A/N: Please, Review, I cannot stress enough how much they mean to me. My hit indicator seems to think that at least 16 people have read this all the way through, (I get that by the number of hits on the last chapter.) but I have only 5 reviews. I know it's a new story but I would like to know if it's at least being read.

Raven spun around. She was caught already. Damn. The woman would be the police then, coming to arrest her. Wait, woman? This dimension did seem to be mostly like earth demotion 1880s a police woman didn't fit, but then again what did Raven really know? That was the problem wasn't it? She didn't really know any thing about this dimension. Maybe they had already had women's lib and civil rights. Maybe this race was even more advanced that earth or, perish the though, Azarath. It wouldn't be the first time. She'd met other peoples before and fortunately a complete lack of knowledge and understanding of all things technical kept her form leaping the human race a hundred years forward. Damn again. She'd gotten her thoughts did tracked and though there'd only been a brief pause in her reaction, she was sure she must look the fool. "Yes." She said, if possible, flatter than usual. She hoped it was an unassuming and innocent manner while she was standing in the street practically naked. For an empath she was unpredictably horrible at projection a sense of emotion.

Elphaba grabbed the strange girl's wrist and felt a, something, a jolt of sister hood. A bond stronger than what she and Nessarose would ever share. It was eerie. Elphaba, never having been a large supporter of physical contact, yanked her hand away. She couldn't tell if the girl had felt it too. What was it about this woman that had appeared out of nowhere dressed like a whore? What compelled Elphaba to help her? Boq's little Elphie who thought of no one but herself and her causes. Why was this girl more of a sister than Nessa? Worse what did that say about Elphaba?

Tibbet had suggested before that she could take up a career as a workingwoman catering to men with tastes for the unnatural. She promised to give it some thought, if her studies in Natural Sciences didn't work out.

Elphaba noticed her reflections had created and awkward silence, the girl had answered her. Now what? What could she do? Certainly nothing in the drizzle. She faltered, unsure of what to say or do now that she had caught her prey.

"What are you trying to do?" Elphaba asked. She had noticed that the girl was nervous maybe and accusing spin on her question would force her to show her hand.

The girl seemed unapologetic, though nervous. She was not going to be pushed around by just anyone. "Are you the police?" Raven asked with an attempted air of superiority that sorely remained Elphaba of Galinda.

"No." Elphaba answered taken aback and shocked into answering before she could think of a strategy. "Why," she continued, making amends. "Are you running? Should I call for my Ama to have her deal with you?" this girl had no need to know that she had no hired hand and her nanny was far away in Quadling Country caring for her more beloved sister.

Confusion flashed in Ravens' head but it did not show on her face. What was an Ama? Should she play the part of a superior? Maybe this girl could help her in some manner. And why did her empathy indicate the stranger was hiding something, lying in a fashion. Raven sighed, she needed an ally here until she could find a way home, and it might as well be this one. If she found a reason to distrust her later it could be handled at that time.

"Call your Amam" she realized a second too late she had mispronounced it but continued as though she had intended it to be that way all along. " If that's what you feel you should do." With those words at that moment, Raven sincerely hoped that her empathy worked the same for beings in this dimension. She made sure that this unknown person felt very strongly it was something she should not do.

"You're in luck. I was lying. I'm hardly high class enough to have an Ama." Elphaba laughed off Raven's ignorance.

"Oh well, I'm Raven." Raven introduced herself awkwardly.

"Really?" Elphaba grabbed her arm again and flipped over her hand to pear at it closely. With her face this close for the first time Raven noticed the emerald hue of her new acquaintance's skin, but she said nothing as this was not that uncommon to her, and may be down right normal here. "You look pale enough to me. Are you from the Vinkus? I hear they have dark skin there? Is there something wrong with yours? Actually yours looks almost grey." Elphaba raved on.

Raven snatched her hand away form the girl's eyes. Her hood few up to cover her hair and she thrust her arms under her cloak. "What I meant was that's my name. I'm called Raven." She clarified hastily before the other could start another semantics argument.

"Oh well in that case, my name is Elphaba." The green girl laughed as though there was some kind of joke that she knew and Raven didn't and she wasn't inclined to share. "Oh well in this is a proper case!" she laughed again. "Not a chaperone in site and here we are trading names at though we were the best of friends! It's a riot! I must tell Boq, it took him a month to stop calling me miss-this –that-the –other-one." She bent over with the force of another peel of laughter. Something about it made Raven want to inch all over, like a kind of déjà vu where nothing s the same. But she couldn't place it so she chalked it up to the circumstances of her visit.

"If I've broken some social rule, I didn't mean to." Rave began to apologize hoping to right her behavior.

"Oh social Rules! That's what we need, don't you see, more people willing to break social rules! If you hadn't we would have never met!"

Raven was starting to wonder if that was a good thing of not. The drizzle, then, seemed to make up its mind, and became a rain. Elphaba almost shrieked. She burrowed deeper into her layers.

"Well come on! I'm not going to stand in the rain!" she tried to sound joking but Raven could tell there was and hind of desperation in her voice as they ran into the tearoom.