DO something but it won't come to the will it?" I looked at him and then I looked at the axe.
"I'm sure it won't," I answered, taking my eyes away, "I was just thinking and that is all." Maybe I should have given him a reason to fight me, but what would that have done. I needed to play the fool for just a while longer as Elphaba had told me.
"You know I can never forgive her," he said as I walked away, "She has done a lot of things that I can't forgive her for!"
"Then don't give any," I answered, only to myself, "Because she isn't the one who needs to be forgiven…"
Author Notes: Well finally one of them gets it! Well another lovey-dovey chapter but the next one will have a good confrontation. Again I don't hate Boq aka the Tin man. I really don't hate him, he is just the guy who is going to get a little bunt here. I swear we will see something in himlater on, just not now. In this one he might be a little phsyotic with the axe!I think I'm kinda in the middle of love and hatewith this chapter. I don't know if I like my version of Elphaba, something is too weak about her. Maybe it's love, could be couldn't it? Now we have a couple more chapters to go, trying to base it really around the points of the movie as I can. If you know the movie you know what comes next. I might stretch the story of the moviea little in the next chapters but all in good faith.
-Watson