Chapter 11. All Coming Back To Me
Rifiuto: Non Miniera
Thanks to Elphaba1Fan, TillITryIllNeverKnow, and Kirei Yuki Tenshi for reviewing 10.
A/N: Got back from Yerington, and here's the 11th installment to Another Changed? I think it was TillITry that found this story so interesting, to see your parents as teenagers in college rather than the older mature adults you know; that it can be eye opening--is EXACTLY what I was going for! I for one, would love to have met my mom as a teenager....
And Elphaba will figure things out, in both the past and future, it will just take time......
Her heart stopped. Literally stopped.
All she could do was stare at Makinla.
A buzzing started in her ears, and her blood began to pound. Quickly, Elphaba stood, making her way to the window. She stumbled, reached out and grasped the latch, pushing the window open, and leaning out, her hands grasping the sill until her knuckles turned white, the wood of the sill digging into her stomach. She leaned out the window, taking deep breaths, her heart pounding in her uterus, bile rising in her throat. She closed her eyes, and sobbed.
No one moved towards her, no one spoke.
They all knew the Queen of the Vinkus needed time to process what the girls had told her, and so they watched.
Finally, Elphaba turned around. She wiped her mouth, and took deep, shuddering breaths, eyes only for Makinla. She couldn't believe what she was hearing.
No.
It couldn't be true.
Fae was missing?
And Makinla had something to do with it?
Suddenly, Elphaba's regal air collapsed, and she pounced, a mother lioness protecting her cub.
"What did you do?" Elphaba screamed, running to her, grabbing Makinla's shoulders and shaking roughly. "Where's my daughter? Where is she? What did you do with her?!"
Makinla cried out, tears running down her cheeks as Elphaba shook her, her long emerald fingers moving to the girl's throat, tighening.
Fiyero, Boq and Liir hurried over and pulled Elphaba away from the teenager. Fiyero's arms wrapped around his wife's waist and he held her close, whispering soothingwords in her ears as she continued to scream at the girl. Boq checked on Makinla, before the teenager ran to her mother.
"WHERE IS SHE? WHAT DID YOU DO WITH FAE? WHERE'S MY DAUGHTER?" Elphaba screamed, trying to break free of her husband's grasp.
"Fae calm down!" Fiyero ordered. The green woman slowly sank to her knees on the floor of the dorm, buried her face in her hands, and wept, rocking back and forth, sobbing her daughter's name.
"I want my baby! I want my baby girl!" Elphaba screamed, wrapping her arms around herself. Glinda wiped tears off her cheeks, and held Makinla close, watching her best friend.
Images of Elphaba's return years earlier flashed before her mind, the nightmares returned, haunting her; her own voice, screaming obsenities as she was dragged away to the infirmary, injected with sedatives, restrained to the beds, sounded in her ears.
"NO!" Suddenly, Elphaba got up, pulled her cape and hat on, grabbed her broom, and shot out of the open window, heading to the woods around Shiz. The others watched her leave in stunned silence.
"Where's she going? Dad? Is Mom all right?" Liir asked, concern on his face, tears in his eyes. Fiyero looked at him. The others waited with bated breath.
"Liir, your mother's had some problems. She's.....suffered from abuse....."
"You mean you---"
"No. I'd never lay a hand on your mother. Her parents, on the other hand--"
"They abused Fabla when she was a child. Mentally, physically, emotionally. They beat her and abused her, hated her." Nessa said.
Fiyero nodded.
"She.....suffered a mental breakdown our second year at Shiz, and had to be hospitalized eight times in six weeks. More than once, she was dragged from the dorm kicking and screaming, she was....sick, deeply sick. People assumed she was mentally insane, and, I hate to admit, that...." Fiyero sighed, and sat down in the chair his wife had moments earlier, occupied. "When she's greatly stressed or upset, she returns to that.....abuse. She breaks down, and relives those moments. When people remark that she's......insane.....they refer to the abuse."
Liir nodded. He remembered hearing people at the balls his parents held, remark on his mother's mental health, and even go so far as to question her rule. He remembered people call her insane, but never knew why. He didn't know about the abuse his grandparents put her through as a child, growing up, until now.
If they weren't already dead, he'd beat them both to a bloody pulp for harming his mother. As it was, he wanted to dig them both up and smash their remains to pieces.
"Will she be alright?" Glinda asked. Fiyero nodded.
"She just needs time to calm down."
"Where'd she go?" Anakinsa asked, allowing her mother to pull her into her arms.
"I know where she went. I'll go get her when the time's right." He said.
"Where?"
"The mermaid pool."