AN: Thank you so much for the reviews!

EvilLoveTriangle: No, I'm not going to give this one a happy ending. I'm going to have Morrible capture everyone and then I'm going to let her kill Glinda and Fiyero right before Elphie's eyes before slowly torturing Elphaba to death. Then Morrible takes over Oz and plunges it into misery. I believe I mentioned before my being just the tiniest bit sadistic ^^.

To make it up to you: no cliffhanger this time. Yay for me.

Virtual cookies to anyone who recognises the title and tells me where it came from - without looking it up. It might just be the case that everyone recognises it instantly, since I'm not sure how much German you guys know, but well - if that's the case, everyone just receives those virtual cookies.

Disclaimer: I'm not that girl.

Glinda sighed, pushing aside the papers that were lying in front of her before burying her face in her arms, her forehead resting on the table beneath them. She closed her eyes for a moment. When had her life become like this? she wondered. When had her life been drained from everything even remotely fun and become so serious, so gloomy, so… depressing?

All right, so not everything was depressing, she told herself sternly. Fiyero and Elphaba were alive, which was wonderful. And she had been able to help Boq. But what had she gotten in return? The most dangerous criminal that had ever existed was now on the loose and although she knew it not to be true, it felt like Oz was constantly hovering on the edge of disaster, depending on her to set things right again. Only she had no idea how to do that.

'You all right?' She looked up to find Boq in the doorway, and she managed a tired smile. 'Yeah. Sure. Come in.'

He approached her, eyeing her sympathetically. 'Rough day?'

'You have no idea,' she moaned, letting her head fall on her arms again. He came to stand behind her, gently rubbing her shoulders and neck. 'Do you have many more things to do today?'

She sighed with content as she felt him slowly massaging the tension from her body. 'Unfortunately, yes. There's this appointment I have with a few representatives from the Ozian press, not to mention this horrendible stack of letters I still have to go through…'

'Why don't you let me do it for you?' he offered, still rubbing her back. 'I know about your plans, so I can answer the questions from the press, and I'll help you with those letters, if you want me to.'

That lifted her spirits a bit. 'Really? You'd do that for me?'

'Glinda, I'd do anything for you,' he told her sincerely, reminding her of the time she had encouraged him to ask Nessarose to the dance at Shiz. A pang of guilt shot through her, but she ignored it. She had made mistakes when she was younger, but there was nothing she could do about that now.

It was only then that the full extent of his words sunk in and she turned to face him. She regretted that movement when he had to stop his back massage because of it, but she needed to know. 'Boq? Are you still in love with me?'

He actually blushed, avoiding her gaze. 'I… uhm…'

'Be honest,' she told him sternly, and he sighed and reluctantly conceded, 'All right, yes. I never stopped loving you.'

She almost felt like cooing, 'That's so sweet!' but she wasn't really sure how she felt about it and so she just kept her mouth shut. She thought about it for a moment. She had always been fond of him – just not in the way he had wanted her to be. How did she feel about him now? She still thought he was very sweet, and caring, and he was obviously utterly devoted to her. Back then, she hadn't even given him a chance, mostly because he had just been an ordinary Munchkin. Now, however, she knew better than to judge people by their status and wealth. Perhaps she should give him a chance.

'How do you feel about a date?' she asked suddenly, causing him to choke. 'Are you serious?'

'Yes.' She gave it another thought, but decided that it was a good idea. 'Just a date. No strings attached. We'll have dinner, talk a bit, get to know each other better – things like that. No touching. No kissing. No declarations of eternal love. Just a date.'

He was beaming with delight by now and in an impulse, he kissed her cheek. 'I would love that so very much!'

'What did I just say about not kissing?' she told him sternly, but she couldn't hold her composure and she smiled at him. 'So it's a date, then. I hope you don't mind it being tomorrow, though – I'm really, really tired and I really don't feel like going out tonight anymore. I wish I could just head straight to bed.'

'My offer still stands,' he told her, getting back to rubbing her shoulders, which made her squeal with delight. 'Oh Boq, I couldn't possibly…'

'I'd be happy doing it. I kind of like this ruler-of-Oz stuff,' he conceded. 'I really don't mind.'

This time, it was her turn to kiss him on the cheek. 'Thank you so very, very much. You're my hero.'

He beamed even more at that, grinning almost literally from ear to ear. 'You, my dearest Glinda, are so very, very welcome.'

Fiyero was just heading back towards Elphaba with his arms full of berries when he heard her scream. He immediately dropped the berries, alarmed. She didn't scream. He had never heard her scream before, except when she had been burning up with fever - but she never consciously screamed. She would yell, snarl, growl, yelp, snap, shout or cry – although she didn't spend much time doing the latter, either – but she never screamed. She just didn't.

That was why he immediately started running, trying not to think of what exactly he might find when he got to her. It had to be Morrible, no doubt about that, but what could that old hag have done to her to make her scream like that? He wasn't sure he wanted to know.

He came to a halt, slipping, when he saw people. Witch hunters. They were surrounding her at all sides, pitchforks and other weapons ready, Morrible standing in front of them with an utterly satisfied and rather smug look on her face. He noticed Nuki on Elphaba's shoulders, eyes wide and tail thick with terror, as she dug her nails in the green girl's skin and hissed at the woman across from them, since there wasn't much else the small Cat could do.

He caught her gaze and as soon as she saw him, a faint smile played around the corners of her mouth. It left him somewhat confused, but then her eyes briefly flickered towards the crutch she was leaning on, and he understood. She had her flying crutch – she could get out of there. He nodded and decided the best chance she had of escaping would be for him to distract them – even though she was probably going to kill him for it later, if she got the chance.

He started jumping up and down, yelling, 'Hey, you bunch of cowards! Feel like real heroes now, needing twenty of you to capture a single girl?'

The witch hunters turned around and he saw Elphaba's eyes widen in shock, but he didn't care. The men's attention was directed at him now, and he yelled at her, 'Elphaba, go!'

She hesitated only a second before jumping on her crutch and hurling herself up into the air. Fiyero watched in awe as she hovered above the witch hunters, just out of their reach. Morrible did definitely not look happy with this development; she shouted at the men, but there wasn't really anything they could do. A few of them now started towards Fiyero and he turned around and started running.

A glimpse over his shoulder told him that Elphaba was manoeuvring her improvised broom through the trees, coming after him. She landed about a stone's throw in front of him. 'Get on!' she shouted at him, and he didn't hesitate – he ran towards her and climbed onto the crutch, clinging to Elphaba as she kicked off and they flew away, out of Morrible's reach for now.

Fiyero kept quiet, but he knew she was brooding. She had been suppressing her anger in order to focus on steering the crutch and making their escape successful. Now, however, they were high up in the air and relatively safe, and he knew she would start hurling her frustrations at him any minute now. It was only a matter of time.

Nuki, who was still seated on Elphaba's shoulders, caught his anxious look and, interpreting it the right way, bent forward to peer at the green girl's face for a moment. When she turned back at Fiyero, her eyebrows were lifted meaningfully. 'Oh, my,' the little Cat said, a bit smug. 'Looks like you're in trou-ble!'

He shot her a dark look. 'I had figured that much, thank you,' he grunted.

It was only clock-ticks later that Elphaba finally burst.

'Idiot!' she scolded him, her voice dangerously low. She started mimicking him. '"You bunch of cowards!" What were you thinking? Were you thinking at all?'

Her impression of his accent was quite good, he had to admit. She turned around for a second to look at him, eyes blazing. 'Are you absolutely crazy? You could have gotten yourself killed!'

He started to say something, but she cut him off. 'Don't start. I know why you did it – I just didn't want you to do it. I had a plan, for Oz's sake, and you nearly blew it.'

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I didn't know that. When I heard you scream, I thought…' He let his voice trail away, and she softened a bit. 'I only did that to get your attention. I needed to know for certain where you were so that I could pick you up with the crutch. You nearly gave me a heart attack when you started yelling at them – and what was that "Elphaba, go!" all about?' she continued, her anger flaring up again at the thought of that. 'I hope you didn't mean by that what I think you meant. Because if you were actually trying to tell me to take off on my own and leave you there, I'm afraid I'm going to have to punch you in the face.'

'For trying to save you?' he protested, and she shot him a look. 'For being incredibly stupid – even more so than usual.'

'I would've been able to manage on my own,' he objected. 'If that had been your only chance to escape, you should have left me there.'

She shot him another look, one so venomous that he would have recoiled if that had been possible. 'Oh yes, of course,' she snarled, voice dripping with sarcasm. 'We all know how extremely well that turned out last time I did that, don't we? Remember that? Something to do with cornfields, Scarecrows and – oh, yes – you being tortured?!'

He was aware of the despair that had crept into her voice, and he gently said, 'Elphaba.' She looked at him, trying to maintain her angry façade, but not able to conceal the all-consuming fear behind it. He tightened his grip around her waist, resting his cheek against her back and closing his eyes for a moment. 'I'm sorry,' he whispered.

She didn't say anything for a while, and he started to think he had really pissed her off this time and she didn't want to talk to him anymore. 'Fae?' he asked cautiously. 'I really am sorry. I never meant to put you through all that again,' he said, referring to her desperate and guilt-stricken state when she had been left alone, thinking that he had been tortured to death. 'I just… I couldn't think about anything else but saving you.'

She made a choked sound. 'Please don't.'

He looked up in surprise, although all he could see was the back of her head, since she had to watch where she was flying. 'Don't what?'

'Don't be so sweet,' she grumbled over her shoulder. 'You're making it very hard for me to stay angry with you. Worse, even; you're being so sweet that you're nearly making me cry now, and besides the fact that I absolutely loathe crying, I also can't see anything when I'm crying, so unless you want to bump into a bird or a mountain top, I suggest you keep quiet until we're safely on the ground again.'

He chuckled and hugged her from behind. 'I love you.'

'Shut up.'

He merely smiled. 'All right.'

She sighed, pretending to be annoyed, but he knew her better than that. She leaned back a bit and he rested his chin on her shoulder. 'What did I ever do to deserve you?' she asked him.

He smiled again and kissed her cheek, since her lips were just out of reach. 'Exist.'

Glinda had been sitting in her chambers, drinking tea and feeling more relaxed than she ever had since she had become the new ruler of Oz, when Boq came rushing in. 'Glinda!'

'Boq?' She set her cup of tea on the small table and looked at him questioningly. 'Is something wrong?'

He shook his head, then nodded. 'Well… I'm not sure yet,' he conceded eventually. 'But… well… I was talking to those press people, and they asked me some questions about your plans for the future of Oz and things like that – I could answer them all perfectly fine, by the way, you don't have to worry about that, but… well… They asked me this question then, and… I'm not sure if there's any reason at all to be alarmed, but I just thought you should know… They asked me if I could confirm or deny the rumours that have apparently been circulating lately. Rather persistent rumours, apparently. Rumours… rumours about the Wicked Witch of the West still being alive.'

She was suddenly thankful that she wasn't holding the cup of tea anymore, because she was sure she would have dropped it, had it still been in her hands. 'What?'

'They say there's a bunch of witch hunters heading towards the City right now, men and women who have seen her with their own eyes. As I said, I don't know if any of it is true, but…'

'Morrible,' the blonde hissed, surprising even herself with the venom in her voice – she had always considered herself a fairly forgiving person, but towards Morrible, she couldn't feel anything but utter hatred.

Boq had stepped back a little, equally shocked by the violent reaction Glinda had displayed. 'Glinda? Are you all right?'

She shook her head. 'I'm fine, really, I'm just…' She buried her face in her hands, trying to compose herself. 'I should have seen this coming.'

'Seen what coming?' he demanded, a little harsher than he had intended, being worried sick now because of the strange behaviour of the blonde girl. He knelt beside her chair and took her hands. 'Glinda, what in Oz is going on?'

She looked him in the eye and she decided to tell him everything. Well, not everything; she wouldn't tell him about Elphie and Fiyero still being alive – not yet, anyway. But she would tell him the truth about her best friend. She needed all the help she could get right now, and she felt like she could trust him.

She took a deep breath. 'Boq… I think there are a few things you should know I haven't told you about before. It's time for you to learn the truth about something. Better sit down – this is going to be a long story.'

'I still don't understand how that was possible. That knife should have wounded her, if not killed her, and yet she pulled it out and she was just… fine! As if nothing had happened!' Elphaba exclaimed, pacing up and down. They had landed in the woods some time ago, having discovered a small cave to spend the night, but Elphaba clearly didn't feel like resting at all. He could imagine everything that was going on in her head right now, now that the first shock had worn off and she started thinking about everything. Knowing her, she would continue this for some time, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

'Do you mind standing still for a moment so I can check on you?' Fiyero asked, a little frustrated. She dismissed him with a wave of her hand. 'I'm fine.'

'You always say that.'

'It's true this time – they didn't even touch me.' She started pacing again and he watched her a bit wearily. 'You know, all that pacing won't do your ankle any good.'

'Shut up.' She just kept going, muttering under her breath. 'She must have used some sort of spell – that's the only explanation. But what kind of spell? And how long will it last?'

'Fae?'

She looked up, a bit disturbed. 'Hmm?'

'What are we going to do now?'

She shrugged. 'To see your family by flying broo-… crutch, I mean, I suppose.'

'Isn't that dangerous?'

She looked at him. 'Well, the reasons I had before for not flying are not really valid anymore, since they now know I'm still alive. There's no need to be sneaky about it anymore and we'll get to your parents faster if we fly. People might see us, but they can't get to us unless they sprout wings themselves – which I don't think to be very likely.' Her face suddenly grew uncertain. 'That isn't likely, right? Or do you think Morrible would cast a spell on them to make that happen? To make them fly so they can–'

'Fae.' He placed his hands on her shoulders and shook her gently. 'Don't do this. I know you're scared, but now you're being just a bit paranoid.'

'Am I?' She turned to face him, and the fire in her eyes almost made him recoil. 'She is invincible, Fiyero. At this very moment, I consider her capable of anything – anything at all.'

'You're right,' he admitted, and she started pacing once again. He watched her. 'Doesn't it bother you?'

Again, she stopped to shot him a look – an incredulous one this time. 'No, I'm wearing a ditch in the floor just for fun,' she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. He shook his head. 'I can see Morrible's bothering you, obviously, but I meant the hunters. She clearly told everyone you're still alive. Soon all of Oz will know. Doesn't that bother you?'

Still pacing, she dismissed it with a vague hand gesture, having – in her opinion – much more pressing matters on her mind. 'I've never been that much of a people person anyway.'

'I'm not joking, Elphaba.'

'Neither am I.' Not even slowing down, she glanced up at the sky. Although it was just after noon, the moon was still faintly visible in the clear blue sky. It must have been full not too many nights ago, she thought absent-mindedly, turning around on her heels and striding in the opposite direction.

Then it suddenly dawned on her, and she froze in the middle of her movements, eyes wide, gasping. 'She didn't!'

'Fae?' Fiyero was next to her in a clock-tick, all concern – as usual. 'What's wrong?'

'She did that spell!' the green girl cried out, staring at the moon wide-eyed. 'The planets in one line, a full moon – all she had to do was remember the spell from the Grimmerie and find the right spot, and she… Sweet Oz,' she breathed. 'If that's what she did, I'm in even more trouble than I could have ever imagined.' She was about to start pacing again, but Fiyero caught her arm, pulling her towards him. 'Elphaba. You're scaring me. Will you please tell me what's going on?'

'There's a spell in the Grimmerie,' she explained, her mind raging. 'An immortality spell. It makes the person that casts it invincible – they can't be hurt and they can't be killed. There are certain conditions that have to be met for it – conditions that are met only once in, like, a hundred years.' She took a deep breath. 'I think those conditions were met a few nights ago.'

Fiyero's eyes widened as he realised what that meant. 'Morrible…'

She merely nodded and he asked, a bit reluctantly, as if he feared the answer, 'How long does it last?'

She locked eyes with him. 'For eternity,' she told him solemnly, 'or until the person who cast it, casts a counter spell.'

'And it's not possible for anyone else to cast that counter spell?' he asked, his heart sinking. She shook her head and bit her lower lip – something she tended to do when she was really nervous about something. He caught her chin and, cupping her face with both hands, forced her to look at him. 'Hey.' He used his thumb to wipe away a single tear that threatened to fall out of the corner of her eye. 'It'll be all right, Fae.' He wrapped his arms around her and held her close. 'Everything will be all right.'

'How?' she asked, her voice breaking. His grip tightened just a bit. 'I'm not sure yet,' he told her honestly. 'But I'm certain it will. I'll be here for you, Fae. No matter what.'

She looked up at him and, upon seeing the determination in his eyes, crushed herself against his chest, closing her eyes. They stood like that for a moment, neither one of them moving; then she reluctantly pulled away. 'We should find something to eat while the sun is still up.' They had been forced to leave their bags behind with Morrible, so they had nothing left but the crutch and the clothes they were wearing.

Fiyero nodded earnestly and kissed the top of her head. 'You can go and lie down for a moment. I'll go find something to eat.'

'Don't bother,' a new voice said, making them both jump. Elphaba narrowed her eyes at Nuki, who was standing behind them. 'What did I tell you about not scaring me to death anymore?'

The Cat grimaced. 'Sorry. But hey, at least you didn't try to kill me this time.'

Elphaba glowered at her and the Cat smirked. 'Perhaps this makes up for me scaring you?' she offered, stepping away so that Fiyero and Elphaba could see the stack of food behind her. The green girl's eyes widened. 'Where did you get that?'

Nuki shrugged. 'I figured the two of you could use some time alone, so I snuck off in search of food. This forest happens to be containing lots of fruit trees and bushes – lucky us. I also found a creek to drink from. I thought about catching you some fish for a moment, but since I didn't think you'd be willing to light a fire to roast them since that would inevitably draw attention, I decided against it.'

Elphaba wrapped the Cat in her arms and hugged her tightly. 'You're a gem, Nuki.'

The small tortoiseshell flashed her a radiant smile. 'I learned from the best.'