A/N: Here we are with Chapter 7! Big thanks to those who reviewed.

s.r.54321 - Awww, thank you! Your review made me so happy. To answer your question, Elphaba has spent her whole life at this point as a kind of servant and carer to Nessa, and has never been to Shiz, even though she's old enough to go (she's eighteen). Frex sees her as a threat, so he wouldn't allow her to have an education. Similarly, she's never had an opportunity to meet Glinda.

Fiyero Tiggular attempting to clean a kitchen, whilst simultaneously talking to Elphaba and stuffing food in his mouth intermittently from a napkin tucked under his armpit, was perhaps the most terrifying thing Elphaba had ever witnessed.

They had started off with Elphaba washing, and Fiyero drying and putting away. Which ought to have been an easy task – made much harder, of course, by the need for most of the dishes to be washed twice or more since Fiyero could not dry them with one hand and prevent dropping food crumbs all over them as he ate and chattered gaily. Finally, Elphaba had put her foot down and banished him to scrub the floor and surfaces. This, however, had only ended in an impromtu one-man musical spectaculaire as the prince turned the broom into a microphone and the table into his stage. Fiyero could not sing. Elphaba passionately desired a word with whoever had told him he could. She kept checking her ears compulsively every thirty seconds to prove to herself they weren't, in fact, bleeding. She had almost been ready to throw him out of the kitchen and finish the job herself, but Fiyero would have none of it, and somehow, against her better judgement, she found herself thrown out and staring at the closed door from the outside, wondering what on earth she had gotten herself into.

A moan escaped her lips as she heard the incessant clattering and off-key humming from inside the room, and she banged her head against the door in despair. How in Oz had she been the one to be kicked out? And how had she allowed it?

Her ears perked up, however, when a suspicious silence lapsed in the kitchen for a period of about ten minutes, and cautiously, she pressed her ear against the door, trying to figure out what he was doing. Suddenly, the door swung open and she yelped, landing on the floor with her legs splayed out. She was so shocked, she didn't have time to notice the sharp pain that shot through her in reminder of the previous day's injuries. Breathless, she looked up, and the smug, self-satisfied look on Fiyero's face made her want to gouge his eyes out.

"The task is complete," he drawled lazily, bowing deeply with a flourish.

Elphaba suddenly felt funny, and she simply stared at him as she tried to work out what to say. To her surprise, a very strange noise pushed its way past her lips, and within a few seconds she had lapsed into maniacal, high-pitched cackles as the horror and absurdity of the situation caught up with her.

Fiyero looked entirely unsure how to respond, regarding her as if she were a ferret his carriage had run over, and he wasn't sure whether she was alive, dead, or on her way there. The look on his face only fuelled her unexpected hilarity, and Fiyero shifted his weight uncertainly, although it was beginning to look as if he was holding back a smile himself.

Taking deep breaths, Elphaba endeavoured to pull herself together, lifting herself off the floor to face him. He was still looking at her oddly. "I'm sorry," she said, as solemnly as she could manage.

He only snorted in reply.

Pursing her lips, Elphaba brushed past him casually, ready to evaluate the damage. She stood motionless in the doorway.

The kitchen was spotless.

In confusion, she turned back around to Fiyero. "It's clean..." she trailed off uncertainly.

In response, Fiyero pretended to lift a hat off his head and tip it, amusement alight in his eyes. "Pleasure, ma'am. Although I'm a little hurt, I confess, at your apparent lack of faith in my housekeeping skills."

"But..." she didn't know how to continue that sentence.

"It's alright," he placated her. "My parents don't have much faith in my abilities either." His tone suggested the statement was meant as a joke, but his eyes dimmed for a moment as he said it. If Elphaba had blinked, she would have missed it. It caused her to frown.

But his grin was back, and she didn't have time to contemplate what she'd almost seen. She filed the memory away to analyse later.

"My services are always available to you, Elphaba. I haven't had this much fun in a while."

Elphaba's brow furrowed at the odd statement. "Fun cleaning the kitchen?"

Fiyero quirked an eyebrow in dry amusement. "Of course. What is it they say in the Wizard's world? A spoonful of sugar to make the job better?"

She merely continued to frown. "What sugar?"

Fiyero laughed. "You know what? Never mind."

The rest of the day passed slowly for Elphaba. Her work was a slog without Mareem's company, but at least she hadn't needed to redo the kitchen. A part of her had been suspicious that she would find a pile of dirty dishes stuffed hastily into the pantry and out of sight. After all, how likely was it that Fiyero had actually done the job as well as he had appeared to?

She was proven wrong, however. Nothing about the job he'd done could be faulted. Whether the whole experience had been worth the grey hairs she was sure she had earned through it all remained to be seen.

The afternoon, however, was dull. It had begun to rain around noon, which always affected Elphaba's mood. The patter of the rain against the large, imposing windows started off light, but increased as the hours dragged. The wetness sliding down the glass like tears seemed to mimic Elphaba's own perpetual misery, and she was chagrined that she couldn't even pretend that the outside world held any promise for her. It was like a low mockery – when the world outside was bright and cheerful, she could imagine that one day she might be able to reach out and grasp some of that. On days like this, however, she was reminded that no good thing would ever condescend to include her, and it was futile to pretend otherwise.

Maybe the rain also reminded her somewhat of the day Nessa had been born. It had been raining that day too. It was one of few things Elphaba could remember about that day. Or maybe she didn't really remember it. She had been three years old at the time – how could a three-year-old remember whether it had been raining? But nonetheless, the thought of Nessa's birthday always brought the sound of rain to her mind. When she had been younger, and Nessa had been blowing out the candles of a grandiose cake, or tearing into her gifts, or planting a wet kiss against their Father's cheek as he lifted her into his arms and held her to his breast, she would ask her sister if she heard the rain too. The answer was always the same.

No. No, she could not. Elphaba was alone in that respect.

Eventually she stopped asking, when she observed the callous look on her Father's face when she did ask – as if there was something wrong with her.

But the sound of rain continued in her head like a melody.

Elphaba had always known, as soon as she could begin to understand her Father's words and what they meant, that she would not have a future like Nessa. The day he had first assigned her to care for Nessa – a mere week after she was born – had only solidified this fact in her mind. Frex had showered the baby with kisses and affection all that week. He walked around the house with her in his arms, gazing into her blue eyes and smiling at her and singing to her. Elphaba had followed them around, discretely. She would hide around corners and peer at them, trying to understand why her Father's eyes looked so different when he looked at Nessa.

One time, Frex had been sitting with Nessa in her mother's armchair, Elphaba sitting on her knees unnoticed behind the not-quite-shut door, watching them. She saw Frex brush his finger lightly over Nessa's pink cheek, and the light in his eyes was completely foreign to Elphaba. She could just make him out as he spoke softly to her. "Nessa, my precious rose," he crooned. "I love you, my little girl. And one day you're going to grow into a beautiful young woman. You'll do so much, I know you will. My perfect, perfect Nessa."

It was at this moment that Elphaba's shoulder had bumped lightly against the door, and it creaked. Frex's head snapped up and his eyes, suddenly cold, narrowed to slits. "Elphaba! Come here."

She did, crawling into the room on her hands and knees, looking up at him in fear.

"Stand up!"

Shakily, she pushed herself up and took a few unsteady steps toward him. He kept beckoning her until she stood at his elbow. Then his hand lashed out and he slapped her, hard. She tottered in surprise and steadied herself, her hand coming up to her stinging cheek. Tears welled in her eyes, and seeing them, he struck her again. This time, she tumbled to the floor with a frightened cry, and Frex stood over her, Nessa tucked in his arm. Nessa's startled cries filled the room, but Elphaba was barely aware of them.

"Now look!" Frex shouted. "You've made your sister cry!"

"I didn't. It wasn't my fault."

In response, he grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled her up. Elphaba gasped sharply.

"You useless girl! It wasn't your fault? Of course it was your fault! Nessarose was fine until you came in here." He started to shake her. "It's always your fault. Did you know that your mother died because of you? You know your mother chewed those milk flowers so little Nessa wouldn't be green like you?"

Elphaba had seen her mother chew the flowers. The fact of it being her fault, however, was news to her.

"But now she's dead, and Nessa will never be able to walk. The milk flowers did that." He was still shaking her. Distressed squeals tumbled out of her mouth as he did so. "You did that! If you hadn't been born green, none of this would have happened!" Abruptly, he let go of her hair, and she fell.

"Go! And take Nessa with you! She's your responsibility now." Nessa was thrust into her arms, and she struggled to get a good grip of her new sister as she tried to escape that room as soon as possible.

Elphaba was clumsy – she had never held a baby before, and her legs were like jelly, which didn't help. Somehow, however, she managed to half-walk, half-crawl out of the room with Nessa held awkwardly in her arms, still crying as she was jostled about. Elphaba's eyes were blurry with tears, making it difficult to see where she was going, but somehow, she found herself in the one place she felt safe. A few weeks prior, she had found that the cupboard under the staircase was roomy enough to make a good hiding place when she was scared. It had a little bare lightbulb, was sparse and silent. There was nothing in there that her Father or Mareem would ever care to retrieve, and so she had dragged in her blankets and picture books and made her own special place out of it. It was this little cupboard that she hid in now.

She closed the door behind her and fumbled for the light switch, sighing as the light came on. She wrapped her ratty blankets around herself like a cocoon, holding Nessa close between her knees and her chest. Nessa was still crying. "Hush," Elphaba whispered, her voice thick with tears. "It's ok, Nessie. We're safe here." Trembling, she tried her best to sooth her sister by rubbing her back and cooing, as she had seen her Father do. After a moment, Nessa's cries began to quiet, and she looked up at Elphaba with wide blue eyes.

Elphaba simply looked back at her, unsure what to do. Did she love Nessa? She didn't know. But she did know for a fact that she was expected to look after her from now on. For a brief moment, her green fingers drifted down Nessa's pink arm, and she wanted to pinch her, like Father would sometimes pinch her. It was so strange, having a baby in the house. And Elphaba was quite certain her Father had never kissed her like he kissed Nessa. What she couldn't understand was why.

"It was your fault. It's always your fault."

Nessa wasn't green. Maybe that was why he hit her, but he kissed Nessa. Elphaba buried her face in her knees as the tears dripped down her face.

Elphaba continued to come back to this little cupboard time after time through the years. It was her secret place, her sweet sanctuary. Once she'd begun to teach herself to read, the picture books had been swapped for books with words, but other than that, she didn't change anything. The same ratty blankets she had hidden in there so many years ago remained there now. It was by now half-way through the afternoon, and Elphaba's heart felt as heavy as the wind and rain that was now howling outside and slamming furiously against the windows. She didn't know where her Father was, and Fiyero, too, seemed to have mysteriously disappeared. So, she left the linen she'd been folding neatly upstairs and tiptoed downstairs, quietly slipping into the cupboard and shutting the door gingerly. Her fingers found the light switch and the space was illuminated with light.

There wasn't as much space in here for her anymore, since she had grown taller. But Elphaba found she couldn't care about that. Although she had to bend her head a little, and the curled-up position she assumed was a little uncomfortable, she wouldn't give up this place for the world. A sense of calm swept over her as she settled down in the cupboard, the blanket wrapped around her like a cocoon. It would be too far to say she felt peaceful. Elphaba couldn't remember the last time she'd felt truly at peace, if she ever had. But calm was good enough.

Sighing, she picked up the book closest to her – Great Expectations. It was one she had read several times before. It might be considered strange by some that she kept returning to this one – after all, she did not particularly like the main character, Pip, and frequently found herself frustrated at his ingratitude for the kindness shown to him. Nonetheless, something about the story drew her. Perhaps it was that she could relate to the feeling of having big dreams, only to have them dashed. She only intended to stay there in the cupboard for a short while. After all, the chores still needed to be done. Before she realised, however, she startled suddenly, and noticed that the book had slid off her lap onto the floor. She must have fallen asleep. Fumbling anxiously, she crawled out of the cupboard, breaths coming fast as she tried to figure out how long she had been in there for. Dashing into the empty parlour, she checked the clock. 5.45.

Elphaba clutched her throat and ran to catch up on preparing dinner. If she didn't hurry, she'd still be finishing off her work at one in the morning, never mind making it to meet Fiyero in the stables at midnight.

A/N: The book Elphaba was reading is 'Great Expectations' by Charles Dickens.