Disclaimer: Not mine.

Elphaba:

Like I said, he knew. He knew how to press my buttons. He knew I couldn't stand this enforced helplessness.

He knew what had happened to me.

He had to know. Disgusting slimy bastard. I was beginning to think that perhaps that whole terrible ordeal had been…orchestrated by the Wizard. But that was ridiculous, wasn't it? I had done nothing then. Except join the Resistance that afternoon.

But…

Pinned up here to the wall, gagged (I had called that bastard a bastard and he'd ordered me silenced) I had nothing to do but let my thoughts race like pent-up lab rats through the labyrinth of my mind. I was getting more and more paranoid, and feeling more and more like Madame Morrible had been right all those years ago, Like I was a pawn in her game.

Where was that hideous hell-cat, anyway? I would kill her if I saw her. I would.

"Fae," Fiyero tried to comfort me. "Fae, please. Look at me."

But I wouldn't, not when all I could do was nod or shake my head like a petulant child and he could speak. Not when I was more than helpless, when I was voiceless.

…cauterize the part of the brain that controls language…

-No-

…eliminate the notion of pain…

-No!-

…and…pain itself…

-NO!-

I wanted to feel, needed to feel!

I kicked, scratched, yelled, beat myself against the wall, ignoring Fiyero's panicked yelling, anything to get free or at least to feel something besides this pervading numbness.

The guards came running, somehow.

"See?" the Minister of Bastardliness crowed. "She is insane!"

"What?" cried Fiyero. "In here, who-"

The Minister of Being Fucked-Up continued over his protestations.

"She is insane and she is an unnatural woman," he went on.

"Oh, fuck off," I instructed him. "If I'm so fucking unnatural, then why do I have a husband and two children?"

"You're a woman, and anyone can conceive and give birth," he continued, "but you are not natural."

I regarded my own skin. "Thanks for the newsflash, O Brilliant One," I responded sarcastically. I was ignored.

"Take her to the asylum," he said. Obediently, a soldier began undoing my leg manacles.

Big mistake.

Using all my strength, I swung my legs to the left, up against the wall, pushed off, and took out two soldiers with my swing. Two more, however, grabbed my legs as another undid my wrist manacles. I fell on them like a hell-cat myself, twisting and clawing and screaming bloody murder.

"Shut her up, somehow, one of you!" screamed the Minister as Fiyero tried to reason with him.

"I love you!" I screamed to him suddenly, over the din, and heard him answer in kind, just before I felt cold metal connect, hard, with the back of my head.

And then the blackness was all I knew.

Fala:

The night after my mother was taken, her pain, and my father's reached new heights. I woke up screaming. I looked over at my brother. Liir, the great dolt, was still asleep. I shook him awake.

"Enh- Fala- whaddya want?' he mumbled groggily, propping himself up, dark hair mussed like it had been perpetually when we were small. Mother hadn't exactly been obsessed with our having neat hair.

"I've decided something, Liir," I said firmly. "I can't just sit here. I-I can feel their pain, it's bad, Liir, really bad. We need to rescue them."

I expected him to demur, to plead, to call Grandfather, to freak out. I underestimated him.

"Well, all right," he said, and we began to prepare.

Elphaba:

When I woke up, I was chained, ankles to wrists, in the fetal position. I was naked and lying on the floor. I screamed and screamed and screamed, but no one came. Eventually, I broke down crying.

I don't know how long it was. Weeks. A month. A guard would shove food into my mouth once a day. It was silent. I was dirty and covered in my own waste. I wanted to die. If I wasn't crazy already, much more of this and I sure as hell would be.

Then he came in.

"Hello, Miss Elphaba," he said, circling me.

"What do you want from me?" I spat.

"To evaluate you. To see if you've been cured."

"Cured?" I laughed. "Cured. Cured. This place is a fucking breeding ground of insanity."

"I will judge whether or not you've been cured by whether or not you can make reasonable choices."

"Rather subjective standard, coming from you."

"You're awfully proud for someone in your position."

"I'm only in this position because you don't like the fact that standing I'm taller than you."

I'd struck a nerve; the way his steps suddenly became more like stomps told me that without question.

"Hell, I'm probably better fucking endowed than you, too, and I'm a woman."

"That's it, you little bitch," he hissed, kicking me in the back. I grunted with pain but made no other concession. "You want out of here or do want to die like this? You want me to go get your daughter and do to her what's been done to you? Hell, yeah, I know. Your father did it."

"Don't you touch her!" I shrieked, and began trying vainly to release myself.

He leaned down close to me.

"You'll have to beg," he whispered.

"You're not content with this humiliation?"

"You're not humiliated. Damn it, beg!"

I knew I had to. For Fala's sake. Tears welled up in my eyes.

"Please," I said softly, "please. Don't hurt her. Please. She hasn't done anything wrong! Just leave her alone. Just let me go back to my husband. I'm not insane. Go ahead and torture me, punish me, whatever you want, just leave her alone. Just let me go back to prison."

"You're not begging. Beg!"

A sob wrenched in my throat. He kicked me again.

"Please, sir, please, you have total power over me. You can destroy me-"

I gritted my teeth, hard. Elphaba. Do this so you can fight another day. Give in so you can come back and stab him in the heart and watch him bleed all over the floor. Do this for Fala, for Liir, for Fiyero. Just say it, say it and you will win in the end. Courage, Elphaba, just a little longer.

"I am nothing," I finished. "I beg you, sir, please leave my daughter and son alone. Please let me return to my husband."

Spent, I began to cry quietly into my knees.

"Very well, whore," he said, satisfied. "I'll bring you back to Southstairs."