I really would like to apologize for the long wait. Lately school and Band have taken over my life. My schedule consists of work, work and guess what more work. Any way enough of my complaining on with the story. Oh, and a special shout out to Elphaba-Elphie-Fae who gave me one of the ideas for this chapter, I loved it!

Chapter 4: Defying Fire Alarms

After a long days work of shopping and acting lessons, the cast arrived for some down time at the Super 8 motel. As they stood outside the building everyone looked angrily at Fiyero.

"What? This is the only place we can afford. So get used to it people!" he shouted.

"Let's just get inside." Nessa complained.

You can only imagine the look on the clerk's face when the odd looking group walked in. He stammered slightly as he handed each of them their keys.

"Oh, look Elphie my room is right next to yours!" Glinda said happily.

"Wait, what's your room number Glinda?" Boq asked puzzled.

"88, why do you ask?"

"Because that's my room number."

Glinda was silent for a moment before turning to Fiyero for an explanation.

"Sorry guys, but we didn't have enough for everyone to have their own room. So we had to pair people up. And since you weren't present at the time and Boq needed a partner…." He explained.

"There better be separate beds." Glinda grumbled before turning on her heel and leaving.

"That went better then I thought." Elphaba said somewhat surprised.

"Knock on wood." Fiyero sighed as they entered their own room.

"Glinda and Boq won't be happy." Elphaba said looking at the queen sized bed in the middle of the small room.

The rooms were rather normal, they weren't great but they weren't horrible either. The Wizard could be heard throughout the halls harping that his bed needed fresh linens.

Eventually the afternoon sun left and it was night time at last.

"This is your side, this is my side." Glinda said as she divided the bed in half with a piece of tape.

"Ok, Glinda for the love of Oz what do you take me for? I'm a gentleman." Boq said annoyed as he crawled into his side of the bed.

"I just don't feel comfortable in this kind of situation." She said bluntly.

Meanwhile in the room opposite of them Fiyero waited for Elphaba to emerge from the bathroom. He swore it took her longer to get ready for bed then it did in the morning.

"Save some for the Fish." He called when heard the water running.

"Ha, Ha very funny." She said as she climbing in to the sunken in bed. Fiyero smiled at her she looked so pretty with her long black hair down.

"What are you so happy about?" she asked curiously.

"You" he answered simply.

Elphaba snorted, before flinging a pillow at him.

"You're such a hopeless romantic." She said.

Fiyero gave her a sly smile before pelting her with a pillow. And the war was on. The two began a childish pillow fight.

Suddenly a loud piercing sound reached their ears.

"What in the heck is going on?" Elphaba shouted to Fiyero who was now on the floor with her on top of him.

"No clue, do you think it's something bad!" he yelled standing up quickly.

Elphaba stood up as well, "By the screams of terror that I'm hearing I'm guessing yes."

Boq woke up hearing the annoying sound as well. He soon heard a dozen feet running down the hall outside their room.

"Hey, Glinda wake up! I think something's wrong." He said shaking the blonde next to him.

"Mommy five more minutes." She begged groggily.

"No Glinda its Boq, wake up now!"

"But I don't want to ride the pony."

"Where in the heck did you get the pony idea? Come on Glin up, up, up!" he said shaking her harder.

Glinda answered this by unexpectingly punching him in the nose. Boq gripped his nose in pain before simply deciding that he could just carry Glinda out. He soon joined a majority of the cast on standing outside their rooms with puzzled looks on their faces.

"What's going on?" Madam Morrible asked.

"That's the question of the day." Elphaba spat sarcastically as she walked out of her room with Fiyero at her side.

"Boq, why are you carrying Glinda?" Fiyero asked looking at Glinda's sleeping form.

"She wouldn't wake up." He replied.

"Yea, I used toss a pitcher of water on her to wake her up for 1st hour." Elphaba said knowingly.

"FIRE RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!" one of the maids shrieked as she ran past.

The cast was silent for a moment as they watched the frightened woman run down the hall.

"Well, that explains it." The Wizard said calmly.

Everybody suddenly began screaming and running around in circles in a state of panic. Eventually everyone found the exit after running laps for about 20 minutes.

"Wait where is the fire?" Fiyero asked as they looked back at the perfectly intact building.

"We'd like to apologize it seems that it was only a drill." The manager said as he came running outside.

"You mean to tell us that we ran out here in our pajamas for nothing?" Elphaba growled, she was rather embarrassed that she had run outside in her black nightgown.

After a long talk with the manager the cast returned to their rooms for a while deserved sleep. Glinda hadn't woken up at all during the entire chaos moment.

The next day Elphaba found herself waiting for Candy to arrive at the rehearsal. She was already an hour late. Finally the diva waltzed through the door of the auditorium.

"You're late." Elphaba said as Candy walked up to her.

"I was shopping, I highly recommend that you do the same." She sneered, looking at Elphie's new outfit.

"Listen you little brat, I don't want to be here any longer then I have to, so let's get this over with." Elphaba growled through her teeth.

"Now I want you to be more into the role." Elphaba instructed.

"I am into the role."

"Not enough"

"How would you know?"

Elphaba gave her an outraged look, "Well let's see….I AM ELPHABA!"

"Oh, yea, I need a cappuccino. Hey, Mouse!" Candy ordered completely ignoring Elphaba.

"Yes Miss Candy?" Mouse stammered.

"Fetch me a cappuccino and please do it right this time." Candy said as she held her mug out to Mouse.

"You don't have to take that crap from her. Make her get her own crappuccino or whatever it's called." Elphaba said to Mouse.

Mouse continued to stare down at the floor not looking up at Elphaba.

"You don't understand, the Mouse likes serving her superiors. Don't you Mouse?" Candy said.

Mouse nodded her head slowly.

"There's a good coffee girl." Candy said shoving the coffee mug into Mouse's hands.

"Yes, Miss Candy thank you Miss Candy." She said before scuttling off stage.

Elphaba was about ready to turn Candy into a rodent of some sort before Fiyero called to her.

"Elphie can you come here for a second?" he asked.

Elphaba glared at Candy one last time before walking over to where Fiyero was rehearsing with Brent.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Brent here is having some trouble with visualizing the scene for As Long As Your Mine. "You mind helping me demonstrate?" he asked her.

"What singing?"

"Yea, you warmed up?"

"Sure."

Brent watched as the two ran through the romantic number flawlessly. He studied their eyes, both intent and focused on each other as though there was nothing else that mattered. How in the world was he going to fake that with Candy? How could he be like Fiyero and stare lovingly into Candy's eyes, at least not convincingly. Once they finished the song Fiyero turned to him.

"What did you think?"

"Whoa." Brent replied dazed.

"Um, I'm going to go help Candy." Elphaba said still in a daze herself.

"That's how you have to act." Fiyero said to him.

"Yea, but you and Elphaba weren't acting you two really do love each other. I have to pretend to love Candy. Do you know how hard that's going to be?"

"Well, she's not bad looking." Fiyero said trying to look on the bright side.

Brent snorted, "She's ugly on the inside."

After that less then amusing rehearsal Brent once again found himself on the way to the library for his first lesson with Mouse. This time was different though, this was like old times. Back when they used to meet up behind the fiction section and act out Lord Of The Rings and Harry Potter. He smiled as he remembered the time they attempted to act out A Series of Unfortunate Events. Mouse was Violet and he was Claus, Mouse fit perfectly in the role of Violet. She used to be a rather good little actress, if memory serves. Sooner then he had expected the wooden doors of the library were in front of him. Brent stepped inside and looked around for his friend.

"Mouse I'm here." He called.

When he received no answer he started to assume that he had been set up.

"Behind the fiction section." She answered.

Brent practically slapped himself for his stupidity. Of course she would be in their old meeting spot.

"Hey" he said as he found her sitting down reading an Edgar Allen Poe book.

"Hey yourself, let's get started." She said standing up.

Brent handed her a copy of the script and was silent.

"Well, where do you want to start?" she asked.

"Right at the point where we start singing."

"Wait one second you mentioned nothing about singing."

"Well this is a musical, so one would assume…."

"I know what a musical is you idiot. I just didn't think you of all people would need help with the singing portion."

"It's not the singing that's the problem it's the acting."

"What's so bad about it?" Mouse said as she flipped through the script to the section Brent was talking about.

"So there's some touchy feely stuff big deal." She said carelessly.

"Have you forgotten who I'm acting with!"

"Oh, yea." She said snickering.

"You haven't changed much." He spat.

"Why do you say that?"

"You still find amusement in others misery."

Mouse laughed, "So are we going to rehearse this or not?"

"Sure, do you know your notes?"

"Do I know my notes? Of course I've listened to the soundtrack over 1000 times." She replied.

"Alrighty then."

And with that the two began their rehearsal.

Hooray! Another chapter done! Next chapter includes:

A more detailed account of Mouse and Brent's rehearsal

Elphaba meets up with Mouse

What Mouse does in her spare time

Read and Review please!