Disclaimer: SINCE you all are wonderful reviewers and YOU have been FORCED to put up with ME and my outrageous procrastinating, this has caused me TO UPDATE! (How many people are going to get the subliminal message...) Despite your encouragement, I felt that the ending I left sucked, so this is a shorter chapter, but it's next day, so that should make it good. And I actually had inspiration for this scene. AND I owe it to you because this story had always taken a back seat to the one I have in the Wicked section. I think I'll finish that sometime next week, and RENT will have my undivided attention.

I think by now we've established I own nothing that resembles a hit musical. Story time! -LostOzian

Everyone onstage started whispering about 'how did she do that?'

"She took a few steps, that's all," Nessa said, referring to Maureen's 'half-cast spell'. Mimi did her best angry look as Maureen knelt beside the chair to beg for forgiveness.

"That's a really sorry picture, when you think of who we become," Elphaba mentioned as Mimi bopped Maureen on the head in punishment.

"You promised things would be different here!" The stripper-playing-crippled scolded.

"What? You mean this has happened before?" Angel jumped on the comment. Maureen turned, still the picture of humble repentance.

"Sometimes something comes over me," she said quietly. "Something I can't control."

"It's called indigestion, Fae," Fiyero said, getting a smile from Elphaba. Maureen seemed to have thought she explained herself, then went back to repenting by Mimi's chair.

"Nessa, I'm so, so sorry…" she was saying.

"What?!" Angel managed to raise her voice a little, but didn't sound scary or old or toady like Morrible did. Because we already established, Angel is greater than Madame Morrible. "Never apologize for talent!"

"Talented Elphie! Yay!" Glinda smiled. Elphaba wondered how much sugar Glinda had consumed before coming here, and how she should kill the person who gave it to her.

Angel started singing about having waited for someone with magical talent to 'appear', thought it was kind of in a different key than Ms. Carol to suit the Drag Queen perfectly. Morrible didn't go that high, but Angel was still pretty limited.

"With a talent like yours, dear, there is a definite chance if you work as you should… you'll be making good…" Angel took Mimi offstage, unnoticed by Maureen.

"If the person playing Morrible wasn't so nice, I would flip her off or something, just because it's Morrible and she just fed me full of lies." Elphaba said.

"But you won't?" Fiyero made sure.

"I won't." Elphaba said as everyone else went offstage, leaving Joanne staring at an awe-struck Maureen, the latter lost in her own little world.

"Wait a clock-tick," Joanne said. "I didn't get my way!" It had been a private joke among everyone that wasn't a lesbian (or dating a lesbian…) that Joanne never got her way anyway; it was always Maureen's way, but nevertheless, Joanne hit the line well, and exited. The key changed and Maureen's part of The Wizard and I started.

In hindsight, The Wizard and I had to be the most mournfully foreshadowing-stuffed song in existence. Maureen's vocal chords of titanium held up very well, even after all these rehearsals. Everybody backstage was starting to get bored, because all that happened next was they became students, and they had already changed by the line 'what I've waited for since birth'. Mark and Benny crossed stage in between two lines so they could pointedly avoid Maureen, but that was it.

"And I swear someday there'll be a celebration throughout Oz, that's all to do…" Maureen took a deep breath. "With me-e-e…" The sound echoed off of the loft, rebounding and causing the song to seem even louder.

"Man, this song has a lot of vibrato," Mark said to Roger.

Suddenly, Maureen keeled over laughing, completely breaking out of the song. Mimi, the one closest to the sound system thingie, paused the song as everyone looked around in panic. What the hell was Maureen doing?!

Turns out The Diva didn't have any say in what she was doing at all. She had heard Mark backstage, yet because of the volume of the song, she had thought he had said, 'Man, this song is like a vibrator'. And that had to have been one of the funniest things Maureen had heard since last Tuesday when Angel parodied 'Something Bad' to the tune of 'I'm Too Sexy'.

"We gotta do something!" Benny was looking around for something. Collins came to the rescue, throwing on the Dr. Dillamond coat (an inside-out and heavily used sheepskin jacket) and going out on stage.

"Hello?" he said in the Dr. Dillamond voice. Maureen looked at him, tears causing her green eye makeup to run a little bit. "Is there any particular reason you're on the ground?"

"Oh… n… no…." Maureen started to get a hold of herself. "I'm… I'm sorry…" Collins smiled, extending a hand for Maureen to stand up.

"This is off script!" Elphaba noted, impressed the Bohos had found a way to tamper with the script.

"I'm Dr. Dillamond," Collins held out his hand, kept in a fist because Dr. Dillamond would have had hooves. Maureen took Collins' fist, shaking it as she tried to get her smile under control.

"Elphaba Thropp," Maureen said. Collins acted amazed.

"Oh yes! I remember your entrance essay, the diamond among clods of mud," Collins said. "I expect great things from you, Miss Elphaba…" Collins nodded in goodbye, leaving stage and continuing to mutter, "Yes, great things…" Maureen, queen of improv and realizing that Collins had just saved her sorry ass, started smiling wolfishly.

"Great things…" she repeated. "Great things indeed!" she spread her arms, starting to back up again like she would have for the 'And I'll stand there with the Wizard' line. Mimi clicked the song to turn on.

"And I'll stand there with the Wizard!" Maureen continued.

"Collins, you are genius," Joanne said, finally exhaling.

"That's the only reason they let him in the front door of MIT," Roger said, patting Collins on the back.