A/N: Oh sweet Oz I'm watching Wicked tonight! *fangirly screaming* And I'm gonna make sure my grandmother doesn't fall asleep this time - how does one fall asleep in Wicked anyways?
Oh right, and I edited the previous chapter, added in another chunk. If you haven't read it, sorry for making you press that 'prev' button. (11/11/13)
If you've read the revised version, KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON.
"You can stop staring now."
Glinda didn't shift.
"Okay, wrong choice of words. You can stop gawking now."
Still the blonde opposite him remained wide-eyed and unable to collect her jaw from the ground.
"Glinda! Snap out of it!" This time he swept across the room in long strides and attempted shake the Good Witch out of her stupor, which proved to fail as she offered no resistance, her blonde locks swaying with the motion of her head. Still her cerulean eyes did not shrink back to their original size.
That only left him with one choice. "Glinda!" he practically shouted. "Your wardrobe's on fire!"
That did it. Glinda started with a shriek that seemed to burst his eardrums, standing up, and grabbing a nearby water jug, threw it towards her wardrobe, which, she realized after moments of blinking, was perfectly safe.
"Holy Shiz, Scarecrow you bastard!" she spun around to face him. "You nearly made me wet my - "
"Galinda," he said, intentionally using her birth name to help her remember his identity. "This isn't about your dresses. This is about Elphaba!"
Glinda stilled at the mention of her friend's name. Her eyes widened once more, but this time, they held not disbelief, bur fear. "W-what about her?"
"You know what I'm talking about!" he said irritably. "About her sudden change in...temperament."
"She never did have very good one to begin with," muttered Glinda.
"You know what I mean!" snapped Fiyero. "You - "
"No, I don't know what you mean!" Glinda shouted suddenly. Her sudden rise in temper immediately silenced Fiyero. "I'm still sorting out my mind here, alright? I don't always have my best friend suddenly returning after two years of no contact as a wanted criminal, and stealing my fiance away from me! The next thing I know she's hurling fireballs at me and out for my blood, and now her boyfriend's sitting across me as a Scarecrow spending tea with me! Sure, this 'dumb blonde brain' of mine- " she flinched at the remembrance of Elphaba's harsh words "- can process that all in under an hour! Hell, I still haven't got over the fact that Elphaba had defied her childhood hero!"
Fiyero remained silent as he listened to her raging rant, never once taking his eyes off her. He now saw her for what she truly was, something he'd never noticed before. Under all her layers of bubble and cheer, she was a lonely, lost, scared and helpless girl with too many forbidden truths for a burden. She had no one to console in, not after he'd left. He felt a stab of guilt as he was reminded of his shallow, selfish personality he'd tried so hard to remove.
"Glinda..." he rest a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off. "I'm...I'm sorry. For everything."
She turned her tearstained, mascara-smudged face to look at him, before sagging her shoulders rather tiredly. "I don't need your pity."
"You don't," agreed Fiyero. "You need a shoulder, a support. I'm here, let me be your shelter." He spread his straw arms out.
Glinda dove into them, finally letting down any remaining facade she's worn, her body wracking with huge sobs of despair. Fiyero held her close, letting her melt in his embrace, stroking her golden curls gently as she cried.
"I'm so sorry!" she sobbed. "It's just...everything happened so fast. She was so terrifying, Fifi. It was horrendible."
"Shhh," soothed Fiyero. "It's alright, she can't harm you now."
"Oh, her hands were ablaze with flickering flames...Oz, Fiyero her eyes, it's as if they're burning me with that dark, treacherous stare of hatred. U don't think those grey eyes will every leave me alone. And that voice, Lurline she told me she always gets what she wants! She - "
She paused suddenly, realizing how tense Fiyero had become - if a Scarecrow could even stiffen.
"Glin..." he started slowly, looking down at the petite woman he held in his arms, "Elphaba's eyes aren't grey...and from the way you describe her, she's starting to sound like - "
Fiyero stopped, his heart seemingly skipping a beat.. No...it couldn't be. Impossible.
With Elphaba, anything is possible, reasoned his conscience.
"Fifi? What is it?"
She drew back and stared up at Fiyero's face, only to realize it had broke out into a smile of delight.
"I knew it! Oh sweet Oz, thank Lurline!" he hurriedly got up, pacing around the rolm with a new spring in his step. "Oh Glinda, Elphaba's still good!"
Glinda stiffened on her seat. "What?"
"She hasn't turned evil, Glin, oh this is brilliant!" He let out a laugh, one so joyous and elated that could light up the whole Emerald City.
"F-fiyero..." Glinda stammered uncertainly. "Do you need me to fetch a doctor?"
"No, no!" he said, grinning as he ran his hand through his straw hair. "I'm perfectly sane! We haven't lost Elphaba! This all wasn't her fault!"
"Fiyero!" Glinda nearly shouted. "She murdered!"
Fiyero stopped his pacing, and the grin faded. "That vile wretch of a woman," he growled. "Can she not leave her sister alone?" He slammed his fists down upon her desk, causing her to start.
"W-what?" stuttered Glinda. "What does this have to do with Nessa?"
"It has everything to do with Nessa," said Fiyero grimly. "Elphaba...she never did any of those misdeeds...she's been possessed."
Glinda's hand flew to her mouth. "She had sex?"
"Preci - WHAT?!"
"She had sexual intercourse?" shrieked Glinda, springing to her feet.
Fiyero couldn't believe his ears. "WHAT? Oz, Glinda, why the hell would you think that?!"
"Because...because..." she fumbled as she tried to find an explanation. "Because when she came to the cornfields the other day, her dress was more rumpled than usual, her hair was tousled, and she looked real tired, as if she'd been doing some...arduous activity." Fiyero felt heat rising to his cheeks - could a scarecrow even blush?
"Well...she could've been flying...and when you're a fugitive, you don't get much sleep..." his reasons were there, but his tone was not.
"And your hair was all tangled too!" cried Glinda accusingly. She slapped her forehead. "Of course! What else could you two have been doing in a remote forest all alone? Eating potato chips and singing about defying 'em?"
An uncomfortable silence fell over them, as Fiyero flopped into an armchair, Glinda eyed him warily, watching his every move and every twitch.
"Okay, alright, we did have a tryst..." began Fiyero, but Glinda raised a skeptical eyebrow of dissatisfaction. "Fine, we had an ardent tryst...but our clothes were kept on!" he added hurriedly. "Oz, that's not even the point, Glin, the point is that Elphaba is possessed, in the sense she no longer holds any power over her own body, not whatever you...suggested."
It was a moment before Glinda spoke again.
"So...I'm supposed to believe that your theoretical explanation of Elphie's mood swing is the result of a supernatural phenomenon?"
"What else can it be?" asked Fiyero. "What else can get her acting completely like her bratty, spoiled, bossy little sister Nessarose?"
Again, an uncanny silence fell over the room as Glinda struggled to get a sense of her string of incoherent thoughts.
"Nessarose is alive?" she asked, her voice barely audible.
"Her spirit, detached from the body through forbidden black magic," confirmed Fiyero darkly. "Tell me, when did Elphaba start acting...differently?"
Glinda thought about it for a moment. "She bent down to grieve in front of the house, and then when she looked up to glare at me, I think I might've caught a flash of grey spark in her eyes.
"It must be then," said Fiyero, nodding. "Her spirit latched on to the most magically radiative source." Noticing the blonde's failure to comprehend, he elaborated, "In short, Elphaba is a black magic magnet."
"So all this time..." breathed Glinda, "I was blaming Elphaba for words spoken by Nessarose?"
"The effect of the possession didn't take place immediately," said Fiyero, twirling a strand if straw on the crown of his head. "I could see it in her eyes that she was struggling, but eventually the black magic must've taken her when she was at breaking point, seeing how quick she now is in making her decisions about attacks, for now there is only one dominant mind in control, and that's Nessa's."
Now the mere mention of that name sent shivers up Glinda's spine.
"So is Elphie...?" She swallowed hard.
"No," Fiyero cut in gruffly. "She's still in there, I'm sure."
"Then we'll need to help her!" exclaimed Glinda. "We gotta get that bitch out of her!"
"Glinda, language!"
"I don't care, anyone who harms Elphie is a bi - " her sentence was cut off as a large handful of straw was shoved into her mouth.
"You do realize that most of them are here in this palace, don't you?" asked Fiyero, as she spluttered out chunks of straw with a disgusted squeal.
Glinda pouted. "I do now. Pray tell, what did the Wizard speak to you about?"
Fiyero felt his mouth run dry. He knew this was unavoidable. "Glinda...that man seeks to be omnipotent, to be in full power, and to do that...he has to - "
"Eliminate Elphaba," finished Glinda with a gasp of cold realization. "Are you...?"
Fiyero shook his head sadly.
"I don't know, Glin," he replied. "I really don't know."
A/N: Glinda's comment on defying potato chips is an actual reference to my parody. Well, not fully mine...it was co-written with Elphaba-WWW. Up till now I'm still considering posting it.
