A/N: I'm really sorry to have abandoned this story for so long, and on such a cliffhanger, too, but school called. Now it's over, but for the next two weeks I have the theatre schedule from hell (I'm in two plays and the next two weeks are the production of one and the tech week of the other and then the productions of the other…) I just thought of something odd. Three generations of Elphaba's family had some sort of mysterious, unconscious circumstances surrounding either the birth or conception of a child. Think about it…Melena didn't know if she'd had an affair, Elphaba didn't know if she'd had a baby, and Liir was in a coma- in a mauntery, no less, just like Elphaba- when he and Candle conceived their baby. Weirdness…
Disclaimer: Ce n'est pas a moi.
"Auntie Witch?" moaned the girl. "But…you're dead…"
"So you were lying?" asked Elphaba.
"Wha..?"
"You wrote Elphaba Lives on that wall; you mean to tell me you were lying?"
"I didn't mean literally," snapped Nor weakly. Then- "Oh. You were joking."
Elphaba gently positioned the girl's head on her lap and checked her for broken bones.
"What happened?" she asked.
Fiyero pulled himself up off the ground.
"Nor?" he said, kneeling beside Elphaba, "Is it- is it really you?"
"Papa?" she asked, the childhood nickname falling easily from her lips. She had, after all, been a child the last time she had seen him and, at seventeen, was in age barely more than one now. Hearing the term, Liir felt a small pang. He came a bit closer to the huddled group.
"Liir?" said Nor. "What is going on?"
"I guess it's kind of…maybe…a family reunion?" hazarded Liir.
"I didn't think I'd ever consider myself lucky again," murmured Fiyero, one arm around Elphaba and the other hand clutching Nor's, "but I am."
Nor managed to sit up a little and for the first time noticed Elphaba's attire, though in the chaos of movement earlier her hair had fallen from below her hat in an inky curtain.
"Auntie Witch," she said, "why are you dressed like a man?"
Elphaba groaned. "I…it's a long story," she said. "You're hurt, Nor, and this isn't a good part of the city for you to be in. Let's get you out of here."
Deftly, Elphaba braided her hair without so much as a look and tucked it beneath her hat. She and Fiyero managed to get Nor upright and they balanced her between them, supporting her.
"Liir," said Elphaba, "please, go and see if Cass is still following us." Liir obeyed, feeling the sharp stab of jealousy in his stomach. He didn't see any sign of the pixie-like redhead, and hurried back to his- to Elphaba and Fiyero. And Nor.
"I didn't see her," he said. Elphaba gave him a sharp look.
"But was she there?" she asked. "Did you see any sign of her presence?"
"You should have been a lawyer," Fiyero commented. Elphaba ignored him for the moment.
"No," said Liir, "I didn't." She stared at him for a moment, then, satisfied that he was telling the truth, briefly and somewhat awkwardly rested the hand not occupied with Nor on his shoulder.
"She's hurt," Elphaba said, barely audibly, "all right?"
Intuition down to her very eyelash, Liir thought. She's maybe not such a bad mother after all. If she is one. "Yeah," he said. "I know."
"I know better than anyone how it feels, all right?" she said tersely. "Now let's go and you get yourself out of that wallowing pit of self pitying."
…
Fiyero's intended destination, as it turned out, was the old corn exchange. Elphaba got a sick look on her face when she saw it.
"No," she said.
"Fae," Fiyero replied softly, "come on. I didn't really die in there." He leaned closer. "Just remember the other things," he whispered suggestively.
"If I weren't holding up your injured daughter I'd smack you," she said.
"What are you talking about?" asked Nor.
"She doesn't-" began Fiyero.
"No," hissed Elphaba, "I do have some sense of decorum, Fiyero, my God." With that, she began to walk forward and the others had no choice but to follow.
The blood was mostly gone, thankfully. There were brown stains on the floor, but nothing too awful. Dead, withered, brown rose petals littered the floor and a fine grey dust covered the table and books.
"There's no place like home," Elphaba muttered sarcastically. She and Fiyero laid Nor down on the old mattress.
"There is probably something deeply ironic in that," observed Elphaba.
"Definitely," agreed Fiyero.
Liir sighed and flopped into a chair.
"There's nowhere else in here to sleep, is there?" he asked somewhat rhetorically. Elphaba answered anyway. "No, I'm sorry," she said sincerely. Fiyero found his old opera cape and an old dress of Elphaba's lying on the floor.
"Here you are, if this helps," he said to Liir.
"Thanks," Liir replied. He lay the clothes down on the floor and promptly fell into a deep sleep.
Elphaba went over to Nor's side. "Nor," she said to the half-conscious girl, "Nor, dearie, I need you to tell me what happened to you."
"Then promise me you'll tell me what you and Papa were talking about," muttered the girl, who was perhaps more conscious than they had thought.
"And tell me the rest of what happened while I was imprisoned," added Fiyero. Elphaba sighed.
"I feel like I'm back in that bar in Shiz with everyone coercing me into singing," she said. "All right, fine. But Nor, you have to tell us. We have to know what's wrong."
"Well," said Nor, "I broke out of Southstairs, and they carried the dead Hogs I was hiding under to Potter's Field- the mass dumping ground for the bodies of Animals and the poor. I climbed out from under them and ran out of there as fast as I could. I fell asleep outside someone's doorstep and I guess I was lucky- it was a member of the old resistance. They took me in and found out I knew Auntie Witch- Fae, they called you- and I ran around helping them for a week and a half, mostly painting Elphaba Lives on walls. But then a few days ago, some Gale Forcers were chasing us down an alley, and we got separated. I fell down and knocked myself out. I woke up with some old lady who called herself Yackle taking care of me. She gave me something…it made me feel better for a few days, but then I was just walking down the street and I fell over, horribly sick. I couldn't get up. That's when you found me."
Elphaba looked grim. "I knew that- that- demon was…" she trailed off. "Damn!" She looked back at Nor. "What about before?" she asked. "How long were you in Southstairs?"
"A little more than a year, I guess," said Nor. "Before that- there were a group of us- you saw-" She paused, painfully. "I don't remember much after the first year or so. I- I would leave myself, it was like. I blocked myself off."
Elphaba looked at her with understanding. She bit her lip.
"I'm sorry I couldn't save you," she said. "I tried, you know, but the Wizard…"
"It's not your fault," said Nor. "Now, tell us. You promised."
Elphaba groaned. "I did, didn't I. Well…all right. I'll start at the beginning, for Nor." She looked at Fiyero. "You. Help me."
"All right," he said. "I'll tell this part."
"I used to come here on business, all the time. And one year- you were two, I think, Nor- I went into a church. I always liked art, I think maybe if I hadn't been a prince I might have been a starving artist living in a garret- but I wasn't. So I went into a church looking for a portrait of Saint Glinda. I was sent into the back of the church, and in the small room someone looked to be praying. When she stood up, I saw that she was- green. She was Miss Elphaba, with whom I had gone to college and who had then disappeared after she went to the Emerald City with Miss Glinda to see the Wizard, the night the rest of us-" he looked at Nor and cleared his throat. "Well. Yes. She wouldn't admit to her own identity, but I knew it was her. So I finally got her to agree to meet me an hour later. But I knew her and I knew she wouldn't do it. So I found the back way out of the church and followed her. Then I called out the nickname Nessarose told us she had- Fabala- and she turned around before she realized what she was doing. And I followed her inside, up here, and made her talk to me-"
"You did not make me do anything. I chose to talk to you," Elphaba interjected haughtily.
"Fine, whatever. So after that we-" He paused. "Nor, darling, you have to understand something. You're old enough now, I think. In the Vinkus, you know, most children are betrothed around the age of seven-"
"You and your brothers weren't because your mother was worried about your future, and what might happen to you outside the castle, because we thought Fiyero was dead," Elphaba threw in. "She told me that."
"How the hell?" said Fiyero.
"Ssh," Elphaba said, putting a finger to his lips. "After this story is finished."
"All right," said Fiyero, looking mystified. "Anyway, that's what happened with your mother and me. We never got the chance to choose who we loved. And that was always all right before, but I was sent to college. Things were different. I learned different customs, I learned that outside of our tribe people chose to marry the person that they wanted to. And I found myself in love with Elphaba. So we…had an affair."
Nor said nothing.
"Here," Fiyero went on. "And Elphaba was in the resistance, as you've figured out. One night, I came back here and the Gale Force started beating me, then when I was all but dead they dragged me off to Southstairs."
"And I came back later, and found all his blood, everywhere, and I thought he had to be dead," said Elphaba. "So I went to a mauntery. I was in a coma for a year and I might have given birth to Liir, it's unknowable, and then I stayed there, for seven more years, and then- well, then I came to Kiamo Ko, to confess and apologize to Sarima, but she wouldn't let me."
"What else?" asked Fiyero. "There's more, I can tell."
"Some soldiers came to stay…to spy on us and more, it turned out. And Nor discovered that the broom one of the maunts- Mother Yackle- had given me could fly. So I taught myself to use it, and one day I flew off to Munchkinland to see Nessa and Fat- Frex. But when I came back, the soldiers had taken everyone but Nanny and Liir, who had followed them but whom they had left behind. I searched for them, for seven years, but I never found them. Until Nessarose died. A tornado came through and deposited a house on her, which unfortunately was not entirely undeserved."
Fiyero could see the pain on Elphaba's face, so he interrupted to lighten the mood. "My, aren't you disapproving," he said, grinning.
"I suppose I am," replied Elphaba instantly, smiling back. "So I went to her funeral, and so did the Wizard, apparently. He asked to meet with me and I was given no choice. He found the page of the ancient spell book Sarima had kept in the attic that I had with me, and he demanded its source. He told me Sarima and her sisters and Irji had been killed. He showed me- he showed me Nor, tortured and shackled and, it seemed, mentally gone. But he wouldn't surrender her to me. I went to the Emerald City and hit the quite possibly dead Madame Morrible over the head with a trophy and went to Avaric's and got drunk and debated the nature of evil, and on the way home I saw the Clock of the Time Dragon under which I had been born. And the dwarf who manned the thing showed me a play…about my namesake, Saint Aelphaba of the Waterfall, and then that I was apparently the Wizard's bastard daughter."
"What?" gasped Fiyero.
"Precisely," said Elphaba, taking a bit of pleasure in the idea despite herself. "He created the problem of me himself."
"You're not a problem," Fiyero assured her.
"To him I am, and while I may not be singularly a problem I certainly have them," she responded. "But after I went home, the girl Dorothy who had been in that house that fell on my sister and who had taken her enchanted shoes, came to Kiamo Ko. The Wizard had told her to kill me. But she insisted she didn't mean to, and it all ended with me catching fire, her throwing water on me, me falling and somehow getting captured and…well…that's about it," she finished. She left out her futile hopes and heartache about the Scarecrow.
"Auntie Witch," murmured Nor drowsily, "you forgot Manek. And Liir and the fishwell."
"Ah, yes," said Elphaba. "So I did. But you know those stories, so you go to sleep and I'll tell your father, all right?"
"Mmmhmm," said Nor, and did as she was bid.
"What happened to Manek?" asked Fiyero.
"Well, Yero, your son was a little bastard, I'm sorry to tell you. Rather like Avaric. But he was constantly mean to Liir, and I've gathered that this meanness eventually caused Liir to fall in the fishwell and nearly die. We pulled him out and I resuscitated him, eventually, and then…Manek was walking through the courtyard, and an icicle fell on him and stabbed him through the skull."
"But…you sounded as if you'd done it, Fae."
She looked away. "Maybe I did! But I didn't mean to! The Princess Nastoya wouldn't let me stay, she wouldn't teach me how not to hurt people, and Sarima told me about hot anger and cold anger and I was thinking about it and staring at the icicle and then it fell! I didn't want for it to happen! Just like the bees! I didn't mean it!" she cried into his shoulder. "When I did mean it, with Madame Morrible, it didn't work and when I didn't I killed them, and I didn't want to!"
Understandably confused and unable to take it all in, Fiyero just held her.
"I really am a Witch," she whispered.
And then they made love on the floor and afterwards they both cried.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"It's not your fault," he told her.
"Your family is dead," she said.
"We'll just have to build a new one, then."
He smiled somewhat wickedly at her.
"I'm thirty-eight years old, Yero," she groaned. "And I think I'm pregnant."