A/N In this story, they're all a little older, but not all that much wiser... Enjoy the hijinks ;)

4. The Cherrystone House

The Cherrystone house was situated in a quaint little neighborhood, and it was right in the middle of the cul-de-sac. Music from one of the neighbors' houses spilled out into the street, and a group of kids were riding their tricycles around, screaming and laughing at each other.

Despite the innocence and pleasantness of this image, there were security cameras surrounding the entire cul-de-sac. The quadling gardeners who worked the town were actually employed by the Gale Force, frequent drone fly-overs were scheduled to keep an eye on the place, and every house on this street belonged to either the Director of some convoluted government agency or a ranking officer in the Emerald City Military.

This would be the second time Elphaba had visited the Cherrystones. The first was when she had come over to inform Mrs. Cherrystone that her husband has been abducted, and that the body of a dead hooker was found at the site of his abduction. This, of course, didn't make her presence in the Cherrystone house a very good one.

Mrs. Cherrystone opened up the door, even before Elphaba and Fiyero had even reached the porch. Upon seeing the surprised look on their faces, she shrugged. "You're easy to spot, Detective Thropp."

Elphaba nodded quietly and allowed herself to be led into the sitting area.

Lacey Cherrystone was a short woman of gillikinese decent. Her hair, dirty blonde in shade, was done up neatly – suitable for the wife of a Colonel. She dressed modestly in a pretty floral thing, and she pulled her cardigan closer to her body as she poured them some tea.

The room was silent, save for the sound of the tea being poured out. There were two heavily muscled men in black suits who stood by the door – bodyguards, sent in by the Military high-ups. Their eyes were hidden behind dark shades, and Elphaba was uncomfortable at the fact that she couldn't tell what they were thinking.

"I hope Earl Grey is okay with you, Detectives." Cherrystone said. Her voice carried the weight of her burdens in a single, monotonous stretch.

"It's very gracious of you." Fiyero replied as he humbly accepted the tiny ceramic cup. Seems to Elphaba that he chose not to correct Mrs. Cherrystone regarding his designation, which she wholly understood. It feels rather pointless right now anyway.

Lacey leaned in to take a closer look at Fiyero. He noticed but said nothing… Something told her that he'd experienced this before. After a minute, she pulled back and straightened her cardigan.

"You're vinkun." She remarked blandly.

Elphaba raised at brow at Fiyero, and his eyes darted between her and Mrs. Cherrystone. "Yes I am, ma'am."

She was quiet for a bit, as if she were too tired for this, and sat down gingerly, nursing her own cup of tea. "… Don't mind me." She said. "It's just that… Dane used to talk about your people…"

Fiyero seemed to stiffen slightly, and Elphaba wondered if she should intervene.

A small smile began to spread on Lacey's chapped lips, "He was an enthusiast, I suppose… Some people enjoyed reading about the ancient Kumbric witches, but for Dane… he enjoyed reading tomes upon tomes of old vinkun texts… You'll find that most of the books in his office were studies on your people."

The atmosphere seemed to relax just a bit after Lacey had said that, and from the corner of her eye, Elphaba was sure that she had seen a tug on Fiyero's lips. He took a sip from the cup, and nodded in approval. "This is lovely." He said, and Lacey smiled.

"… Well. I'm sure Helen has told you two about the call." She said as she placed her tea cup on the coffee table. "This family can't function without Dane."

"Yes, she did mention." Elphaba said, and then shifted slightly in her seat. She placed her tea down on the coffee table gently. "Although, I'd hoped that you could've called me first, Mrs Cherrystone…"

"Oh, it's nothing against you, Detective Thropp." Lacey said with an apologetic sigh. Her eyes seemed vacant, however. "Helen is an old family friend… I just thought that maybe with her help, the ECPD could get more resources to find my husband as soon as possible… I understand why you'd be concerned, Detective Thropp. I'm married to a Military man. I understand what it means to… go over your head, so to speak."

"Believe me when I say this Mrs Cherrystone, I'm not someone who concerns myself with things like hierarchy." Elphaba replied simply, it garnered a small laugh from the despondent wife, and she continued in the same tone. "Lawyers will not be able to help when it comes to active cases, especially when it comes to things like abductions and kidnappings. They really just tend to slow down the process."

Lacey Cherrystone seemed slightly amused at Elphaba's dangerous frankness, and Fiyero looked like he might suffer a stroke, staring at her as if she had gone mad.

"I assure you that I'm your best chance to get your husband back alive." She said confidently. "Now, I know that Madam Morrible has suggested paying the ransom, but I'm here to advise you against that. The moment you give them that money, they'll have no reason to keep the Colonel alive."

Lacey Cherrystone became stone-faced. She was holding on to her cup of tea with both hands, but if she tilted it just an angle lower, its contents will spill right over. The room was painfully silent now, and the children playing outside had gone away, so there wasn't even background noise to distract them.

The two bodyguards by the door were like statues, and it didn't even seem like they might even be breathing.

Next to Elphaba, Fiyero cleared his throat, and it shattered the deathly quiet of the room.

Lacey finally spoke.

"I don't know what to do." She said. Her voice was suddenly hoarse, although there were no other indications that she might cry. Elphaba had to applaud her strength.

"Have you got a recording of the call?" Fiyero asked.

The blonde nodded, and she brought them to the front hall. There was a quoxwood table that Elphaba had noticed in her previous visit here, but she paid no special attention to it. Now that she looked at it again, she noticed that it had looked expensive in contrast to the other furnishings in the house… There were scuff marks on the floor which indicated that the table had been moved fairly recently.

The Cherrystones were more well to do than the average family, of course, what with the Colonel's standing… But they were ultimately a military family, and judging from the other furnishings in the house, a simple family, and splurging on a table of all things seemed rather odd.

"Quoxwood?" Fiyero asked Mrs Cherrystone, as if he'd been listening in to Elphaba's thoughts.

Lacey nodded absentmindedly. "It used to be in Dane's office, but we moved it out here when we did some rearranging. He accumulated too many things up there and it was a terrible mess. Barely had room to move around, so I brought it down."

"I see." Fiyero replied with a small smile. "It's fairly expensive, isn't it?"

Lacey shrugged lightly, "I wouldn't know. It was a gift… Anyway, here." She pressed a button on the answering machine and pressed another one to put it on speaker. The machine beeped sharply, and a message began to play out.

"Dane Cherrystone has been taken and buried alive… You have 3 days to pay the ransom of 3 million dollars cash, which is to be dropped off in the mail bin in the corner of Topez Avenue and Sapphire Street. You will drop the money off by yourself and no one else. If you fail to follow instructions, Dane will die. There will not be a second correspondence."

The car was quiet as Fiyero drove out of the Cul-De-Sac.

3 days.

If the kidnappers were for real, then Dane Cherrystone is buried alive somewhere right now, running out of air and waiting for them to find him. A part of him wondered if this could really all end right now if they just let Lacey Cherrystone pay that 3 million, but even as he thought that, he knew how ridiculous he sounded.

3 million dollars was a lot of money, and the Cherrystones – while affluent – were not millionaires, not by a long shot – and in cash no less. Only the people up in the diamond district had that kind of money lying around.

Elphaba was looking out the window with an oddly soft expression on her face, and it was something that he haven't thought he would see from her. He took this chance to observe and noticed that her hair, which was raven black and often tied up in either a bun or a ponytail, might actually be longer than he had first imagined. And her green skin, which had seriously put him off initially, didn't really register in his head now.

"There's something I don't understand," Elphaba said suddenly, and it jolted him back to reality. He struggled to keep his eyes on the road and coughed awkwardly to hide that fact.

"Yeah?"

She turned to look at him and frowned. "The abduction was well planned and well executed… But their choice in victims seems like it was way off target."

"What do you mean?" He asked as he furrowed his brows.

"Cherrystone was a powerful man, but it takes only 5 minutes of research to know that a man like him wouldn't be in possession of 3 million dollars in cash." She said calmly. "They'd be better off targeting an investment banker, or one of those suits from the EC business center."

"Maybe we should see if Cherrystone's got a big paycheck coming in from somewhere," Fiyero suggested. "Can't always assume that they're clean. 80% of the time, they're not… Anyway, what's the munchkin and the blond beefcake got for us? They've been out the whole day too weren't they?"

"The munchkin and the blond beefcake?" Elphaba narrowed her eyes at him. "They're detectives Flanagan and Tenmeadews to you. They earned their shields."

Fiyero chose not to reply to that and kept his gaze straight on the road. He supposed that he deserved that, although he's slowly coming to realize that those two weren't just lackeys to her. It wasn't hard to tell that they were entirely loyal to her, but he hadn't known that she was equally loyal to them.

Most lead detectives don't care all that much for their lower ranked compatriots.

He turned the steering wheel and led them to into the Precinct parking lot, and he could still feel Elphaba's glare on him. She clicked off her seat belt the moment he parked the SUV and climbed out of the vehicle. He followed suit and exhaled sharply, rolling his eyes at her.

"Oh come on, you can't possibly be mad at me for forgetting their names." He groaned as he circled around to her, trying to keep up with her pace as she stormed towards the lift lobby.

She stopped suddenly, and he very nearly bumped into her. She turned around, he could almost smell the faint scent of her shampoo, and when she came face to face with him, he suddenly realized that Elphaba was nearly as tall as he was – just a few inches shorter, which could be taken care off easily with a nice pair of heels.

"I don't care how you people do it up in Happy Gale Force Fancy Land, but down here," she had her brows crushed together angrily, and she waved her arm around at the cold, empty, parking lot, "here in Precinct 9, we're hard working people who got to where we are by doing our jobs well and breaking our backs to see that justice is served."

At this, Fiyero frowned deeply.

"Wait a second. Back it up there – You don't think I worked hard to get to where I am?" He asked bitingly, beginning to feel the anger rise in his chest. "Do you have any idea what it takes to become a Gale Force agent? The initiation, the training, and the kind of assignments we get sent off to? You have no idea what kind of things I've seen."

"Oh look at me, the big bad angsty Gale Force agent." Elphaba scoffed, and then continued in a deep, dramatic voice. "Have you aaaany idea what it takes to be a Gale Force agent?"

He assumed that she was trying to mock him in his voice and he was torn between wanting to laugh at her or roll his eyes.

"I'm not stooping to that." He said as he placed his hands on his hips, gripping his belt tightly. "You wouldn't last 2 days in Gale Force initiation."

There was a light in her eyes when he said that, and he noticed a tiny twitch on her lips – there was something there that he'd love to investigate further, but now was not the time. Elphaba scoffed, and folded her arms across her chest – and it was now that he noticed that she's fairly small in the… chestal region.

"You don't know me." She said seriously, and then finally seemed to notice that his eyes were still down there. "And what do you think you're staring at, you sleaze ball?!"

Fiyero flushed deeply at having been caught, and suddenly his mouth just seemed to move. He found himself scoffing and then smirking at her. "Well, there's not much to stare at."

This finally seemed to send her over the edge as she gasped sharply and – while he anticipated a slap – she punched him in the face and walked away, the sound of her boots hitting the concrete floor reverb-ed in between his ears. He could hear her calling him a dick as she slammed the door to the lift lobby behind her.

Fiyero groaned and winced at the throbbing heat on the left side of his face… For such a skinny thing, she really packed a punch… He'd actually fumbled and nearly fell to the floor had he not had a superior sense of balance.

So much for his fancy Gale Force training…Why'd he actually think that Elphaba Thropp would slap him? Of course she went straight for the close fisted punch in the face.

"Oz damn she's freakishly strong…" He cursed softly and straightened up. His right hand rested on his hip as he touched the spot where she had marked with his left hand, flinching when his cold skin touched the swelling flesh.

Well, it's definitely going to bruise tomorrow.