Chapter 7 – The Witch and I
"Dean?"
He turned around. "Sammy?"
His brother was standing there, two sables on his hip and two daggers on the other. He'd also nicked himself a bayonet from somewhere.
Dean started laughing. "How'd you get here?"
"I could ask you the same!"
"I eavesdropped on a maid who talked about cleaning Glinda's room so I followed her, waited until she finished up and took down the guards." Sam nodded towards the closet. "You already met them."
Dean grinned. "Help me tie him up and find a good hiding place."
They tied the guard up and secured the door with a chair.
Sam returned to his hiding place behind a large plant and Dean crouched behind a chair. He could peek through it inconspicuously.
"But if we're both here," Sam mumbled. "Does that mean that Charlie is out there in the dark? Alone?"
Dean bit his lip. "Charlie is big enough to fend for herself."
He had to admit he was a little worried, but he would only admit that to himself.
After a while, Dean's stomach started to growl, but they knew Glinda had to come sometime, so they waited.
They chatted for a bit, about the computer and the table and tried to plot ways to help Cas.
"That's peculiar," a high-pitched voice pulled them back into reality. Shit. Dean sat up and peaked between the reed. "Usually there's guards."
The door opened and a lady in a quirky blue dress entered. Her hair was up and she was wearing a hat that was there for fashion reasons not for sun reasons. "I'll call for some tea."
Dean never got those kind of hats.
But besides the weird hat, that lady was beautiful. Dean was already mentally paging through his '101 ways to get women into bed' guide, when he saw her companion.
Charlie.
And by the way Charlie was eyeing her, she was paging through that guide too.
"So your friends didn't show up?" Glinda asked.
Charlie shook her head and sat down. "We would meet at dusk, but they didn't come. It's kind of you to offer me a bed, Lady Glinda." She said politely.
"Please, call me Glinda," Glinda said. "And you don't need to thank me, needless to say, you would do it for me too,"
And by the way Glinda was eyeing Charlie, it wasn't just charity.
There was a knock on the door. "Tea, Lady Glinda."
Glinda opened the door and let the maid in, who poured them both a large cup and left.
Dean looked to Sam who shrugged.
What are we gonna do?
I don't know.
"So tell me a little bit about yourself, Charlie," Glinda said, seductively sipping her tea.
Dean got up slowly. "Yeah- uhm, don't freak out," he said.
He saw Glinda's mouth open, and Charlie leap forward to shush her. There was a soft yelp and then a smothered groan.
"Uhm," Charlie smiled. "I don't know what they are doing here, but these are my friends."
Sam appeared from behind his plant too. "Yeah, hi."
"Promise not to scream," Charlie said, "And I promise we're not here to hurt you, we need your help."
Glinda nodded, frowning, and when Charlie let her go, she lashed out. "How dare you!"
"I didn't know they were here." She apologized to Glinda. "How did you two get here?"
"I followed a maid." Sam said.
"I threatened a guard." Dean shrugged.
Glinda dramatically sunk down in her chair. "Why are you here?"
"I'm going to be honest, okay Glinda?"Charlie said. "My friends and I, we're from another country, and to get back we need you."
Charlie told her the entire story, and when she mentioned Elphaba, her eyes lit up and immediately dimmed down again.
"You know where Elphaba is?" She asked.
"She's at Kiamo Ko. That's where we agreed to meet." Charlie said.
Glinda nodded. "I'll call a guard, make sure you get a place to sleep. We'll leave first thing tomorrow."
"About guards." Dean grimaced. "We have a surprise in your closet."
Glinda walked over to the closet and gave a shriek when she saw the three gagged guards.
"Sorry about that," Sam said.
They let the guards go, apologized and handed their weapons back. Glinda called other guards to escort them to guest rooms.
They were given a room in the same corridor. Dean didn't like being split up from his brother, but he trusted Charlie and Charlie trusted Glinda.
And a little more, he guessed.
He settled into the bed, looking forward to a night's sleep on an actual mattress, instead of the ground.
He was about to go to sleep, when there was a knock at the door.
"Who's there?" He yelled.
"Doctor." Charlie's voice.
Dean grinned. "Doctor who?"
Charlie entered the room, wearing a fluffy dressing gown. She crawled on the bed and sat cross-legged opposite of him.
"I'm worried." She sighed.
"Should we go?" Dean asked. "Are you worried that we're gonna get lynched?"
"No." Charlie shook her head. "It's just… Dean, I know how the musical ends. That's what I'm worried about. I'm even more worried about the book ending."
"The book ending?" Dean frowned.
"At the end of the book, both Elphaba and Fiyero die." Charlie said. "Maybe there's some way to prevent that."
"What were you thinking about?" Dean asked. "Do you think we could?"
"I think we should at least try." Charlie said.
They stayed up all night, plotting and talking, trying to come up with a plan that put no one in harm's way.
But Dean was a Winchester, and their plans always included danger and risk.
About half an hour after dawn, there was a rapid knock on the door. "Lady Glinda asks for you to join her in her chambers."
"Yeah." Dean called back. He got up from the bed, and, stretching his cramped legs, walked to the large wardrobe in the corner.
He hoped there were some other clothes in there, because, you know, he wasn't all that fond of his leggings.
Luckily, there were plenty of clothes, dresses and trousers, blouses and shirts.
Charlie picked a large puffy dress and Dean dressed in a shirt and the trousers that resembled jeans the best.
He was happy that, when he entered Glinda's chamber, Sam was dressed in nearly the same clothes.
"Let's go to Kiamo Ko!" Glinda giggled. She opened the door to the balcony, and waved her wand.
Bubbles appeared around them, slowly elevating from the ground.
"Holy-" Dean swore.
"Let's go!" Glinda smiled, and with a swift movement of her wand, the bubbles raised higher and higher and started moving faster and faster towards the West.
Dean started heaving when he saw the earth below him become smaller and smaller. He could hear Sam laughing from his bubble and shot him an angry look.
"What's wrong, Dean?" He chuckled.
"I think we all know what's wrong Sammy," Dean said bitchy.
He sat down, leaned against the soft surface of the bubble and closed his eyes. He couldn't feel the movement in the bubble, so after a while he dozed off in the warm sun.
…
Dean woke up when they started their descend. Glinda and Charlie were a couple yards in front of them, chatting to each other from their bubbles.
Sam was fidgeting on his shirt, looking bored beyond comparison.
The moment the bubbles hit the ground, they popped.
Dean stretched his legs, groaning. Ten hours in a flying bubble wasn't Dean's preferred method of travelling, for various reasons.
Elphaba was in the doorway, arms crossed, with an amused look on her face.
"Elphie!" Glinda ran forward and embraced her friend.
Elphaba hugged her back and, to Dean's surprise, she even briefly smiled.
"It's good to see you," Elphaba said. "Let's go inside."
They followed Elphaba inside and upstairs, back to the room where they had dinner their first night in Oz.
Glinda chatted away happily. "I am so happy you're still alive. Of course I knew you were. I mean, you are the smartest! Oh Elphaba, I've missed you so much."
When they were finished eating, Elphaba pulled the wine out again and poured them all some. "I propose we perform the spell tomorrow, you must be tired from the flight."
Glinda nodded. "It was a long day indeed."
Dean and Charlie exchanged a look. Dean nodded.
"There's this thing." Charlie said.
"What thing?" Elphaba looked up.
"You're…" Charlie swallowed nervously.
"You're gonna die, Elphaba," Dean finished her sentence. "Fayero or whoever the Hell he is, he's gonna get turned into a scarecrow."
"Fiyero." Charlie corrected him. Now that the high word was out, she dared to finish their story. She told Elphaba and Glinda everything, about how it would unfold after Elphaba's reuniting with the Wizard. She even included Elphaba and Fiyero's duet.
"We need to make sure this isn't gonna happen." Glinda looked shocked, to say the least.
Dean nodded. "That's what Charlie and I figured. So we've been brooding."
"We've come up with a plan. But it's weird, and hard, and there's a very, very large possibility this goes wrong." Charlie said.
"First thing, we need to know where exactly in the story we are." Dean asked.
Elphaba studied her shoes. "I've, I've followed you into the Emerald City the day before yesterday. And I've met the Wizard, and Fiyero, and… Glinda and I have already seen each other before Fiyero and I took off, together. I've sent him back to the Emerald City this morning, because I had agreed upon meeting you here."
Dean had been wondering where the cold edge was from. Now he knew.
Charlie stiffened. "Glinda. Have you been to Madam Morrible about this?"
Glinda frowned. "Well, Elphaba's visit has not gone unnoticed. I had to report."
"Did you give her a certain advice?" Dean asked.
"What?" Glinda's look grew darker. "You don't mean…"
"Oh Glinda I'm so sorry." Charlie bit her lip.
Glinda's eyes became watery. "But that mean's I'm… I've…"
"It's not your fault Glinda," Dean said.
"What happened?" Elphaba asked, worried.
"I've told Madam Morrible that the only way to lure you out was to make you believe your sister was in danger. Oh Elphie, I meant for them to spread a rumor!"
"What happened to Nessa?" Elphaba said. Her tone was dark and Dean realized that they were dealing with the Wicked Witch of the West.
"Madam Morrible landed a house on her. She," Charlie's voice faltered.
"She's dead." Dean said.
Color drained from Elphaba's face as she got up. "I need… I need to go there. I need to help her."
"It's too late, Elphaba." Charlie said.
Sam, who had kept himself quiet during the whole conversation, spoke up. "The only way to prevent more casualties is to work with the plan."
Elphaba grabbed her broom. "I don't care about my own life anymore." She said coldly.
"And about Fiyero's?" Charlie asked.
Elphaba chewed on the inside of her cheek, put the broom down and sat back down again. "Let me hear it."
Dean could see her lower lip trembling and her eyes watering.
Big girl, he thought. Won't do you no good.
His insides churned. He wanted to go home so badly, this wasn't their fight. Who were they to change this story?
And most importantly, was he going to lose Charlie or Sam in the desperate fight to save these strangers?
"In the original story, Glinda goes to the place where the house crashed and helps Dorothy find her way to the Emerald City, where the citizens will help her seek out Elphaba." Charlie explained. "Elphaba finds her there too and the trap closes around her. Gale Force soldiers try to take her prisoner, but Fiyero comes to the rescue."
Everyone nodded, Charlie had just told them that.
"We're going to assume Fiyero is gonna turn up. This round, he's gonna have backup though," Dean pulled his gun and put it down in front of him. "Sammy and I, we've taken worse than a couple soldiers with some rifles. We can handle it and we save Fiyero before the guards beat him to death."
"You have to play for real though," Charlie said. "Otherwise, Fiyero might get confused and it'll blow in our faces."
"Then you get back to Kiamo Ko asap." Dean said.
Elphaba frowned. "What in Oz's name is asap?"
"As soon as possible." Sam, Charlie and Dean chanted.
"You don't freak out, okay?" Dean said to Elphaba. "No spells, nothing. You wait. See, from there on, the story requires a scarecrow. That's where Sammy rolls in."
Sam shook his head. "I can't believe I agreed to this, but I'll wander onto Dorothy's path and pretend to be the brainless scarecrow."
There was a silent chuckle from Dean's corner at 'pretend'
Sam ignored him. "We travel to Kiamo Ko and sprinkle some water on you and you're going to act like you died, okay?"
"Then we can do two things, but that's all up to you and Fiyero." Charlie said. "We can hide you away and you have to wait for Glinda to clear your names, if that's ever going to succeed, or…"
"Or what?"
Charlie bit her lip. "Or you and Fiyero can go with us back to the USA."