Title: Land of What-Might-Have-Been
Author: Aerohead
Email: in my profile
Website: In my profile
Pairing: Nessarose/Boq. Yeah, you saw right. Also Fiyero/Elphaba and Fiyero/Glinda
Rating: PG – PG13
Disclaimer/Dedication: For L. Frank Baum, Gregory Maguire, Stephen Schwartz, and Winnie Holtzman who own this idea that I'm extending. Thank you for giving me the first part.
Warning: I have gone past the point of sanity. That's the only real warning.
Genre: Romance, AU, and they really need an "Insanity" section here.
Summary: Boq stays with Nessarose, and learns to love her. They live a good life together…until their daughter turns seventeen.
Author's Notes: To Kire Evoli – Hehe. Yeah, I know, I made the bet. I'm just saying it's my own stupidity. 'Tis fun, though. I still have that picture you drew of Nessa holding the Umbrella of Doom and glaring at Glinda in the bubble and Elphaba on her broom. I also have the Nazi-Jackman picture, but we won't get into that in an Author's Notes. Also – you think Maeve's a ditz? Hah. Just wait.
To jlauren1224 – Thanks for the compliment. I love writing, but I'm rather paranoid about the way it will be accepted by people, so I usually only show my writing to my friends. With the Wicked stories, it's the first time in a long time I'm actually trying to finish something I've written to see how well it will be received.
And to my Phantom reviews (takes on a lot of new meaning when I'm matching chapter for chapter a Phantom of the Opera fic) – Any ideas that you have will be greatly appreciated, and if you have any helpful hints on which way this story should go, I'd love to hear them. Well, now I suppose I have to start chapter four and stop with the writer's notes, seeing as I'm nearly done with one page just with this. --
Chapter Four: Seventeen
Maeve stood outside of the Palace of the Emerald City, just staring at the façade. People were pushing past her on either side without a second glance, and many of them muttered various remarks about annoying youngsters who didn't know propriety within the City.
She didn't care, though. She suddenly took off, nearly tripping in her travel boots and long deep purple skirt.
In twenty-four hours she'd be in University Station.
She laughed to herself, before stopping in front of the door to the Palace. Why, exactly, was she here? Her mother had some "important business" in the Emerald City, so she and her father had come there a week earlier. Maeve shrugged. Perhaps she was just lonely.
With all the strength she could muster, she pushed the door to the Palace open, and stepped inside. It was oddly quiet in the main hall, and when she cleared her throat the sound reverberated. "Mother?" she called into the silence.
Her mother didn't answer, but a short blonde woman stood at the steps. "Maeve? Oh, it's wonderful to see you! I haven't seen you since you were…well, that's not important, I'm sure you get it all the time. You've grown so pretty! You look like your mother at that age…well, with one obvious difference." The woman hurried down the stairs and looked at Maeve. She was about a head shorter than the seventeen-year-old, and was about a year old than her mother was.
"I…get that all the time…Miss…?" she stared at the woman for a moment.
Blue eyes blinked, before she laughed demurely. "Oh, Glinda Upland of the Arduennas." She said, "Or Glinda the Good." She shook her head, blonde ringlets bouncing. "But you've come to see your mother, I suppose? She's upstairs with Elphie."
Maeve raised an eyebrow. "Elphie?" she repeated, bewildered. Then she cleared her throat. "Oh, you mean Aunt Elphaba?" Maeve said, correcting Glinda.
Glinda cocked her head, before shaking it. "Really, Elphie must be less stoic! She's going to die young if she keeps such a level head." Maeve stared at the middle-aged witch, before skittering around her and quickly heading up the stairs. "Miss Maeve!"
Maeve turned, looking at Glinda. "Yes, Miss Glinda?"
"You're mother is in the second door on the left." She said. "I'm also getting one of the maids to make lunch; would you like anything?"
Maeve shook her head, curtseying quickly. "No, thank you, Miss Glinda." She said, before slowing her pace to find the room her mother was in.
"Second door on the left…" she stared at the door, before creeping over and knocking on it. "Mother, are you in there?"
The door opened, and Nessarose stood there. She was beaming and holding a small baby in her arms. Maeve stared at the baby, mouth agape, and Nessarose moved so that Maeve could come into the room.
"A baby?" said Maeve after a few moments.
"My baby, Maeve, get that look off of your face." Fabala said caustically as she rubbed her hands with a piece of coarse cloth.
"Oh…" Maeve blushed, and she heard the giggle of her cousin's half-sister.
Fabala sat down and held out her hands. Nessarose moved over and handed the young woman the baby. "I told you Fabala had a baby nearly a month and a half ago, Maeve." Nessarose said as she came over to Maeve. Maeve nodded mutely, as she couldn't actually remember when her mother had told her. "He's sick, so Elphaba, Glinda, and I are taking turns helping Fabala with him."
"It's really fun, Maeve, you should help, too." Fabala said sarcastically, before getting up and walking out of the room. With the arm she wasn't holding the baby with, she grabbed Nissa's arm. "Aunt Nessarose, we'll leave you with Maeve. I think Father and Aran are worried, so we'll go show them everything's fine. Would you like me to get Boq?" Fabala asked.
Maeve stared at the dark young woman; she had never heard her talk so fast before. Maybe it was the crunch of living with the Uplands for too long. But Nessarose understood, and nodded.
"Yes, could you send him in?" Fabala nodded and, with child and sibling, walked into a room connected to the one they were in.
Maeve sat down crossed-legged on the bed, while Nessarose made things neat in the room. When Boq came in, Nessarose jumped and smiled, before motioning for him to sit next to Maeve on the bed.
"So…" her father started, and he looked to her mother, who nodded. "You'll be going to Shiz today?" he said.
"Yeah, I will." Maeve said wistfully.
"We'll miss you, you know." Boq said, hugging Maeve to him. As a Munchkin of the stereotypical size, he was shorter than both his wife and his daughter, and it was a rather awkward hug, but he somehow managed it.
"I'll miss you, too." She said, hugging her father back. Nessarose, from her place leaning against an armoire, cleared her throat.
"I'd like to talk to my daughter, too, Boq." She said, her voice taking on the same tone she used as governor of Munchkinland.
Boq frowned, but merely hugged Maeve again and got up. "What do you want to talk to her about, Nessa?" he whispered as he walked by.
"Nothing important, but something between women only." Said Nessarose, not looking at Boq.
Boq made a noise very much like a harrumph, but left the room just the same. Nessarose and Maeve stayed in the positions they were, just staring at each other, until Nessarose heard the door click shut behind Boq. "You know," she started casually; "this was the room you were born in."
"Really?" squeaked Maeve. She had never actually been inside the palace made of emeralds and diamonds before, and knowing that she was sitting in the room she had been born in was rather…spooky.
Nessarose nodded, before turning and starting to rummage through the large top drawer of the armoire. Maeve watched her mother. Or, rather, she watched her mother's shoes. She had been told the story of how they had become magicked when she had once asked her mother why she always wore them. They were familiar to Maeve, and she was going to miss them.
Finally her mother moved away from the armoire, carrying a handful of things. She dropped them into Maeve's lap. "What are these?" Maeve asked.
"This," her mother said, pulling a large, floppy book out of the pile, "is my scrapbook from when I went to Shiz. Since I was always confined to my wheelchair, I decided to make this."
Maeve opened the scrapbook. Pasted into the book were many objects with her mother's curvy handwriting next to them explaining what they were. On the first page was a ticket stub from the caravan ride taken from Munchkinland to Gillikin, where Shiz resided. A few pages later there was a piece of crepe paper from the OZdust ballroom. And farther into the book, Maeve found a note from someone Maeve had never met – a Miss Galinda.
Nessarose gently took the book away and closed it, before putting it down next to her. She also removed the pile of junk from Maeve's lap. "You know, Elphaba's not the only one with sorcery skills." She said.
Maeve's eyes widened. "Really?" she asked.
Nessarose nodded. "After Elphaba left school, I took her place in sorcery classes." She pointed to the plaid umbrella tucked neatly next to the bed. "That umbrella, for instance. It was my father's old umbrella, and when he died, well, I kept it. But then I became governor of Munchkinland, and I wasn't that well-liked. So…" She smirked, "I spelled it so that, if anything happened to me while I had it opened, I'd be protected. That house that Dorothy girl nearly landed on me, you know. Lucky thing I had that umbrella."
Maeve laughed, before staring at the umbrella. It was an absurd story, and something that normally wouldn't be coming out of her mother's mouth, so she wondered why she was hearing this.
"Maeve," Nessarose said, tilting the girl's face so that she was looking at her. "I want you to take that umbrella with you to Shiz." She looked serious. "I also want you to promise me not to get into any trouble while you're there."
"I promise." Maeve said. Nessarose nodded, before checking the time on the large, green clock on the wall.
"Good, now, it's getting late. If you don't leave now, you'll miss your train." She hugged Maeve quickly, before pulling away. "I love you."
"I love you, too, Mother." She said, before taking the umbrella and leaving. As she hurried down the streets with her bag, she stared at the umbrella. "This is an absurd idea," she said to herself. "But…" she shrugged, and put the umbrella into her bag, forgetting about it as she reached the train station of the Emerald City.