She won't make a sound,
alone in this fight with herself and the fears whispering,
if she stands she'll fall down.
She wants to be found,
The only way out is through everything she's running from,
wants to give up and lie down.

So stand in the rain
Stand your ground
Stand up when it's all crashing down.
You stand through the pain,
You won't drown,
And one day, what's lost can be found,
You stand in the rain.

Stand in the Rain, Superchick

Chapter 15

"It's raining again," Matvei made the observation flatly, without emotion.

Elphaba stood, staring out one of the tall, foggy windows that overlooked the street below. The rain poured in streams down the glass, each finding its own path towards the street below. It was a driving, constant rain that would often continue for hours at a time. For Elphaba, it represented the greatest difference between Munchkinland and the great city. She had grown up in a land often plagued by drought, so this constant wet weather was entirely foreign. Matvei had explained that it was this way each spring, with the rain moving in for a few weeks before the weather started to grow warmer. Elphaba had just nodded, not wanting to acknowledge that the world was still turning around her, moving through its seasons without regard for her fear of the future.

She refocused then, and studied her reflection in the window. She recoiled, which was her typical reaction as of late. Elphaba was amazed and perplexed at how her body had been taken over by a force beyond her control. She had never been very feminine. She had never been gawked at her for her curves or womanly stature. Yet every day now, her body proved that she was absolutely a woman, and she was constantly surprised.

Elphaba pressed her hands against her belly, which was round and hard. Her skin was stretched taught already, and she wondered how it could withstand many more weeks of growing. Her arms and legs, and even her face, had softened into a less harsh, less angular version of herself. She pulled at her dress, amazed at how, suddenly, her breasts could rival those of the burlesque dancers in the theater district. Having always been the antithesis of well-endowed, she felt awkward and uncomfortable in her ill-fitting clothes.

"Something wrong?" Matvei finally asked.

Elphaba snorted, knowing she had spent most of the past three months in a miserable funk that made her decidedly difficult to live with. The fact that Matvei still spoke to her was a compliment to his patience.

"You shouldn't be on your feet so much anymore. Perhaps you'll work shorter shifts from now on?"

Elphaba turned and stared at him, furrowing her brow, "I'm fine. And I need the money."

"You know good and well that I will pay you—"

Elphaba held up her hand to stop him, "I won't accept any more charity from you. You've shared your home, which is difficult enough. I've always stood on my own feet, and I won't become lazy and dependent now," she growled.

"Fae, you're not lazy. You're supporting another person right now…"

Elphaba shot him an icy look, "This thing is not a person. It's at most a parasite, trying to ruin what's left of my miserable life."

"Fae…" Matvei tried to reason, having had this argument more times than either of them could number.

"Don't look at me like that. Look at what it's done to me!" Elphaba spat.

Matvei's face was sad, "You look beautiful…"

Elphaba studied his eyes for some time, before turning on her heel and heading for the door, "Perhaps it's time I found another place to live," she threw back before slamming the door behind her.

Matvei hung his head, as perplexed as he had been the day he met her.

Elphaba made her way down to the street, not bothering to get her cloak. The weather had been warmer, in spite of all the rain, and a part of her didn't much care if she made herself sick. She slipped quietly out the side door that led to the narrow alley between the restaurant and the next building. The rain was slightly lesser here, but it still pelted Elphaba in steady, driving streams that made quick work of soaking her hair. After several minutes, her clothes were drenched and clung tightly to the ample curves of her new body. It was chilly, most likely too cold to be standing outside in the pouring rain with no coat on, but Elphaba didn't care. She was angry at nature for having dealt her such a difficult hand to play. She was also tired of being cooped up with little to do and not much purpose.

She worked hard, that much she couldn't deny. Matvei had been true to his word and had given her a job in his restaurant. She had waited tables until the customers started giving her strange looks for reasons other than her coloring. Now, she cleaned, organized, and was becoming a decent cook. It was work, and it earned her money. Still, Elphaba had never been domestic. The circular, mundane work of running a restaurant grated on her, and she longed for the complexity of politics and science.

For the first two weeks after she'd come to the restaurant, when she'd resolved herself to staying here, she'd waited anxiously, hoping one of the elixirs or tonics she'd taken would purge this problem from within her. When the weeks became a month and it was clear that her body was growing rounder, she'd pitched a cursing fit and spent most of an afternoon breaking old liquor bottles in the alley.

Matvei had been quiet and kind, giving her the third floor room above his one-room apartment to sleep in. He kept his distance, asking few questions but making sure she was eating. Elphaba had been wary of his generosity at first, constantly questioning his motives.

That changed the day she'd thrown herself down the stairs. Matvei had been working a late shift, and she had been sitting by the fire in his apartment, trying to keep warm before going to bed. She'd been consumed with regret, anger, and frustrated bitterness. In the moment, she had been sure she couldn't carry this alien within her for one more day. She wanted her life back. She wanted her goals, her dreams, and her freedom to change the Land of Oz, unhindered. So she threw herself down the flight of steps that led to the private, side entrance to the building.

Matvei had come running, and the look of his face was still etched into Elphaba's mind. He had looked so genuinely fearful, so full of raw, unfiltered panic over her well-being that she almost regretted what she'd done. Matvei had helped her up, and after a few minutes, his expression had changed when he realized she'd done it on purpose. To Elphaba's surprise, he seemed terribly wounded, rather than appalled, that she would do such a thing. She hadn't asked why he'd reacted that way, but she decided to trust him that day. Elphaba still held firm to the belief that a person's truest feelings were revealed in what they did on instinct, before they had time to think. And Matvei's reaction was not the reaction of a casual acquaintance who did not care.

Now, as the rain continued to pour, it gathered in her lashes and clouded her vision. Elphaba closed them, pretending she might melt away into the puddles below, perhaps to be carried away when the sun dried them to nothing. She subconsciously placed her hands on her belly and counted the weeks until this ordeal would be over.

Elphaba had not forsaken her studies over the past three months. She spent hours pouring over the sheaf of Dr. Dillamond's papers she had stolen, as well as the stack of books she'd brought from Shiz. She was glad to have kept them, rather than sending them back with Galinda. She stayed up well into each night studying and making copious notes in the leather-bound notebooks she bought from a vendor a few blocks away. She had nearly one hundred pages of a complex dissertation on the relationship between humans and Animals, and her knowledge of advanced life science was growing. Elphaba had always been motivated to learn on her own, but now she was surpassing even what the professors at Shiz could teach her. She worked on her sorcery skills as well, mostly because she'd seen the illusions the Wizard could conjure.

Elphaba knew that Matvei wondered about what she did at night. She knew he could see the light from her lamp spilling down the stairs. The handful of times that he had ventured upstairs, she had seen him studying the stacks of books, scattered papers, and the notes she had tacked all over one wall. He never asked, though. He just looked at her with worried eyes and let her be.

If all goes as planned, she told herself, I can return to Shiz in the fall and present what I've learned.

She had decided a few weeks ago that, although she would be behind, she could still earn her degree from Shiz. It would take quite a performance on her part, but she believed she could return in the fall with a story of how she'd been kidnapped in the city. She could grovel in apology for having ventured out on her own, and bruise herself up a bit so it looked as though she'd been held against her will. Perhaps she would even send a ransom note to her family a few weeks ahead of time. They were certain to at least be relieved, and even Morrible couldn't deny reentry to a student who'd been kidnapped.

It will be as if this never happened, Elphaba told herself, I just have to get rid of it…

She looked down at her belly then, which looked impossibly round under her rain-slick clothes.

"Fae! What are you doing?" Matvei's voice broke into her reverie.

She just looked at him, her expression dark and brooding.

"Dammit, Fae! You're going to make yourself terribly sick!" he took her arm and led her inside. Her half-pulled her up the stairs and set her by the fire in his apartment.

Elphaba sat there, shivering and annoyed.

Matvei brought her several blankets and wrapped them around her shoulders. Then he started pacing, which grated on her nerves rather quickly.

"You can stop doing that," she grumbled.

"What? Worrying about you? I can't help it, Fae! You're what, nineteen? You show up out of nowhere, pregnant, and you've risked your own life more than once trying to get rid of it! You'll tell me nothing about your life, where you came from, or why absolutely no one else in your life would be willing to help you! Of course I'm worried about you!"

"Did I ask you to worry about me?" Elphaba shot back, "You've given me a job and a place to stay. That's more than anyone else would have done! What I choose to do with my life is my business! I never asked you to hover over me and worry!"

"I can't help it Fae!"

"Why? Why is it that you have to care about me so damn much?"

Matvei sat down on the sofa across from her, rubbing his temples as though he'd worked himself into a pounding headache. His shock of brown hair was rather unruly tonight, and when he finally looked at her, she noticed that his eyes were exceptionally green when he was upset.

When he finally spoke, Matvei's voice was low and controlled, "I…I once had a child…myself. I had a wife, and child. And I'm afraid they both died."

For one of the few times in her life, Elphaba was stunned into silence. She just stared at him, not sure how to respond.

"They've been gone for about five years now. They died from a plague of sickness that swept the city. It took thousands of lives…"

Elphaba vaguely remembered hearing about the epidemic he was referring to. She had been a young teenager, and the Quadling news had been filled with stories of the shortage of hospital beds for the sick and dying. She wasn't quite sure what to say, since Matvei had obviously suffered a terrible loss. She knew that he hoped she would appreciate the life of the thing within her more now, but this parasite was not his child. She was not a loving wife, waiting to raise a baby.

"I'm sorry," was the only thing she could think to say.

Matvei studied her with sad eyes, "You still don't want it, do you?"

Elphaba's expression was hard, "I never asked for it."

"But you slept with someone. You had to know what might happen. The child must have a father. Does he not deserve…something?"

Elphaba narrowed her eyes, and she threw back, "This thing has no father! I'm sorry for all of your suffering, but you cannot make up for your loss by worrying over me. I'm not your wife. I'm no one's wife. And this child is no one's child. It never should have been."

Matvei looked at her with sad eyes, and she couldn't stand it anymore. Elphaba stood up, taking the blankets with her, and stomped upstairs. She slammed her flimsy door and dropped the soggy blankets. She stripped off her wet clothes and hoped Matvei would have the sense to stay away while she pulled on clean night clothes. Once dressed, she tried to pull a brush through her hair, which had come loose from its pins. It had nearly dried, as she had sat before the fire, but was horribly tangled

Elphaba caught her reflection in the chipped mirror she'd propped in one corner of the room. She noticed that her hair, left to dry on its own, now curled in rippling waves down her back, rather than lying straight as it always had. She had never been able to make it curl quite the way Galinda's could. Now, it was thick and, like the rest of her body, full of curves. Elphaba threw the brush, not because she was particularly disgusted by the idea of curls, but because it seemed that her body had completely forsaken her. Despite all her efforts to get through this with as little fanfare as possible, her body seemed determined to irrevocably change itself. This tiny, kicking little monster could not leave her unaffected. She was destined to be left with lasting evidence of its presence.

Elphaba turned to her books then, to bury herself in spells and anatomy and pretend she didn't feel the rhythmic thumping of the life within her.