Wow everyone, thank you so much for the wonderful reviews! They really mean so much! Okay, because I love you so much (and because I left you on the biggest cliffhanger possible, you know, killing off the main character and all) I'm doubling up the size of your chapters, which is sooo going to screw me over eventually because I had planned out my pace for this story. Oh well I'll deal with that when the time comes. Until then, please please please keep leaving your amazing reviews! :D

Bright, white light was everywhere. She didn't even have to open her eyes to know that. Oh Oz, she felt terrible, and her limbs were as heavy as steel. Elphaba stirred slightly, trying to move her aching body or to pry open her eyes. They felt sewn shut with sleep, but eventually she was able to force them open and was greeted by the searing, blinding light that made her head want to explode.

Her forehead near her left eye felt as though the flying house had landed on it as well as her sister. She reached her hand up and touched the tender, slightly swollen flesh, not even noticing that she had control of her limbs again.

"No, don't do that, hold still," a soft voice ordered somewhere near.

An icy, cool cloth was rested against her forehead, and she flinched in surprise at the cold against her skin. After a moment she became used to the feeling and noticed that the stinging was beginning to subside.

"I'm glad to see you've finally woken up," the voice said again.

Curiosity got the better of Elphaba and she turned her head in the direction it came from. She blinked through the light, trying to see the shape next to her, and after a moment a woman quite a few years older than herself with graying brown hair came into focus.

Her brow furrowed (an expression she immediately regretted) in confusion and tried to comprehend who this was and where she was. Who in their right mind would take care of the Wicked Witch of the West? Her inbred skepticism began to override her grogginess and she tried shifting away but found she wasn't going far. It required too much energy. She gave up and allowed her body to go limp against the oddly spongy pad she was stretched across.

"Who are you?" Elphaba asked gruffly, blinking at the beam of sunlight that shined in from behind the woman.

"My name is Levin. Do you know who you are?"

What a strange question. How could she not? Everyone in Oz knew who she was.

"My name is Elphaba," she said, hoping it wouldn't scare the woman if it added to the fear and realism of this being the terrorist that flew throughout the land in her midst. She shifted again, propping herself poorly but successfully onto her elbows.

"Well, Miss Elphaba, I found you outside in the rain, so I brought you to my home. You were dead," the woman asked, removing the blood stained cloth from her forehead and dunking into a bowl of water next to her. Elphaba grimaced slightly as she tried to sit up straight.

"Just relax– clearly you're now better than you were," Levin laughed lightly.

If Elphaba were in any other condition, she would have said something sharply sarcastic in return, but instead she asked what was troubling her, "Why would you help me?"

"I don't see why I wouldn't have," the woman said kindly, gently brushing the cloth against the wound on her forehead despite the witch's attempts to move herself away from further contact with this peculiar woman. "But I heard a scream and I ran outside, and you were just laying there. I don't know what happened, but somehow I was able to resuscitate you. You must have something pretty good to live for."

"No," Elphaba said brusquely, looking away. "Not anymore."

She managed to sit up fully, despite the woman's silent objections, and looked around the room. It looked like some quaint cottage with a fire burning in the fireplace and quilts covering all the furniture. There were books on the mantle, but they seemed to be mostly recipe books, how-to's, and a variety of health textbooks, with a couple of romantic fictions thrown in for entertainment, but all together not the sort of material she generally read. Somehow, despite the woman's apparent capability to comprehend medical encyclopedias, Elphaba knew that Levin wouldn't be interested in volumes of philosophical and political nature.

The lady stood up from her place next to Elphaba, walked over the fireplace that had briefly held the patient's attention, and bent down to stir pot of what smelled like soup that was cooking quietly underneath.

"You must be hungry. Please, eat this," Levin said, putting a bowl of broth and vegetables on a tray with a loaf of bread and bringing it to her guest. She wasn't hungry at all, though; in fact, her stomach was churning with emotion. But she heeded the woman's request and reached out for the food.

Just as she was about to take the tray from the lady, she gasped in shock as she noticed for the first time a disturbing physical malady. The color that she had seen begin to spread across her skin after she left the corn fields covered her hands and arms, and she held them out in front of her, examining it with fear. She noticed a smear of green, and tried to scrub off the cream colored skin and expose the rest of the green that had to reside under it, but instead of rubbing off the new color, the emerald wiped off instead and discolored her white skinned fingers on her other hand.

"Wha-…what is this?" Elphaba asked shakily, confused and frightened as she examined her hands in front of her face.

"The discoloration? I have no idea. But I've managed to clean most of it off with a damp cloth. It kept running off from you when I found you; dripping away just as fast as the rain fell. If I didn't know any better, I would have thought you were the Wicked Witch of the West," Levin said, chuckling to herself.

She felt a flurry of fright, but after taking in the nurse's lighthearted expression, Elphaba understood. She put her hands back into her lap and turned to take in the woman still holding the tray next to her. The reason why the woman was helping her rather than running in terror or turning her over to the Wizard's guards was because she didn't recognize her.

After mistaking the look of fear that flashed across Elphaba's face, Levin nervously cleared her throat and added hastily, "Not that it would be possible, of course, with the water. It would have melted the Wicked Witch because her soul is so unclean."

"What? That's absurd."

"Is it? Everyone knows it."

Elphaba shook her head in irritation at the superstitious nature and the ignorance of so many in Oz and looked down at her hands again.

"Do you have a mirror?"

"Yes," Levin said with a hint of hesitancy in her voice as she handed Elphaba a handheld mirror. "But you might be surprised at what you see."

Elphaba took the mirror and peered into her reflection. The woman was right; she was shocked at what she saw. It wasn't, however, because of the large, red and irritated gash that ran down her forehead, clean through the darkness of her eyebrow, and was held together by tight, black thread. She was surprised because the woman who looked back was someone she didn't know.

The more she looked, the more she realized that other than the long lesion that lined her face and the lack of her green skin, nothing else had changed. Her eyes still shone dark, dark jade and bronze under black eyebrows, and her hair was still just as black too. But as her attention turned back to her contrasting pale skin, she felt as she never had seen herself before.

Her heart skipped a beat as she saw the familiar green coloring under the long strands of hair on the side of her face. She slowly pushed her hair away, her fingers brushed the olive color on the inside of her ear and she winced as the green flaked away from under her touch. She looked back at the looking glass she held in her other hand to better see the disturbing effect of her own skin peeling from itself and her heart burned with angst. She threw the mirror away in self-anger at her own failures, and it shattered against the wall. Elphaba ran a hand through her hair that was still matted with dried blood and tangles and tried to make sense of everything.

"That's bad luck you know, breaking a mirror," her momentarily forgotten caretaker said from next to her.

"Bad luck would be an improvement for me," Elphaba responded bitterly.

Levin nodded as though in understanding, put down the tray on the bedside table and said, "I'll leave you alone. Please eat. Once you're done, I'll have a hot bath waiting for you to finish cleaning yourself up."

Elphaba, the normally confident and over-talkative woman, was unusually silent and fearful as she stepped outside, even more so than when she had been running for the last few years for her life from the entire Gale Force. She looked around anxiously at the faces of the townspeople as she walked slowly along the edge of the Yellow Brick Road that wound its way through the village, knowing at any moment one of them would shriek madly that Oz's most dangerous criminal was standing in their midst.

For only the second time in her life, however, no one even gave her a second glance. Considering the amazing amount of people that scurried through the street, she realized that even with wanted posters hanging everywhere with pictures of her green self on her broomstick with the name "Wicked Witch of the West" printed under it, she was as unrecognizable to all of these Ozians as she was to herself, if not a hundred times more.

Elphaba tried a few times to adjust the clothing that Levin had given her to wear– it was just a simple, white cotton blouse with a black skirt to match her black boots (she thought the dark color choice was coincidental by the woman, not to mention potentially dangerous if it helped someone identify her). She quickly gave up and accepted it would be a while before she would be used to the light, airy garments. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself in attempt to keep warm against the chilly wind that blew; the longer she stood outside, the more she was beginning to miss the thick material of her old, tattered dress.

As she breathed in the cold air, her chest burned as though she had just run a marathon, a sensation she had been experiencing ever since she had awoken. She moved one of her hands up and began gently rubbing the spot that hurt the worst: the ugly, purple blemish on her skin right above her heart; the spot where the lightning had struck her.

Gazing up wearily at the sky, she found that the weather had barely improved since the night before. While she woke up in the morning to sunlight shining in from outside, it seemed that it must have broken through one of the few gaps of the thick cloud cover. At least the weather matched her mood, she reflected.

"I'm glad you're feeling good enough to leave the house," Levin's now familiar voice said from behind her, causing Elphaba to spin around in alarm. "You sure are antsy, aren't you?"

Elphaba glared half-heartedly at the woman and didn't respond to the observation.

They both watched as gleeful, shouting children ran by, leaping through a large crowd of highly talkative people down the way. The ebony-haired woman had seen the group earlier on her walk but assumed it was some shop or entertainment and ignored it, instead pondering her paranoid thoughts. Judging by Levin's intrigued and puzzled expression, though, it seemed as though whatever was happening down the way was unusual. The older woman began walking over to the commotion, calling for her new friend to follow, to which Elphaba obliged reluctantly.

Levin reached to grab an older man who was nearby and asked, "What is the hubbub out here, Tryp?"

"I don't know for sure, I just left the shop to come find out…"

"Look!" a woman cried from the middle of the crowd. "It's Glinda!"

Everyone's heads turned in the direction the woman was pointing, and sure enough a shiny bubble was floating down from the cloudy sky. The small circle that everyone had made around the nearby intersection spread dramatically as the orb landed gracefully in the middle of it all.

"Glinda the Good!" Levin gasped from next to her. "No wonder everyone's in such a fuss. What is she doing here?"

"Glinda?" Elphaba questioned softly, and hastily pushed through the people that were blocking her view with Levin right behind her, hissing her name. It was indeed Glinda, in all of her glittering glory, who stepped out of the orb. And despite her earlier mockery of the sorcery, a rush of fondness came over her at the ridiculous pink bubble that none other than her old roommate would ever conjure.

Something was wrong. The normally merry blonde was frowning slightly as she first looked around to survey the people, and then dropped her vision down to the ground somewhere near her gleaming shoes. Elphaba roughly shoved past a couple of unusually large Munchkin men (they looked down at the comparatively small woman in surprise at her audacity) in order to be able to get a better view, and when she could see better she followed Glinda's gaze. She gasped inaudibly in horror as she realized what everyone was gawking at: standing out boldly against the yellow brick was her own coal-colored cloak (bunched over her shoulder bag, concealing it from view), visibly ruined dress, hat, broomstick, and to her horror, the green that used to be her skin.

Looking back up at Glinda, who was transfixed by the dried, green puddle that stood out remarkably against the bright gold of the road and the diluted dark-red blood, Elphaba thought for a moment that under the windblown blonde curls she saw the unmistakable glaze of pending tears. It only seemed to take a few seconds for the woman to collect herself however, for the muscles of the famous witch's shoulders visibly tensed and her face steeled, removing any traces of betraying emotions.

Glinda's head turned up and looked across the crowd, reading the faces of all the people muttering their own speculations as well as the ones standing silently, curious, awaiting the official. Elphaba didn't know what she should do as Glinda's blue eyes approached where she stood, but realized that she was for once invisible standing amongst a crowd.

Or so she thought.

The Good Witch's eyes stopped their smooth progress suddenly, and Elphaba realized a moment too late that Glinda's mouth opened slightly in uncontrollable surprise, making it very clear that she recognized her. Elphaba turned her head quickly away, allowing her long hair to fall into her face, but the damage was done.

"Glinda! Is it true? Is she really dead?"

"Yeah! How dead is she?"

Everyone around, including the formerly green woman, quieted and stared curiously as they waited for Glinda's response. The Witch of the North recovered quickly, plastered a convincing smile on her face and opened her arms wide to embrace the crowd.

"Fellow Ozians! In order to avoid rumors and speculations, innuendos, outuendos—" Elphaba couldn't help but roll her eyes at the complete Glinda-like remark, despite the seriousness of the situation, "—let me set the record straight. According to my information and the Time Dragon Clock, the melting occurred at the thirteenth hour as a direct result of the pouring of rain. Yes, the Wicked Witch of the West is dead."

Cheers erupted throughout the street, drowning the town in din of joyous yelling of, "No one mourns the wicked! The Wicked Witch is dead!" People laughed with one another and strangers and friends hugged and kissed each other in festivation. As it were, there were only two women who were not affected by the good news, one of them being the news bearer herself.

Glinda simply stood there with a smile attractively curving her lips, but misery reflected in her blue eyes as she listened to the jubilant cries of the townspeople. Eventually, her eyes came back to face where Elphaba was still standing, who was too bewildered to attempt to shield her face again. But it seemed as they stood staring at one another, Glinda wasn't going to call the guards on her. Or at least not do so in public.

Elphaba remembered their conversation that took place only hours ago (Was it really so little time? It felt like years…) with regret: "Of course you never! You're always too busy telling everyone how wonderful everything is!" "I'm a public figure now, people expect me to-" "Lie?" "-be encouraging!"

Gratitude towards Glinda's handling of the situation in front of everybody caused a ghost of a smile cross Elphaba's face and she turned to Levin, but her expression quickly fell as she noticed her new friend was not celebrating like the others. She was staring at the green puddle and discarded clothing with fear, and turned to Elphaba, trembling like a leaf.

"Oh my… Y-you…!" she whispered, bringing up a quivering finger in Elphaba's face. "That's where I found you last night! And the green! Oh, oh my!"

In a moment's decision, Elphaba covered the woman's mouth with her hand, grabbed her by the shoulder and shoved her backwards through the crowd. She forced Levin through the first door she found, which seemed to be an empty and dark store of some kind, and pushed her into a corner. She glared into the woman's fearful, dilated eyes for a moment before she removed the hand that was roughly clutching Levin's upper arm.

"Don't shout," she instructed firmly, looking out the window of the business and at the crowd that never noticed the strange departure of the two women. Everyone was too focused on the speech Glinda had begun about Good once again overcoming Evil and the official celebrations that would take place all across Oz in honor of this great day…

"Do you hear me?" Elphaba asked, turning back and resuming eye contact with the Munchkinlander in front of her. Levin nodded nervously, and Elphaba cautiously lowered her other hand. Immediately, Levin yelped, "You're the Wicked Witch! I can't believe I helped you, that I saved your life!"

"Shh!"

"Everyone thinks you died! Was all that some trick last night? A way to 'shed your skin' so you can kill people in plain sight without anyone recognizing you? You knew that some poor nurse lived just down the road that would come save you–?"

"I never expected any of this to happen!"

"But…but you're evil! I know this is some trick to keep me quiet–"

"It's not!"

"Yes it is! You're wicked!"

"If I really was wicked, why wouldn't I just kill you to silence you instead of begging you to shut up?"

"I don't know!"

The door opened behind Elphaba and the noise from the street outside filled up the small store. The two women both turned to face the entrance to realize that it was the old man, Tryp, who was closing the door behind him and restoring light in the room. Immediately, the shopkeeper noticed them and stepped over cautiously.

"Miss Levin? Is everything all right?"

"Yes, Levin, is everything all right?" Elphaba repeated cautiously and warningly to the frightened lady. She looked up into the taller woman's desperate eyes for a long moment before she slowly nodded.

"Yes, Tryp. Sorry to surprise you like this, I realized that I needed some spices in order to properly celebrate tonight," she lied, her eyes only leaving Elphaba's to look at the shelf next to her in order to pick up a jar. "Here we go! Plain old pepper, I can't make a darned thing without it…"

See? I didn't keep her dead long! And if you reviews, I'll promise to consider not killing her again. How does that sound?