1Disclaimer: Yet another non-original chapter. None of it belongs to me. sigh I'm sorry about the title. I'm not very good at that, but you try doing it for sixteen chapters! That could be a new wicked 100 challenge! Come up with a hundred titles that are single word questions and answers, yet would work with a wicked story, this wicked story. Don't forget to say which chapter it's supposed to be. I'd read and review that!

Chapter 16: Changed? For Good

Elphaba paced. What was taking Fiyero and Boq and that stupid lion so long? The little girl's weeping finally got to her. "Ah-rg! I can't take it anymore!" Flinging open the trapdoor, she shrieked, "if you ever want to see your precious Auntie Em and Uncle Henry again than I suggest you fork over those shoes!" She slammed it shut again without waiting to hear the refusal and began pacing again. "Spoiled little brat, taking a dead woman's shoes. Must have been raised in a BARN!" She screamed the last word, whirling around and noticed Glinda standing in the doorway, watching her. "Go away," she hissed. What was she doing here? She could ruin everything!

"Elphaba! You let that poor little girl go," Glinda swelled up to her full height, pleased with her own impressiveness of the situation, "and her dog Dodo too!"

Oh Galinda. Elphaba wanted to smack the Grimmerie against her head repeatedly. Toto, you idiot! It's Toto! "Not until she gives me my shoes!"

"Elphaba, let it go!" Glinda came down the steps, holding up her skirt daintily. "They're just shoes!"

Just shoes? This from the woman who worships them? Elphaba scowled. "They're all I have to remember my sister by! I need them."

"No, Elphaba you don't." Galinda took Elphaba's arm, ignoring the latter's involuntary jerk of protest. "They're coming for you, and you need to escape, without the shoes."

Elphaba stopped and looked out the window. There were torch lights on the horizon. Galinda was right! If she was going to end it, now would be the time. "Here, take it." She thrust the Grimmerie into Galinda's hands.

"Wh- what? Elphie, you know I can't read it." She pushed it back.

Elphaba smirked at the usage of the perky name. Now was the time to patch up their relationship. "Then learn. I have to end this." If nobody in all of Oz could bring her down, it would have to bring herself down. She picked up the bucket she had filled with thin, fire-retardant oil (for safety on both ends).

Chistery came into the room, bringing with him a letter. Elphaba took and read it. It was from Fiyero, a hastily scrawled message warning her that witch hunters were closing in on the castle, and a little note at the bottom telling her he loved her.

Glinda's eyes filled with tears. "It's Fiyero, isn't it?"

Hehe, yeah. Wait! She was supposed to be sad! She wouldn't bring herself to meet the devastated look in Galinda's eyes. "We'll not see his face again."

She offered her the Grimmerie again. "Galinda, please. I'm limited. Just look at me, I'm limited, and just look at you! You can do all I couldn't do. 'Glinda.'" She humored her for a moment, then became serious again. "So now it's up to you, for both of us. Now it's up to you." She handed Galinda the book again.

Glinda excepted it this time, with a very thoughtfully sad look about her. "I've heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason. Bringing something we must learn, and we are lent to those who help us most to grow if we let them, and we help them in return." A little shrug. "Well I don't know if I believe that's true, but I know I'm who I am today, because I knew you." She sniffed loudly. "Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes the sun. Like a stream that meets a boulder halfway through the wood. Who can say if I've been changed for the better, but because I knew you," she paused and looked at Elphaba with watery eyes. "I have been changed for good."

Elphaba could feel herself tearing up as well. Would this be the last time she would see her friend? "It well may be that we will never meet again, in this lifetime. So let me say before we part, so much of me is made of what I learned from you. You'll be with me like a handprint on my heart, and now whatever way our stories end I know you have re-written mine, by being my friend." She stopped and looked at the shimmering torch lights, slowly drawing closer.

"Like a ship blown from it's mooring by a wind off the sea. Like a seed dropped by a sky bird in a distant wood. Who can say if I've been changed for the better, but because I knew you,"

Glinda cut in, "because I knew you, I have been changed for good."

Elphaba took Glinda's hands as well as she could. "And just to clear the air, I ask forgiveness for the thing's I've done you've blamed me for."

Glinda looked down and shrugged. "But then I guess, we know there's blame to share, and none of it seems to matter anymore."

Galinda, "like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes the sun. Like a stream that meets a boulder halfway through the wood,"

Elphaba, "like a ship blown off it's mooring by a wind off the sea. Like a seed dropped by a bird in the wood,"

"who can say if I've been changed for the better?" The two girls clasped each other's hands. "I do believe I have been changed for the better."

Glinda scrubbed a tear from her eye, smearing her make-up slightly to reveal her faint freckles. "And, because I knew you."

"Because I knew you," Elphaba nodded in agreement.

"Because I knew you, I have been changed-" they stopped, "for good." Clasping each other like the long-lost friends they were, they became lost in each other's embrace, wishing they would never fight for such a long time on such a scale again.

Suddenly there was banging on the door and Elphaba jerked back, her face grave. Oops! They might never have the chance anyway. "I have to end this. Good-bye, Galinda." She smiled bravely, and dashed for the ramparts.

The four travelers were up there, cornered by her bewitched guards. She shrieked in her show voice, taking her broom to the fire. It shuddered violently as it caught on fire, and it broke her heart to see it burn. "How's about a little fire, scarecrow?" With a pounding heart she lit him on fire and dashed behind him, as if to see the show.

He leapt up and down, screaming loudly. The screams tore Elphaba's heart, and she almost extinguished the flames herself when she felt something wet, and shockingly cold splash across her face. The fire on Fiyero wasn't quite out, so she put it out with a flick of her hand as she shrieked and kicked the trap door open. "Ah-rg! Stupid girl! Didn't you know water would melt me? Ah-rg, I'm melting, I'm melting, melting . . ." She allowed herself to fall completely into the hole, leaving her cape and hat behind as she hurriedly shut the door above her.

Fiyero was glad the stiff, cloth face couldn't shed tears, because he might have. Her performance had been shockingly convincing. He watched the guards and Ozians blankly as they knelt for Dorothy and shouted, "hail Dorothy! The witch of the west is dead!"

Fiyero followed them out, looking at the cape and hat thrown across the floor hesitantly. He lingered behind, intending to get his lovely green girl, but Glinda came from nowhere and knelt next to it. His breath caught in his patched throat as she removed a green bottle from the folds of the cape.

"Oh, Elphie." Glinda looked up and around, as if to see the spirit of her friend, then stood. Chistery came from the window, stumbling to the cape and hat on the floor.

He stopped, looking at the discarded clothing in confusion, then at Glinda. The familiar words he had always heard his mistress say came to life in his mouth. "Miss Galinda?"

Glinda looked at him, then burst into tears and raced out, knocking Fiyero over. "Oh, I'm sorry!" She helped him up, drying her tears as quickly as she could. Her hand ran across the dampness on him, making her start and draw it back to examine the greasiness. "What in Oz-"

Fiyero shrugged and held out his arm. She took it, her face a mask of confusion as he led her to the celebration.

.-.

Oh, please let's be done with the play! Only one more chapter on the play, then I'm gonna start splurging with originality! Ah-hahahaha! What will they do after they leave Oz? I've got an idea. Sequel! giggles madly