Posted by: elphiethetragic
Posted on: Wednesday, August 9 2006
In the novel Wicked : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, there are five "missing" years in Elphaba's life between the time she runs away into the Emerald City and the time she runs into Fiyero. She gives us hints during those years as to what happened.
| "Elphaba wasn’t sure if she’d tuned out all noise or if no one was talking, but there was silence in the room for a moment. She stared unblinkingly back at her challenger and tried to read his eyes. However his eyes showed very little. All she observed was their color. They were a deep, dark brown with a hint of green – or it was possible that was just Elphaba’s reflection. He smiled at her, not mockingly or scornfully, but kindly. This is what made Elphaba finally turn away." |
This is a third person limited (Elphaba-Madikien) view of what happened during those five years to change her life and personality. PG-13
CHAPTER ONE: “Anything I have to”
Elphaba brought her cloak to the edges of her eyes as she turned away. Seeing Glinda’s tears, she pressed the cloth to her face to dry her own, only to be reminded of the harsh fact that there were none. After a few moments she lowered her head and began to walk, unsure of where to go but aware that she must go somewhere.
She wrinkled her nose at the Emerald City around her. Industrialized as it was, it’s supposed emerald sparkle was long gone, if it had ever really been there to begin with. Emerald was the wrong name for it; putrid green would’ve suited it much better. Granted, there were a few nice places here and there that were in fine upkeep, but the majority of houses and shops were dreary and deteriorating. If the city is such a mess, she asked herself, why are they building a yellow road with no use whatsoever instead of fixing this place up first? The roads here were barely recognizable, made of dirt and covered with free-floating trash. Several munchkin children were playing outside a shop that was so unkempt that the windows seemed to be black. Their clothes were faded and tattered, not unlike the conditions she’d lived in as a child in Quadling Country. She watched as one of the older boys began pulling on the youngest girl’s bright orange hair, teasing her. The girl began to whine and Elphaba shook her head.
She knew she didn’t have any place in particular to stay; she knew no one in this dull city. It wasn’t too late to go back, find a way back to Shiz and meet back up with Boq and the rest of them and find out how the Philosophy Club escapade had turned out.. But going back to Shiz would mean working under Madame Morrible, being a pawn against the very thing she’d been seeking to fight for. There had to be a few others who were as outraged as she was. Every cause has at least a few fighters for it. However, these others wouldn’t be quite so easy to come across, considering the political nature of the cause. “I must find an Animal,” she mumbled, “but how can one tell if a creature were an animal or an Animal pretending to be an animal for safety?”
She glanced around once more, looking for something that would lead her to some sort of haven. The sky was darkening not only because evening was dawning, but also because clouds were crowding very threateningly above the Emerald City. She needed to get inside; she couldn’t risk getting wet.
Down the road she spotted a narrow building that looked almost as if it had been shoved in between the two gigantic stores around it for the sake of saving space. The door was openslightly, leading inside. She continued down the road towards it and squinted to see some sort of sign telling her what was inside of that building, that, from where she stood, looked to be little more than a crawl space, a cubby, a closet.
As she approached she noticed someone had scrawled "homeless shelter" on the bricks next to the door. Elphaba found it hard to believe that the Wizard would allow government money, even such a minimum amount, to support the deprived or underprivileged. Bitter as she was, she hurried inside, if only for the sake of staying dry.
Within the shelter, she observed several figures near the doorway wearing hooded raincoats. An old woman, with laugh lines so deep that some people would think they’d gone beyond her skin, handed one to Elphaba. “Here. In case it rains. The roof leaks.”
Elphaba nodded, quickly pulling on the raincoat, which was nothing more than pieces of malleable plastic sewn together, and glanced around the dark, ragged room. A family of Quadlings were huddled in the corner with two blankets, their skin looking a paler red then usual. The mother and father were sleeping and two little girls were pulling at each other’s black, frizzy hair. One of the girls looked to be about seven, wearing a toddler dress that she had obviously grown out of. It was pink, and it was bursting at the seams, worn and torn. The other girl, no more than four, was dressed in clothes that were much older than the child, perhaps hand-me-downs, tattered and faded with time.
The only other table in the room was placed crookedly (for it was missing half of a leg) at the center, holding a scant amount of food. The food consisted of saltine crackers in two piece packages and small boxes of raisins. Most of what had once probably been placed on the table was scattered on the hardwood floor around it. She settled herself in to the darker side of the room, content with keeping to herself. She needed to decide where she would go from here.
The crumpled old woman who had handed her the raincoat waddled up to her, limping noticeably on her left leg. Though seemingly crippled, the woman had no difficulty crossing the room. “Can I have your name, dearie?”
“Yes.” Elphaba bit her lip, chewing on the outer edge. She paused for a moment, wondering if she should give her real name. "My name is Milla," she refused to meet the eyes of this old woman, because she was fearful that her face might show how transparent that lie had been.
“Milla,” Elphaba's welcome wagon muttered, writing it down on a clipboard in her hands. She struggled with the pen and pushed it against the paper so hard the first few sheets ripped. “Ah, nothing to worry about, I'll need a new pen. I can write that down later. Did you have any questions, dearie?”
Elphaba looked the woman in the eye for the first time, confidence masking everythingelse behind her own eyes, "Is there a limit to how long I can stay here?"
The woman didn't speak for a moment, perhaps stunned by the realization that it was no trick of light and that Elphaba's face was really green. She glanced at Elphaba's hands, seeing that they were green, too. “I don’t mean to be rude, my dear, but are you ill?”
“I'm not sick at all.” Elphaba responded with a tone of finality that said she didn't feel like discussing her skin. “So, how long can I stay?”
The woman, now standing on her tiptoes, brought her face closer to Elphaba's. A mole was visible right above her left eyebrow, protruding like it was announcing its presence and that all the world must see. “That depends. What are your political connections?”
Elphaba blinked, backing away from the woman subconsciously. “I don’t believe I have any.”
“Are you in any way connected to the palace?”
Before she gained her composure completely Elphaba wrinkled her nose and grimaced. “That’s the last place I’d be connected with.” These incriminating words spilled out of her mouth without warning. She immediately looked away, realizing that may have been a mistake.
“Good. Stay as long as you like.”
“What?” Once again, Elphaba faced the wrinkly old woman. “Is this some kind of trap to catch the Wizard’s enemies? Because if…”
“Hush now, dearie. Not everyone around here agrees with such a radical opinion. We’ve already arisen some suspicion, we don’t need more.”
“This is no homeless shelter.” This was not a question, merely a statement.
“Yes it is.” The wrinkles, on skin so dry it looked ready to crack, broke into a grin. “What isn’t a homeless shelter is that.” She pointed.
Following the old woman’s gaze, Elphaba said, “All I see is a wall.”
“Ah, you’re going to need some sorcery lessons, I see. Once a few of our ‘tenants’ go to sleep, like the Quadlings in the corner – they don’t want to be involved on either side, sweet things – fall asleep, we will meet. I’ll open the ‘door’ for you. There’s also a ‘door’ on the wall outside. But you’ll have to learn to use it yourself and learn fast. We don’t like to leave anything open for too long.”
“Who is ‘we’?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for that answer, my dear. The little we have already said could be potentially dangerous. You never know who’s listening. If you want, you may go to sleep, and I will wake you when the time comes.” The old woman patted Elphaba gently on the head.
Elphaba hadn’t been aware she was tired until that moment. “Thank you,” she said, “are there any extra blankets?”
“Of course; and something to lay your pretty little head on, too. The pillows aren’t very fluffy, I’m afraid.”
“I don’t mind.” She watched the old woman lift her clipboard, her shortened gray hair hanging in her face, shaking as she bent her knees to reach for the clipboard when it slipped out of her hands. “Here.” Elphaba handed it to her.“Am I allowed to ask your name?”
“Certainly. Around here, I’m known as Yackle.”
Elphaba nodded, knowing better than to ask any questions, and watched the woman walk away to fetch her a moth-eaten blanket and a very featherless pillow. She was in awe at how quickly she had found the place she’d been looking to go to. Was it possible that some sort of spell, an enchantment, was cast over the building, attracting her and others who felt similarly about the Ozian government? Maybe the few who were not involved had simply walked by and noticed the scrawled words on the wall, needing a place to go. She squinted to see a hooded figure, and she was able to distinguish the stature of a Lion. Examining the others, she made out other such Animals and many people. Her doubts about this organization, whatever it may be, disappeared, and for a few brief hours, Elphaba went to sleep.
Elphaba was awoken without protest as Yackle motioned her towards the wall, indicating that she should move softly. Aside from the Quadlings, several others stayed behind - to keep watch, Elphaba assumed. “But there are only ten others!” She whispered to Yackle.
Yackle shook her head. “Nonsense, dearie. Not every one of our recruits, our team, meets this early or comes crowding into the shelter. Imagine if there were any more people or Animals here; wouldn’t that rouse some suspicion? There’s a spell to get in from an outer wall, too. I’d say, in all, there are about thirty of us.”
As everyone entered from two opposite sides of the room, cloaks and hoods were removed, faces were revealed. This room had walls made of some sort of metal, Elphaba guessed it was steel, and the floors were marble. Unlike the shelter, this room was obviously always attended to and kept it good upkeep. Elphaba noted happily that the roof didn’t leak in this room. She removed her cloak.
It took her a moment to become conscious of the fact that she was being stared at. Beneath the cloak, she wore a long black dress that was too short in the arms, only reaching her elbows. Under the fluorescent lights of the meeting room, her skin glowed an almost neon green. Elphaba glanced at herself and did as several others had and sat down at the table that everyone had crowded around. Lions, Horses, Bears and Goats made up approximately a third of the population in the room. But, it seemed, even with all of these minorities, she was still a magnet for stares and second glances. “I was born this way,” she stated simply, not inviting questions. All at once, the people who had been stealing looks at her looked away.
From the front of the room, Yackle’s scratchy voice rose above the quiet murmurs among the men and women at the table. “Settle down, all. Settle down.” She cleared her throat. “Now, we’ve been planning and developing for months a plan for the move we must make.The plan is like a web, each individual is connected to this somehow. No matter how small the part you end up playing may seem, it is vital to the group that you carry out your part of the action. It will all happen simultaneously. You will not be told what your separate pieces are until the time comes to prepare for the move. And, of course, no one will know the full plan, for the good of the group. That is not up for discussion. Next order of business… initiation. Would Milla, Valick and Jenko please rise?”
Elphaba and two other men across the table who had been sitting next to each other across the table stood.
“Doubtless you’ve discovered what sort of organization we’re running here. Seeing as you feel the same, we are against the Wizard and the Gale Force treating Animals and other such minorities more than just a little unfairly.” Yackle began. “We’ve got reason to suspect that the Wizard is arranging the murders of Animals who have attempted to speak out or defy the rules by keeping other human qualities. Our mission is to stop that. In three little words: Kill the Wizard.” Yackle turned to Elphaba and the other two who were standing. “Unbeknownst to the three of you, I’ve worked my own little spells and conducted a tiny bit of research and have come to the conclusion that all three of you would make welcome additions to this cause. If any of you have deceived me and decided otherwise, speak up now or you’ll regret it later. Any of you?” She glanced at them.
Elphaba looked at the two men at the other end of the table. One looked to be the older and the one in charge from the way he was standing and his look of superiority. The younger was taller, darker (perhaps a half or quarter Quadling) and perfectly calm. Meanwhile the older one was very short – maybe, Elphaba thought, shorter than herself – and twitchy. She concluded that they must know each other outside of here, being as they’d sat next to each other and had been talking much of the time. Elphaba didn’t like the way the older one was looking at Yackle; he was attempting to look committed to what she was saying, but Elphaba sensed that he might not be there for all of the right reasons. The other, younger one would have to be the same way, considering they’d most likely come there together. She glanced at the younger, more tranquil one again, trying to find something in his posture or facial expressions that would confirm her suspicions. When she looked at his face, he was staring right back at her. Elphaba, who always shifted uncomfortably under another’s gaze, looked away and returned her attention to Yackle.
“Good.” The old woman was saying, “You three will stay.”
At this point, Elphaba wondered if she should point out the suspicious behavior of the older of the two newcomers. Sheturned back to the pair for a moment and found that the younger one was still looking at her. Instead of looking away, she raised her eyes to meet his challenge.
Elphaba wasn’t sure if she’d tuned out all noise or if no one was talking, but there was silence in the room for a moment. She stared unblinkingly back at her challenger and tried to read his eyes. However his eyes showed very little. All she observed was their color. They were a deep, dark brown with a hint of green – or it was possible that was just Elphaba’s reflection. He smiled at her, not mockingly or scornfully, but kindly. This is what made Elphaba finally turn away.
“Milla, dear, I got the feeling that you didn’t tell me your real name. In fact, I got that from you two, too.” She gestured to the two men. “Would you care to tell us?”
Elphaba stared at Yackle, dumbstruck. “I-I-I’m s…”
“Don’t apologize, dearie, almost every single being in here gave a false name at the start.”
There were a few laughs and several “I did”s.
“Elphaba,” she said, “Elphaba Thropp.”
“Jansied Lithen,” said the older of the two men, looking at the ground. “And this is…”
“Madikien Suding,” finished the younger one.
“Good, good. And I am Yackle. Only Yackle. That is who I am inside this building.”
Elphaba looked up, confused.
“We don’t only use this building. The planning can’t be done in here. It’s too easy to overhear things in here and we can all hear and see each other. Come back three days from now, my dearies. On appointed days, you will enter this room, I give you a time and you are split up into groups and you enter the ‘cell’. In the ‘cell’ you will use a code-name that only I an the higher officials can know. You’ll be in separate compartments, and a voice from the middle will give you instructions, addressing you by your code name. Don’t try and decipher voices, there’s always a masking spell. No one can know who is doing what. If the Gale Force should catch you, the most information they can get from you is your own small piece of the puzzle. That is the most information you will ever be told. And even that will not give us away, for we’ve got a nice spell over this room. When you reenter the ‘shelter’, know on these walls, they are not hollow.” Yackle grinned.
“You will each have your own individual spell to open this room, and that spell will work for you and only you. Restrictions are placed on the spells as to who can let others in and who cannot. I am the only one in the room who has the power to let another person or Animal in, aside from Haladean over there,” Yackle gestured to a man in his mid-fifties with gray hair who was standing behind Jansied and Madikien. Elphaba guessed that he had been the one to let them in.
“This meeting isdismissed for all excepting Elphaba, Madikien and Jansied. The rest of you know your time, day and, of course, your code-name so you may exit. Haladean, you may stay and assist me if you wish. “
Haladean did nothing to acknowledge Yackle’s comment, he simply continued standing where he was.
The three newcomers approached the front of the room and Yackle slid a painting off the wall and opened the safe it had been covering. She removed a small box. The three of them were each handed a scrap of paper and a pen.
“You are to write your real name, your chosen code-name and where you reside. Don’t worry about anyone else finding your information, even I cannot read it until it is dipped in some red wine and a spell is said.”
Elphaba wrote out her name, not surprised to see each letter disappear into the paper moments after the ink had touched it. “Elphaba Thropp,” she wrote. A code-name… using “Milla” now would be a bit obvious. She remembered when Nessa had been learning to speak and couldn’t properly pronounce Elphaba’s name. “El-FAE-ba”, she’d said. Elphaba simply wrote down “Fae”. She had nothing to write for the last bit of information. She looked up, “Yackle?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t, um, reside any place in particular.”
“I don’t understand, dearie. Everyone has a home or they would’ve been here a long time ago, seeing as this is a homeless shelter. And one of the only shelters, no doubt.”
“I have a home, but I don’t live there anymore. And I had a dorm, but…”
“You went to Shiz, dearie?”
“How’d you know?”
“You forget that it’s currently the only girls’ college in all of Oz. Who is the head there?”
“Madame Morrible.”
“No need to say more. So, you left home, left college and now all you have are the clothes you are wearing and that cloak.”
“Yes.”
“You’ll have to stay here, tonight, but I might he able to find a place you can call yours. I have to contact a few people so everything works itself out correctly. I do hate to make you sleep here, though…”
“It’s fine.” Elphaba said hurriedly. “May I talk to you for a moment, in private, please?”
Yackle glanced at Madikien and Jansied, who were excitedly whispering on the other side of the room, having already handed Yackle their scraps of paper. “Don’t worry about them. They aren’t listening.”
“Well, it’s about them, actually.”
Yackle looked over at the two men once more before saying, “Go on.”
“I’m aware that I should trust your judgment, for you did say you were sure that all three of us would be good for the cause, but something about them tells me otherwise,” Elphaba said, looking at the floor. “At least Jansied seems suspicious to me, if not the other.”
“Ahh, yes. Jansied does seem suspicious, and it’s hard to read Madikien. Well, I’m not particularly sure if they are deceitful or not and I’d hate to have them against us if they aren’t already. And if they are with the Wizard and we foundout, we could use it as a major advantage. But we don’t need any more enemies, so for now, I’ve agreed with Haladean that they’ll stay. Come to think of it, I do need someone to keep an eye on at least one of them. In fact, that gives me an idea. Gentlemen?” Yackle called across the room. “Miss Elphaba has no place to stay and the only places I can think of are nowhere near anyone else in the organization. Do either of you know of anywhere somewhat near you where she could stay - temporarily, at least?”
Jansied shook his head.
“Actually,” Madikien offered, “I live in abandoned warehouse and there’s a room connected to mine through a large closet. As far as I know, it’s empty, too.”
“Thank you. Will you two gentlemen please step back into the ‘shelter’? We will be out in a moment. I just need to make sure Miss Elphaba will have a place to stay permanently by the end of the week.
They nodded and left.
“Is this my first assignment?” Elphaba asked, unsure of what she was supposed to do or how she was supposed to do whatever it was.
“Yes, if one of them is on the wrong side, then, in all probability, so is the other. Madikien will be harder to catch, but I believe if he is a traitor, you can catch him.”
“In less then a week?”
“Oh, silly dear, did you not hear him say he was almost sure you ‘temporary residence is abandoned? If this proves to be correct, I believe we might have an ‘indefinite shortage of housing’.” Yackle said, cackling. “Now, this is going to be a difficult task for you, especially you, seeing as you seem a little guarded and anti-social. But that’s good in this organization for it’s best to put distance between you and others, inside or outside of this group of people. However, this is a special case. You need to get close to him. I don’t care how. Become friendly. Seduce him.” Yackle paused, seeing the look on Elphaba’s face and said, “Don’t think you can’t do it. If you would let yourself, you could be somewhat attractive.”
“But I can’t. I mean, I never - ”
“The more a person wants something, the more they’re willing to tell to get it. I’m not telling you to go too far, my dear. Though the circumstances might make it quite difficult… it wouldn’t be such a bad idea. But you seem like a strong one; I think you can take care of yourself. And Elphaba?”
Elphaba looked up, “What?”
“How much does the plight of the Animals matter to you?”
“It’s the reason I left Shiz. The only Animal on the staff was murdered, and I’m positive Madame Morrible was behind it.” Elphaba could already feel livid determination bubbling.
“You seem like a strong-minded child. Understand this: This cause is your life now. It won’t be all you do day and night, but it will affect each and every thing you do. Nosingle person is more important, no drop of blood, no emotion, you understand what I mean? In truly dedicating yourself to this cause, you are saying and understanding that you yourself as a person mean nothing. You, yourself, as a piece of this,” Yackle motioned around her, “mean a little. Understood?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then answer me this: what are you willing to do to complete this first assignment?”
Elphaba looked at herself, clothed in black clothes a little too tight for her, black hair back in a bun, standing straight and anxious. She was nothing now. She had never been anything to begin with. The morals and values of society or of her own beliefs no longer existed unless they existed within this new organization. “Anything I have to,” she said, assuring herself as well, “anything I have to.”
CHAPTER TWO: “This might take a while…”
When she finally exited the building, it was no longer raining. The sun was beating down on the city and the roads had already dried. Elphaba squinted in the harsh sunlight and looked around. She felt a hand touch her shoulder and she flinched.
“Whoa.” Madikien looked at her, eyebrows raised. “A little jumpy?”
“I’m not used to being touched,” she said, shying away from him.
“That’s something I haven’t heard before. People don’t touch you.”
“Well, look at me!” She glared at him.
“So…?”
“So who would want to touch me?”
He shrugged. “You never know. Anyway, come on.” He began to walk. “Follow closely. We don’t want either one of us being followed and if we walk together instead of yards behind each other, it’ll probably seem less suspicious.”
“Right,” Elphaba said, walking briskly behind him. “Exactly where are we going?”
“It’s not far. But for Lurline’s sake would you walk next to me instead of right behind me? It’s making me nervous.”
“Oh, sorry.” She quickened her pace.
He was looking at her again, and then glancing back to the streets around them, he made a sharp turn into an alleyway, grabbing her hand to make sure she followed. It led to a wall that practically screamed the words “dead end”. There was a window about half of a story up. He let go of her hand and grabbed two wooden crates off of the ground, turning them into makeshift steps to reach the window. “You go first, just in case you fall. It’s not as easy as it looks, the second step is a little shaky.”
She shook her head violently, too conscious of the fact that she was wearing a dress. “Why don’t you go first?” She paused. “That way, if I have trouble getting in, you can help me from up there.”
“As you wish.” He moved up the stairs and to the window with an almost uncanny grace. He pushed in the window and almost somersaulted in. When he reappeared again, he looked unhurt.
Elphaba looked at him, “If you just somersaulted in, wouldn’t you have hit the floor? Even if it were carpet, I would think that would be painful.”
“It is painful. That wouldbe why I moved the bed under the window instead of the broken chair that sat there originally.” He reached out a hand. “Would you stop being so paranoid and come in?”
She took to the crates and found that he was right, the second step was unstable. As the crate began to shiver and shake under her, she grudgingly reached a hand for his hand, her other hand grasping the windowsill for dear life.
He took her hand, “It’s okay. I’m going to pull you in. All you need to do is push yourself up with the most strength you can. Keep holding onto the windowsill.”
She looked at him distrustfully, but did as she was told. One hand still clutching his, the other holding tight to the windowsill, she tried to pull herself up, attempting to prove she could do it herself – and failing.
“Not ready yet.” He laughed softly. Madikien wrapped his other arm around her waist. “Okay, now!”
Her sweaty palms almost slipped out of his grip and she panicked, kicking outwards, knocking the crates over. He laughed again. “Don’t worry. We’ll just have to get out some other way.”
“Couldn’t we have come in some other way?” She asked, still hanging.
“Oh, but that would have been too easy.” He smiled at Elphaba, who had let a laugh escape her throat. “And I have yet to find another way in, anyway. Okay, now, let’s try this again. 1… 2… 3!”
This time they were successful. However, he pulled her with almost too much strength, and the both of them almost rolled off the edge of the bed.
The walls of the room were beige and, at that time of day, looked bright in the sunlight. On the bed was a brown cotton blanket and plain white sheets with another blanket folded at the edge. In the corner, a cardboard box was placed carelessly, though she couldn’t see what was in it. There was a countertop and some shelves. To the right of the bed there was a door, wooden and, she decided, most likely jammed. Across from the bed there was a fireplace. It looked clean and, she observed disappointedly, not very suspicious.
“That was close.” He said, sprawled out on the bed.
Elphaba couldn’t help but grin. “So close that I almost really did hit the floor.” She was still half curled into a ball; Madikien’s arm was not completely off of her waist. It made her uncomfortable, and the more she thought about it, the more jumpy she became. She couldn’t help but shiver.
“Are you all right?” Madikien sat up instantly, pulling his arm from around her waist in the process. He reached and tucked a stray piece of her behind her ear and let his fingers trace her cheek, looking at her eyes.
“Fine.” She said, unable to stop herself from jumping again and pushing his hand away.
“You panic whenever someone touches you, don’t you?” He observed, cocking his head at her curiously. “What is it really?”
“Nothing!” She snapped, and slapped away thehand that was reaching for hers. She curled herself into a protective ball and peered out at him angrily.
“Elphaba… did I say that right?”
“Yes,” she said crossly.
“Elphaba, I don’t have some contagious disease and I don’t think I look very threatening, you’re welcome to tell me if you feel otherwise. But is there something about me that immediately makes you uncomfortable?”
She was surprised that he wouldn’t leave it alone, how confrontational he was. “It’s not just you.” She lifted her head and looked at him apologetically. “It’s everyone.” Why did she feel sorry?
“Could you at least try and act a little less on edge?” He held out his hand for her to shake, not touching her, but waiting for her to move first.
Hesitantly, she touched his hand for the briefest moment. She retracted automatically and pulled her hand back. It wasn’t in her nature to touch anyone and she shuddered.
He pushed himself – carefully, so as not to alarm her again – closer and put an arm around Elphaba (who had shrunk back into a ball) and tried to keep her from shaking so much. “Calm down. I’m not going to hurt you and I don’t plan on hurting you, okay?”
She nodded; her head brushed against his chest. Feeling weak and vulnerable and not liking those feelings in the least, she inched away.
“Are you sure it’s everyone you don’t trust, or is it just me? I can tell you don’t trust me at all.” He paused, “Would you look at me?”
She lifted her head and looked into his eyes.
“There. Is there something there that you see that threatens you?” He clasped her hand as she struggled with herself as to whether or not to lash out at him, pull away completely or just stay calm. She refused to continue looking straight at him, so he lifted her chin with his hand.
She couldn’t stand it. Elphaba pushed herself away from him and off of the bed. She looked at him as if she were sizing him up.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I’m trying to figure out what’s wrong with you.” She said simply, hearing her usual sardonic tone come back. “Maybe it’s a mental problem. I don’t see any visible deformities…”
He laughed, which she resented. “What makes you think there’s something wrong with me?”
“You shouldn’t have asked because this might take a while.” She muttered cruelly, and instantly felt a little guilty for being so rude, but she ignored it and continued on. “Why are you treating me so kindly?” She asked in an accusatory tone, wanting to say more, but she had to stop herself from asking, do you have the same assignment I have?
“I’m not going to be malicious. Do you expect a person to reject you immediately? I don’t know about the rest of Oz, but I don’t see reason to act spiteful towards people I don’t even know.”
“Are you expecting me to believe that you aren’t judging me?”
“I’m not judging you. But it’d benice if you were a little more comfortable.”
“Why does it even matter?” Elphaba asked, critical. “What do you want from me that you feel you have to pretend to be pleasant towards me to get?”
“We have to work with each other, don’t we? Not to mention you might need some help settling in around here at first.”
“We aren’t the only two in the organization, why do I matter?”
“I’d like to be a good neighbor? Actually, Haladean mentioned that the more complicated parts of whatever plan our ‘organization’ is carrying out might need more than one person to do the job. He and Yackle discussed it, and Haladean wanted Jansied and I to do it, but Yackle wanted you. So, apparently, its you and I who are handling it.”
“Wait,” Elphaba paused, aggravated. “In charge of what?”
“I don’t know. He said something about the directions not being complete yet and we won’t find out until the time comes nearer.” He shrugged simply.
Curse Yackle! Elphaba thought. She noted the possibility that the directions “weren’t complete” because there would never be any. This was a way to trap Elphaba in her own assignment even more than she already was. She sighed. “What in Oz made you think that touching me, no matter how gently, would make me feel more comfortable? Most people would’ve taken the hint after I pushed away the first time.”
“And for some reason, that made me want to more.” Madikien stood up, refusing to allow her to accuse him of any falsehood in the previous sentence. “Maybe you’re right; maybe I shouldn’t have acted that way. But someone has to get through to you.”
“You trust too easily. And you want too easily, too.” She turned away from him, folding her arms across her chest.
“I wouldn’t know.”
She glanced at him over her shoulder. “I doubt that.”
“I used to be like you.”
“What, green? I’m positive that’s not true.”
“No, and you know that’s not what I meant. I used to close myself off to people all the time, too.”
She turned around, angrily. “Ha! I don’t close myself off, people close me off.”
“I didn’t. But I’m not talking about people closing you off, Elphaba. You can’t push everyone you meet away too much; it does come back to haunt you. And it hurts.”
“You are way too bold. Maybe I don’t want people to care about me.”
“Maybe you do.”
“And who are you to think you know what I want and don’t want? Maybe I like being alone. I always have.”
“But you don’t know if you might like something else more if you never try it. After all, how could you know until you experience it?”
“And why should I?” She argued, “I’m sure I like being alone. Why should I try anything else if I might just hate it?”
“Because you might just love it.”
She paused before retorting coldly, “I don’t love. And I’m impossible to love, and therefore you shouldn’t bother with being nice to me or trying to be friendly with me. I don’t know whatgave you that ridiculous idea, and I don’t really care to know.”
“I don’t know. When you pushed me away - ”
“You said to yourself, ‘I should make her open up,’” she said, sarcastically. “That’s a great way to convince me you don’t just feel sorry for me or want to fix me. What are you going to say next, ‘I want you to trust me and let me befriend you because I want to change you’?” Her words were sour and she had hoped the comment would sting; yet she felt a little bad when she saw that in a miniscule way, it did.
“I can see why no one would touch you. Your words are bitter and cruel enough, why find out what else you can do?” He muttered.
She moved to slap him, but he caught the wrist of her right hand with his own hand. He twisted her right arm behind her back and pulled her backwards, towards him, taking her left arm and twisting it behind her as well. She tried to kick backwards at him viciously. “Not so nice now, are we?” For a moment they were stuck like that: Elphaba trying in vain to free herself, kicking angrily at him and Madikien only tightening his grip around her wrist.
“Let go of me now!”
“Why, so you can hit me?”
“I can hit you without having to use my hands.”
“I know you can. But you won’t.”
“You’re giving me reason to prove you otherwise,” she said, struggling so much that she was starting to sweat.
“Fine.” He let go of her and she stumbled a little before striding to the window. Amused, he said, “I’d like to see you try to get out of here that way.”
She laughed and almost smiled at him for a moment before realizing she was still angry and looking at the floor. “What do you want from me?”
“A chance.”
“Why? You don’t even know me.”
“Exactly. I’d like to know you.”
“You’re not afraid?”
“No, actually. I find you intriguing. I’m curious and interested.”
“Interested in what?”
“In finding out what in Oz kindles that fierce, fire behind your eyes. In you.”
Once again, she found she had to look away from him; she stared out the window into the alleyway and, beyond that, the street. There was nothing interesting going on out there. “What if I don’t want to even talk to you?”
“I’d tell you that you should talk to me, give me a chance, starting now.” Neither of them spoke for a moment, and then he said, abruptly. “You haven’t eaten anything for hours, at least, so sit down and have dinner with me. If you’re thirsty, I have water,” he motioned to a small pipe in the corner of the room near a cardboard box. “Sorry I don’t have anything better to drink.”
That would be an issue, Elphaba thought. “This is going to sound awfully odd, but I can’t drink or touch water.”
“You what?”
“I can’t have water. No more questions, please.”
“Well, I need to know what you can drink.”
“Milk. Anythingthat isn’t too watery.”
“I’ll get a hold of some milk tomorrow.”
“No, I can - ”
“Look, I don’t know for sure, but from the way you’ve acted, I think people are looking for you and you don’t particularly want to be found. Let me handle it.”
“If you insist. I have nothing to give you in return…”
“Don’t worry about it.” He dragged two chairs over to the bedside table, wooden and a little lopsided. “I know it’s not much, but it’s clean enough to eat off of.”
She didn’t sit down right away, she looked at him curiously.
“What is it now?”
“I just don’t understand,” she hugged herself self-consciously, “you’re giving me too much of a chance. Why are you being so friendly?”
“Why not? Now come sit down.”
“What are we eating?”
“Good question. Whatever I have…” Madikien went and opened the cardboard box that was against the wall. “How does bread sound?” He asked sheepishly.
“Fine with me.”
“I’m sorry I don’t have plates or anything.”
“It’s fine. You’re the one giving me something to eat. I’m the one who should be sorry, because I was so rude before,” she said, partly remembering Yackle’s directions and partly because she felt that she had been ungrateful.
“Well, I should be a little sorry, too. It was ignorant of me not to realize that some people don’t react well to being touched.”
“It’s not that I don’t trust people or think anyone’s going to hurt me,” Elphaba attempted to explain, not quite sure why she was telling him these things. “I’m just unaccustomed to it. You weren’t ignorant; it’s not the way people normally react and you thought…” She trailed off.
“I think we’ve established that we’re both sorry?”
Elphaba laughed. “I talk a bit much, don’t I?”
He only smiled and said, “So, can we put this behind us?”
“Yes, please.” She said, ashamed of the way she’d acted
“Maybe eventually, we’ll stop trying to kill each other so much.”
“Maybe.” She smiled jokingly.
“I want you to understand that I don’t mean to be pushy or anything.”
“I wouldn’t let you get away with being pushy if you were trying to. It would only get me even more irritated with you.”
“I can believe that.” He examined her. “You run away from anyone who approaches you.”
She looked down at the table.
“However, if anyone were to sit and wait it out, you would come to them. You’d approach slowly, but you’d come,” he observed.
She fought the immediate urge to slap him and thought about his observations for a minute. She thought about her childhood and the few memories from Shiz. They were hazy, but she realized that it was true; she did tend to not take well to a person who approached her. “How is it that you can explain me better than I can?” She asked honestly, admitting through this that she didn’t truly know herself and that even she knew she had her weaknesses.
“I told you. I used to he the same way.”
“What changed?”
“My parents were killed in Quadling Country. After that, no one would constantly deal withme if I pushed them away.”
“I grew up roaming about Quadling Country.” She said. “My father is a unionist minister. He wanted to convert all the Quadlings. Are you half Quadling or…?”
“One quarter. But my family stayed in Quadling Country. My mother was half Quadling and my father had no Quadling blood in him whatsoever.”
“I thought you had to have some Quadling in you. Your skin - ” she cut herself off. “I mean, I don’t want to point it out and offend you…” she stopped talking, realizing how much she resent people pointing out her own skin color.
“My skin doesn’t bother me. It feels normal,” he told her. “I like it a little different. Plain, simple fair skin is boring. Skin with color is more… exotic.” He threw her a glance.
“I’m not descended from any sort of interesting creature and I’m not from anywhere exciting, so don’t expect a logical explanation for my color. I was born in Munchkinland. I guess I was just a mistake, some sort of fluke.” She paused, “And that’s what most other people thought, too…”
He didn’t comment, for which she was thankful. His first reaction would have been to touch her, but he held back, knowing better than to try.
Elphaba swallowed her last bite of bread and stood up. “So, where is this empty place you mentioned?”
He moved across the room towards a swinging door, beckoning her to follow. “There’s a room connected to mine through this closet.”
She pushed through the dark closet; opening a door she almost walked right into, and looked around. There were several wooden crates stacked high in one corner and two rickety chairs were stacked on one another in the middle of the room, and a table turned on its side. The walls had no particular color; they were just a dark wood. Shelves were nailed crookedly to the walls and there was a miniscule cabinet hanging from the ceiling. A bed, taken apart completely and what looked like a mattress sat near some stairs. A rat scurried across the room.
“Are you all right with rats?” Madikien came up behind her, but didn’t touch her.
“As long as they don’t bother me, I don’t care. I’ll deal with them if I have to.” She continued taking everything in.
“Do you need help settling in?”
She shook her head. “No, I know what I’m doing.”
“All right.” He turned to go back through the closet, “I have an extra blanket and I’m willing to sacrifice a pillow, do you need anything?”
“A pillow and blanket would be nice. Thank you.” As he left, she worked to put the bed together, hoping (but doubting) that it would be sturdy.
When he returned he stood in the doorway for a moment and watched her. “Maybe you do know what you’re doing.”
She continued piecing things together. “I told you.” When it looked about finished, she took the blanket and pillow from him and tossed them onto the bed, which promptly collapsed. “But I didn’t think it’d stay up verylong without more nails and maybe wood, too.” She looked at it sadly. “I’ll just have to sleep on the mattress.”
“Tomorrow I’ll help you look around some more. If there’s nothing here, it won’t be that difficult to get what you need.”
“How?”
“I have my ways.” He grinned. “I’ll show you in time.”
Elphaba bit her lip. “Can you get a hold of oils, too?”
“Whatever you need.”
Surprising him and herself, she put her arms around his neck and hugged him. “Thank you so much.” It was only a moment before she let go, a little afraid of herself. “I think I’ll sleep now. I’ll see you tomorrow, I assume?”
“Of course. If you need anything, I’m right through the closet.” Madikien exited.
Yackle’s directions echoed in her head once again. Maybe, just maybe, she could handle this assignment…
CHAPTER THREE: “Wide awake”
Elphaba opened her eyes and looked up, noticing the skylight on the roof for the first time. The sky was not quite pure black; there was a navy tint to it. She moved uncomfortably on the mattress. “Ow!” A rat scurried off into the darkness. Her arm ached and she supposed it must have been bleeding. Remembering that Madikien had offered to help her if she needed anything, she shoved through the closet; she wasn’t sleeping on that mattress, it was too close to the ground for her liking.
To her surprise, Madikien was awake when she entered; her face flushed. She looked around, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness.
“Are you okay?” Madikien asked, genuinely concerned. As he took in the sight of her, he stood up. “You’re bleeding.”
“A rat…” Elphaba mumbled warily, she was still so tired.
“Here, let me clean it off.” He grabbed a piece of cloth from the floor – it seemed to Elphaba it was a towel, but it was too dark to know for sure – and held it under the pipe to run water on it.
“No.” She backed away.
It took him a few seconds to remember that she had some sort of issue with water, “How are you going to clean the blood from your arm, then?”
She sighed, shaking her head. “All right, all right. But only a very little amount of water. And I mean very little.” And she sat down at the edge of his bed as he attempted to wring the towel out. Watching him, she held out her arm, closing her eyes in preparation for the sting of the water.
He sat next to her and took her arm. As carefully as he could, he touched the towel to her arm and began to wipe away the blood. When he saw her grimace in pain, he pulled the towel away, “Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head weekly. “Just clean the blood off. Get this over with, please.”
He watched her face closely, as he finished gently cleaning the blood from her arm. “You’re going to be fine, right?”
She nodded meekly. “I need to put together the bed. Otherwise I’m too close tothe floor and I’ll be sleeping with the rats.” But she didn’t seem to have the energy to do much of anything; she certainly wasn’t up to putting together her own bed. Though she tried to keep her eyes open and mask how sleepy she was, she was too drowsy to successfully look awake.
“You know what? I was about to go out and get a few things - ”
“But it’s so dark. It has to be the middle of the night.”
“It’s early morning. The sun will begin to rise soon enough. Why don’t you sleep on my bed until I get back?”
“Sure.” She was in no state to put together her own bed, anyway.
He stood up and pulled the blanket from under the pillow. “Make yourself at home.” But when he turned to look at her at the edge of the bed, she was already beginning to nod off. He picked her up and placed her head on the pillow. Then he whispered, “Sweet dreams,” and pulled himself out of the window.
When she awoke some hours later, Madikien was moving about the room. Instead of immediately sitting up and letting him know she was awake, she sat and watched him for some time. He had been kind to her, and it seemed almost genuine, but she couldn’t trust anything. She kept her guards up, refusing to relax, and waited for some sign that there was something wrong here.
A fire was blazing in a fireplace that she was sure had been boarded up last time she’d seen the room in the light. He was crouched near it, doing something, perhaps throwing in more wood, and his skin looked a deep red in the firelight. She admired it silently for a minute, well aware of how much she hated the color of her own skin. When he turned and saw her, she averted her eyes and looked at the bedside table, on which there was a cold, fresh looking glass of milk.
“Awake?” He stood up and handed her the glass.
She sat up and took it from him. The milk felt smooth dripping down her dry, achy throat. “Thank you.”
“How’s you arm?”
“It feels a little sore, but I’m sure it’s fine.”
“May I see it?”
She held out her arm for the second time in the past few hours and scowled at the sight of it in the light. It had been deeper than she’d thought. There was no doubt that it would scar.
“At least it’s already begun to scab over. We’re going to have to do something about that rat problem. You up for a walk?”
The sun was only beginning to rise and even with the fire the air in the room was chilly. Elphaba looked at Madikien as if he was crazy. “Now?”
“You needed some things, didn’t you?”
“But… now?”
“Yes, now.” He laughed.
“Well. Okay.” She found her cloak, wrapped it around herself and followed him.
When she met with Yackle some weeks later, surrounded by the cold steel walls of the hidden room, the subjectof her first “assignment” came up immediately.
“Have you seen him doing anything suspicious? Anything at all?”
“Not a thing.” Elphaba answered truthfully. “But I did learn that you’ve trapped me in this assignment in more than one way and have no plans of letting me get out of it.”
“Heard about that other ‘assignment’, have you?” The old woman grinned.
“Yes, and I know it’s a fallacy. The reason you told him that the directions were still in progress wasn’t that they’re being worked on, the reason was that there are no directions and never will be.”
“Well, it’s not as if we can just tell him that you happen to be around him so much because you’re checking out his motives. You need a reason to be around him and watching over him so much. That is, if you’re behaving the way you should be.”
“How about telling me exactly what you think it is that I should do? It’s not as if I have any clue.”
“I told you what you should do and you know perfectly well. Your problem is that you don’t want to do it. You can’t even carry out your little piece of this…”
“Why do I have to be the one to do it?”
“Because this cause actually matters to you. Dearie, it has been quite some time since someone as devoted to the cause as you are came along. No matter how much you don’t want to or what other emotions get in the way, you will do it. You would give up yourself for this cause; you’d do something lethal if you knew it was for the sake of the cause. But I’m asking you to just do this simple thing. And you’ll do it because you feel for the cause. I can see that much in you.”
Elphaba nodded solemnly and listened as Yackle went on to tell her that the early parts of the plan wouldn’t require many people and that she needn’t return for at least another month. By that time, Yackle told her, she was expected to have an initial idea – if not more – on where Madikien’s loyalties lay.
“So you better have gotten somewhere with this by then.” The old woman shooed her out of the room. “Go now. Get to it. And you may think differently, but I do know what you do – or more importantly, what you don’t do. I have my ways.” And with that, she sent Elphaba on her way.
Madikien had been kind enough to wait for her after his own discussion with Haladean. She smiled at him, the lecture from Yackle not far from her mind. She didn’t know exactly what she had to do now. Yackle wanted her to get close to him; that much she understood. But how she was supposed to do so was the problem. Of course, she had to be the one to make the first move, no matter how small. He knew not to try anything unless she did something first; he’dobserved that much almost immediately.
Silently, they headed back, matching stride for stride, for she knew he hated it when she walked directly behind him. She sighed as she walked, swinging her arms a little. Not even meaning to, her left hand grazed against his right hand. Quietly, she pretended it hadn’t happened and looked at the ground. But this only caused her more problems, because she’d stopped paying attention to the swinging of her arms and her hand bumped into his once again. This time, he took her hand and glanced at her. He smiled lightly and she couldn’t help smiling back; their fingers remained intertwined the rest of the walk.
When she was back in her room alone, she reexamined her feelings. Finding no more than the same old confusion, she sighed heavily. Elphaba, having never given romance a second thought, was tingling with both curiosity and fear. What bothered her the most was that she knew that they weren’t quite close enough; it was not all that Yackle wanted and she wasn’t sure it was all that she herself wanted, either. The thought of simply opening up and losing a little reserve, though appealing in some ways, was a vulnerability problem waiting to happen. But… what if he doesn’t hurt me? She thought, as if the idea had never before occurred to her. If she could just let it go and be free altogether…
“Have dinner with me.” Madikien was in her doorway.
She smiled at him, her inner walls not back up yet, and accepted. “What are we eating tonight?”
“Not bread.” He grinned. “It’s almost done. I expect you in five minutes.” He walked back to his room.
Realizing she was still in her street clothes, she removed her cloak. She dusted off the plain black dress that she had worn beneath the cloak, a dress that she favored because its long sleeves covered the wound on her arm that had yet to heal completely. She left everything else as it was, including the bun in her hair that she always wore in the city to keep it out of the way. For a moment, she thought about at least braiding it behind her, but thought the better of it and just pulled it back into a ponytail and went through the closet.
She walked in and found Madikien heating something over the fire. He motioned for her to sit down at the bedside table that had once again become a makeshift dining table. When he was done, he handed her a paper napkin and a container (that was surely meant for something else but now served as a bowl) filled with pasta. Taking water from the pipe for himself, he handed her a glass of milk. It looked to be the best meal she’d eaten all week – and probably all of next week, too, for that matter.
They both devoured the pasta fairly quickly and Madikien insisted on cleaning up, which consisted of merely running water over the containers that hadbeen used as bowls. Elphaba curled her legs to the side and sat near the fireplace. Soon after, Madikien settled himself next to her and watched her as she gazed at the fire intently.
“I… I’m sorry for the way I’ve acted towards you. I just don’t know how to act towards people who are actually kind to me, as odd as that sounds, so I ended up being a little weird about it…” she began
“Not always. Not today,” he interrupted. She didn’t respond, feigning eye contact, though she was staring straight through him, afraid to look at him. So he continued, “yet, you’re still not comfortable.”
“I’ve never been completely comfortable with anyone, Madikien.” She sighed, again, remembering Yackle’s words and still trying to decipher her own feelings, as well. “But maybe,” she said softly, leaning into him and allowing him to hold her, “I can be.” For some time they stayed there, quietly, until each of them decided they were much too tired to stay up any longer and went back to their separate rooms, saying no more.
The next week and a half went by without incident. Occasionally, when Elphaba was curled up reading whatever she’d been able to find, Madikien would sit down next to her and pull her into his arms. She’d just continue reading, but would, once in a while, nuzzle her head against his shoulder or chest to acknowledge him silently. Or Elphaba would sneak her hand into his at any time during the day, or would throw her arms around his neck and hug him sweetly. Neither of them said anything during or about these little moments. Elphaba wouldn’t talk about it and Madikien decided to respect that and did the same.
Despite all of that, Elphaba still spent much time alone in her room. The room was a lot homier than it had been before, too. The bed had finally been fixed, and she had decided it would go directly under the skylight so she could look at the stars as she fell asleep. In the middle of the room stood the table and two chairs. There was not a rat in sight (though she knew one or two were still scrambling about). All in all, it was home. Yackle hadn’t found her another place to stay, which Elphaba had figured all along. Madikien either didn’t remember or didn’t ask. Elphaba was no longer bothered by the arrangement, anyway.
Whenever he was in the same room as she was, Madikien would watch her, quietly analyzing every movement, every twitch. She didn’t seem to mind him being in the room, hers or his, even in the silence. He would notice her looking over her shoulder at him sometimes and catch her eye and smile. Though she still held back and could be standoffish at times, she allowed him to hold her longer and had less trouble meeting his gaze.
But there was one afternoon, just after lunch. Madikien sat on his bed, legs stretched out, arms behind hishead against the headboard, and watched Elphaba moved about the room, cleaning a little compulsively. He enjoyed looking at her; her skin looked so much softer than any other particular shade of skin in Oz. Her black hair was strictly braided, no stray hair out of place. As she moved around, he said softly, almost in a whisper, “You’re beautiful, you know that?”
She only glared at him.
“What?”
She didn’t respond but turned on her heel and began to walk to her own room.
“Elphaba, wait!”
She stopped walking, but she didn’t turn back to face him.
“What did I say to make you upset?”
“You know perfectly well what you said.” She told him over her shoulder, sharply.
“I know what I said, but I can’t seem to find anything within those words that would upset you.”
She turned around to face him again. “I don’t need to hear things that I know just as well as anyone else aren’t true. Hell, even a blind man could tell you that you just lied.”
“All I said was that you’re beautiful.”
“Exactly.” She said tartly.
“But I mean it. You are beautiful.”
She almost slapped him, but she remembered that it hadn’t worked well the previous time and caught herself before even raising a hand. “If you really expect me to believe that, you must think even lower of me than I thought.” Shaking her head, she walked into her room, slamming the closet door behind her. He didn’t bother trying to go after her, he wasn’t that stupid.
A day later, he tried to approach her, hoping she’d cooled off. He knocked on the door, taking a deep breath. “Elphaba?”
“What do you want?”
“Can I talk to you?”
“Fine.”
“Can I come in?”
“If you must.”
She was sitting at the table reading, giving him an annoyed look. He took the other chair and sat down. “I’m sorry to bother you.”
“Whatever.”
He reached across the table to put a hand over hers, but she slid her hand off of the table. “Elphaba, would you please just tell me what’s wrong?”
“I told you what you did.”
“And how am I supposed to fix that? It’s not as if I insulted you.”
“Say that you’re sorry you felt you had to lie about the way I look. Say that you’re sorry and you should’ve known better than to pretend to feel things you don’t feel. Acknowledge that I’m not what you said I was and admit that you didn’t mean it.” She wasn’t looking at him, but rather at her book.
“But…”
“Don’t even start that with me. If you’re going to continue the whole ‘I really meant it’ routine, you can stop wasting your time and leave the room.”
“Elphaba, please.”
She got up, leaving the book on the table. Lightly, she pushed him towards the door. “Out.”
“Oh, come on, can’t you just listen to me?”
She pointed at the door. “I said ‘out’.”
There was minimal contact between them for the next three weeks. Elphaba didn’t touch his hand or hug him. He reminded himself over and over again that he could do nothing but sitand wait for her. Day after day he waited, doing nothing. Twice he went and had a drink with Jansied, and those were the only times that he left his room.
When Elphaba had to go report in to Yackle, coincidentally (or not so coincidentally, Elphaba suspected) at the same time Madikien had to see Haladean, they walked in silence. Once they arrived, Yackle immediately pulled Elphaba aside.
“When you left here last time, I thought things would be fine. This is obviously not the case. Did you even give him a chance?”
“Yes.” Elphaba said resentfully.
“Then what happened?” Yackle demanded.
“What do you mean?”
“If you think I can’t tell from the way you walked in here that you’re angry with him, you have another thing coming. And the way he was looking at you tells me he isn’t mad at you in the least.”
“Fine, then. I’m mad. But this isn’t a cross-examination or some sort of interrogation and I don’t feel like talking about it!”
“Talking about what?” Yackle pushed.
“He just said something out of line, that’s all.”
“What did he say?”
“He lied.”
“How?”
She paused for a moment and angrily jerked and a piece of hair that had come loose from her bun. “He said I was beautiful.”
The old woman gaped at her. “Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound?” Yackle didn’t want for an answer. “Do you have any idea how ungrateful you sound? Someone tells you that you’re beautiful and you get mad?”
“He lied, Yackle.”
“And you have an assignment to complete. He said something sweet to you, you could’ve taken that a different way and begun to seduce him, but… you go off and get angry? Did you ever consider that maybe he truly thinks you’re beautiful?”
“For about one second before I started laughing. And how am I supposed to believe anything? Maybe he wants information out of me. Maybe, because I’m one of the only people he sees every day, he’s gone delusional.”
“You just want out of this assignment. Miss Elphaba, if you had any idea how disappointed I am in you right now…”
“I haven’t done anything wrong!” She protested.
“You haven’t done anything one way or the other. Madikien may or may not be a traitor. If he is, then you get the honor of assisting in revealing it. If not, though it’s technically forbidden, you could have some sort of love in your life - ”
“I don’t want it.”
“Either way, you’re supposed to be doing this for the cause. I thought you were more dedicated than this. When you came in here, you accepted that each single person, real person, has no self. But now you seem to be thinking differently. Maybe you’re right; maybe I shouldn’t have let you handle this particular assignment.”
Elphaba paused and thought for a moment, only then realizing how absurd she sounded. She suddenly felt very guilty, guilty for being mad at Madikien and guilty for not doing what would help the cause. “No, I’ll do it. I’ll watch him, talk to him, do whateverelse it is you want. But, from what I’ve seen, he doesn’t seem like a traitor.”
“That’s my girl.” Yackle smiled. She gave Elphaba directions to meet at a different location two months from then. Elphaba had no part in the early preparation for the ‘campaign’, as the called it. “So I expect you to have plenty of time. You’ll be stuck, bored, alone and lonely with only one other person to talk to. There’s got to be something to get out of him. Even if he’s not a traitor, we need something to prove that. Now go.”
Madikien had not yet left and Elphaba walked home by herself. When she got into her own room, she pulled the bun out of her hair, irritated at the miniscule strands of hair that had managed to escape it, not to mention that the bun had been incredibly too tight. She pulled it back into a ponytail carelessly and went into Madikien’s room, having not heard him enter and knowing the room was empty.
The room was dark and the day was nearly over. In the sky, the sun was low, and she thought she could even perhaps catch a glimpse of the moon. She sat at the edge of the bed, waiting to for Madikien so she could start a conversation she knew had to be started. She stared out the window, trying to plan her apology. He almost didn’t see her when he entered.
“Elphaba, what are you doing in here?” He asked, having nearly tumbled into her by accident.
She shook her head and looked at him as he sat up and maneuvered himself so he was next to her. No words came out of her mouth; she merely looked at her feet.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Well, I’m a little sleepy, but I’m fine.”
He furrowed his eyebrows, obviously wondering why she wasn’t in her own room. “Uh… then why don’t you go to bed?”
She didn’t answer his question directly. “I was immature. The way I reacted to what you said…” She paused aggravated, wringing her fingers. “I hate saying this, admitting all of this. I don’t want to admit that I was just being stubborn and childish, but I was stubborn and childish and had no grounds to behave the way I did. In all honesty, I regretted it the minute I walked out of the room, but after snapping at you like that, I was a bit too prideful to say I’m sorry. I know I was wrong and I’m so sorry. I understand if you’re not quite ready to forgive me.”
“It’s good to hear you admit your faults. Especially hearing it from you.” Thinking for a moment, he added, “You must really hate this right now, waiting to see if I’ll accept your apology and leaving yourself open to rejection.” He smiled when she nodded intensely. “I forgive you. I would’ve forgiven you had you not even asked for it. Sooner or later, I probably would’ve begged for your forgiveness.”
“So, canwe just pretend this never happened?” She asked, hopefully.
“As long as you don’t get angry when I say something nice about you.” He reached and pulled her into his arms. “Because you are beautiful.”
Elphaba shrugged. “Believe what you will.”
Madikien sighed, “Well, that’s good enough for now, I guess.”
“Are you this nice to everyone?”
“I can be nice if I want to, but you have yet to find that there are times when I can be an ass.”
She smiled up at him. “I think I like that.” And with that she kissed him lightly, though she couldn’t stop herself from pulling away quickly, bowing her head and looking away from him.
“What’s wrong? Still tired?”
“No.” She said, and she boldly locked her gaze on his. “I think I might finally be wide awake.” Her mouth found his once more and, for the final time that night before they separated and went to their own beds and dreamed of one another, she kissed him deeply, holding the kiss for a long time, not wanting to pull away and taking pleasure in the comfort of his arms.
CHAPTER FOUR: Distractions
Though they’d gotten closer, and were near each other more often (which neither of them complained about), Elphaba kept her suspicious eyes on Madikien, who, more often than not, was watching her anyway. The only times he’d leave were, he told her, to get a drink with Jansied, which occurred once or twice a week. She considered following him, knowing Yackle would tell her to if she were there, but she felt that she was betraying him if she did, so she didn’t follow him even once.
One night when Madikien had gone out, she was mercilessly trying to chase one of the last rats out of the building and she heard voices outside his window. She couldn’t hear what they were saying but she recognized Madikien’s voice immediately. It took her a moment to realize the other was Jansied. Quietly, she crept closer to the window, forgetting about the rat for the moment, and listened
“You’re telling me that you have no information about anything?” Jansied’s voice echoed through the room.
“It’s not as if you do!” Madikien argued, keeping his tone lower – knowing, perhaps, that she might be able to hear?
“We have to have something to report!”
“I’ll find an excuse…” Madikien’s voice lowered even more and for a short time Elphaba couldn’t make out his words.
“Fine. That’ll do for a while. A few months, at least. After that, I want out of this damned project.”
“I don’t.”
“Why? If we get no where by then, there’s nowhere to go from here in a few months.”
Madikien didn’t answer him.
“Tell me, what’s so important that you’d want to stay on this project longer, Madikien?”
Madikien once again didn’t respond.
“What in Oz are you hiding from me?”
“Nothing…”
“We are partners, remember? I’m supposed to be watching over you, but how am I supposed to do that when I have no idea what’s going on?”
“Would you shut up?” Madikien’s voice rose.
“Why? Who’s going to hearus?”
Elphaba supposed Madikien had made some sort of motion in the direction of her window.
“That thing? It’s not like she’s trying to hear us. And so what if she does? We could find a way to make her keep quiet.”
“You’ll regret even thinking that, Jansied…”
“Oh, I see your reason now.” Jansied accused. “It’s that strange ugly green woman. Hell. I wouldn’t even call her a woman. What are you, blind? Don’t tell me you’ve been stupid enough to fall for something that looks like - ”
“Don’t say another word! I mean it, Jansied. And I’m warning you that it might not be the greatest wisest idea to test that.” Madikien’s anger was obvious in the volume of his words. He was so loud that even Elphaba jumped a little.
“You’re not stupid enough to hit me. I am the one who’s reporting on how you’re doing. I’m older than you - ”
“Stop holding that over my head, for Oz’s sake! Have you forgotten that I’m stronger than you? You’re only older than me by five years; don’t act like you can control me. Besides…” Madikien’s words were soft, and as much as she struggled to hear them, his voice was indistinct.
“Fine, fine.” Jansied said. “Whatever your reason may be, it better be good. I’ll keep this to myself for now, but if you do anything more out of line…”
“Good night, Jansied.” Madikien cut him off with finality. Elphaba then heard him climbing up the window.
She scurried around trying to find something to make it look like she hadn’t been listening. But she was only one step out of the way when he came in.
“Elphaba…” As soon as he saw her, he knew she’d heard.
Though she was fuming with anger, she held her temper, and said, almost inaudibly, “What was that about?”
“Why were you listening?”
“You left the window open and I was trying to catch that damned rat and it ran in here. I couldn’t help but hear most of that. You two were a bit loud.”
“I figured.” For once, he was the one afraid to meet her eyes. He took a deep breath before trying to explain, “Jansied and I are… working on something else for Haladean, which is what I’ve really been doing when I’m gone…”
“Why couldn’t you have told me this?”
“The same reason you don’t tell me anything that you have to do for Yackle. We were supposed to be gathering information from servants of the Wizard. And, as you heard, we haven’t gotten anywhere. Jansied is understandably frustrated. He wants to beg off of the assignment.”
It sounded weird to her ears, but it was possible she was being overly cautious, and suddenly she didn’t want to know whether or not he was lying anyway. “Okay.”
“Did you hear…?”
“The comment about me? Yes, I did.”
“Elphaba, he doesn’t know what he’s - ”
“Maybe he does.” She cut him off quietly and turned away. “Maybe he’s right.”
“Please don’t think that.” Carefully, he came up behind her and put his hands on herwaist, turning her to face him. “People can be stupid sometimes. Don’t listen to what anyone else says; they don’t matter. All that matters is how you see yourself.”
“And how you see me?” Her voice dropped softly and she looked at him, her cheeks darkening a little – or was that just a trick of the light on her soft, supple green skin?
“Even that doesn’t matter.” He told her.
“It does to me.” Elphaba responded without thinking. No sooner were the words out of her mouth then she realized how terribly fragile and defenseless she seemed at that moment. All her guards were down. She felt as though he could see everything, and that, because he could see it all, he also held the power in his hands to destroy everything. And that could only lead to pain.
He pulled her closer and kissed the top of her head. “Well you don’t have to worry about that, then. I don’t just think you’re beautiful, I know you are.” He whispered, kissing her forehead, each of her eyelids. “I know you are.” And he tilted her chin up gently, so she could see in his eyes that he meant what he was saying, and kissed her, one hand still beneath her chin, the other grasping her waist.
When they let go a moment later, Madikien moved away and began a fire in the fireplace. She only cocked her head. “What are you starting a fire for? It’s late, the air has been warmer and you won’t bother to rekindle it while you’re sleeping.”
“Who said anything about sleeping?” He sat down near the fire. “Come here, please? Sit and watch the fire with me. Stay with me tonight. You can sleep tomorrow during the day.”
She bit her lip hesitantly.
“Just sit here with me, please.” He begged.
She didn’t trust herself to sit with him that long and not pull away, but she stayed anyway. In the end, pulling away didn’t become a problem, for in less than an hour, she’d fallen asleep as he held her, happy just looking at the fire hitting her skin. The night was peaceful and all was quiet. Nothing disturbed her sleep.
When she woke, the fire had long since died out and Madikien had rested his head against one of the chairs and fallen asleep. It was barely morning. Birds had only just begun to chirp and it was still moderately dark. In the early morning light, she saw the rat crawling on the floor just across from her.
“What the…?” Madikien drowsily looked at Elphaba, who had pulled out of his arms to go after the rat. As he woke up some more and realized what he was seeing, he laughed.
“I’m sorry I woke you, but I am not letting this thing dart around the room anymore.” She had the rat by the tail and it was desperately trying to claw and snap at her. “It wouldn’t surprise me if this was the one that bit me.” The rat squeaked ather and she almost dropped it. “Oh, no you don’t! What am I going to do with you?” She shook her head as she looked at the rat. “I don’t want to kill it.”
“Put it outside.” He was still laughing.
“Not within ten yards of this place!”
Almost choking on his laughter, he said, “Do something with it! The sight of you sitting there hanging that thing by it’s tail is killing me.”
She glared at him for a moment and he was nervous he’d offended her somehow, but then her face broke out into a grin. The rat still dangling from its tail, she thrust it in his direction. “You do something with it, then.”
“If it pleases you,” he said, taking it from her and hopping out the window.
She watched from the window as he walked what he figured to be about ten yards and put the rat down. The rat snapped at him as he was placing in on the ground and Madikien turned and ran. It didn’t follow him more than a foot and when Madikien was inside again, they were both laughing.
When he stopped laughing and caught his breath, he looked at her. “That thing almost bit me!”
She only laughed. “It’s vicious, I tell you. None of the other rats were so hard to get rid of. All I had to do was chase them a little and they scurried out the door.” She moved to rekindle the fire; it was still cold.
“If, somehow, there are any more of them in this place, we are going to find a better way to deal with them.”
“Why?” She asked, sitting back down. “I thought that was incredibly amusing; you half jumped out of your skin!” She teased, nudging him. “It actually bit me and I didn’t even jump like that.”
“You were half asleep. Besides, you didn’t even know it was there until it bit you anyway, so you couldn’t have jumped.” He protested.
“Whatever you say.” She got up again to go into her own room. “I need actual sleep. You need sleep, too, probably more than I do. Wake me if you’re up by mid afternoon and I’m not.”
“Sure thing.”
Elphaba stared up at the skylight, considering everything she’d been told to do, the things she’d done and the things that she hadn’t. She couldn’t separate how she really felt from what she had to feel, if there was any difference, that is. One of her main concerns was that she was no longer in complete control of the relationship, whatever that relationship might be. Though she knew she had more control than he did, she was uncomfortable with him having any control. It wasn’t safe for anyone but her to set every boundary, make every move. If she gave up such authority, she knew that she would be more susceptible to emotions getting in the way of everything she worked at, and she was already much to open to that as it was. But how could she control and lead thiswhen she wasn’t sure she knew where she wanted it to go?
Yackle had told her that she could best get information by giving him what he wanted. However, part of Elphaba no longer wanted t know what side Madikien was on. But that was what she wanted, not what would help the cause. Though, she wondered if maybe, if Madikien was on the other side, maybe she could talk him out of it and he’d stay on their side. But what was she thinking? He wasn’t going to give up his connections to high places and all of his friends that he had on that side just because she asked him to. There was no way that she mattered that much to him, and she’d rather it be that way. Nevertheless, the question still remained: if she didn’t care, then why did she want so badly for him to stay?
She didn’t even know anything anymore. Things would just go how they went, as long as no one else was controlling them. Yawning, she decided to forget her feelings for the moment and go to sleep.
She woke up first. Taking the opportunity, she silently closed the door and rubbed coconut oil on her skin. The black dress was tossed in the sink to be washed and she pulled on her only skirt and blouse – both black. Telling herself she was only doing so because she had nothing better to do, she silently snuck into Madikien’s room.
He was asleep when she entered and she didn’t wake him. Instead, she started a fire (the winter months were almost over, but it seemed they always came back) and took a few moments just to look around the room. She hadn’t given enough thought to the idea of searching the room. But where in this barren little room would Madikien hide anything? And what was there to hide?
Her eyes on Madikien to make sure he didn’t stir, she checked all of the obvious places: under the bed, in the drawer of the bedside table, on the shelves. But there was nothing. She’d have to check again next time he went out with Jansied. Sighing, she decided she’d go back to her room.
She flopped onto the bed, intending just to sit and think for a few minutes. From the skylight, she could see it was only a little past noon. It was surprising to find that she was still a little tired…
“Wake up, sleeping beauty.” Madikien called from his room, she could hear him moving around.
Elphaba grabbed her current book and wandered into his room. “Hi,” she muttered, rubbing her eyes. With a glance out the window, she figured she couldn’t have been sleeping for much more than an hour – two at the most. “Have you been awake long?”
“Only a few minutes. How’re you feeling?” He was sitting at the edge of the bed looking at her.
She sat on the opposite side, preferring the headboard to lean back against while she read. “Fine.” Alreadyshe had her pointed little nose stuck in a book.
Madikien scooted over next to her and he snaked an arm around her and grabbed the book out of her hands.
“Hey! Madikien!” She reached for her book, but he was holding her back and dangling it just beyond her grasp. “Stop being so childish. Give me the book back now.”
He shook his head and smirked at her.
“Ugh!” She looked at him with contempt. Frustrated, she made to move away from him. But a moment later, she got an idea and her eyes sparkled. Without second thought, she grabbed him by the collar and kissed him passionately. At last she was able to take the book back, but suddenly, instead of breaking the kiss to adjust back and read, she flung the book onto the floor and stretched herself out on the bed, leaving him no choice but to either do the same or push away.
It had surprised him, but he surely wasn’t going to complain. With one knee slightly bent, he held himself over her, his hands wandering. He tugged recklessly at her blouse, fiddling with the buttons hurriedly.
“Slow down.” She breathed, putting her hand over his to still his fidgeting. “Leave it be for now.”
He pulled back a little. “Sorry.” His fingers were tracing the line of buttons up and down her blouse softly.
“Mmmm.” She giggled. “Don’t be. Just let me set the rules, okay? I’ll let you know when something’s okay or not, believe me.”
“All right.” He stroked her cheek with the thumb of his guilty hand. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable…”
“You didn’t, so don’t worry about it.” She moved to grab her book from the floor and settled back comfortably. “I’m going to read. You’re welcome to sit here with me. But if you can’t let me read in some sort of peace without distracting me, I’ll leave. In fact, I can just go back to my room now, if you’d prefer.”
“I want you to stay here and you know that,” he said, taking her into his arms.
“Good.” And, without another word, she went back to reading.
Later that week, Yackle asked her once again if she’d seen or heard anything that might hint at Wizard involvement. Plans were getting finalized and tensions were high. Yackle was obviously paranoid, “Anything? Even the littlest thing that seemed just a bit shifty? Out of the norm?”
For a fleeting moment, the conversation she’d overheard of Madikien and Jansied’s passed through her mind, but she dismissed it almost immediately. “Nothing at all. Except Jansied came by at least once, though. If it were one of them, it would be Jansied. Something just seems very wrong about him.”
“Yes. If there’s anyone to worry about, it’s Jansied for sure. But…” Yackle trailed off.
“What?”
“It would only make sense that if Jansied’s on the wrong side, Madikien would have to be, too. They came in here together; they knew each other before. I told you this. Remember?”
“I know, I know. But that doesn’t mean thatthey’re co-conspiring to ruin the cause.”
“Madikien hasn’t said a word to you about any of this?”
“Not a word.” She said, happy that she was no longer lying through her teeth, because this, at least, was true.
“All right, then. As much as you may have disbelieved, I actually do have an assignment for the two of you. But this must take place over a few months. You’re going to have to ravel. We have two groups of Animal refugees who, we feel, would best survive nearer to the outer edges of Oz. They cannot stay in the city, of course, and the Wizard’s men have taken over much of the open land. However, if one were to travel northwest of the city, one would find Ugabu, which (for the moment, at least) is almost completely uninhabited. You and Madikien are to lead a caravan across the Gillikin River (don’t give me that look, dearie, you’ll find away to keep dry), through Wiccasand Turning, the Pertha Hills and lead them to the farthest northwestern edge of Ugabu. You will then return and leave the second caravan. We’ll make sure you have enough to get by on for that time. They journey there and back should take about three months, so bring whatever you need for six months, seeing as you’re taking making the journey twice. You’re to leave in a week.
Elphaba nodded silently, taking in these new directions.
“I expect you to still be working at finding out more information from Madikien, so don’t think you can go off and push him away and behave the way you did before; there’s no excuse for that.”
I wouldn’t anyway. Elphaba found herself thinking. “I know. I’ve been getting closer to him.” She looked to Yackle for approval.
“Get even closer,” was all Yackle had to say before sending for Madikien and proceeding to go over the entire plan with both of them. They were then dismissed and headed back.
Elphaba had lied. Worse, she had lied to Yackle about something that could end up being important. The conversation she’d overheard was a little suspicious and she knew that. She had to admit now that she did want her initial hunch about Madikien to be wrong and she did want him around. She’d selfishly done something reckless because she wanted something. And if she was wrong, she wouldn’t be the only one who’d be punished…
Back in Madikien’s room an hour later, Elphaba curled herself into a ball on his bed and read (or at least pretended to read while really thinking shamefully about the things she’d neglected to tell Yackle) while he was cooking something over the fire. They were both peacefully silent, even as they ate. As she sat back down on the bed to read, he cleaned up and threw some more wood in the fire. He stretched out over the bed, though she stayed curled up against the headboard. It was clear that she was perfectly comfortable where she was and most likely didn’t wantto move, so he didn’t touch her.
“We’re going to be gone for quite some time,” she commented, not looking at him.
“Three months…”
“And another three. Don’t forget we have a second caravan to lead.” She reminded him.
“I know. Well, at least we’re living right as the weather warms up. But I still don’t like the idea of going. So much could change while we’re gone and we won’t have anyone to tell us about things, or anyone to talk to at all.”
Her expression was one of amusement. “We’ll just have to talk to each other, oh, how dreadful.” She drawled sarcastically.
“You know how I meant it. But on the way back it really is just going to be the two of us.” He poked her teasingly. “Aren’t you uncomfortable with having to be alone with just me for so long with no room to escape to?”
“Should I be?” She raised her eyebrows playfully.
“No. I just thought you would be. You do like your alone time.”
“Madikien, you misread me sometimes. It’s silence I like. Silence without distraction.” She looked at him pointedly on the last word.
“I’m not distracting!” He protested.
She put the book down. “Your very presence is distracting.”
“How?”
She only smiled.
He sat up. “Come on. How?”
“You sound so silly right now.” She informed him.
“I don’t care. Would you just answer the question?”
So she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. “That’s how.”
He paused for a moment. “I think I like being distracting. I, for one, don’t see why it’s such a problem.”
“Of course you don’t, my dear. But it’s dangerous. We can’t forget what we’ve been told to do. Wanting too much is foolish. People act irrationally.”
“Don’t you want things, too? Can’t you be a little irrational at times, too? You can’t be saying you’re not guilty of any of that?”
“Oh, no, dear, I am quite guilty. I’m well aware of that.”
“What is it that you want too much?”
She rolled her eyes. “I knew you’d ask.”
“Well, what?”
She laughed and tackled him, pushing him onto the bed. “You,” she whispered, kissing him audaciously. “Just you.”
Nothing more happened that night, but, despite it, or maybe because of it, Elphaba couldn’t help but wish that she could just let herself go.
CHAPTER FIVE: “That’ll do”
In the week they had before leaving, Madikien was out a great deal of the time. At first, Elphaba had been a bit suspicious of this, but she then realized that he actually had people to tell that he was leaving for such a long time; she had no one.
Jansied had come to talk to Madikien several times. In the early hours of the morning that Madikien and Elphaba were to leave, Elphaba was leaning against the headboard reading, not taking up much space because Madikien had gone to sleep for an hour. She’d told herself she only stayed because he’d asked her to wake him after an hour, but she hadn’t gotten very far in her book, she just watched him sleep, ignoring the urge to just settlein next to him and fall asleep, too. As Jansied tapped on the window, she jumped, dropping her book. Madikien didn’t wake. She nudged him, not keen to deal with Jansied.
“What?” He looked up sleepily. “I could swear it’s only been half an hour.”
“Someone’s looking for you.” She leapt off the bed.
“Oh. Jansied.” He opened the window.
“Later,” Elphaba mouthed at him, grabbing her book and scampering into her own room, shutting the door not quite all the way. She listened.
Jansied spoke first. “Explain that.”
“What?” Madikien said stupidly; he knew exactly what Jansied meant.
“Explain why she was on your bed.”
“She likes that spot. It’s comfortable - ”
“Stop bullshitting me. I thought you said you weren’t sleeping with her?”
“I wasn’t and I’m not.”
“Then what are you doing with her?” Jansied scoffed at him.
“I’m trying to find out what she knows. Ever consider that maybe she knows something that could be useful to us and just isn’t supposed to say anything? After all, we’re not supposed to go around talking about our assignments to everyone, are we?” Elphaba tried not to let the miniscule cry of pain escape her throat. No, he wouldn’t do that, he couldn’t possibly be…
“You said that before. I haven’t heard anything useful from you at all.”
“She’s a bit… difficult.” His words made Elphaba cringe.
“No surprise there.”
“You know I have to leave soon. Get to your point. Why’d you actually come here?”
“I don’t think you should go.”
“We’ve gone over this already, the more time that - ”
“I know. But I’m not going to be there to watch over you.”
“Who says you need to be? It’s not like you’re constantly here all the time.”
“But I see you more than once in a period of six months. I say I need to be watching over you. Why didn’t you attempt to get out of this?”
“Do you think I didn’t? Jansied, I don’t need a babysitter. I know what I’m doing and I can take care of myself. Stop being so damned paranoid. I’m going and you should go back to wherever it is that you spend your time.”
“If you must, then fine. But I expect to hear from you the moment you return.” The window opened and shut, leaving a minute or two of silence.
“Elphaba, come back in here. He’s gone.” He said without raising his voice. “Look, I know you heard all of that.” It was as if he didn’t need a response to know that she was listening. “Would you let me explain?” When she still didn’t answer, she heard his footsteps near the doorway. “Elphaba, please.”
Reluctantly, she opened the door and took a step into his room. She would stray no further and folded her arms across her chest.
Knowing better than to reach for her, he stayed where he was. “We’re not allowed to be doing this. You know that, Elphaba. If I told him, we’d both be in a bit of trouble. You know as well as I do what would happen if anyone found out.”
“Found whatout?”
“You and me.” When she only looked at him questioningly, he shook his head. “Tell me you know what I’m talking about.” Once again, she only looked confused. “We’re not supposed to have any sort of relationship within our circle. You said yourself that emotions get in the way of what we’ve been told to do. There’s a rule against all of this, Elle. And here I thought you actually listened to Yackle.”
“I do listen.” But Yackle had made an exception in this case because she was supposed to be getting information. And that had been her truth and suddenly, it seemed, Madikien’s lie. She had no right to be angry. If anyone was at fault, it was she. How could she have forgotten that he had no idea that Yackle knew already, not to mention that Yackle had actually been the one to start in motion the coincidences that had begun everything in the first place? What gave her permission to be hurt when she was actually the one who was in it all for the wrong reasons? Well, was she still in it for the wrong reasons? Oh, hell, she didn’t even know.
“Then stop looking at me like that.” Bravely he took a step closer to her. “I like this, the way we are. I don’t want to say something and destroy it.”
“I hate it when you’re right and I’m wrong.” She muttered.
“Could you repeat that? It sounded like you said that I was right, but I don’t think I heard you correctly.” He said jokingly. “We do have to leave soon. Damn Jansied. I wanted to sleep a little more.” Yawning, he looked down at her, “You’re not mad, then?”
“Of course not.” She brushed her lips over his softly. “Now let’s got out of here.”
Elphaba was sad to find that the refugee Animals weren’t very talkative. Many of them were silent; a few talked among themselves. There were some Goats, who looked to be a family and shared two wagons. There were a few single Animals: a Deer, a Tiger and a Monkey – who each had their own wagon. There was an elderly Gorilla couple that shared a wagon. To her dismay – more of a fear than dismay, actually – Elphaba shared one wagon with Madikien. She had no doubt that Yackle had had some hand in it. This was fine during the days and during the nights that were reasonably warm and dry, but the wagon was small and she couldn’t possibly stay outside when it rained.
Around the fourth week, when the caravan was halfway to its destination, they got caught in a storm, which seemed to follow them westward. After the wagons were circled and dinner was eaten (some ate outside but Elphaba would not leave the wagon), there came the small problem of where to sleep. Feeling incredibly uneasy, she wrapped herself in a blanket and snuggled as close to one side of the wagon as possible.
“That can’t be very comfortable.” Madikiencommented, climbing into the wagon and drying himself off with a towel, careful not to touch her for fear of getting her wet. He tossed the towel to the side and pulled off his shirt (he slept like that, and even, on occasion, spent the day like that, a habit that made Elphaba even more edgy). It was humid outside and she disliked sleeping with the blanket, which he could tell. But of course, she was stubborn and distant, so she would not sleep simply in her nightclothes while he was near.
“I am comfortable right here, thank you very much.”
“You’re sweating. You’re going to overheat.”
“I’ll live.”
He rolled his eyes and laid back. “If you insist.”
At midnight, she was still awake and drenched in sweat. She tossed and turned, having almost given up on going to sleep.
“Elphaba, you’re going to make yourself sick.”
“No I’m not.” She argued.
He sat up in the darkness. “I’m not letting you do this. I mean, what do you think you’re doing? Are you trying to get sick?”
“No.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
She shifted and continued to keep away from him.
“Well, I’m an idiot.” Realizing what it was, he shook his head. “The problem is me, isn’t it?” He didn’t really expect her to answer. “Fine, then. But I’m not allowing you to do this to yourself. I’ll go outside.”
“Are you crazy? It’s pouring!” Elphaba sat up and grabbed his arm.
“I’m not the one who’s crazy.” He pulled away.
“All right, all right.” She scrambled out of the blanket and placed it between the two of them (a pathetic barrier, she knew but it made her feel a little better). “Damn you and your guilt trips.”
“Goodnight, Elle.”
They both settled back, Elphaba turned away from Madikien; he simply lay on his back and fell asleep.
Even during the days when it wasn’t raining, Elphaba stayed in if it was even the least bit damp. Though she was glad the winter was over, the spring months weren’t a good time for her to spend outside. She’d get increasingly bored during the days, so much so that she was almost glad to have Madikien to talk to at night, as awkward as it could get at times.
The land was fresh and green when they passed the border into Ugabu and there was only a week until the journey back. It was still very humid and there were some rainstorms so spontaneous that Elphaba almost tripped in her urgent attempts to get back into the wagon. Her long sleeves made her progressively more uncomfortable in the heat and wearing only black didn’t help much, either. If they had time when they got back before the second ride out, she was going to have to find some other color to wear that wouldn’t clash with her skin.
When it came time to turn around, Elphaba and Madikien made sure that the Animals were settled and promised to be back with the second caravan within three months. She watched the rest of the wagon fade away when theyleft late that afternoon. It angered her that the Animals had practically been forced to migrate to some far-off part of Oz away from the rest of civilization. Her eyes narrowed and she grabbed her book irritably and tried to read. Unfortunately, she was distracted before she even found where she had left off.
“We’re a day ahead. What do you say we stop early tonight?” As usual, he had ripped off his shirt earlier that afternoon. She wondered if he had any idea how much it bothered her. It was somewhat understandable, it was hot outside and she was the only one around so he was perfectly at ease with it. Elphaba, on the other hand, tried her best not to look at him. Her nose once again would not leave her book. “Elphaba, are you even listening?”
“Hmm?” She looked up (and quickly looked back down again). “Sure. Whatever.” Her book was not nearly as interesting as she was making it out to seem.
He tossed her an apple and two slices of bread. “Eat up.”
She looked at her “dinner”. “Well,” she said ironically, “a feast made for royalty, eh?”
“Yes of course.” He laughed, took a bite and then looked at her curiously. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Yes. Why?’
“Nothing.”
She raised her gaze to look at him, but he said no more. Quietly, she munched on the apple and slices of bread.
He moved next to her when they’d both finished. “Just you and me for a while, now.” He was poking fun at her, knowing she was a little edgy.
“Don’t try that with me.”
“Try what?”
“Ugh!”
“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” He teased, playfully.
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Would you just let me read?”
“I’m sorry, was I distracting you?”
Agitated, she threw the book down. “I give up. You win.”
“Ah, so you surrender, then?”
“Shut up.” She laughed and kissed him. “Not another word.”
“Then surrender.” He breathed, pulling her up onto his knee. A hand crept under her blouse and she left it to do as it wished.
Her own hands exploring the muscle on his chest, she murmured, “I refuse to surrender totally and completely.” She paused and looked at him, telling him with her eyes that she didn’t want the hand on her waist going any lower. He understood, for her began to tickle her instead and she giggled. “You haven’t won this war. But,” she sighed, “I believe you’ve won the battle.”
“That’ll do… for now.” He pulled her back into the kiss lasciviously. It seemed like hours before she gently pulled away, placed the blanket between them and turned away to go to sleep. Even more hours seemed to pass as he lay there, gazing at her form in the darkness and realizing that he didn’t even know much about her, her past, didn’t know who she’d been before, and if she was any different now.
CHAPTER SIX: “Nothing worth talking about”
The sun had more than risen when Elphaba woke him the next morning. She’d obviously been awake for some time, her skinwas shining and she’d pulled on a simple black dress. He hopped to the ground, finding that there was no morning dew beneath his feet. He noted that they were starting the day a bit late, but they had time.
“You never told me how you ended up in the city. What was your life like before that?” He asked casually.
“Nothing worth talking about,” she responded offhandedly. “Why?”
“You must’ve had some sort of life.”
“No. I just appeared out of thin air one day. Or better yet, I’m just a figment of your imagination.” She laughed sarcastically.
“I knew you were too good to be true.”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course I had a life. But it wasn’t what I’d call interesting.”
“Tell me how you ended up in the city with nowhere to go.”
“Why does it matter?” She was clearly not happy with the direction in which the conversation was headed.
“It doesn’t. I’m just curious. You intrigue me, what can I say? Just satisfy my curiosity, please. We’ve got time, so tell me. How’d you end up here?”
“I should be asking the same of you.”
“You tell me about your life, and then I’ll answer any of your questions.”
“If this is what conversation is going to be like for the next six weeks, I think I might just die.” Elphaba sat down in the wagon, visibly uptight.
“Come on, what is there to hide?”
She looked at him, alarmed. “Nothing.”
“Then how can it hurt?”
She shook her head in defeat. “Fine. I’ll tell you.” She paused. “To begin with, I don’t think my father thinks I’m his daughter.”
“Because of your skin?”
Her lips thinned at that. “Not only my skin, but because my mother was… oh, how else do I say this? She was sort of… unfaithful, among other things.”
“Well, are you your father’s daughter?”
“Good question. I can’t answer it. I don’t know.” She shrugged.
He gaped at her. “Didn’t you ask your mother?”
“Madikien, my dear, my darling, my mother couldn’t remember what she’d eaten for breakfast, much less how many men she slept with, who they were and when she slept with them. It was the same way with my sister. Though, at least they were able to narrow it down to two possible fathers.”
“Was one of them your father?”
“Yes.”
“And the other…?”
“When I was little, my father would often go off alone to ‘find himself’. One day, while he was out, a Quadling man by the name of Turtle Heart came by, and he just became part of the family. I’m told I took to him quite well, being as I practically bit most people who came near me.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Believe it. I was a fierce little child.” She grinned widely and clicked her teeth.
He laughed. “I guess I can imagine that. But how’d you know all of this? I’m sure no one told you, you were too young, right?”
“Right. But things were a bit obvious. My Nanny stayed with us for a long time after I was born. She didn’t miss a thing. And she’d alwaysgrumble about it. I guess she thought I couldn’t understand her. To be honest, she raised me more than my mother did. From what I can remember, my mother was always chewing pinlobble leaves and lying in bed. I was lucky anyone bothered to raise me.”
“What about your sister?”
She became more uncomfortable with the topic, shifting restlessly. “She wasn’t green, if that’s what you want to know. But she got about the same upbringing that I did. I believe I mentioned that I grew up in Quadling Country. My father was determined to convert all of the Quadlings to unionist, being the ‘great believer’ that he was. That’s where both my sister and I grew up.”
“Do your father and your sister still live there?”
“My sister’s at Shiz. Well, she may be home now that summer has come. I don’t really know.”
“Did you lose touch?”
“You could say that.” She said softly, “No more questions.”
“You haven’t told me how you ended up at the ‘shelter’ yet.”
“It’s a long story.”
“Elle, we have a very long time.” He said, moving next to her and lightly touching her hand.
She leaned into him. “I know that. And I’ll tell you eventually, but not now. It’s your turn.”
“What do you want to know?”
She thought for a moment, realizing she could wheedle information out of him with this tactic. But she had a few questions of her own. “How’d you end up in the city?”
“After my parents died, I ended up in an orphanage. They fed us and taught us, though only the bare minimum. I was lucky to receive a higher education.”
“Where’d you go to school?”
“I’m not answering specifics until you tell me more.”
“Fine. But how’d you end up staying in the city?”
“After I graduated I just got stuck here. Where else was there to go?”
“I see.” Elphaba was thinking about Shiz once again. She hadn’t graduated and probably never would. It suddenly occurred to her that he must be at least a year or two older than her, but she didn’t know how much older. She studied his face for a moment. He couldn’t possibly be older than his mid-twenties, at the highest. “How old are you, anyway?”
“Twenty-four,” he answered, looking at her. It had just dawned on him, too, that she was younger, but she couldn’t be much younger, could she? “What about you?”
“I’m nineteen.” Suddenly, she felt incredibly young and inexperienced. “I find it a little absurd that we didn’t think to ask this before,” she commented, her cheeks flushed.
“Why aren’t you at Shiz with your sister?”
“I was, for a while. But I wouldn’t return from a visit to the city. I couldn’t go back.”
“That’s how you ended up in the city?”
“Yes.”
“But why?”
“There are a lot of reasons. One of the main reasons is the same reason I ended up at the ‘shelter’.”
“The Animals?”
“A professor at Shiz, a Goat, was murdered and I was (and still am) positive that the headmistress set it up, probably following orders from the Wizard. The Goat was theonly Animal left on the staff. Maybe he was causing a disruption; maybe people are ignorant, I don’t know. But I do know that I am not going back.”
The conversation ended there. But Madikien continued to prod Elphaba about her past, and she did the same to him. Their journey back was much easier to endure and more entertaining with the conversation, anyway. When they returned and began to lead the second caravan, though, neither of them pursued the topic. Only when they were alone again on their own did Madikien bring up the subject of her past again.
“Tell me,” he began, “what Shiz was like. Aside from the Goat, what were your classes like? Your friends?”
She smiled, remembering. “Well, my roommate was a stuck-up, ignorant girl by the name of Galinda. She later changed her name to Glinda in response to the murder of Dr. Dillamond. After that, she became much deeper and thoughtful than I thought possible of her.”
“Were you very close?”
Elphaba paused. “There were times when I could’ve called her my friend. She was the last to see me before I disappeared into the streets of the grungy old city.”
“You miss her, don’t you?”
“Madikien, you don’t give up do you? You still insist on thinking that I have much more emotion than I actually do. Why would I miss her? I left, never to return.” She sighed. “It’s my own fault that I’m here and it’s pointless to miss her. Why mourn my own actions?
“There were others, too. Boq was I boy I knew as a child in Munchkinland and her developed a huge crush on Galinda; not Glinda, though.” She laughed lightly. “And then there were his friends, Crope and Tibbett. They were always a source of amusement, with their occasional outings in drag. I was never quite sure which was they swung, if you know what I mean.”
Madikien laughed, seeing that she’d brightened up a little. “What about your sister? Wasn’t she with you, too?”
“My sister, Nessa, was part of our group, too, always ranting on about religion just like father. There was a whole group of us…” She almost lost herself in thought. “Oh, and Fiyero! The poor thing almost got killed his first day during a lecture. Our life sciences teacher was teaching a lesson that went wrong and poor Fiyero, he walked in late, so people were already staring at him, not to mention he’s a Winkie prince, so, he looked at little different than most of the other students. Avaric commented on his skin color, of course, which he knew got on my nerves because… well,” she gestured to herself, “Avaric was always mocking me and was relentlessly disdainful about my skin. He seemed to think he was a little better than the rest of us, superior and haughty.
“The night before I decided to leave, all of us had a drink or two at the café. After that, Avaric got the bright idea to go to the Philosophy Club. I refusedto allow Nessa to go and just barely managed to drag Glinda away. Nessa went back with Nanny and Glinda and I set out for the city. That was the last time I saw any of them.” She struggled against the sadness in her voice and pretended she didn’t care.
Madikien could hear the hint of sorrow in her words, but decided not to say anything about it. He only kissed the top of her head and held her tenderly. She was silent the rest of the trip.
CHAPTER SEVEN: “Below the belt”
Autumn breezes swept over Oz, the balmy months of summer were over. Leaves fell from the shivering trees and covered the streets of the Emerald City. On the streets, pedestrians wrapped tightly in cloaks walked with their heads down to avoid the harsh sting of the wind against skin. The days were short and cold; the nights were long and colder. Smoke emanated from every chimney, it’s various streams seeming to join and form a cloud over the city. A scent that hinted of burning leaves and home-cooked pumpkin pies hung like a mist in the air. People laughed and chattered, their breath visible in the freezing weather.
Inside, fires blazed and people huddled around them. Love grew quietly within homes, contained warmly within walls made to keep out the cold. People took care of each other, a kindness that soothed even the most impatient souls.
Elphaba rarely ventured outside, preferring the heat and comfort she could only find inside. She wore her hair pinned up only halfway, uncomfortable with the chill of leaving her neck bare. Her time consisted of sitting – sometimes reading, sometimes just thinking – contentedly by the fire or chasing away the rats and mice that had gathered because of the cold.
In the firelight, Madikien noted, she seemed almost fragile. Her arms and legs were bony, but her torso held a slight, contrasting curve. She was beautiful; there was no denying that. She could have him wrapped around her fingers if she wished. He doubted she knew this and he certainly wasn’t going to say anything. But every movement of her body teased him and every smile she gave him made his head spin.
It was early afternoon (though it was impossible to tell from the sky, which stayed the same shade throughout the day) and Elphaba was sitting with her knees pulled to her chest, her arms wrapped around herself. Despite being so near to the fire, she shivered, watching a mouse scramble through the cracks in the walls. “They’ll never go away, will they?” She muttered.
“Probably not. Are you cold?” He sat down next to her and handed her a blanket.
“Just a little.” She took the blanket and tossed it over her lap, stretching her legs out and wiggling her feet in front of the fire.
“By the way, don’t even think about making me put those damned things outside again.”
She laughed and rested her head on his shoulder. “Just wait until one bites you.”
“Ha! You’ll getbitten again before I even get bitten once.”
“Why do I get the feeling that you’re going to regret jinxing yourself that way?”
“Because you’re just vindictive like that?”
“If that’s so, you’d better watch what you say. It wouldn’t be a good idea to get on my bad side, would it?”
“I don’t plan on finding out.” He ran his hand through her hair.
“I should hope you don’t.” The air was icy; she snuggled closer to him for the sake of keeping warm.
“You’re still shaking.”
“Well, I’m still cold.”
He enveloped her in his arms. “Any better?”
“That helps.” She smiled at him warmly.
“My sweet, beautiful Elphaba…”
“Your? I belong to no one.”
He laughed. “That, I know. But that’s not how I intended it to sound and I think you know that.”
“I do. But I’m not going to pass up an opportunity to argue with you.”
“You’re spiteful to the people who care about you, aren’t you?”
“Given how limited the population of people who care about me is (as in, zero), I’d have to disagree.”
“I care about you.” He looked in her eyes boldly.
She ignored his remark. “As I was saying, I’m just cruel to everyone overall.”
“I think you’re not as cruel as you pretend to be.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes. I don’t think you’re cruel at all.”
“Well, go on thinking that, then. But, you, darling, will be terribly wrong.”
“Prove it.” He challenged her.
“Don’t make me.” She nudged him playfully.
“I think I’ve made my point.”
“Just you wait.”
“Oh, I’ll wait. But there’s nothing to be waiting for, in my opinion.”
“You underestimate me.” She pretended to be hurt.
“Be quiet, you.” He teased.
“Just because you said that, I’m going to continue talking.”
Jokingly, he made to cover her mouth with his hand. But he remembered what she’d said about biting people as a child and thought the better of it. So, instead, he covered her mouth with his own.
A part of her wanted to pull away and protest, but a much bigger part of her vetoed the idea. Yet, a moment later, she pulled away and mumbled, “I still refuse to surrender.”
“So, who wins this battle?” He whispered, his lips still eagerly persistent on hers.
She would have none of it. “I do.” There was no giving in for her this time; she settled back the way she’d been before.
“Don’t expect to win the war.” Sighing, he tugged at the blanket, too lazy to simply get up and get another.
“Then there will be no winner in this war,” she said as she looked into his eyes audaciously, “not today, anyway.”
“How about tomorrow, then?”
She bit back a laugh. “Not funny.”
“You were going to laugh, admit it.”
“Nope.”
He tickled her relentlessly. “Admit it.”
“Fine, fine!” She laughed, gasping for air and pushing him away. “But using torture tactics is off limits from now on. Got it?”
“I don’t need them, anyway.”
“That’s what you think.” Elphaba stood up and stretched out her arms. “I’m tired. I never knew you could waste energy by shivering. I’m going to sleep.”
“Start a fire in there; it’s probably freezing.” He got up as well.
“I think Ican figure that out for myself.” She trudged towards the door. “If I don’t wake up between now and morning, don’t bother waking me.”
“Good night, then.”
In her room, she looked into the fireplace, coughed because of the dust that flew out, and started a fire. Teeth chattering from the cold, she pulled on her cloak for extra heat. She slid into her bed, wrapping the blanket around her as tightly as she could, closing her eyes and still shivering a little. Her mind wandered, and she found herself wishing for the comfort and warmth of Madikien next to her. Startled, she blinked and chased the thought away. She plunged into a dreamless sleep, not allowing another thought.
She woke again in the early morning, when the weather was at it’s coldest. Seeing her breath in front of her, she realized the fire was out and go up to rekindle it. Shedding her dress, she pulled on a black skirt with a navy blouse. Navy was the closest she’d get to color. She listened for movement from Madikien’s room, happy to hear the soft tread of his footsteps.
“Good mornin’.” He said cheerfully when he saw her. “How’d you sleep? Were you cold?”
“Only a little.” Her cheeks flushed as she remembered her last thought before sleep and was ashamed to find that she couldn’t stop staring at him.
“Are you hungry?”
“Only if there’s something hot to eat.”
“The best I can do is toast.”
“Sounds good,” she said, tearing her gaze from him at least. “Anything even moderately warm would be wonderful right now.”
“Toast it is, then.”
“No need to use the table. I’d much rather sit on the floor nearer to the fire.”
They ate without speaking, aware that their food would not stay warm for long. Elphaba savored every bite; it relieved the shiver that had sent chills down to her very bones. She watched him for a moment. The firelight danced on his skin – skin much more beautiful than hers, she thought – and he seemed like he couldn’t possibly feel cold. His body looked as if it could give off heat.
“How long has it been since you disappeared?” He asked when he’d finished his last bite.
“Almost a year. But I still wake up some mornings and forget that I’m not in my dorm room and that the noises I hear aren’t the jingling of my roomie’s jewelry, but rats scattering across the floor.”
“Haven’t been bitten again, have you?”
“No. Stop hoping. I still say you’ll be bitten long before I am bitten again.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it.”
“Those infuriating little creatures scramble around the rooms, through the walls, day and night. There’s probably a whole community of them hidden somewhere. And I thought I’d rid the place of them. But when the cold comes in…”
“So do the furry animals.”
“Stop it. You’re making them sound cute. They’re not cute. They’re malicious, evil, tiny little things.”
“You give them too much credit.”
“You’ll be singing a different tune sooner or later.”
“You know, Elle, I’m starting to really believe thatyou actually want me to get bitten.”
“Because I do. I am just as cruel as I say I am, dear.”
“I’ll wait and see about that.” He yawned. “This is bad weather for this time of year, even in the city.”
Elphaba looked at him. “Do we even know what day it is? Of what month?”
“Honestly, I’m not quite sure.”
“Oh.”
“Why?”
“It’s just funny, that’s all.”
“I’d say it’s sad.”
“I laugh at misery.”
“You wouldn’t laugh if it were your own.”
She stared at the floor. “You’re right.”
“I love the sound of those words.”
“Probably because you don’t hear them that often. And don’t get used to them.”
“That was below the belt.”
“No. Believe me, I could say much worse and still not have gone bellow the belt.”
“Well, aren’t you sweet?” He remarked sarcastically.
“I have fulfilled my purpose, then.”
“Sometimes, I believe you really are out to get people angry with you.”
“I don’t normally need to try much to do that. You’re proving to be a more difficult case than most people.”
“That’s because I know you don’t mean it. You’re just afraid of people caring about you.”
She had no witty comeback for that; she only turned away.
“Don’t be afraid of me.” He said softly, and stood up.
She stood up as well. “But, Madikien, I…”
“Shhh.” He kissed her, one hand in her hair and the other around her waist.
When he broke the kiss gently, she met his eyes, only inches apart from her own. “I’m not afraid of you. I’m not afraid of anyone. I’m afraid for you. You shouldn’t be doing this. You shouldn’t be with me, it’ll never…”
“Don’t.” He quieted her. “It’s okay; it’s all right.”
Hesitantly and unsure of herself, she wrapped her arms around his neck and brought her mouth to his. Feeling reckless, she kissed him deeply, inviting him to follow her lead. There was a heat spreading through her limbs that she couldn’t possibly obtain through the fire.
He pulled her to him even tighter, her body hard-pressed against his. As he continued to kiss her, his kisses became hungrier, more physical, and his hands traced the outline of her body.
They tumbled onto the bed, rolling around a bit before they settled comfortably in the middle. Letting go for a moment, their gazes locked on one another.
He was breathing heavily, excitedly. “You have no idea,” he murmured, kissing her, “just how beautiful you are.”
“Don’t say that. If you keep saying it, I might just end up believing you a little.”
“In that case,” he kissed her forehead, “you’re beautiful.” He repeated it over and over, kissing her nose, her mouth, her neck.
“Sometimes I think you’re insane.”
He stopped for a moment. “Why?”
“Because you want me.”
“Elphaba…” He moved to the side. “If you really don’t want - ”
“No, no. I do want, I do.” She reached for him.
“That’s what I thought.” He pulled himself over her, holding his weight up with one arm.
She smiled up at him. “You’re too good to me.”
“Hush.” He kissed her neck again. His lips found the hollow of her throat, returning to it time aftertime. “Let me decide when I’m being too good.”
“I don’t think you can decide; you don’t have a limit as to what ‘too good’ is.”
“Why are you complaining?” His mouth was at her collarbone, just above the neckline of her blouse. He let his fingers linger along the top button.
“I’m not complaining. I was just saying.” She caught her breath as he began to open her blouse carefully, taking his time. His mouth followed the path of his hands keenly.
He came back to her mouth, his hands still wandering. Softly, he snuck his hand up her skirt and rested it just above her knee.
Her breathing quickened; she found herself feeling alarmed. She felt every miniscule twitch of that hand. She realized that she wasn’t quite sure what she wanted anymore.
He moved his hand slowly, inching upwards. His hand cupped her thigh, stopping there for the moment.
She was painfully conscious of everything around her, every movement, every sound. Thoughts were whirling in her mind and she couldn’t separate one thought from another.
He slid up just a little more and ran a finger softly along the layer of cloth between them. His fingers danced along, moving to her waist to remove the barrier that kept his hands from touching her.
Her weakness in that moment was frightening. There was no way she could do this. He snuck his hand beneath the cloth and began to caress her. It felt so good but it wasn’t the time. She whimpered, wanting badly to let him take what he wanted, but knowing she couldn’t.
He noticed that she’d become tense. “You’d tell me if I did something wrong, right?” His hand returned to her waist.
“Of course I would. Do you really think I’m going to do anything I don’t want to?” She was relieved to have his hand off of her leg, but the flesh where he had touched her almost burned with a mix of anxiousness and desire. Every cell in her body that had ever felt sensation begged her to relinquish the power she had to stop this and let him do what he wanted. When she saw the concern in his eyes, she gave him a questioning look.
“You promise me you’ll say something?” He asked, tentative about kissing her again, but yearning for it, too.
She sat up and cast him an angry look. “Why are you treating me like I’m a child?”
“I’m not. I was just making sure, that’s all.”
“Then stop asking me about this!”
“All right. I won’t ask.”
“Good.” She relaxed again. Her eyes sparkled when she smiled at him, calm and alluring.
He gave up worrying and kissed her again. Carefully, he teased the waistband of her skirt. She shifted a little and he couldn’t read whether her intention had been to move away from him or to get more comfortable. Her eyes wouldn’t tell him anything and he wasn’t going to risk bringing it up. Unsure of what to do, he let go of the waistband and slid his hand up her legagain.
She tried not to look at him; she couldn’t let him see that, though her body was more than willing to give in, she was a little afraid. Wanting and craving and fearing, she couldn’t quite find her voice – not that she knew what she wanted to say. When his hand reached the cloth, she tore away from him abruptly, betraying herself and revealing her uncertainty.
He sat up and looked at her, hanging his head. There wasn’t a “right thing to say” in this sort of moment, and if there was, he certainly had no idea what it was. But he had to say something. “Elphaba…”
She put up a hand to silence him and pulled herself off of the bed. “I can’t. Not now.” She looked at him apologetically, unable to explain more, and left the room.
Madikien leaned back on the bed and put his hands behind his head. “That went well,” he said to no one in particular.
CHAPTER EIGHT: “I won’t do it again.”
It took her two days to face him. Around mid-afternoon, when he was asleep, she tapped on the wall. He woke up at the noise, startled at the sight of her. “Do you need something?”
“Since when do I have to need something to come in here?” She demanded jokingly.
He laughed. “I’m just surprised to see you.”
“Well, every once in a while I do venture out of my room.”
“What a shock.”
“So… can I come in or should I go hide in my room for another three hundred years?”
“Come in.” He wasn’t surprised to see that she was holding a book, as usual. “Don’t start reading just yet.”
She gave him a curious look.
“Sit.”
She sat down on the bed, resting against the headboard. “What?”
“I know you won’t want to hear this, but we need to talk.”
Silently, she reached and opened her book. “No, we don’t.”
He snatched the book from her; this was not a game. “We have to talk.”
She knew it was useless to try and take the book back from him, so she didn’t bother. It took all of the restraint she had not to get up and walk right out of the room. “What is so important that we need to talk about it this very instant?”
“Cute, Elphaba; very cute. You know exactly what we need to talk about.”
“All I have to say about any of this is that I’m sorry.”
“You’re going to have to say more than that.”
“What do you want me to say?” She asked angrily.
“Explain to me why, when I told you that you could tell me if anything was wrong and you said you would, you ended up wrenching away from me when you had more than enough time to say something.”
“Why does it matter?”
“If you don’t say something, how am I supposed to know what’s all right to do with you and what’s not?”
“Do it and find out for yourself?”
“I certainly don’t feel like getting that reaction again. All you had to do was say something. What’s so hard aboutthat?”
She was getting very uneasy and was starting to wish she hadn’t left her room. Her shoulders shrugged and she stared at her hands.
“Could you at least tell me what I did wrong that made you react that way so I can try to understand?”
“I really don’t want to talk about this.”
“Well, if you can’t even talk about this, we shouldn’t have ended up doing…”
She kissed him, begging out of the conversation.
He didn’t push her away, but he didn’t pull her close, either. When she broke the kiss, he looked at her and saw that her eyes were pleading with him to drop the subject. “No, Elphaba.”
“I said I was sorry for acting the way I did. Can’t we just forget about it now?”
“So you can push me away again? I don’t think so.”
“I won’t.”
“How do I know that? I don’t know what I did wrong.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Well, something caused you to walk out on me.”
“I haven’t been feeling well.”
“Bull shit. And you couldn’t have just said that?”
Her eyes refused to meet his.
“What was it really? Tell me,” he said and took her hand, “I just want to know what not to do, Elle. I don’t want to make you upset.”
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s more than nothing and you know that as well as I do.”
“Please, just let it go.”
“I’ll let it go as soon as you tell me what was wrong.”
“No.” She stood up again, yanking her hand out of his.
“Why are you being so unreasonable?”
“I’m being unreasonable? You’re the one who can’t just forget it and move on.”
“It’d be a bit difficult to move on if you keep doing this!”
“Madikien, I’m asking you to forget about it. I promise you I won’t do that to you again. I won’t, really.”
“Then sit back down and tell me why you did it in the first place and what makes you so sure that it won’t happen again.”
She sat down again, but she didn’t speak.
He sighed. “There’s no use arguing over this. We’re going to have to talk about it sooner or later.”
Her eyes blazed, full of bitterness. “Why now? Are you trying to make me uneasy?”
“What do you want me to do, just let it be? There’d be way too much tension.”
“There wasn’t any tension until you brought it up!” She fumed.
“And what would have happened if I hadn’t brought it up? What would have happened if I’d tried to come any nearer to you? You’d shove me away.”
“You’re paranoid.”
“No. I know how you’d react, I’m sure of it. I just don’t understand why you couldn’t have just told me that you didn’t want to…”
“I never said I didn’t want to!” She snapped. It took a moment for her to realize what she’d said and her cheeks flushed almost scarlet. Grabbing her book, she got up and left the room.
He wondered how long it would take her to face him again this time, but he didn’t have to wonder for more than three hours. She came wandering in as hewas debating over eating bread, or trying to make something that required actual cooking skills. When she walked in, he barely glanced at her. “Dinner?”
“Hmmm. Let me guess what complicated meal is on the menu tonight. Could it be bread, perhaps?”
“Gee, how’d you know?” He smiled at her.
“I’m psychic, didn’t you know?”
“No, really? Then what am I thinking right now?”
She pretended to think for a moment. “You’re thinking that you’re sick of eating bread?”
“Nice guess.”
“I try.”
Motioning to the food and sitting down at the table, he said, “Help yourself.” He decided he wouldn’t push the conversation they’d had earlier, at least for the time being. She’d only walk away if he did.
After a few minutes, she said, “I might have found a solution to that ‘furry little creatures’ problem.”
“As long as it doesn’t involve me having any more contact with the damned things, it’s fine with me.”
“It doesn’t; don’t worry.”
“Are you going to tell me what the solution is?”
“Well, I opened my window this afternoon because it looked almost warm outside and my room is a little stuffy. So I sat down on my bed to continue reading and, of course, I heard those irritating little things running about. I got up to shoo them away and the strangest noise came from the windowsill.”
“What was it?”
“A mouse was struggling to free his tail from the mouth of a while cat. It got away and the cat leapt into the room. So I closed the window. After some time, the mice and rats weren’t making nearly as much noise.” She grinned.
“Is it friendly?”
“Not to the mice.”
“What if it doesn’t want to stay?”
“I don’t think that’ll be a problem. There’re enough rats and mice scurrying around here that it should be happy for the rest of its life.”
“That’s probably true.”
“You don’t mind cats, do you?”
“Isn’t it a bit late to be asking?”
“Better late then never.”
“I really don’t mind. But it better spend most of its time in your room.”
“Why?”
“I’ve always taken well to cats. It’s the cats that don’t take well to me.”
She laughed. “That might be interesting.”
“Don’t even think about it,” he warned.
“Think about what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He got up and started a fire. It wasn’t very cold during the days anymore, but the nights were still bitter and freezing. “About before…”
“Not now, please.” She sat next to him near the fire. “If you can’t forget about it, at least don’t bring it up now.”
“All right. I won’t bring it up now, but I can’t promise you that I won’t another time.”
“Fair enough.”
“You’re giving in?”
“Oh, no. I didn’t say I would actually cooperate with you next time you try to bring it up.”
“You’re stubborn.”
“Thank you.” She elbowed him playfully.
“That was weak.”
“You’re asking for it,” she threatened.
“I dare you.”
“I don’t like hurting people, so don’t make me.”
“Oh, so you have a conscience?”
“Not necessarily, my darling. I simply know the difference between right and wrong. I do have some morals, you know.
“You surprise me more and more every day,”he laughed, “What next?”
“You’ll see.” She rested her head on his shoulder.
“About that cat…”
“Yes?”
“It’s not diseased or anything, is it?”
“Not that I can tell.”
“That’s comforting.”
“It’s fine. Stop worrying.”
“Is it male or female, anyway?”
“Male.”
“Does he have a name or are you just going to call him ‘it’ all the time?”
“I like that idea.”
“You haven’t named it?”
“It’s just another animal running around here. It’d be like naming all of the mice and rats.”
“That could be fun.”
“I’m not laughing. How would you know which rat is which? I wouldn’t want to get close enough to be able to tell. You’re welcome to try, though.”
“I think I’ll pass up that opportunity.”
She smiled. “That’d be the wise thing to do.”
He kissed her softly, holding her close, but not too close. When she moved a little closer, he tried subtly to stop her from doing so.
She noticed this immediately. “You’re being too careful. Once again, Madikien, I am not a child!”
“I know that. I’m not treating you like a child.”
“Yes, you are. Do you think I don’t know anything? Do I seem like I’m incapable of deciding for myself what to do?”
“No. But, Elle, don’t you think I have a little justification to act this way because of how you reacted before?”
“I told you, I won’t do it again.” Her eyes flashed with resentment.
“That’s tempting to believe, but I can’t.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“Don’t turn this around on me! You know I trust you, but I don’t think you know for yourself how you’d react.”
“How can you say that? Just because I’m a little younger than you, you’re treating me like a baby because you don’t think I can handle myself?”
“That’s not what I said!” He was getting aggravated.
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m saying it’s probably not in your best interest to…”
“I think I can decide that for myself!”
“You couldn’t last time!” His voice rose.
She was speechless for a moment, and angry as ever. “Fine.” Livid, she moved away from him and sat as far from him as possible without losing the warmth and heat of the fire.
He moved to touch her, perhaps take her hand, but she flinched and pulled away.
“I’d think you’d know better than to do that.” She hissed. “After all, what else am I going to do but push you away?”
“You’re not helping your case any by behaving like this.”
“Why should you care?”
“Elphaba, could you please just calm down?” He reached for her once again, prepared for her to lash out at him in any moment.
“I don’t understand you. How many times do I have to tell you that I’m fine?” She jerked her arm away from him.
He caught her wrist. “I am trying very hard to keep both of us calm enough to talk this out. You are not helping. I am not treating you like a child. I know you can take care of yourself. You got mad at me for pushing you away just a little. Well, you hate that I rejected you. How do you think I felt? Beinglet down like that. It’s not a feeling I’d like to experience every day”
“Live my life.” She muttered.
“This isn’t about that right now. Stop trying to avoid this.”
“Madikien, I’m sorry for how I acted the other day. I told you that.”
“I’m not angry about that. What I’m angry about is the fact that you’re angry with me for doing the same thing. And it was the same thing at a lesser degree I might add.” He dropped her wrist. “Do you see where I’m coming from?”
She did, and she hated that. Grudgingly, she said, “Maybe a little. But I told you I was fine.”
“And you told me that the other day, too.”
She bit her lip. “That was different.”
“True. But you have yet to explain why you did that.”
“I don’t need to explain myself to you.”
“You don’t. I’d like to understand, though.”
“It’s nothing.”
He sighed. “You’ve tried that excuse already.”
“I have?”
“Not funny.”
“I wasn’t trying to be.”
“Are we going to talk about this or not?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Elphaba, just tell me.”
“What if I won’t?”
“Then there’s nothing I can do about it. But it’s aggravating.”
“It’s not important.”
“If it’s not important, what’s the problem with telling me?”
“Because it doesn’t matter.”
“Then just tell me. If you don’t, this is going to become a bigger issue than it already is.”
“So be it.”
He grabbed her hand, not allowing her the time to wrench away. “I want to be able to touch you without thinking I’ll be shoved away. It’d be a lot easier to be told something wasn’t right instead of that response.”
“I’m not going to run away from you every time you touch me. And I speak my mind when I need to.”
“Not always.”
“That was once! How many other times have I pushed you away?”
“It wasn’t just once, Elphaba. You’ve pushed me away before.”
“Those times I hadn’t said it was okay with me. Last time… I’m sorry; can’t you just accept that?”
“I already have. This is different then what you did. This is why you did.”
“The why doesn’t matter. All that matters is what happens and what results from it. Please stop asking; it’ll only make it worse.”
He pretended to ignore the plea in her eyes. “I’m going to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”
She had the strangest urge to beg him to stay with her that night, to make herself forget inexperience and fear and they could both have what they wanted. It would be nice, she thought, to let go of her resolve and just let him have his way. There couldn’t be anything wrong with wanting him, not with the strength of her yearning. But she knew the possibility of being rejected was high and she certainly didn’t feel like any more rejection was going to do her much good.
She gave him one last bitter look, though he tried to repel the sting of it. Then she got up and left the room. He thought he heard her kick the side of her bed, but he couldn’t be sure.
CHAPTER NINE: Sweet, sweetsurrender
The next evening, Madikien had succeeded in not pressing her to talk during the morning and afternoon. In fact, he didn’t even mention their disagreement at all. But he wouldn’t touch her at all, either.
Elphaba, too, had accomplished her goal of keeping him far away from the subject. But she wasn’t sure if he’d already had the intention not to say anything or if she’d been lucky to evade further prying. She didn’t really care, as long as she held most of the power.
One of them would have to break.
After dinner, Elphaba relaxed on the bed and began reading her book. Madikien sat at the table, just thinking – or trying to pretend he wasn’t looking at her. Her black hair was all the way down and she was constantly pulling it back behind her ears so it wouldn’t get in the way while she was reading. She was wearing a long sleeved blouse with a flowing, long black skirt. It was tied around her – not so easy to remove as the one with the waistband, he noted shamefully – and was made with thick cloth that was almost too long; he couldn’t see her bare feet.
They weren’t deliberately not saying anything, there wasn’t tension lurking beneath the words they weren’t speaking. It was a peaceful silence. The room itself was peaceful, with the small fire giving off warmth, with the traces of frost still on the window. There were occasional scratching noises within the walls from the mice and rats, but even Elphaba wasn’t bothered.
The fire crackled and Elphaba looked up for a moment, catching Madikien looking at her. She smiled at him and went back to her book. When he found it difficult to look away, he yawned indiscreetly, trying to put the idea in her head that she was tired. He couldn’t continue looking at her this way. But the way the firelight hit her skin was tantalizing. It was difficult to remind himself that he’d decided not to touch her until she opened up more.
Elphaba wasn’t looking at him the same way; she really was actually reading her book. But though she took in every word on every page, her thoughts were elsewhere. She glanced at him for a moment, curious to see if he was still looking at her. Their eyes met and she raised her eyebrows at him. “What are you staring at?”
“Nothing, really. I’m just thinking.”
“And why do you have to look this way when you’re thinking?”
“It happened to be the way I was sitting.”
“Well, sit some other way. You’re making me uncomfortable.
“Oh, now you admit when you’re uncomfortable?”
“And now you have a problem with it?”
“No, but it would’ve been nice if you had done so a few days ago.”
“How long are we going to fight about this?” She put the book to the side, exasperated.
“I don’t know. That’s why we need to talk about this, Elle.”
“We’ve tried that twice, my dear, it didn’t work so well, if you recall.”
“Something has tochange. Can’t you please just tell me what went wrong?”
“No. It doesn’t concern you or anything that happens from now on.”
“I wish you’d tell me these things.”
“I’ve told you too much as it is.”
“I’m not sure if I actually know you.”
“Don’t worry about that,” she said, examining the sliver of a scar that remained long after the rat had bitten her and would remain longer still.
“Why? Doesn’t it matter?”
“You know enough.”
“I don’t feel the same way.” And he didn’t only mean mentally. His eyes traveled her body; he wanted to know everything.
Perhaps seeing the way his eyes moved across her, she wouldn’t look at him for a moment. The wind shook the little building and she looked out the window, though there wasn’t much to see in the black of night. “There are no stars tonight.”
He went along with her for a while. “Well, winter will be over soon enough.”
“That depends. In this part of Oz, winter could last all year if we aren’t lucky.”
“But we wouldn’t know. Not unless we figure out which part of the year we’re actually in.”
She laughed carelessly. “I think I might’ve missed my birthday.”
“And Lurlinemas.”
“I don’t care about that. But imagine me writing home and asking, ‘Father, how old am I now?’”
“I can’t even imagine you writing home.”
“Good point.” She closed her eyes.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to figure out how old I am. I’m trying to see how much older I feel.”
“That’s bound to be accurate.” He rolled his eyes.
She opened her eyes and leaned back on the bed. “You’d be surprised.”
“I don’t think you can surprise me anymore.”
She looked at him with a challenge in her eyes. “Don’t say that until you’re sure.”
He didn’t talk, trying to bait her into talking about herself.
She wasn’t taking it. For a little while, she was silent. She was trying to think of something to say that wouldn’t lead them to anything she didn’t want to talk about. “The cat brought me a dead mouse this morning.”
“Isn’t that precious?” He teased.
“One less mouse.”
“That mouse could’ve been sick.”
“Would you stop worrying about this? The cat is fine. Stop being so afraid of it.”
“I’m not afraid of it!”
“Then what is with your constant questions about it? It’s harmless.”
“I love that you haven’t given it a name.”
“I’ll name it sooner or later. I haven’t gotten around to it. Besides, what’s so important about naming the damn thing, anyway?”
“It gives it a little more dignity.”
“And you care about the cat’s dignity?”
“Not really.”
“Then it will have no name.”
“If you want it that way.” He shook his head, trying not to laugh.
“Hey, don’t laugh at me like that! You’re the one who came up with the brilliant idea of naming the rats and mice.”
He stopped laughing. “Which I never actually did, for a good reason.”
“You’re afraid they’ll bite you. Don’t worry, it’ll happen sooner or later.”
“Not this again.”
“Then what should we talk about?”
“I don’t know. Tell me something about yourself. There’s got to be a lot of things I don’t know.”
“And you don’tknow them for a reason.”
“Elphaba…”
“Would you stop? I’ll tell you what I feel like telling you when I want to tell you, all right?”
He moved towards her and sat down. “I’m curious.”
“Well, that’s too bad.” She smiled mysteriously.
“This is silly. There’s no reason not to tell me anything.”
“And there’s certainly no reason to be pushing it, Madikien.” She was facing the window again.
“Would you at least look at me for a minute?” He grabbed her hand.
“Fine.”
“Elphaba, I care about you no matter what you did or were through before.”
“I know.”
“Then what’s there to hide?”
“Haven’t you asked me this before?”
“You’re being impossible right now, do you know that?”
She looked at him, more than a little irritated now. “It’s better if I keep some things to myself, don’t you understand?”
“Yes. But you’ve barely told me anything. All I know is a short outline of your past.”
“And you haven’t told me much, either.”
“I would if you asked.”
“Well, I’m asking.” She said, and kissed him.
There was a brief moment where he remembered that he’d decided that he wouldn’t allow her to do this, but that was quickly forgotten as they sank onto the bed. Well, he told himself, some things were easier said than done, and resisting her was one of them. The way he longed for her was insatiable. He felt as though he’d been starving and thirsty for much too long. As ravenous as he was, he had to remember to be gentle with her. His hands obediently stayed above her waist (for the moment, anyway) as he delicately undid the buttons of her blouse, slowly, one at a time.
“I’m still sorry about before.” She murmured, her eyes on him. There was no uncertainty in those eyes anymore, no fear. Her eyes only reflected the desire in his.
“Don’t bring it up just now.” He whispered. Still toying with her blouse, he kissed her shoulders, the curve where her neck and shoulders met. Her body was soft and responsive. She tugged at his shirt, wanting the warmth and safety of his body pressed against hers. He pulled it off with ease and then finished removing her blouse, kissing her tenderly.
He sucked on her neck softly and she moved a little, sighing. He combed his fingers through her hair effortlessly. Running his fingers up the small of her back, he tickled her a little, teasing.
“In case you didn’t know,” she said, trying to suppress a laugh, “you’re absolutely not doing anything wrong right now.”
“Good.” With an arm around her waist, he pulled her to him and kissed her without holding back. Her hair fell in front of her face and he brushed it away with his hand. He pulled back and looked at her for a moment.
She squirmed under his gaze. “What?”
He was only able to smile at her.
“Are you going to let me in on what that was about?”
“I thought I already told you that you’re beautiful.” He ran his hands along her torso and across her stomach, enjoying how much it tickledher.
“You’re not fair. You’re using flattery. And I told you that torture tactics are off limits.”
“I can make you give in without torturing you.”
“You’re welcome to try.”
He grinned. “Oh, I will.” Pushing her hair away, he went back to her neck, knowing now that it was one of her weak spots, all of which he intended to find sooner or later.
“Mmmm. Well, well, you know me better than I thought you did.”
“But I haven’t gained near enough knowledge to end this war.”
She laughed softly. “Do you plan to?”
“That depends,” he said, nibbling on her earlobe, “would you let me?”
“I refuse to give you any information, but perhaps I should allow you the chance to search for it.”
“I like searching for it better, anyway.”
“Good. Because I’m not handing it to you on a silver platter.”
“Not yet.” He kissed her, slowly running a finger along her spine, making her shiver.
“I think I’m making this too easy.”
“Nope. I haven’t gotten close enough.”
She kissed him again, tempting him to get closer. They wrestled each other playfully, each needing their own form of control.
“I know you don’t want me asking this,” he breathed, “but are you all right?”
The look she gave him was irritated, yet not angry. “Never better.”
“No lies?”
“No lies. Don’t push it or you’ll ruin this moment.”
One last, brief thought of stopping everything ran through his head. But there was no letting go now. She wanted the same thing, why anger her by asking her about it? What she’d said was right, it would only ruin it. And things had just barely begun.
She couldn’t deny her need to give in anymore. This wasn’t doing anyone any harm, anyway. Even Yackle had told her to do this. And there was something in Madikien’s eyes that excited her. It dawned on her then that she hadn’t known what it was like to be wanted in such a way until that moment. The feeling was breathtaking, she found. What had she been afraid of?
“Elphaba…”
“What?”
“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about this?”
“You are so close to killing the mood right now. If you ask me one more time to talk about it, we’ll talk about it, but we won’t end up actually doing it.”
“Sorry. I just don’t want to do anything that we won’t both enjoy.”
“Maybe you can’t tell, but I’m enjoying this quite a bit. And I’m pretty sure you’re enjoying this, too.”
He drew her to him, stealing a very sensuous kiss.
She arched her back, pressing her hips against him, allowing him the room to untie the cloth that made her skirt impenetrable. There was a swift movement and the skirt was thrown recklessly to the floor. Now all that was left on her were her undergarments, leaving her feeling a little exposed. But it was only the two of them, and he wasn’t going to hurt her – she knew that. Still, she pulled the blanket over them a little, wanting to create more distance between their bodies and the rest of theworld. This was their time and moment; neither one of them believed that the outside world mattered just now.
Very attentively and slowly, he helped her out of everything that was left covering her body. More than a little thrilled, he ran his hands over her, tickling, weakening and taunting her with his hands, one coming to rest on her waist. His other hand rested just below the small of her back. And he kissed her, starting at her mouth, continuing downwards on a thoroughly planned path that reached its destination just below her waist. He teased and pleasured her with his tongue, stirring up friction inside of her, causing her to tremble – but not out of alarm or pain.
Her eyes closed and one hand held his on her waist, the other lay calm and helpless at her side. She found that her breathing had changed pace and a soft moan escaped her throat. And she let him take her away for a little while, let him erase all of the nervousness and apprehension. After some time, she shifted slightly so he would look in her eyes again. Within a moment, the remainder of his clothing fell away and left them looking at each other, knowing – but not saying – what must come next.
“Hey.” He smiled at her, brushing a strand of hair behind her ears. They were both a little hesitant, not out of fear, but out of the sheer knowledge that these next few moments and what they were about to let happen would change things. Yes, it would change things; though how it would, neither one of them was quite sure.
“Madikien?” Her voice was barely a whisper.
“Yes?”
Hating to admit how easily she could be hurt, she said, “Just… be careful with me.”
“I will.”
“But not too careful.” She smiled evenly.
“I know.”
“All right,” she said, bringing her lips to his, “I give in.”
“Totally and completely?”
“I’m waving a white flag.” She braced herself for the final moment; everything was about to change.
“Do you surrender?” He asked, gingerly slipping inside of her.
Something in her snapped. “Yes.” She whimpered a little. There was a pinch of hurt and then it was gone.
He glanced at her, afraid that she’d whimpered in pain, not pleasure. She’d winced, he noted, but the pain left her face immediately after and a more loving, gentle expression took it’s place, her eyes on him, looking at him with an intensity that he’d never seen in her. “Say so, then.” He told her. “In a full sentence.”
“This isn’t fair.”
“Oh, it’s more than fair.”
“I surrender.”
He cleared his throat.
“Fine, fine. I surrender totally and completely.”
“That’s better.” He kissed her and softly began to move gradually back and forth.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, for she had dissolved into weakness, unable to hold herself up much longer. And as the night drew on, she let go of herself and reveled in the heat and feeling of such a sweet and merciless surrender.
When the sun was beginning to rise, Elphaba washalf asleep, her head nestled on his arm; Madikien was still awake. He looked at her, meticulously taking in everything. It wasn’t the way he’d expected it to have been, but it was sweet all the same. He noted, with no surprise, that she’d bled a little. As the sunlight spread across her face, she seemed to glow for a moment, a stunning, emerald glow. “Elphaba? Elle?”
“Hmm?” It took her a moment to focus. “What is it?” She yawned.
“I need to tell you something.”
“Madikien, as much as I adore you, I don’t want to talk to you right now. I just want to sleep, that’s all. Whatever you have to say can wait. Wait until morning…” She muttered, closing her eyes again.
“Elphaba, my jewel,” he said, knowing now that she was his (and happy to be able to say so), “my gem,” he added, making a not-so-subtle pun on her soft, emerald-tinted skin, “it is morning.”
“Oh, well. I’m still tired. So, if you don’t mind, my dearest, I’m going back to sleep. I don’t even have the energy to listen and comprehend right now. And I’m surprised that you do.” She gave him a weary smile and stretched out, trying to get more comfortable. “Good night, good morning, whatever. If you want to get up, do it now, so you don’t wake me later. But you should get some sleep, darling. It’s been a very, um, interesting night.” She kissed him sweetly and curled up against him, pulling the blanket up to her chin.
He laughed at her bluntness. “I think I could use a few hours of shut-eye, too.”
“Good. I didn’t feel like being distracted.”
“I think I distracted you enough last night.” He teased. “But you weren’t complaining then.”
“There was nothing to complain about. But now, dear, I’m tired and I would like nothing better than to fall asleep with you.” She looked at him sleepily. “Madikien, honey, just hush up and fall asleep, all right?”
He put an arm around her and watched her breathing rise and fall beneath the blanket. It was hard to tell if she’d fallen back asleep yet or if she was still trying to. She looked like the very image of beauty to him. Quietly, he murmured, “I love you.”
As if the words came from far away, she heard them. But she simply continued to try getting to sleep, for she feared the word “love” much more than she had feared the act of making it.
CHAPTER TEN: Trapped
Spring came, with its mildness and reviving atmosphere. Flowers were reborn and started to grow again. The world seemed revitalized and fresh, and the hope of new beginnings hung in the air. Even the city was beautiful.
As softly and quickly as it had come, spring soon gave way to the heat and fantastical aroma of summer. Everything was at its peak, and the youthful feelings all around were contagious to even the eldest of elders. According to the ancient work, the Oziad, summer was the season ofromance. This seemed to be true, for in the crowds it was not hard to pick out lovers holding hands or subtly interlocking a finger or two. Outside of restaurants, at tables shaded by umbrellas, lovers looked at each other adoringly. And even for the lovers who were afraid to leave the comfort of their homes because they would be scorned, love bloomed like a flower that would never wilt.
Peacefully, as the morning dew was beginning to lift, Madikien slept, with Elphaba sleeping contentedly in his arms. The room had changed some in the last few months; Elphaba’s clothes were folded neatly on a shelf (though one of her dresses was on the floor) and her oils were placed next to them, lined up by how much each bottle had left. The rest of Elphaba’s things, very scant and scarce, could be found in various parts of the room. There was now a table on one side of the room, having been moved from Elphaba’s room, seeing as neither of them ventured into her room very often. They left the door between the rooms open, however, because the cat occasionally darted through his room. At the moment, the cat, having tired of searching for mice, was creeping around Madikien’s room in search of its mistress, wanting milk.
“Elphaba, damn it!” The cat had pounced on the bed, disregarding the presence of Madikien, and scratched him as it landed. “That damned cat…”
She sat up, startled, and grabbed the cat. “Malky, there are enough mice in my room,” she told the cat, “Shoo!” It ignored her waving it away and purred at her. She ran a hand along its back. “I see, you want milk, don’t you?”
“I can’t believe your going to actually give that thing milk, the damned cat attacked me. Its ferocious.”
“Maybe Malky has a jealousy issue.” She cradled the cat in her arms.
“It’s out to get me.” He could almost swear it winked at him.
“Or maybe Malky isn’t the one with a jealousy issue.” She kissed him lightly and got up to place a bowl of milk in the corner of her own room. To Madikien’s delight, the cat followed her but did not return with her when she came back into the room.
“I don’t want that thing in here anymore.”
“What am I supposed to do? Close the door and leave it in there all alone?”
“It won’t be alone; it has the mice and rats.”
“Stop saying ‘it’. You’re the one who constantly pestered me about not naming ‘it’.” She slid back into bed.
“What kind of name is Malky, anyway?”
She threw a pillow at him. “Well, Malky is a better name than ‘it’.”
“I don’t know about that.”
She threw another pillow at him.
“Now you have no more pillows. How are you going to sleep?”
“Stop talking and I’ll be able to sleep just fine.” She rested her head against his chest and closed her eyes.
He put her two pillows back where they belonged; she didn’t move and he didn’t mind. “Are you planningon sleeping all day?”
“Just another hour.” She mumbled, falling asleep.
Later, when they were both awake, the cat crept back into the room. Elphaba noticed this out of the corner of her eye as she was reading, but Madikien didn’t see it right away. He was relaxed on a chair with his feet propped up on the table and she was on the other side of the room with her book, curled in her favorite spot on the bed, for it had the best reading light. The cat leapt onto the bed and crawled into her lap, pawing at her book. She moved it away, making a shooing gesture with her arm, pointing it back in the direction of her room. Whether or not the cat understood, she didn’t know, but it didn’t obey. It left her but stole further into the room, towards Madikien. Elphaba tried not to laugh audibly when the cat leapt up onto the table, rubbing its ears against his feet and purring.
In alarm, he shot up, falling out of the chair. This caused Elphaba to lose control of her laughter. “That wasn’t funny,” he muttered, climbing back into the chair.
She was still laughing, and the cat had stretched itself out comfortably on the table (almost smiling, Madikien suspected). After a few moments, when her laughter had subsided, he glared at her. “What? I didn’t do anything!”
“I know that. But this evil little demon is yours and it’s out to get me.”
“Be grateful that the other evil little demons around here aren’t out to get you.”
“They never were. I never got bitten. Only you.”
“You just wanted me to get bitten to death by a bunch of possessed rats and mice.”
“Of course not, love. I simply meant to point out that they rarely come in here; it seems to be your room that they like. That isn’t such a problem for you now.” He snatched the cat off of the table and placed it in the other room, almost dropping it when it began to hiss at him. When he moved to close the door, Elphaba insisted that he leave it open.
“Would you please let Malky wander? For me?” She faked a pout.
He sighed. “You know the answer to that. As usual, I let you have what you want. But at least try to keep it from wandering in here too much, I don’t care how.”
“Fine. You know what? You can shut it in there at night so we don’t have a repeat of this morning’s incident. But only at night. Is that good enough for you?”
“Better than nothing.” He glanced out the window when he saw the cat slink back into the room. “Hey, look. I think it’s getting dark.”
“Nice try. The sun has barely begun to set and we haven’t even eaten dinner, my dear.”
“Hungry?”
She pretended to be irritated and rolled her eyes. “I’m not arguing. It is summer, after all, and the sun does set pretty late in these months.”
“Right. It can’t be earlier thanseven.”
“Fine. We’ll eat. But the cat stays in here until both of us decide to go to bed.”
“In my mind, it’s always time to go to bed.” He sat down next to her on the bed and pulled at her dress playfully.
“Madikien!”
“What? I can’t help it!”
“You can and you will.”
“Not when you’re around. Believe me, baby, if you were me and could make love to someone as beautiful as you every night, you’d be acting the same way.” He brought his lips to her neck.
“Stop the flattery.” She pushed him away kindly, not angry. “Not now. Dinner.”
“After dinner…?”
“You need to learn to control yourself.” She glared at him, trying desperately to be serious.
“I don’t see why.” He slid his hands around her waist.
“We’re going to starve if you don’t stop this.” She threatened.
“I won’t starve. All I’m craving for is you.”
“What is it, a full moon tonight?”
“Why do you ask?” He pushed her gently onto the bed beneath him and kissed her, slipping his arms around her back to unfasten her dress.
She broke the kiss, cheeks flushed. “You’re behaving like an animal, darling.”
“That could be fun…”
“Madikien, stop it!” She was laughing.
He pulled back a little and gave her a disappointed look, going for a guilt trip.
She ignored it. “Thank you.” She got up, picked up the cat, put it in her room and closed the door. “We are going to eat dinner now. But if you can control yourself a little, we’ll have plenty of time left for dessert.”
“How much time is plenty of time? Dessert is my favorite part of dinner, after all, and it seems I just can’t get enough of it; especially recently.”
“Eat.” She sat down at the table and grabbed a piece of wheat bread. “We have all night for dessert.”
They never even got around to clearing the table.
When it finally did begin to get actually dark, they were comfortably in bed, with a few drops of sweat still trickling down their bodies, and Elphaba was more than ready to fall asleep. As he absentmindedly ran his thumb and forefinger along her cheek, wiping away a drop of sweat, Madikien looked into her eyes. “I love you.”
“Madikien…”
“No, love. I mean it. I do.” He kissed the top of her head. “I love you.”
But she couldn’t repeat those words. She looked away from him and brushed his hands away from her face.
“Did I say something wrong?”
She thought for a moment. “No.” His arm went back around her and she kissed him, finding yet another way to avoid saying those dreaded three little words. After a moment, she looked at him curiously. “Do you really?”
“Do I really what? Love you? Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
He laughed and kissed her. “I love you. I love your sarcasm. I love the way you give in to me without really giving in. I love your mind. I love your skin. I love your body. I love just being near you. Hell, I even love that damned cat if it makes you happy. Ilove going to sleep knowing you’re asleep right next to me. I love the fact that you don’t complain about eating almost nothing but bread. I love how stubborn you are. I love it when you refuse help because you have to do everything possible yourself. I love your strength and willpower. I love everything about you. Absolutely everything.” She looked up at him a little weakly and smiled. He tightened the arm around her and let her settle in to sleep, curled next to him the way she always fell asleep. And then he whispered one more time, “I love you,” he paused a moment before adding, “and I always will.”
He awoke when the sky was still dark. The moon was setting but there was no sign of the sun. At first, he couldn’t figure out why he’d woken up at such a strange hour, but then he noticed Elphaba shivering as she slept in his arms. She couldn’t be cold, they were both covered in the blanket and the air wasn’t even cold to begin with. Was she having a nightmare? Somehow, he didn’t think she had nightmares. And if she did, he doubted they would actually instill any fear in her. He nudged her.
She didn’t stop shivering when she opened her eyes wearily. “What?” Her voice was hoarse.
“Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m fine.” She muttered, rolling over.
“I don’t think so, Elle.” He reached for her, noting that her hands were clammy.
“I was more than fine a few hours ago; I’m fine now. This is probably just some random case of the shakes that’ll be over in a few minutes. Stop worrying. If it bothers you, I can sleep in my own room tonight.”
“You’re not getting out of bed and you certainly aren’t leaving the room. I won’t let you. And I doubt that you could if you tried, not in this shape.”
Resentful of his last comment, she tried to pull herself up with her hands and swing out of the bed. Before he could even move to stop her, all she’d succeeded in doing was collapsing back onto her arms. Still, she refused to give in. “I’m just a little tired. I’ll be fine.”
“Would you please just admit that you’re sick and let someone else take care of you for once?”
“No, because I’m not sick.”
Gently, he pulled her over to him and placed a hand softly on her forehead. “Believe me, love, you are sick.”
“It’s hot outside. Of course I’m a little warm.” She turned away from him and closed her eyes.
“Will you listen to me?”
She shook her head.
“Well, then answer this: how is it that you’re shivering like mad, you’re burning up, your hands are clammy and your voice doesn’t sound even remotely normal, and yet you still tell me that you’re not sick.”
She tugged at the blanket.
He got up, got a little more light and then sat on the edge of the bed, looking at her. “You can’t just ignore it; you’ll get worse. I refuseto watch you put yourself through more pain than you should go through.”
She didn’t have the energy to argue, but she tried and protested anyway. “If I am sick, then you’re going to get sick, too. I should be in my room.” Something about the tone of her voice made it sound as if she was determined to actually get up, but she didn’t even try.
“Stay in bed.”
“I’m beginning to see that I have no other choice.”
“It took you long enough.”
“I wasn’t sick a few hours ago…”
“Shhh, I know.” He got up and poured her a glass of milk. “Drink this. Do you need anything?”
“No. There’s not much to do except sit back and wait for a few weeks until I get better.”
“You’ve been sick like this before, haven’t you?”
“Twice. Once when I was very little and again two years before I went to Shiz.”
“You said it lasted weeks?”
She winced. “Three weeks to a month.”
Her hair was sticking to her forehead from sweat – sweat that he knew was from the sickness and couldn’t possibly be from making love, because that had been hours ago, not only moments, the way sleep made it seem. He wiped her forehead with the blanket. “Are you sure there’s nothing that helps?”
“I would’ve told you already if there was.”
“Then the best thing you can do right now is sleep.” He wrapped the blanket around her. “I’ll be right here if you need anything.”
“But you don’t have to - ”
“But I will. Go to sleep.”
“Thank you.”
“I love you. Now for the last time, baby, get some sleep.”
Whether out of sleepy emotion or a very hazy delirium, she opened her mouth to tell him that she loved him, too. But he hushed her again, so she did as she was told and fell asleep.
A week later, still sick, Elphaba lay awake in bed, watching Madikien move around the room. She was envious; she wanted to be up and moving about, too. “You go, please. Tell Yackle I’m sick. One of us has to go.” This had been her main argument in the last few days, they were both supposed to report in that day. Madikien knew she only nagged at it so much because she was too weak to have a real argument.
“As I said, I’m not leaving you here like this.”
“I’m fine. It’s not as if I’m deathly ill.”
“But you slip in and out of that stage quite easily. Who knows how long it’ll be before your fever runs up again? Besides, I’m a bit tired myself.”
“If you didn’t stay up half the night watching over me and actually got some sleep, you wouldn’t be so damned tired. I don’t need to be watched every minute of every day, you know.”
“You shivered so much last night, baby, that you almost fell off the bed, and would have if I hadn’t noticed and stopped you. And twice this past week you’ve woken up, very confused and completely delirious. Oh, and let’s not forget that if yourfever keeps running up so dangerously high – which, by the way, happens at least once every twenty-four hours or so – and someone doesn’t take care of you the right way, it could kill you.”
“You are overreacting. I’m not going to just die on you.”
“I’m not overreacting and you know that just as well as I do. When you’ve been sick like this before, how many people took care of you? How long were you left alone?”
When she’d been very young, Nanny had cared for her when she was ill, all too happy to grumble about Frex’s faults to something that could hear her, even though she’d been an infant. In the years before Shiz, Nanny and Nessa had always been around. Nessa couldn’t go anywhere and Nanny had to look after Nessa. Madikien was right, even in her moments of delirium she could’ve known that much. She couldn’t do well on her own at the moment, but she hated confessing to needing anyone. “I don’t remember. I was sick; everything’s a bit cloudy. But I’m fine right now.”
“Love, you can’t even get around unless you crawl.”
“But I’m not dying.”
“Not now. But it’s too unpredictable; it’s not consistent. I’m staying and that’s the final word.” He handed her a glass of milk and some crackers.
She gulped down the milk but refused the crackers. “I don’t feel very hungry just now.”
“Eat them anyway.” He knew that Elphaba had always been very bony and thin, but she was worse than just thin. Even when she was wrapped tightly in a blanket, he could swear it was possible to count her ribs without straining his eyes.
“But I’m not feeling well.”
“I don’t care. You have to eat.”
Knowing he wasn’t going to back off, she munched on the crackers resentfully. “I feel like an infant right now.”
“You’re sick. I don’t care how old you are, when you’re this sick, someone has to take care of you.”
“And you’re the one stuck with me.”
“I don’t have to take care of you, you know.”
“But you are taking care of me. And you’re doing this by yourself and you’re worn out. I feel guilty; you’d be fine if you didn’t have to take care of me.” She reached for his hand.
He took her hand in both of his and played idly with her fingers. “You need to worry about yourself, not me. There’s nothing to feel guilty about. People get sick; it’s not in human control.” Glancing out the window, he motioned to Elphaba to keep down. “It’s Jansied. Shit. He’ll kill me if he sees you.” He called out the window, “Jansied, wait right there. I’ll be out in a minute.” Turning back to Elphaba, he said, “I’m not going anywhere. But I have to tell him that and if he comes inside… well, you know. I’ll leave the window open; let me know if anything is severely wrong, all right?”
“All right.”
He climbed out the window. “I can’t go in today.”
“And why in Oz not?” Jansied demanded.
“She’ssick – very sick. I don’t want to leave her alone for so long.”
“She’ll live, come on!”
“No. Listen to me, bring Yackle back here and then I’ll go with you.”
Jansied muttered and obscenity. “Fine.”
As soon as Jansied was out of sight, Madikien hopped in the window, careful not to land too close to Elphaba. “Find something to argue with me about in that solution.”
She smiled at him meekly.
He felt her forehead again. Giving her a worried look, he said, “You’re burning up even more. This must be hell for you.”
“At least I can sleep through it. But you have it worse because you have no choice.”
“Stop feeling guilty, it’s making me feel guilty.” He took her hand again and watched her until there was a noise at the window.
“There had better be an easier way to get in there.” Yackle’s face appeared.
“Not in this room.” He glanced around. “There’s a door at the bottom of the stairs in her room. I’ve never bothered with it. Is the door on your left locked?”
Yackle tried the door. “Yes.”
“One moment.” He dashed through the other room, which looked thoroughly uninhabited except for the cat. He went down the stairs (and passed a few dead mice – Malky’s doing), fumbled with the lock and yanked on the door. It probably hadn’t been used for at least a year or two and it was stuck. It only opened after he’d kicked it aggressively for the third time.
Malky pranced down the stairs, receiving a pat on the head and purring when Yackle said, “Good cat.”
“That’s what it wants you to think.” Madikien said under his breath.
“Where is she?” The old woman turned to him.
He led her up the stairs. “She’s in my… she’s in the other room.” It had just hit him that Elphaba was in his bed, the sheets on which there were a few questionable stains. Neither of them had given that much thought, it seemed. Bracing himself for the questions, he entered the room with Yackle.
But all she said was, “You go and report in. Jansied is waiting for you. I’ll stay with her until you return.”
He was hesitant about leaving his lover to face the bombardment of questions by herself, especially because she was ill. But Yackle shot him a look, so he mouthed “I love you” to Elphaba and left.
When he was gone, Yackle sat at the edge of the bed. “Well, it’s about time.”
“Not now.” Elphaba struggled with the blanket.
“I’m not scolding you, dearie. All I’m saying is that you’ve done just about all you needed to do and sacrificed a lot. Tell me, was it any good?”
“Was what any good?”
“The sex, dearie.”
“Just because you’re old and can’t get any doesn’t mean you have a right to the details of my sex life.” Elphaba said bitterly.
“So it was good. Good for you.”
“Did I say that?”
“No. But I can tell from how defensive you are that it was.”
“Right. Just keep thinking that.”
“So it wasn’t any good?”
“Ugh! I didn’t say that!”
“I’m justteasing you, dearie. But that’s not important. Tell me you’ve got information for me.”
Elphaba didn’t know what to say. Yeah, sure, I overhead these suspicious conversations months ago that I should have told you about before… That obviously wouldn’t pass. She’d made the choice not to say anything and she knew it wouldn’t look very “dedicated” if she backed down and said something now. It was probably best for her to just forget to mention that again. She hadn’t really heard anything that sounded all that important, anyway. “Well, no. As far as I can tell, there is no information to be getting.”
“As far as you can tell? What’s beyond your ability to tell?”
“When he’s not here…”
“You’re supposed to follow him.”
“I did,” she lied, yet again, “once. Nothing.”
Yackle looked at her skeptically. “That was once. Follow him again. Are you sure you’re not neglecting to tell me of anything he’s done that was the slightest bit suspicious?”
Elphaba shook her head, only then noticing how badly it ached. She brought a hand to her head. Her brain felt like it was simply putty, being jumbled around and reshaped every minute. “Do you have to keep nagging me? I’m a little ill, if you couldn’t tell.” She closed her eyes for a moment.
The old woman looked unconvinced, but she left it alone. She looked at Elphaba, who was still holding her head as if she were about to self-destruct. “How long have you been like this?”
“Too long. I don’t know. I can’t keep track of time very well.” She groaned, shivering violently.
Yackle reached to feel Elphaba’s forehead. “I’m going to assume you’re not contagious.”
“I’m not contagious.” Elphaba confirmed.
“That’s what I thought, seeing as Madikien doesn’t have it and you two have been exchanging more bodily fluids than just saliva.”
Before Elphaba could react to Yackle’s obviously vulgar statement, she was thrown into a loud coughing spell.
“You sound awful,” the old woman observed.
“I know that.”
“How sick do you feel?”
“I feel like someone has thrown me into a lake.”
Yackle fumbled through her coat pockets for a bottle of dark liquid and poured some into a glass. “Drink this.”
Elphaba sat up and cautiously sipped the liquid. “What is it?”
“It’ll help you sleep. But it won’t kick in for another hour.”
“Thank you…” She wasn’t quite sure yet if she should be thankful.
The two women made idle conversation for the next half hour, though Elphaba couldn’t remember for the life of her what it was about. Yackle got up when Madikien entered through the window.
“It’s best I get going now.” Yackle grinned at Elphaba. “And dearie, I’m impressed with your progress on that assignment. To be honest, I wasn’t sure you’d follow through, at least not take it as far as you did. Report in when you feel better. I want real information.” She turned to Madikien. “Take care of her, we need her. You look tired, both of you. I’ll leave this.” She placed the bottle of liquid on the table. “Feel better.”
Madikien sat down on thebed. “What was that about?”
“You don’t want to know.” And she was telling the truth.
“Did she get angry with you about us?”
“Not really.”
“It probably wasn’t the best idea to leave you in my bed…”
“Don’t worry about it. She doesn’t care.”
“Did she say anything about it?”
“Not directly. She made a few subtle…” She was coughing again.
He waited for her to stop coughing before saying, “You still don’t sound too good. Are you feeling any better?”
She looked at him pathetically.
“I’ll take that to mean no.” He pulled the blanket, damp with sweat, away from her and tossed it to the side. He grabbed the blanket at the foot of the bed, which he’d taken from Elphaba’s room, and tossed it to her. “Not any worse, I hope?”
“Just the same.”
“Well, that could be a good thing.” He noticed the bottle half full of murky liquid on the table. “What in the name of Oz…?”
“I don’t know. She said it’d help me sleep better.” Elphaba groaned and lay back in the bed. “I don’t think it will work. I can’t sleep when my head is pounding this way.” She thrashed uncomfortably in the blanket.
He kissed her forehead, but pulled back immediately. Alarmed, he felt for her temperature. “Not again.” It came as no surprise that she was shaking. “Baby, you’re feverish.”
All he got in response was a coughing fit.
“I don’t believe this could possibly be as hellish for me as it must be for you.” Just then she abruptly stopped shaking, and he realized she’d gone unconscious. “Elphaba? Damn it… Come on.” He grabbed a towel and poured on it a little of the coldest liquid he could find (excluding water, of course), which turned out to be Yackle’s mysterious sleep remedy and he placed it on her forehead. She’d been weak at times, but she hadn’t once slipped into unconsciousness before. Her breathing was slow, but constant, and there was nothing for him to do but replace the towel every once in a while and wait for her to regain consciousness –which he assumed she would.
Nothing happened.
And nothing happened.
For seven agonizing hours, she didn’t wake, she didn’t move, she didn’t flinch, she only breathed. He was struggling to stay awake when, in the middle of the night, she twitched a little and opened her eyes.
She coughed and murmured. “Madikien?”
He jumped. “Are you all right?”
“A little thirsty.”
He handed her a glass of milk. “Has that happened before? Because if it has, it would’ve been nice of you to warn me that you might go unconscious.”
Her eyes narrowed at the bottle of dark liquid on the table. “No, it hasn’t happened before. Never.” She tore the towel from her forehead and flung it off of the bed. “Help me sleep better? I was lucky it didn’t permanently put me to sleep.” She muttered darkly.
“Do you really think that stuff caused you to black out?”
“Yes. I… I can’t even remember what happened after I’d swallowed a few drops. I don’t think it was intended to hurtme, whatever it was.” And she remembered how disbelieving Yackle had looked, and then she knew what it had been meant for. “It was meant to make me talk.” Elphaba stopped with a disturbing realization. Yackle thought she was hiding something. Her head was spinning. Well, she was hiding something. Ever conversation she’d overheard between Madikien and Jansied… Was it obvious? Why did she keep hiding everything? Why hadn’t she said something before?
She looked at Madikien, suddenly feeling very weak and discovering that she was still quite sick. “Oh, this isn’t good. This is definitely not good.” And she wasn’t sure if she meant the fact that she hadn’t said anything to Yackle before or if she meant the reason why she hadn’t said anything to Yackle before (the reason staring at her, worried). Agitated, she placed her head in her hands. She was betraying someone either way.
“Elphaba…” He put his arms around her, confused and concerned.
Silently, she thanked him for holding her without even needing to know why. “Don’t ask. Please, just don’t ask.” She felt as if everything within her was about to collapse and she buried her face in his shoulder. Even she couldn’t handle so much at that moment, not when she was feeling so ill. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For falling apart like this.” And for whatever else I may do…
“This hardly qualifies as falling apart, Elle.”
“It does to me.”
“And what’s a complete mental breakdown, then? A tear? Do you ever cry?”
“I’ve only cried once, and I was a baby. Crying hurts too much. Tears are just water with salt.”
He shook his head in incredulity. “Well, anyway, love, you’re still sick. You’re allowed to… fall apart, if you want to call it that. I love you.”
You weren’t supposed to love me…
When she looked into his eyes, she saw the reflection of an expression that, just for that millisecond of a moment, was crossing her face. She looked terrified. Well, she was terrified. But, in that short time, she’d lost herself for an instant; her face had shown too much, and only then was she aware of how trapped she really was. It uncovered something beyond that face, something disturbingly and fearfully broken and alone. Behind her eyes, she huddled in a corner like a caged animal (or Animal, if it may be), crouched in the dark, pretending not to feel forlorn or afraid and wishing, wanting, needing to be taken care of. Almost caught off balance, she bowed her head, hoping he hadn’t seen what she’d seen in her eyes.
But he had seen it. And when she lifted her head again, he reexamined her face only to find that her expression was blank. That look had been there, though; he was sure of it. As strange as it seemed, he’d never thought that she could feel frightened. He wondered what could possibly be horrifying enough to scare her and he couldn’t think of anything. His mind filled with questions and curiosity, not to mention unease. He wonderedwhat she was so afraid of. Then he caught himself and wondered who she was so afraid of. Who in Oz could instill so much fear in someone so unconcerned with worry, so unafraid? Not knowing if there was anything better to do, he held her close and let her fall asleep in his arms.
Little did he know that the answer to all of his questions, what had made his lover so afraid, was right there with him; for it was Elphaba herself.
CHAPTER ELEVEN: “Everyone has secrets”
As the summer progressed, a dull, tranquil laziness took hold over the atmosphere in Oz; there was no task that had to be done “right away” or any urgent chore that required immediate attention. Things seemed to move slowly and autumn was taking its time in arriving. The days were humid and sluggish, dragging by and almost seeming to pause every once in a while. But the people of Oz were content with the summer aura; there was so much to take in around them, so many new problems to face.
During these hot summer days, Elphaba recovered from her illness steadily. Within two weeks of Yackle’s visit, she was in good health again. She passed her days reading her books or teasing the cat. The days were nice; there were many more conscious and alert moments. Even the nights were moderately warm, though Elphaba insisted sleeping under a blanket no matter what temperature it was; Madikien knew it was one of her self-conscious habits, so even on the nights when it was just simply too hot to deal with the blanket, he didn’t argue. It was calm, and they rarely fought, which was different.
One evening, as Elphaba was cleaning up after dinner and he was already in bed, Madikien unwillingly and unknowingly broke the calm. “I’ve been wondering about Yackle and that stuff she gave you. I just don’t see why it bothered you so much.”
“I think we’ve gone over this. That drink, whatever it was that Yackle gave me… it was dangerous. And I mean that not in a physically harmful way. As I said, she wanted me to talk.”
“I understand that. But about what?”
She glared at him over her shoulder. “I don’t know. She must’ve thought I was hiding something.”
“Were you?”
“No.” She said shortly.
“Then there was nothing for her to hear, so why is it still something dangerous to you?”
“Do you understand? I could’ve said anything.”
“But if there’s nothing terrible for her to find out, why does that concern you so much, still?”
“Everyone has secrets.”
“Yes, but not harmful secrets. And you said ‘harmful’.”
“Why are you pushing this?”
“Because if you have some sort of harmful secret, it might harm you.”
Or you… “And I said not physically harmful. Maybe harmful was the wrong word. I meant embarrassingly uncomfortable. Darling, you do realize when I said ‘anything’ I meant ‘anything’, such as certain intimate little details, like maybe how, when we make love, you like to - ”
“Elphaba!”
“Exactly. Do you really want someone knowingthat? Aside from me, no one should know that about you. That’s the type of thing I’m talking about. It’s humiliating, incriminating, something like that.”
“Incriminating?”
She wasn’t going to deal with this. Not then, and hopefully not ever. “Why are you analyzing every word I say?”
“I’m not. But something scared you about all of that. I don’t like seeing you that afraid, baby. So I’m wondering what it was. That’s all.”
“Ugh. Nothing scared me. It’s just a little uncomfortable to think that someone else may know some things I’d rather not talk about or remember. And I don’t even know what I said.”
“It couldn’t be anything too bad. You have nothing bad to hide.”
Taking advantage of the opportunity to lead him onto another topic, she laughed and looked at him slyly. “My dear, do you really think I do everything I’m told to do and never do something bad?” She finished cleaning and turned out the lights.
“In some aspects…”
It was difficult to continue getting ready for bed in the dark; she fiddled with the clasps on the back of her dress. “Well, you’re used to seeing me on my best behavior.”
He laughed. “What are you like when you’re not on your best behavior?”
She climbed into bed and kissed him. “Do you want to find out?”
The previous subject farther and farther from his mind, he was more than willing to dismiss it. “Sounds like fun. Would you mind if I asked about your worst behavior?”
“I’ve never been on my worst behavior. I’m not allowed to.” She slid her body away from him, teasing, knowing he wanted her.
“But you should always try everything once.” He caught her by the waist. “So, I’m deciding that you’re allowed to now.”
After pretending to struggle for a moment, she let him pull her closer. “Who put you in charge? You’re forgetting that when I’m not on my best behavior, I don’t do what I’m told.”
“Then don’t. Do whatever you want.” His hand strayed below her waist, kneading the moist, warm flesh between his fingers, making her moan.
She sank beneath the blanket, pulling him with her. “You asked for it.”
As usual, they stayed beneath the blanket, finding their way around the familiar terrain of each other’s body by touch.
Two and a half months go by with no difference in such “behavior”, but after a while, Elphaba was no longer on her best or worst behavior. In fact, she wasn’t even somewhere in between.
It seemed almost as if she’d regressed back to how she’d been years ago, possibly further. She suddenly became more uncomfortable; she began to shy away when he touched her.
One night, as rain pattered on the windows and Madikien and Elphaba were in bed, not touching, Madikien reached for her, just wanting to feel her presence.
She tossed and turned away. “Not tonight.”
“All I wanted was to hold you.”
“No.” There was silence.
“Elphaba?”
“What is it now?” She was lying on her back, trying to sleep.
“What did I do to deserve a cold shoulder? You might as well haveslept in your own bed the past four nights. I can’t even touch you.”
She sighed. “You didn’t do anything. I just don’t want to be touched right now.”
He rolled onto his stomach and turned his head to the side to look at her. “What do you mean by ‘right now’? Does that mean not for another night or two…?”
“Is sex all you think about?” Her voice rose.
“No. I’m just trying to make sure I don’t do something that’ll get me snapped at. Apparently, I’m not doing very well.”
“Fine. I don’t know how long. Just leave it alone.”
“I’m not going to just leave it alone, Elle. I’d like to know what’s going on.”
She blinked slowly. “I can’t explain that to you.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t explain it at all.”
“Is it physical? Mental?”
“Maybe both.”
“That helps,” he muttered, turning away from her as she had done to him.
“What the hell do you want me to say? I told you, I can’t explain it!” She sounded angry. No, not angry, upset – she sounded upset.
“Whoa, love, calm down.” He faced her again, noting that something was unusual about how quickly her tone had switched. “I understand that you can’t explain it, but you can’t just leave it at that. That isn’t fair.”
“There’s nothing more than that, though.”
“There has to be.”
“How many times have I told you that I just can’t explain it? That’s it. There’s no deeper, hidden motive here.”
“All right, then. I‘ll let that go, for now. But I still have questions. Why aren’t you just sleeping in your own bed for the time being?”
She needed to be near him, just not actually touching him. But he wouldn’t understand that. “Would you rather I sleep in my own bed?”
“I don’t think it there’s much of a difference at this point.”
“I see a difference. When I’m in here, you never let me fall asleep. You always have to talk.” Suddenly she was irritable. She inched even further away, at the edge of the bed by now.
“Only tonight. I haven’t said a word about anything until now.”
He was right, but she wasn’t going to injure her pride by actually admitting that. “Just…”
“What? Just what?” When she didn’t answer, he continued, “I know you have nothing more to say. I know you want me to let this go. But, Elphaba, baby, I can’t do that.”
“Well, you’re not getting anywhere by bothering me about it.” She sat up, irate.
“Why do I even bother trying to talk to you anymore?” He threw up his hands, exasperated.
“Madikien…”
“Don’t. Don’t even try, Elphaba.”
“Madikien, stop. Please.” Her voice was shaking.
She wasn’t going to cry. Not over this. She never cried. She was just trying to make him feel bad. But when he glanced at her, though there were no tears, she’d scrunched her eyes closed like she was trying to fight away tears that were threatening to flow. She was biting her lip and trying to swallow through a knot in her throat. He relented just a little and asked, “What’s wrong? Why doyou even care if I’m angry with you or not?”
She clenched her jaw and blinked. “Because I care about you. You don’t seriously think you mean nothing to me?”
He knew she cared, but he wasn’t going to leave this alone. It was very uncharacteristic of her to behave this way. She could get angry, she could be irritable, she could be scared, she could be happy, she could be playful and loving, she could be reticent, but this… this hurt didn’t fit under any of those categories. “No, I don’t. But it would be nice if you’d act like you cared.”
“It would be nice if you would act like you understood.” She retorted angrily.
“It’d be nice if you’d act like I have the capacity to understand and actually give me the fucking chance to do so!”
Taking a deep breath, she said, “It’s complicated. I don’t want to drag you into it until it’s absolutely necessary.”
“What would make it absolutely necessary?”
“Time.” She shook her head when he opened his mouth to ask more.
He looked at her curiously. She wasn’t herself tonight and he didn’t know what was going on. She hadn’t been herself in days. There was something abnormal about the whole situation, and he was determined to find out what it was. After leaving a few moments of silence, he said, “I’m not mad at you. There is a reason for all of this. It’s just that right now, I can’t possibly grasp what it could be.” He paused and lightly touched her hand. “Wait, are you sick again?”
“If only it was that easy.” She moved so that he was no longer able to reach her hand.
“I love you, Elle. You know that. Tell me you know that.”
She nodded.
“Then why are you pushing me away again?”
“Because, for the time being, it’s best if you’re not too close to me.”
“For three weeks after you were sick, you were shaken up about the entire Yackle situation. I thought it was a little too much worry, but at least I knew what was wrong. For more than two months, you were fine. Now, you’re not. I’m not asking you to drag me into it; all I’m asking for is an explanation.”
“You’ll get an explanation in due time.” Her eyes were big and pained, another unfamiliar expression.
“Why can’t you just tell me now? Whatever it is won’t anger or upset me any more or less no matter when you tell me.”
“It doesn’t seem real just now. I’m not troubling you with something that may just be nothing.”
“It won’t trouble me if I know it might be nothing.”
“Given the nature of it, yes, it will.”
“Does this have anything to do with any of your assignments?”
“Not directly. Barely even indirectly.”
Something in her eyes told him that he was pushing her too much. “Fine, then. I’m not going to bother you about it right now. We’re getting nowhere and I’m too damn tired to deal with it, anyway.”
“Thank you.” She was still sitting up, looking a littleunsure.
“You’ve got to be tired, too. Get some sleep.”
“Do you want me to sleep in my room for a while?”
“Maybe that would be a good idea. Not because I’m angry with you, but it’s hard having you right next to me in my bed when I can’t even hold or touch you.” He tried to give her a comforting smile, hoping to ease the pain in her eyes.
She gave him a weak smile that seemed to take a lot of effort. “Right. Well, I’ll see you in the morning, then?” It looked like it was easier for her to get up and walk to the door than to smile.
“Of course.” He made sure that she was looking in his eyes before he said, “I love you.”
As he lay back in bed, he continued to speculate about what had been so off about the way she’d acted. He made a list in his head of noticeable things that she’d done lately that she hadn’t regularly done before: she was easily hurt, she wouldn’t be touched, she held herself differently, she snapped quickly, she jumped to conclusions, she wasn’t hiding that she was upset… Several of those pointed to paranoia. But why? What could she possibly be paranoid about? It had to do with him, in some way, too. She was weak, vulnerable… no outside situation could do that to her. Something inside had thrown her off, something she was unable to put an end to. It was physical. Yes, it had to be. It was mental, too, for sure. But the physical changes weren’t visible. Or were they?
The next weeks, he watched her carefully. He took note of how she carried herself and what things angered, hurt or worried her. There were no other changes that he could see. She continued to read all of the time and she still seemed to take pleasure in his company, though she couldn’t get close enough for him to touch her.
One rainy morning, as Elphaba was reading, he asked her, “What are we?”
“People,” she answered, looking at him as though the question were absurd.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I mean us. What are we, in your eyes?”
She didn’t like putting labels to things. “We’re… in an intimate relationship.”
“As in lovers?”
“If you choose to word it that way, yes.”
“Even now? Even when you won’t let me touch you?”
“Yes, because that’s only temporary.”
“But there are no rules. No boundaries. If one of us were to go off and sleep with someone else, technically it wouldn’t qualify as being unfaithful because we never established this relationship as monogamous.”
Now he had gotten her attention. She put the book down and looked at him curiously. “I guess that makes sense. What have you done?”
“I haven’t done anything. I’m just pointing it out.”
“All right. Let me reword that. What are you planning on doing?”
“Elle, I’m using that as an example. I don’t love anyone but you. But we have no rules, no identity, no promises, and no trust. Eitherof us could walk out on the other with no strings attached. “Do we even exist as anything? Is this just nothing? Does this mean anything?”
He’d hit something. She looked out the window and he noticed, suddenly, that she was no longer disturbingly thin the way she had been in her sickness. It seemed that she’d gained all the weight back and maybe even a pound or two more. It was nice to see her looking healthy.
She looked at him again. “We exist.”
“Then why haven’t we acknowledged that out loud?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then let’s talk about it now.”
“Go ahead.” She wasn’t about to speak first.
“Is this monogamous or not?”
“Unless you’re neglecting to tell me something, it is.”
“So we’ll make that a rule? Understood between the both of us?”
“Of course. It’s kind of unspoken, you know.”
“Of course. Now, what about meaning?”
“What?”
“Is this simply sex? Do we care about each other? Is this just entertainment? Are we going anywhere, or is this it?”
This was not something that she’d felt needed talking about. But now she realized that, given her situation, it had to be discussed. “To me, this isn’t just about sex. If it had been, I wouldn’t have ever pulled away from you. And I can’t answer for you, but I care.”
“As do I.”
His words brought a hint of a smile to her face. “We aren’t entertainment. That’s what my books are for.” She left it at that.
“And…?”
“And what?”
“I asked you, are we going anywhere, or is this it?”
“Where is there for this to go?”
“The future, maybe? When the entire campaign is over and we can live normal lives, what will happen to us? To what we have now?”
Thinking too far into the future scared her. And suddenly she was a little nauseous. She excused herself for a moment and ended up vomiting out the window of her room. When she returned, she was apologetic. “I’m sorry. I must’ve eaten something that didn’t agree with me. I’m not sick, I promise.”
Staring at her strangely, as if he was seeing her as a different person, he said, “I believe you.”
She sat back down but didn’t pick up her book. “Are we going to continue the conversation?”
“Yes. You were about to say something.”
“The future… I don’t know. Do you think this should last?”
“What do you think about it?”
The thought of him leaving her made her anxious. With recent circumstances, she didn’t know what she’d do if he left her. “I’d like it to last, if you would.”
“I’d like the same thing.” He smiled at her.
His words once again brought a smile to her face, and more than just a hint of one. “But when we talk about the future, how long are we talking about?” Dreading the answer, she asked, “And how long do you want?”
“If we’d be how we normally are, excluding this temporary behavior, I’d want this to last always.”
Her cheeks darkened as blood rushed to her face. “I feel very foolish and naïve right now.”
“It’s not such a bad feeling, baby.Don’t ruin it. I love you. I’ve said it many times and I’ll say it many more.”
Much to his surprise, she moved to sit next to him and rested her head on his shoulder. “You scare me, did you know that?”
He put his arm around her happily, astonished at this sudden mood swing. “Why?”
“Because, Oz save me if I’m wrong, but you meant what you said just now.”
“I did mean it. I do mean it. And you’re scaring me now, too. Why am I suddenly allowed to touch you?”
“Just this. No more.” She didn’t give him a direct answer.
“I never told you I was sorry for getting so angry with you before.”
“I’m sorry, too.” And she told herself, he deserves to know, I can’t avoid telling him about it much longer, anyway.
“Now that all of that talking is over with, I still have more to say. I won’t ask you any more questions. I’m just going to talk, all right?”
Well, putting it off for a few more minutes won’t harm anyone… “That’s fine with me, then.”
“I still don’t like that you never told me what was wrong, you know. Now something tells me that what you refuse to tell me is really important, but you’re not saying anything for some reason. I’m just stating facts, I am not angry. Just listen to this and see what I’m seeing.”
“I have bad eyesight, I can’t see what you’re seeing.” Her black hair got caught on her dress and she tore at it ruthlessly, refusing to look up.
“Can we be serious right now, please?”
She sighed. “Yes. And as long as we’re being serious, I have something to say when you’re done.”
“All right, then. This is what I’m seeing: You’re acting out of character, emotional, hormonal. You get hurt when I’m angry with you. You won’t do anything that could lead to sex. You’re carrying yourself differently, too. You used to fold your arms across your chest. Now, you kind of cross them across your stomach like you’re protecting yourself from something.”
She was looking down again; she wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“I had no idea what could possibly going on inside that body and mind of yours until I noticed these two things.” Gently, he poked her, trying to make her look at him. “You’ve gained back all of the weight that you lost when you were sick, but you didn’t stop there – which isn’t a bad thing, you’re always beautiful. Even then, I wasn’t entirely positive about what was happening and I’m still not, but I see no other possibilities. A couple of minutes ago, baby, when you left the room, you got sick. The last thing you ate was bread. Your excuse was that it ‘must’ve been something I ate’. You eat bread all of the time and you never throw up. But you threw up this morning, anyway.” He nudged her again, needing to see her eyes. “And I’m beginning to think that you’re - ”
She took his hand in agesture meant to both cut him off and to show affection at the same time. “Um…”
When she looked at him helplessly, he said, “I’m right.” He stared at her, shaking his head in shock as if he had expected to be wrong. “You’re… Wow. It would only make sense, but I still… I thought, maybe it was possible but I really didn’t think that I was…”
“Right,” she finished for him. “Yes, you were right.”
CHAPTER TWELVE: “The way we were”
She wouldn’t allow them to discuss it for the rest of the day. “I promise we’ll talk tomorrow,” she said.
He’d taken a minute to answer, for he’d still been recovering from the initial shock. “I will never understand you, love.”
“I don’t know what I need to say, that’s all. And I don’t think it’s quite sunk in yet, at least not for you. Sleep on it.”
“You’re sleeping with me. I don’t want you out of my sight. Hell, you can have the bed and I’ll sleep in a chair if you wish, but I can’t leave you alone.” Suddenly she seemed critically fragile and he didn’t want to think about anything happening to her. When she fell asleep, he watched her, unable to decipher his emotions. After some time, he gave up and let his waking mind rest while his sleeping mind continued to work through this new development.
She was already up and moving around when he woke up the next morning. “Am I allowed to say something now?” He asked, settling near the fire on the floor.
“One minute.” She finished what she was doing and sat next to him. “Now you may.”
“I’m not the first to know, am I?”
“I…”
“Yackle knows. You went to see her two days ago. That woman notices everything. She had to have said something.”
“Well, you’ve worked a little too hard on that assignment, haven’t you?”
“She knows.” Elphaba told him, hearing the old woman’s voice in her head. “She offered me a drink… I took it, since she was drinking from the same jug she poured mine from.”
“Good idea. Better be careful around her. Did she yell?”
Again, she remembered Yackle’s words…
“Next time you come in here, you’re meeting with a doctor; I believe I know of one or two that wouldn’t say anything. And dearie, you should’ve been counting the days. I would’ve thought you were careful enough to do that. But there’s nothing to do about it now. I think you can use it to your advantage. When you’re like this, he can’t betray you. This is the time to dig for information. Do it.”
“She was a bit disappointed in me, but she isn’t furious or anything.”
“And how are you supposed to help the campaign?”
“Oh, I’m not sure. I don’t know if I can.”
“I have so much to ask and say right now.” He took both of her hands. “How long have you known, anyway?”
“I couldn’t be sure. A little while ago, though, I pretty much knew.”
“This is what you couldn’t explain to me?”
“I didn’t knowhow to tell you. I didn’t know how you’d react or what you’d think. As a matter of fact, I still don’t know what you think.”
“Neither do I.”
“It complicates things a lot. How are we supposed to continue hiding that we’re together? It’ll become difficult. And though Yackle knows, so it’s fine for me, I don’t think you want certain people finding out.”
“Jansied would pull me out of here without thinking twice.”
She looked at him, worried. “What are you going to do? Maybe it would be better for you if you left.”
“At a time like this? I wouldn’t leave you at all, but now? That’s possibly the worst thing I’ve heard you say.”
“All I meant was that it’d make things worse for you if Jansied found out.” Especially if Yackle’s right, she thought.
“I’ll worry about that when it happens. I’m not leaving you.” He squeezed her hands as if to indicate such. “We’ll figure out what to do eventually. How far along are you?”
A little ashamed, she said. “That’s a good question. I can estimate, but I really don’t know. Maybe I could narrow the gap more if we weren’t so… active. But I guess just because we’re a little young, and restless, and curious…”
“And in love.”
“And, well, you know what I’m getting at. Because of that, it’s hard to tell.”
He nodded solemnly. “Why didn’t we stop to think that this could happen?”
“We didn’t exactly want to stop.”
“One of us should have known better.”
“We both knew better. But that doesn’t mean we used the best judgment. And I’m the one who should’ve known better, I wasn’t being careful. Hell, how was I supposed to be? We don’t even know one day from another. Oh, no…”
“What is it, baby?”
“We need to find out what day it is the next time we get the chance. And we need a calendar. I’d like to know how far along I am before I start losing track of time and, just so you know, we’re not letting this happen again.”
“Agreed. I believe you still haven’t given me an estimate of how far along you think you are.”
“Somewhere between three and three and a half months.”
Madikien looked at her again. She had filled out a little, but most people would just assume she’d gained weight. Truth be told, if a person who hadn’t ever met her before were to see her at that moment, they wouldn’t even give it a second thought; they’d probably say she looked to be about average weight. However, for someone normally so thin, he could see an obvious change in her body. And it worried him. “This could be dangerous for you…”
“It’s always dangerous, darling.”
“But especially for you. You’re pretty tall, love, but otherwise, you’re too small, too slim. Maybe you’re not physically ready for it. Your body is normally so thin. It can’t possibly handle this.”
“I’m not going to break like glass.” She said offhandedly.
“If you say so.” He thought for a few minutes, sitting there in silence. “This isgoing to change things.” That seemed to sum everything up.
“Too much change. I don’t want this.” Elphaba didn’t want this as a part of her life. Then again, she hadn’t wanted Madikien in her life when this had all started, either, and now she didn’t want anything else. But he didn’t get in the way of everything else she wanted to do; this was different. He was right, in away, that she wasn’t ready. She had too much to do and having one person who loved her was more than enough. Her mind balked at the idea of having a child. It wouldn’t just get in the way of her work, it’d get in the way of her privacy, it’d get in the way of her emotions, hell, it’d just get in the way. In a fury, she kicked the table. “Damn it! I don’t want this!”
He tried to coax her. “Elle, it’ll be fine. Yes, things will be different, but it’s not going to ruin everything.”
“How about my life? I can’t do anything for the campaign because I’m not going to be physically able much longer. And even after that, I’ll have to stay home and take care of it. I can’t do that. I can’t be a mother.”
“It won’t turn out as badly as you think, I promise.”
“I was perfectly content living the way we were. We had our own time, alone. We won’t anymore.”
“I’ll still love you. That will never change.”
“But it will. I like being alone with you where we can do whatever we want whenever we want. Life was so easy…” She groaned. It was sad to realize that she resented a child that wasn’t even born.
“You’ll feel differently in time. Besides, I hate to say this, love, but there’s nothing to do now.” He wondered how he could reassure her this way when he was uneasy about the situation too. “I love you.”
“Maybe we can give it up, send it to an orphanage?”
“No! I lived in an orphanage for six years, remember? That’s probably worse than living on the streets. I will not do that to a child.”
She closed her eyes, moving uncomfortably back to lean on the wall and hugging her aching stomach. “What am I going to do?”
“I hope you meant to say ‘we’. You’re not alone. I’m not leaving you.”
“I am alone. You said earlier that either one of us could walk out on the other no strings attached. Well, you’re wrong. At least for me. You can still walk away. This is physically part of me. I have no choice.”
But he knew his options. And for all rights and purposes, he was not fond of the idea of her having a child. But he did love her and he would stay. “We will find a solution, I…” As he glanced at her and out the window again, he did a double take. “Elle, baby, you’re bleeding.”
She seemed to take this in slowly, as if she was on a ten seconddelay.
“Elphaba? Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?”
Swallowing her instinctive fear, she looked down at her dress. Open mouthed, her eyes widened. A small cry escaped from her throat and she caught her breath. “Go. Now. Find Yackle.”
“Why?”
“Just go. Tell her I’m physically unwell.” She didn’t know if he’d realized what was going on yet, so she didn’t specify. “She’ll have to contact someone before she gets on her way, and she might take a bit longer to get here, but that’s all right. I’ll be in my room. No more questions, please.”
It had suddenly dawned on him what could be happening. “You’ll be fine?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll have less of a chance of being fine if you don’t go now!”
Throwing her one more glance, he pulled himself out the window. He ran to the shelter, making it there in less than two minutes. When he came in, he was wheezing heavily.
Haladean, Yackle’s right hand man, it seemed, approached him the moment he entered.
Madikien cut him off before the man had even said anything. “I need to find Yackle. Now.”
“She’ll be out in a minute. Right now she’s having a very important discussion with some very important people.” Haladean gestured towards the “wall” with the room beyond it.
“I don’t care. It’s an emergency.”
“You better hope so if you’re going to make me pull her out of a meeting like this. That woman will not be happy when she gets out here.”
“I said I don’t care. Please. Just get her.”
The elder man shook his head, but went and brought Yackle back with him to the entrance.
“What in Oz is going on?” The old woman asked, irritated.
Madikien had just noticed how many people were in the room. “Come outside. I’ll tell you then.” He practically dragged her out of the shelter. “Elphaba isn’t well. She’s bleeding.”
“A little blood?”
“Not a massive amount of blood, but not a little blood, either.”
For a moment, it seemed as if a smile crept across that wrinkled face, but it was gone when he looked again. “Go back to her. I’ll be there as soon as I can. I have to get in touch with someone.”
Elphaba was in her room, watching the cat as she was curled up in pain. “She’s coming,” he told her. He moved towards her, reaching a hand out.
“Get out of this room, please.”
“Not until she gets here. And maybe even then I shouldn’t leave the room, considering what happened to you the last time the old bitch tried to give you medical ‘help’.”
She brought her dress to her eyes – drying a tear. “I don’t want you in here. You don’t need to be in here. You don’t need to see this. I’m begging you, Madikien, please, just listen to me.”
When he saw how freely tears were dropping from her eyes, he was alarmed. She was really suffering. “Elphaba…”
“No! Out!”
“If you want it that way. Yackle will be here soon.” He couldn’t help but ask her one more question. “How long amI going to be forced to sit in my room not knowing how you’re doing?”
“I don’t know. Hours. Days. I have no idea, Madikien, please…” She was sobbing now, which finally convinced him to leave the room.
Twenty minutes later he heard voices on the other side of the door. He was more than relieved to hear Elphaba’s voice among them. Cautiously, he moved nearer to the door. He didn’t plan on entering, just listening. When the door opened and almost hit him, he jumped.
Yackle closed the door behind her. “Hear anything good?”
“What’s going on?”
“Sit down.” The old woman took the chair across from the one he took. “Now, what was it you wanted?”
“You know what I wanted. What is going on?”
“It might not be anything other than a little out of the norm. Wedietta doesn’t know yet.”
“Who?”
“Do you really think I know what to do to help her?”
“You had no problem ‘trying to help her’ before.”
“I heard some interesting facts from that. Don’t worry, nothing bad. Only intimate little details.”
“What could be going on?” He refused to let her bait him into forgetting about the calamity continuing in the other room.
“Fine. I just thought you’d be curious to know how well you…”
He was much more curious about other things at the moment. “She’ll tell me what she wants to tell me and that’s enough. I don’t need anything from you. Tell me what’s going on, or what could be going on.”
Just then, the door opened and a short, plump woman who couldn’t be more than thirty-five gestured to Yackle to return to Elphaba’s room. The door was shut swiftly behind them.
He was lying on his back in the bed, trying to discern what was going on by listening to the voices through the wall. It had been hours. Yackle’s voice drifted out of the room. “Perhaps this was meant to happen. It’s how you wanted it, isn’t it? I know it hurts, but believe me; it would have hurt worse had you carried it to term. I guess something up there, or, perhaps, down there, knew what you wanted.”
When Yackle finally entered his room, he said, “Are you going to tell me what’s going on now, or should I close my eyes and not waste my breath?”
“She’ll be fine.”
“She will be fine. Is she fine now?”
“Fine is a very vague word.”
“What happened?”
Yackle seemed almost empathetic for a split second or two. “It’s common. A lot of pregnancies result in miscarriage.”
“She lost it.”
“Maybe it’s better that way. It wasn’t the best time for her to be pregnant, anyway.” She looked at him pointedly.
“What?”
“If you think I don’t know it was yours, you’re incredibly ignorant. As if it wasn’t obvious enough, you’re forgetting that I did learn some very intimate details. Therefore, I can figure things out, no matter how old I am. I may be an old woman, but I am not stupid.”
“You still shouldn’t assume anything.”
“I don’t assume, I know.”
Fed up with her implications, he asked, “How is she?”
“Obviously shewent through some pain. And she didn’t naturally get rid of all of it.”
“I don’t know if I want to understand what you mean.”
“There was still some fetal tissue left…”
“And?”
“You’re not going to want to hear about this.”
“I want to know what happened.”
“It’s hazardous to leave that tissue in her, it’s unhealthy. Are you sure you want to hear this?”
“Yes. Go on.”
“Some tissue had to be scraped out of the womb.”
He winced.
“I told you that you wouldn’t want to hear it. Do me a favor, leave her be for two months or so.”
“Leave her be? As in, pretend she doesn’t exist?”
“No. Unless that’s the only way you won’t touch her. She’s going to bleed for a while longer and she might not want to be around anyone anyway. I assume you’ll understand that?”
“I’m not an insensitive bastard.”
“Fooled me. Oh, two more things. One, there were some… complications from this entire ordeal. There was a fair amount of blood and she didn’t react well to the sight of it. Unfortunately for her, she had very bad timing, because she tried wrenching away while the dead tissue was being removed. She’s got a cut, but it’ll heal and scar over. It’s not severe or anything and it shouldn’t cause her any discomfort as long as you don’t touch her for a while, as I told you. I’m only telling you this because I know how intimate the two of you are. Aside from that, it’s almost seems like it never happened, at least physically. Two, make sure you tell her that I left her this,” she removed some paper from her bag. “Farewell. Let’s not have an incident like this one again.” And then she was gone.
He looked down at what Yackle had left for Elphaba. It was a calendar. Flipping through the pages, he found that Yackle had circled what day it was. He knew not to bring it to Elphaba that moment, she probably didn’t want to see or talk to anyone just then, especially him, seeing as he was half the reason that terrible mess had happened. After a while, he snuck into her room quietly to leave it for her.
Even asleep, she looked like the epitome of discomfort. She’d fallen asleep on her side; her bloodstained dress had been thrown on the floor. The room looked as if someone had been murdered and the body had been removed. There wasn’t very much blood, but it was spread everywhere. At her feet, the cat was scratching its ear against the bedpost. When it saw him, it climbed over to the headboard and nestled itself in Elphaba’s arms, purring and giving him a smug, contented look. He ignored it. Since when would he stoop so low to be jealous of a damned cat? Malky snubbed him and turned in a circle before sleeping.
She’d been crying, he could deduce that much from the towel she’d placed near her eyes. Her cheeks looked as if the tears had burned, and the skinaround her eyes was red. This was partially his fault. He hadn’t even considered that she’d end up like this; all he’d considered was the sex and the pleasure. Though, to give him credit, he’d considered her pleasure more than he’d considered his own. Looking at her, so frail and broken, guilt washed over him in a wave. His hands clenched in self-frustration and he dropped the calendar on the bed next to her. There were spots of blood on the towel near her thighs and it made him grimace. The guilt continued to ambush him in tidal waves. After a moment, he couldn’t bear looking at her in so much pain, and he left the room.
In his own bed, he lay on his back, watching a spider crawl across the ceiling. He grabbed the blanket and pulled it over himself, suddenly realizing that it was early autumn. It was early autumn and, except for the previous night (which didn’t really count because he’d spent most of the time awake and watching her, anyway), he’d slept alone for at least a month. But somehow, tonight, it seemed as if the bed were colder and emptier than ever.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Vampires and Wizards
The fire was blazing, a fusion of yellow, orange and blue. It was warm inside the cozy little room, though it was below freezing outside. Winter had begun. Snow had fallen, but it wasn’t the mass of pretty white designs that normally come to mind when one thinks of the word “snow”. Slush covered the streets of Oz and day-by-day, more mud mixed with snow. This was not one of the more beautiful Ozian winters.
He looked away from the fireplace when he heard footsteps near the closet doorway. After too many weeks of sulking, it seemed, Elphaba had finally decided to come out of hiding. She was wearing woolen knee socks beneath her skirt and was wrapped in a sweater, loose around her shoulders. As usual, she was thin and fragile-looking.
“I guess it’s time for another awkward conversation now, huh?” She was biting her lip, apparently expecting to be rejected.
“It does appear to be that way. Sit down.” He got off of the bed and pulled two chairs near the fire. “You’re going first this time. I’ve begun too many of these uncomfortable little chats to count.”
“Are we still…?” She trailed off, her hand motions telling him that she couldn’t find the right word.
“If you’re asking if I still love you, then the answer is yes. Well, unless you’ve become a completely different person between now and the last time we had a real discussion.”
“Not completely different, no.” She hugged herself, whether from remembering what she’d gone through or from the cold, he couldn’t tell.
“Look, baby, everything that happened, that was disastrous. But you know it wasn’t anyone’s fault, right?” He placed a hand on her shoulder.
She shook her head. “No. Don’t you remember? I lost it. And it seemed like I started bleeding only minutes after I saidI didn’t want it. I never wanted that to happen, though. ‘Be careful what you wish for’, right?”
“Elle, no. That type of thing happens all of the time. It wasn’t your fault. You don’t control that, not mentally.”
“Funny things happen when people, even non-magic people, actually, are in stressful situations. I can control that, to a degree. But I just wanted my life back; I didn’t want to lose the baby. I didn’t want it, but it was there. I would’ve dealt with it. But my body decided to deal with it for me. And it hurt. I can’t even begin to tell you how much it hurt. Well, I got what I deserved, didn’t I?”
“You didn’t deserve that. No one does.” He squeezed her shoulder softly.
“But I did. I didn’t even give it a chance and it wasn’t even born yet… and now, it never will be.”
“Have you been thinking that the whole time?”
She nodded. “It only makes sense.”
Suddenly he got the feeling that she hadn’t come up with this theory herself. Only then did he remember what he’d heard Yackle say to her the day that the entire mess had happened. This had been planted in her head. He told her, “You can’t keep feeling guilty for everything. When you were sick, you felt guilty. When you were three months in, you felt guilty. And now you feel guilty yet again, because something didn’t coincide with everything else and things went wrong. That is not your fault. There’s no logic to that, none.”
She hugged him. “You’re sweet, but you’re lying. Or maybe you don’t want to believe that it was my fault.”
“Maybe I know for a fact that it wasn’t your fault. You only started noticeably bleeding after you said that; you’d probably been bleeding lightly for some time before that. It was out of your control.”
“You can’t prove that. Madikien, I swear I could feel it when it started to happen. It didn’t start until after I began complaining about it all. When I said all that, I just meant I wished it hadn’t happened.”
“I know.”
“And now that I’m no longer physically unable to work and I can do what I want with my life without complication, you’d think I’d be happy. But now I wish that had never happened, not just the getting pregnant part, but the losing it part, too. If I had to choose between going through that again or just living with it, I’d live with it.”
“Listen, it’s not anyone’s fault. Bad things happen and sometimes they’re beyond the threshold of human control. We were careless and at least now we know better. If we’re going to blame anyone, it’s both of us, not just you.”
She was quiet, staring into the fire. There was silence for a long time until the door creaked open a little further as the cat wandered in. Malky came between their two chairs and clawed at Elphaba to be picked up. Elphaba brushed the cat away, but itstayed between the chairs, anyway. After a moment, Malky did the same to Madikien, who picked the cat up, bemused to see it begging him. Once on Madikien’s lap, the cat hissed and scratched at him and climbed its way into Elphaba’s lap.
“Get it out of here.”
Elphaba shooed the cat away and sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For moping around in my room for so long and not even speaking to you.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for. After that… disaster, it’s perfectly understandable that you’d be upset and need some time to yourself.”
“We haven’t spoken more than a few words in over two weeks.” She looked at him. “How can you still love me after that?”
“It’s not as if I can just stop. What do you think I can do, say, ‘self, she’s not talking to me right now, I mustn’t love her anymore’ and clap my hands? Elphaba, it’s not that easy. Both of us messed up, but you’re the only one who had to take penance for it. After everything that happened, baby, you could’ve had all of the time in Oz if you needed it.”
She dropped her gaze and stared at her hands, shivering. After some time, she spoke again. “Damn, I hate winter.”
Tentatively, he moved his chair, closing the gap between their chairs. He grabbed her hand and intertwined their fingers. “I love you.”
For one weak moment she looked up at him and said, “Hold me?”
He granted her this request. “Always.”
She closed her eyes and smiled a little (it was the first time he’d seen her smile since… he didn’t even know how long ago). Then she blinked and wondered aloud. “Why are you able to tolerate me?”
“It’s not as difficult as you think it is, love.”
Shifting a little, she nuzzled against him. “You’ve done so much for me.”
“I don’t think I’ve done as much as I should have.”
Laughing, she shook her head. “You’re very wrong.”
“If you’re happy, then I don’t care.”
Softly, she reached and rested a hand on the back of his neck. “You can kiss me, you know.”
Jokingly, he asked, “Why do I have to start everything?”
“I’m lazy. What can I say?”
“But you’re the one who knows all of the rules.”
“There aren’t many to begin with, darling. I’ll let you know before you break one. And number one, I’m uncomfortable on these damned chairs, can we move please?”
“Where will you be more comfortable?”
“The bed.”
He looked at her. “Maybe that’s not a good idea. If I kiss you when we’re on that bed, we’ll end up…”
“It’s safe right now, I’d know.”
“That isn’t the only thing that worries me. You worry me.”
“Would I be telling you it was okay if I didn’t want to?”
“But I don’t know what might hurt you now that didn’t before.”
“There’s nothing. The entire experience was painful, but not in that way. Now, are we getting off these chairs or not?”
“As you wish.” Since he was already holding her, he simply carried her to the bed, letting her down gently.
“Thank you, that savedabout three steps.”
“Didn’t you say you were lazy?” He moved next to her and slid a hand onto her waist. “I was just tying to be considerate.” When he kissed her neck, he noted that her skin was soft; he barely remembered this, it had been so long.
“Very considerate.” She swung her legs around to get more comfortable. “I’ve missed this.”
“Not nearly as much as I have. I might need to rediscover every part of your body a million times over. My memory seems to have failed me.” He’d already gotten both of them halfway undressed. Reaching around her waist to untie her skirt, he mumbled, “I hate this skirt, you know.”
“And that’s why I wear it.”
“Correction: that’s why you wore it. But now it’s gone.” He balled up the skirt in one hand and tossed it across the room.
“Like magic. But can you do it when you’re concentrating on other things?” She kissed him.
“Easily. Just a snap of my fingers and… poof.”
Pulling him beneath the blanket with her, she murmured, “You’ll have to teach me that one of these days.”
He inched a hand below her waist.
Suddenly she felt a ghostly ache near her stomach and she closed her eyes, seeing nothing but red and a glint of metal. “No!” She pushed his hand away. “Not with your hands. I know I sound crazy, but the only thing I can see when you do that is an awful amount of blood and the edge of that hellish tool…”
Immediately, he pulled his hands away from her, hearing Yackle’s voice in his head, some tissue had to be scraped out… “You don’t sound crazy at all, my love. Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this right now.”
“No. It’s just that, I promise. Do whatever else you want anywhere you want, just don’t touch me below the waist with your hands. I must sound so peculiar saying that, but it’s not easy to explain. Please, believe me when I tell you it’s only that and nothing more.”
“It’s all right, baby. Are you sure there’s nothing else?”
“Well, one more thing.”
“What?”
“No more silly questions.”
He kissed her neck again, playfully nibbling at it. “I feel like a vampire.”
“Better be careful, then. There might be some garlic mixed in with your breakfast tomorrow morning.”
“But if I’m a vampire, I can’t have breakfast. It’ll be daylight by then.”
“I almost forgot that vampires can’t live during the days. Five hours until dawn, my dear. If you are a vampire, then we’d both better become nocturnal.”
“It’s a good thing I’m not a vampire, then, because I wouldn’t want to leave you alone all day long.”
“What? You think I’d have another lover?”
“It only makes sense, someone so beautiful as you, having no one to satisfy you during the day.”
“I guess a vampire would have to be able to satisfy a lover twice as much as normal during the nights so she’d be contented and wouldn’t go wandering when the day broke.”
“Hmmm.” He wrapped one arm all the way around her waist andlifted her a little. “Maybe I should be a vampire, then.” Bringing their bodies together, he began to love her, slowly. “But only at nights. During the days, I’m a day vampire.”
When the day had come, neither one of them had quite woken up. Madikien squinted in the sunlight, stretching out his arms, forgetting that Elphaba’s head was resting on one of them.
“I don’t care if you wake up before me, but when I’ve fallen asleep so close to you, I’d appreciate some sort of warning, or at least a little caution with sudden movements.” She sat up and looked at him. “You are so careless.”
“Ha! Last night I was certainly not careless.”
“And I appreciate that.” She kissed his cheek. “I don’t feel like getting up today. There’s nothing I have to do except feed the cat and eat a meal or two. I could just go back to bed right after breakfast.”
“Would I be allowed to join you?”
“Sometimes I wonder what else goes on in your head aside from thoughts of sex. If anything else actually goes on in your head, that is.” Grabbing his pillow, she laid back again.
“A lot of other things go on in my head.” He protested. “Why do you think that all I think about is sex? It’s not.”
“Most of the time it is.”
“No. Most of the time, I’m thinking about how much I love you.”
“And depending on how you connote that, it’s still thinking about sex.” She propped her head up on her hand, gazing at him.
“You know what I think?”
“What?”
“You probably think about sex just as much, if not more, than I do.”
“Is that what you fantasize about?”
“My fantasies aren’t nearly that boring, Elle. And you do a lot more than think in them, believe me.”
“And you have just proven my point, thank you.”
“I give up arguing with you.” He sat back against the headboard.
“I was wondering how long it would take you to learn that lesson.”
“At least I don’t have too much left to learn. I know all of your rules, I know your past, I know where your worst weak spot is…”
“Oh, really?”
He bent and kissed her neck, sucking on it lightly.
Moaning softly, she muttered, “I hate you.”
“I love you.” He stopped kissing her neck. “And I actually feel like I can say that I know you.”
“Better than I know you, surprisingly enough.”
He didn’t say anything; he gazed out the window. “Elle, if I turned out to have told you one piece of information that, um, wasn’t exactly true, how angry would you be?”
“Not as angry as I will be if you don’t tell me where you’re going with this. Madikien, I live with you. I don’t think anything you’ve hidden can be all that bad.”
“What if it went all the way back to the beginning of all of this?”
Elphaba began to feel as if she knew what he was going to say. Hurriedly, she told him, “You don’t have to tell me at all. That was then, this isnow. I don’t care.”
“But I do. I can’t keep lying to you like this. Listen to me, all right? Before I tell you this, I want you to know that you matter more to me than any piece of this other situation and I’d gladly give it up if you asked.”
“Let’s talk about this later.” Desperately, she reached for him, trying to tease him, distract him, so he would want her and she could keep him from saying what she feared he’d say for as long as possible.
“No. See, Elphaba, all this time you’ve felt so guilty for so many millions of things. I’m guilty of one and that tops them all.”
“Madikien, don’t tell me this. I don’t need to know. Just don’t say it.”
And then he saw her eyes. “You know.”
“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about!”
He stood, “Oh, but you do. You’ve known all along, haven’t you? You didn’t trust me at first; you kept giving me those suspicious looks. You suspected exactly what I was up to.”
“Please, no. Don’t do this.”
“What Jansied and I were arguing about, where I went when I told you he and I were going out for a drink even though there was never a single drop of alcohol or anything on my breath when I returned. This entire time, you knew.”
“You haven’t said whatever it is you want to say yet, please don’t say it. If you don’t say it we can pretend we never had this conversation and - ”
“I’ve been an agent for the Wizard this whole time.”
She shook her head. “No. No. You’re lying.” A childish instinct, she covered her ears, protecting herself from what she’d already heard.
“Why didn’t you say anything before?”
Bringing her hands away from her ears in defeat, she said, “I couldn’t prove it. And after some time, I just figured you wouldn’t lie to me like this.” She got off the bed, his bed.
“I didn’t want to lie to you, baby.”
“That’s bullshit. How could you do this? After you went on and on about me trusting you…”
“Elphaba, I’ll give it up. I’ll quit.”
“No.” Her eyes burned into his. “It’s way too late for that, now. I don’t even want to know how much information and plans you’ve given up.”
“None. That’s why Jansied was so mad at me, because we weren’t finding anything. And that’s because I wasn’t looking.”
Her voice sounded small, “And neither was I.”
But he didn’t understand the full meaning of her words, so he disregarded it. “I’ve gotten in so many arguments and even a fist fight or two because I didn’t want to give anything up.”
“You could have quit a long time ago. We’ve been together for quite some time now. But you’re only confessing this now? That doesn’t sound right to me.”
“If I quit, I’d have to run away, to the most barren places in Oz, even somewhere outside of Oz. I wasn’t going to go without you and I didn’t want to ask you to come with me.It’s an unfair position to put you in. But at this point, I’m not happy working for the Wizard. It’s the wrong side to be on and I see that now.”
“You still could’ve at least told me before. Maybe then I could’ve gotten Yackle on our side and she’d find some way for you to go into hiding. But now that’s not going to happen. Madikien, I trusted you, I let you in, and all this time you were lying.”
“I didn’t tell you before because I thought you’d snap at me and not even give me the chance…”
“Well, look what’s happening now! You had me wanting and needing you from long before I slept with you. And that… How could you make love to me with that on your conscience? I can’t believe I fell for this.”
“Because making love to you wasn’t lying, baby. I loved you. I still love you.”
“And I believed that, too. I guess I’m not as clever as I thought I was.”
“You knew the whole time!”
“I suspected it. But I never got any proof, so I told myself, and Yackle, that you were innocent.”
“And Yackle?”
“Of course Yackle suspected you! And after she figured out what was going on between us, she asked me to spy on you, to follow you. I didn’t because I trusted you. Because I cared about you. And this is what I get in return? I told myself not to fall for anyone no matter what they say, because in the end, all that results is lies and hurt. Well, I guess I was right.” She was lying through her teeth about Yackle, but at that moment, she didn’t feel particularly guilty lying to him.
“And I told myself not to fall in love with you. A person’s mind and a person’s heart don’t communicate very well. Elle, listen to me. I’ve told you, I care more about you than about any stupid work I have to do.”
“You broke through my defenses and I sat back and watched that happen. You wore me down. No. Even after all of that, you lied to me. Madikien, you didn’t even have enough of a conscience to tell me this when I was pregnant! Do you have any idea how much you’ve betrayed me?”
“I was going to tell you when you were a little further along.”
“And what good would that have done? I wouldn’t have been able to leave you then, because of the baby.” She paused. “And that’s exactly why you didn’t tell me when you first found out, isn’t it?”
“You were already hormonal. I wasn’t going to risk it. Elphaba, please. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, but I thought it was for the best. I’m not leaning towards the wrong side, I’ve purposely made sure that nothing gets out.”
But Elphaba still had fury dancing in her eyes. They stood there, her looking up slightly to meet his eyes. Anger threatened between them, the tension thicker than ever. In this snug little room,the fire still glowing, the air was cold and bitter.
“Baby, don’t be so angry with me. Don’t you see that I’m helping your side? If I weren’t on this job and someone else had been in my place, the entire campaign would fall to pieces and most of the organization would be dead right now… including you.”
“You never told me. I don’t care what you did to help or how you feel, you never told me. How can you tell me that you love me when you’ve been hiding one of your biggest secrets from me?”
“It doesn’t make a difference in the scheme of this relationship. If we forgot the Wizard or the campaign even existed right now, we wouldn’t just walk away from each other. You shouldn’t be so irritated, I’m only helping.”
“It still would’ve been nice to know you were working for the other side!”
“I don’t care about what side I’m working for and which side I’m not working for, I care about you. This is ridiculous. There’s no reason for you to get so worked up over this.” He was getting agitated, too.
“And there’s no reason to have hidden this from me for so long. I can understand why you didn’t tell me in the beginning, but this is far, far from the beginning. It’s been years since the beginning, as a matter of fact. You’re lucky I haven’t stormed out of here and turned you in to Yackle.”
“Why do you always have to be so damned unreasonable?”
“So now I’m unreasonable again? How am I being unreasonable? I feel betrayed. You’ve been so close to me and so good to me, but all that time you were hiding one thing.”
“You’re making a bigger deal out of this than it has to be.”
“No. You’ve been lying to me since the moment I first spoke with you. You’re not even trying to understand the sort of situation you put me in.”
“It’s not a very difficult situation! What don’t you get about all of this?”
“What don’t I get? Ugh. Damn you, Madikien, just forget it. I don’t know why I’m even trying to make you understand.” She didn’t walk away; she simply glared at him.
And then, simultaneously, they realized how peculiar this all seemed. There they were, two lovers arguing over something that shouldn’t have come between them, face to face, neither of them wearing anything at all. Madikien couldn’t have cared less, and Elphaba, in all her rage, had forgotten her self-consciousness when she’d stood up and gotten out of bed. She thought about backing away and he thought about doing the same, but she didn’t move and neither did he. Neither of them knew who moved first, but their lips met and the next thing they knew, they were on the bed, pawing at each other like animals, making love with an almost carnal passion.
When they were able to let go of each other, much time later, Elphaba was still sweating a little, as was Madikien, as shecurled herself next to him and lay on her side. She loved the way that their bodies fit just like so, as if they were two pieces of one puzzle. Glancing at him, she said, “Wow.”
“That just about sums it up. I love you. And as well as I thought I knew you, I didn’t know you had that much… vigor? Energy? I don’t know.”
“That was… so… so… it was better than amazing. But I’m still a little mad at you.”
“Will you forgive me if I tell you how much I love you?”
“I’ll have to think about that.”
“Take your time.”
“You don’t care how long I’m mad at you?”
“Not at all.” He smiled at her.
“Why not?”
“It’s so much better when we’re angry. I think I’ll have to piss you off and start these fights a lot more often.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Dedicated
“Ah, Miss Elphaba, it’s good to see you in such good health again. How are you doing? Taking care of yourself, I hope?” Yackle stood in the cold, steel walled room months and months later, having sent for Elphaba so she could check on the young woman.
“Yes, and I’m doing fine.” Elphaba didn’t feel safe in this room anymore. If she talked in here, or anywhere in the building, Madikien could end up in a very bad situation. As angry as she was with him for lying to her, she wasn’t willing to go behind his back and give him away – though that’s what she was supposed to be doing in the first place, according to Yackle.
“Recovered from your little mishap well?”
Coldly, Elphaba replied, “Very well, thank you.”
“Don’t you see, dearie? It all works out in the end.”
“Right. Just like everything happens for a reason.” She was surprised at the ironic, yet accusatory tone in her voice.
“Yes.” The old woman cocked her head, pretending she couldn’t read the young woman like a book. “What are you so mad about, dearie?”
“You’re happy that it happened, aren’t you?”
“I’m glad that you’ll be able to continue working on the campaign instead of sitting in bed nursing all day.”
“If you say so. Why did you call me down here?”
“I’m just checking up on your health. I’d also like to hear about your progress on your assignment.”
She needed to think up a lie, and quickly. “Well, I followed him again.”
“Good, good.”
“He went exactly where he told me he was going.”
“And where was that?”
“To get a drink with Jansied. He went to the bar.”
“Did you go in and try to pick out pieces of their conversation?”
“I’d look a little obvious, don’t you think?”
Yackle looked at her scornfully. “Bars are dark, dearie. It’d be hard to recognize anyone if they were wearing perhaps, a cloak.”
“Fine, fine. I’ll do that next time.” Elphaba was eager to get out of there.
“All is well with that, then. Now come, sit.”
Suspiciously, her eyes on the old woman, Elphaba took a chair at the table.
“Here.” Yackle poured a cup of liquid and handed it to her.
“Why aren’t you drinking any?” She knewwhat was going on.
“I don’t drink anything but hot water and the occasional tea these days, the doctors say it’s better for my health.”
The cup didn’t go near her mouth. “Why should I trust this?” She pushed the cup away from her on the table.
“Did I give you something harmful last time you were here?”
“Now that I think of it, I don’t know.”
“I poured you tea from the same kettle I poured for me.”
“But you and I are very different. We were even more different then.” Elphaba had a sudden notion that the old woman had more control over her life than was safe.
“But that potion works on anyone.”
“I never said it was the same as the one you used to make me tell you things. What was in that tea, Yackle?”
“Nothing that you or I shouldn’t have had.”
A horrifying thought came to her mind. No. It couldn’t be. Even this woman wouldn’t stoop so low as to… “That’s in your opinion. Would it have been the same as mine?”
“It was what was best. It just quickened something that was meant to happen, dearie, that’s all.”
The old woman’s voice lingered in her ears like a ghost.
“Perhaps it was meant to happen. It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
But she hadn’t seen her before the chaos erupted… Not in those twenty-four hours. However, she’d had the tea two days earlier. “Oh, no. You… I… You put me through that hell? All the bleeding and the pain and the emptiness… That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“You weren’t supposed to have been so careless as to get pregnant.”
“What in Oz were you thinking? Do you know what that felt like? Of course you don’t, for I doubt you’ve ever been careless. Am I right?”
“Quiet! Listen to me, and listen well. I know you didn’t like what you went through, but at least that taught you a lesson. You’re forgetting how much we need you here. With you pregnant, we were down one person. That may seem small, but it isn’t, dearie. Maybe you don’t realize how much you could’ve hurt the cause by having that child. For instance, what if Madikien was a traitor? Where would you go, here with us, or with the father of your child?”
“If he was a traitor, maybe he’d give it up.”
“And get the both of you killed? I don’t think so.”
“I wouldn’t have gone against the cause, Yackle.”
“Not in any normal mood or moment, but you don’t seem to have any idea how vulnerable you are when you’re pregnant. The hormones… you could’ve done anything. You could’ve gone with him and betrayed us.”
“If he was a traitor, he would’ve done that anyway.”
“But he doesn’t know enough to get even remotely close to the core of this group. You do. How would you feel if you did something like that, hmm?”
“I wouldn’t have.”
“There’s no guaranteeing that, dearie. You shouldn’t be arguing over this. If you hadn’t gotten pregnant in the first place, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. What causedyou to be so foolish?” After a pause, the woman snickered. “Oh, you silly child, you don’t even see how foolish you are.”
“Child? I’m twenty-one. And I’m certainly not foolish, because if I was foolish, I’d be drinking this.” She dropped the cup on the table, watching in spill and roll off the edge. With one finger, she touched the liquid and looked at it in the light. Before she’d been sitting in the shadows, unable to see the color of this mysterious drink. “You thought I’d fall for this stuff again? You really do think I’m foolish. What is it that you think I’m hiding from you?”
“If I knew what you were hiding from me, I wouldn’t be trying to find out. But something tells me that you’re struggling with your loyalty to the cause. I thought higher of you than that.”
“What changed?”
“When you came in here, I thought you were dedicated enough to do anything…”
“I am!”
“It took you an awfully long while to deal with your assignment.”
“But I dealt with it.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
Elphaba stood up, cheeks darkening with rage. “How can you accuse me of this? Look at all I’ve been put through and all I’ve put myself through. Any normal person would’ve walked out of here a long time ago. But I haven’t, even after everything that’s happened. I care about this cause and would sacrifice my life for it!” Just not his…
“If you’d sacrifice your life for the cause, why are you having such difficulty understanding that your unborn child’s life had to be sacrificed for this?”
“Because it didn’t enter this on it’s own will.”
“It was conceived by two people who did enter this on their own will. That was your responsibility, and Madikien’s, too. If something or someone gets in the way and we can’t save them without abandoning an assignment, then so be it. Maybe you should’ve thought twice before being so irresponsible and jumping into bed with him every night you felt like it. I never saw you as a very sexual being, actually. Well, maybe after one taste of it, you just couldn’t get enough. It wouldn’t surprise me if, even after what happened before, you were still behaving foolishly now.”
Ignoring everything else that the woman was implying, Elphaba responded, “You’d be happy to know that I am not, in fact, behaving that way. I do have some self-control you know.” She and Madikien had developed a routine. Elphaba was very conscientious of the date and always told him at least one day in advance when it came to nights when they couldn’t make love. On these nights, they’d still sleep in the same bed, sometimes holding one another. On occasion, they’d play and tease, but they never actually went too far. She’d gone through a dreadful time and she wasn’t going to risk it happening again.
“That’s good to know. But it worries me, how much you seem to enjoy his company. It makes me wonder, if he wasa traitor, would you even give him up?”
“As much as I may enjoy his company, I care about this cause more than anything else. Of course I’d give him up.” And she meant it. But, even though he was a traitor, he wasn’t exactly doing anything to hurt the campaign, so she saw no reason to say anything.
“That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. Dearie, I was beginning to worry that you’d fallen in love with him.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment. “I haven’t.” At least, I didn’t think so…
“But he’s in love with you?”
“Yes. Believe me, he says it all the time.”
“And you don’t?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Clever child. Well done. Three weeks from now, everyone is to report in at noontime. I want you here and hour early, I have something for you to do.”
“It’s as good as done.”
“You may leave, then.”
Before she left, Elphaba picked the cup up off of the floor and placed it upright on the table. “Next time, you might want to try something else.”
The old woman only cackled.
When she got back, Malky greeted her at the foot of the stairs (her room was convenient for a better way to get in an out, and only that). “Malky, Malky. What have you been up to?” Pompously, the cat displayed the dead mouse hanging from its mouth. “Well, that’s pleasant.” She shooed the cat away from the door and closed it as she went into Madikien’s room – their room, she corrected herself, she was so used to calling it his. “I really love that cat.”
Madikien had been sitting by the fire when she’d entered. He got up and helped her out of her cloak. “What’d it do now?”
“Malky proudly welcomed me inside by parading around a half-eaten dead mouse.” She kissed him and sat down at the table. “I don’t think I’ll need to feed it dinner tonight. Speaking of dinner, tell me we’re eating bread. After that wonderful glimpse at Malky’s dinner, I don’t think I can stomach anything other than bread.”
“Good, because, as usual, that’s all we’ve got.”
“Delicious.” She took the bread he offered her and began to eat.
“How was your meeting with Yackle?”
She wondered if she should tell him that she’d found out who was really responsible for the devastating miscarriage of their child. But he might insist that she stop working for the old woman, and she wasn’t going to let one person get in the way of this campaign. It would be best not to mention Yackle’s tea. “She tried to slip me her infamous talking potion again.”
“Why do you put up with this?”
“I have no other choice, darling. If I want to help, I have to listen to her. Nothing is more important than the campaign.”
“You didn’t drink any of that stuff this time, did you?”
“I’m not stupid enough to take anything she gives me that she isn’t drinking herself.”
“She still suspects me, doesn’t she? That’s what she thinks you’re hiding.”
She nodded. “But the way I see it, youhaven’t really done anything against the cause, so you haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Why is she so sure you’re hiding something?”
“Shouldn’t she be? In her eyes, you could be a traitor, and in a way, dear, you are. But she’s got me assigned to find that out. The problem is, I’m a novice, and I might make some mistakes; like getting pregnant, or not saying anything because I care about you too much.” She met his eyes and smiled for a moment before continuing. “She knows that we’re together; she doesn’t trust me to tell her everything. I’d tell her if there was something wrong that was dangerous to the campaign, but you haven’t done anything that really opposes what we’re supposed to be doing.”
“How did you two suspect me in the first place? Is it obvious?”
“Not you. But Jansied. And since you two seemed to have known each other…”
“I see. She’s not convinced that I’m on the right side, then?”
“I don’t think she’ll ever be. Just be careful, please. Things could go very wrong if either side of this finds out what you’re doing. And I don’t want you in ant danger, my dear.” She reached and took his hand.
“Anything you ask, I will grant it, whenever possible.” He squeezed her hand lightly and let go.
“Anything?” She raised her eyebrows.
“I’m not going to try and guess what sort of ideas you’re getting right now.”
“Then don’t. But, just so you know, they were perfectly innocent ideas.”
“I didn’t know you had innocent ideas, my love.”
“What sort of ideas did you think I had?”
“Oh, never mind.”
She got out of the chair and plopped comfortably on the bed. “It’s getting late. Are you tired?”
“Not tired enough to fall asleep just yet.”
Blowing out the candle on the bedside table, she got rid of the only light left in the room. Once her eyes had adjusted to the dark, she settled in on her back. “Ah, the pleasures of comfort.”
“Thank you for turning out the light when I told you I didn’t want to fall asleep right now.”
She laughed. “Just because it gets dark, it doesn’t mean you have to fall asleep. I’m sure you can find other things to occupy yourself with that don’t require light.” On the bed, still dressed, she kicked in the air to remove her shoes.
“Hey! Watch what you’re doing!”
“Uh… sorry?”
“Oh, Elphaba, Elphaba. You, my love, are a pain in the neck.”
“If that was supposed to be a compliment, it’s not getting you anywhere and I’m not thanking you for it.”
He got out of the chair and sat at the edge of the bed, looking at her in the dark. “Are you going to just fall asleep like that? In the clothes you’ve been wearing the entire day?”
“I’m too tired to remove my own clothes.” She sat up and kissed him playfully. “Would you like to do it for me?”
“It would be my pleasure, believe me.” He reached for her and with that, they slid between the sheets.
He woke in themiddle of the night, the warmth of her body close by his side. “Elle, baby?”
“What?”
“I love you.”
Yawning, she murmured, “That’s nice.”
“Elphaba…”
“What?”
“Why is it that I don’t get anything in response when I tell you that I love you?”
There was no answer; she simply snuggled closer to him.
“Now that I think about it, you’ve never even said it back once.”
She’d snuggled as close as she could; she was out of brilliant ideas.
“Let’s talk about this for a few minutes.” He sat up.
“How about let’s not? I’d like to sleep for a few hours.” She pulled the blanket all the way over her head.
“Too bad.” Grabbing her arm, he tugged her up, out of the blanket.
“Hey!” Reluctantly, she adjusted so that she was eye-level with him. “What do you want?”
“I want you to tell me, why, when I say it so often, you’re having such difficulty using the phrase ‘I love you’.”
“I don’t feel like pouring my heart out to you right now.”
Aggravated, he said, “I didn’t know there was anything in it to pour.”
She slapped him. “You are so insensitive!”
Bringing a hand to his face, still feeling the sting of her hand on his skin, he said, “If I’m the insensitive one, then why can’t you say something so meaningful but I can?”
“Did you ever consider that you were using your words a little too freely?”
“Now I am.” He wanted to stir a reaction in her.
“Good.” She moved to go back to sleep.
That wasn’t the reaction he’d aimed for. “No. Listen to me, love. I do love you. There is no doubt about that in my mind, why is there doubt in yours?”
“I never said that I doubted you love me.”
“What about the other way around, though? Have you ever even thought about that? I would think, since we’ve been sleeping together – with some minor breaks for small stretches of time here and there – for over a year, you’d have to feel something.”
“I do.”
“Then say so.”
“I just did.”
“You’re trying to drive me off the wall, aren’t you?”
“I don’t have to try.” She faked self-loathing in her voice, trying to make him feel bad enough to stop pushing it.
“Stop that. I don’t feel guilty and I’m not going to.”
“Fine.” She crawled to the edge of the bed and prepared to swing out of it.
“Oh, no you don’t.” He grabbed her, easily pinning her against the headboard – as gently as he could; he didn’t want to hurt her.
“Madikien!” She thrashed in his grasp, helpless.
“Stop struggling, I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Then let me go.”
He shook his head. “I don’t want to say this, but right now I don’t trust you enough to know that you won’t run out of the room the minute I let you go.”
Sarcastically, still trying to free herself, she shot back, “Now, why would I do that?”
“Calm down.”
She scratched at him desperately.
“Elphaba! Don’t do that, please.”
“Then let me go, please.”
“I told you why I can’t do that.”
She was beginning to feel afraid of him. “I’m not– comfortable – like – this.” By this time, she was wheezing in her efforts to get away.
“I’m sorry, then. You know I don’t mean to do this.”
“Then don’t do it!” In fear and anger, she tried to yank herself away, using all the strength she could muster, but he had her right where she couldn’t do a single thing about it. He had complete control right then and she was struggling not to let him see the panic in her eyes. “At this point, no matter what you do, I’m going to walk out of this room the minute I get the chance!”
“Not if I can help it. Talk to me.”
“About what?”
“You know.”
“Right. I do know. So I haven’t said it, it’s not important.”
“If it’s not important, why can’t you say it?”
She turned her head, looking longingly towards the door.
“Don’t bother hoping until you’ve said something that doesn’t simply evade this conversation.”
“I can’t!” She fought to keep her composure.
“I don’t think so, love.”
“Madikien, let me go! I hate you for this!”
“Baby, don’t say that.”
“Then listen to me: I can’t say it.”
“You can’t say ‘I love you’.” He looked at her curiously.
“I can’t.” She nodded.
“Because you wouldn’t mean it if you said it?”
She shook her head vigorously. “No, darling. It’s not that.”
“You don’t know if you do or not?”
“Not exactly.”
“Do you or do you not love me?”
“I can’t answer that. It’s the same thing as saying it.”
“Do you have any idea how it feels to tell you that every single day and never once hear it back?” Nonetheless, he let go of her.
Relieved, she kissed him quickly. “I’m sorry.”
“I know.” He’d moved to his side of the bed to fall asleep.
“No, don’t. Come here.” She whispered, hoping she could make up for the words she couldn’t say by showing him she cared in another way. When he climbed over her, she immediately wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, arching her back to allow him access to whatever he wanted. His hands and mouth were everywhere, roaming her body. Telling him that she loved him in the only way she could, she stilled his wandering and murmured breathlessly in his ear, “Make love to me.”
This was one command that he always obeyed.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: “Congratulations”
Elphaba was surprised to find that she was the only person who’d been told to report in early. When she entered the shelter, only Yackle was waiting for her. This immediately put her on guard. “What do you want me to do?”
“Come with me.” The old woman led her into the steel room behind the wall. She opened a cupboard full of empty glasses. “As I told you, everyone is to report in at noon. People will be thirsty. I want you to pour the drinks.”
“What do you want me to put in whose drink?”
“You catch on fast.” Yackle smiled. She brought out a large pitcher of what looked to be some sort of juice. “Here. This is what we’ll all be drinking.” Pullingout a small bottle of clear liquid, she said, “This is what one of us will have in his or her drink.”
“What is it?”
“That, dearie, you will find out after you have ‘done the deed’, so to speak.”
“Whose drink am I supposed to put that in?”
“As I said, that you will find out later.”
Confused, Elphaba asked, “Then how in the hell am I supposed to know which drink to put it in?”
“The cups are placed in front of every person at the table, starting here.” The old woman motioned to the head of the table. “It goes around clockwise. If I were to tell you that our mysterious friend were to be sitting here,” she motioned to a chair a few chairs down from the head, “what number drink would you put this in?”
“What is this? Math class?” Elphaba muttered.
“No time for silly jokes, dearie. Answer the question.”
“The sixth.”
“Good. Now you know which drink to put it into.” Yackle handed Elphaba the bottle.
“What if I see who you’re trying to drug or whatever and I warn them instead?”
“Then maybe I should’ve have given you such a simple, but important, assignment. I would think you’d know better than that.”
Elphaba nodded.
“Now, help me lift the table and pull it out there.”
“What? But it’s not safe! We can’t have a meeting out there. Anyone could just walk in.”
“Don’t you worry about that. It’s been taken care of. Would you help me?”
She tried not to laugh at the sight of the old woman trying to lift the table. Almost without effort, she lifted her side of the table and the two women dragged it out into the wooden walls of the shelter. After doing so, they brought the chairs out one by one.
“You go back into the room. I want you to stay in there and pour the drinks and not come out until the last drink has been poured, do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
“And when you come out here and our ‘mysterious friend’ has a face and a name, how are you to react?”
“Not at all.”
“Right. Get into the room, now. You know what to do.”
Obediently, Elphaba walked into the steel-walled room and sat down on a countertop, waiting for Yackle to come in and tell her to start pouring the drinks. She examined the clear liquid, even thought about tasting a drop, but thought the better of it. For one malevolent moment, she wondered where Yackle sat. What would this potion do to the old woman?
But no, that wasn’t right. Someone else had to get this liquid in his or her drink, not Yackle. Whoever was getting this was most likely in some serious trouble. She wondered what this mysterious liquid did, anyway. The truth potion had a dark, almost black color to it, so it couldn’t be the same. What had the potion Yackle had once poured into her tea looked like? It was too bad that Yackle had probably poured it into the tea long before she had even arrived. Wassomeone else pregnant? She doubted it.
She heard voices in the other room, for the door was open slightly, so slightly that she couldn’t see out of it when she tried. Only one or two others had arrived yet and Yackle wouldn’t come in until everyone was pleasant and seated. Elphaba began to pace around the room, nervous, with nothing better to do. Think about something, something happy. I need to distract myself from all of this.
Madikien was the first thing that came to mind and she caught herself smiling girlishly. Quickly, she wiped the smile from her face, though that didn’t stop her thoughts. She knew she cared for him, but did she love him? The answer was most likely and inevitable ‘yes’, but she couldn’t say that, not out loud. How could she be sure she knew what she meant? Thinking about it bothered her enough. Yet, he wanted to hear her say it; it was almost hurting him that she wouldn’t. Well, she’d say it eventually. They had time.
Time… How long had she been away from Shiz and Nessa and all of that? It was more than two years, maybe three. Day by day she felt that she missed her old friends less and less. Nessa, however, she’d always missed. She’d been able to do whatever she wanted her whole life and poor Nessa, with her disability, hadn’t. But there was nothing to do to help Nessa now. Maybe, one day, when everything was done and over, she’d go back to Clowen Grounds and find Nessa, who would be the Eminent Thropp by then. At least that gave Nessa something to do. Elphaba hadn’t wanted that responsibility in the first place and she was glad to have left it to her younger sister.
More voices. She thought she heard Madikien and Jansied among them. Once again, she struggled to peek through the small crack in the door, hoping for a glance of her lover for the sake of comfort, if nothing else. Nothing. Sighing, she sat back down on the countertop, swinging her legs anxiously. Idly, she swung the bottle of clear liquid back and forth between her hands. This task was getting increasingly frustrating, sitting in that room, so ignorant of anything going on outside.
She heard her name. Madikien had said something; he must’ve asked where she was because Yackle responded by telling him that she was “preparing the refreshments”. How innocent that sounded. But all of this was certainly not innocent; it was devious and sly. Who was going to end up with the potion in their drink? And what would happen when they drank it? She felt the sudden urge to get up and walk straight into the other room and refuse to do this. All she wanted was to be home (or what she called home, anyways) and in bed, asleep or awake, it didn’t matter. But she didn’t want to be right there right then.
Silence. After a moment, Yackle spoke. Everyone must have arrived.She didn’t even bother listening to what Yackle was saying. Soon, the old woman would enter the room and that would be when things mattered. As Yackle came through the door, Elphaba looked up.
“I want the first six glasses of juice poured and set on this tray,” Yackle motioned to a round tray that seemed as if she had conjured it up out of think air, “and arranged a certain way. Circle the first five glasses around the outer edge of the tray. The sixth is to be placed in the middle.”
“Right.” She poured the first glass, the second and third. “Aren’t they going to find it strange that you’ve only brought out the first six?”
“Look at the tray, dearie, it can’t hold more than six.”
The fourth and fifth glasses were placed on the tray.
“One more.”
Shaking slightly, Elphaba unscrewed the cap to the bottle of clear liquid. “All of it?”
“Yes.”
She poured the liquid into the glass, carefully assuring that she’d gotten every last drop. Taking the pitcher of juice, she tilted it so that juice splashed into the glass. Mixing it – or maybe she was just very shaky – she put it on the tray. “There you go.”
“Good. You have two more trays to fill when I get back in here. The order won’t matter, then.” Opening the door with one hand and carrying the tray in the other, the old woman glared at Elphaba. “Look away.”
She glanced to the ground, telling herself that she needed to have some self control, for she’d know in due time. As the door closed, behind Yackle, Elphaba sank to the ground for a moment, needing to release the tension in her body. Breathing slowly, she stood back up again and waited for the door to open again.
“Nice job, Miss Elphaba.” Yackle carefully shut the door behind her so Elphaba couldn’t see out.
“Sure.”
“Six more.”
“Of course.” Without shaking, or even thinking, she poured six more glasses and placed them all on the tray. She watched the floor when Yackle exited the room.
A few minutes later, the old woman entered the room again. “Last tray.” When Elphaba had loaded the tray, Yackle said, “Thank you. Once the door is closed, you may open it again and then enter. Don’t react, no matter whom the drink went to. You might want to pour yourself something to drink, too.”
Elphaba didn’t immediately leave the room. No matter who the drink went to? It was Madikien, wasn’t it? Then what was that potion supposed to be doing? Wide eyed, she moved towards the door, afraid to open it, keeping her eyes on the floor and she called out, “Yackle? Could I speak with you for a moment?”
Yackle came back into the room without even a questioning glance. It was almost as if Yackle had expected her to figure it out. Well, of course she did. She’s had it planned this way all along. The whole time…
“What the hell was in that drink?”
“Worried about Madikien, are you?”
I knew it! Ididn’t even have to look. “Yes. Yes, I am. What effects does that have? It’d be nice to know, because he’s going home with me and I’d like to know what will happen.”
“Well, I’d like to know what you haven’t been telling me all of this time.”
There was a knock on the door and Elphaba moved to open it. “One moment.” She opened the door, carefully. Looking up, she said, “Madikien?”
“Is something wrong?”
Swallowing hard, she faked a smile. “No, not at all. Why are you asking?”
“The sound of your voice when you called Yackle in here a moment ago.” Softly, he whispered, “What’d she do?”
“Nothing. Darling, don’t worry.”
“But I…”
“No. We’ll talk when we get home. I promise.”
“Elphaba…”
“Listen to me. We will talk later. And we can do plenty of other things later, too. We’ll be out in a minute or two, all right?”
He looked at her doubtfully, but she was already shutting the door.
“I’d say I’m not the only one who can read you so easily.” Yackle grinned.
“You’re lucky I didn’t say anything just now! I want to know what you did to him.” Or what you made me do to him…
“And, as I said, I want to know why you didn’t tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“You knew he was a traitor. You never followed him. And you never said a word to me about it.”
“Why bother telling you something that, I’m starting to believe, you already knew?”
“It was your assignment.”
Elphaba raised her eyes to Yackle’s. “It doesn’t matter. He’s not giving anything away. What the Wizard’s been doing is wrong, and he realized that. All he’s doing now is protecting this.”
“He came into this with the wrong intentions, dearie, and that’s all that matters.”
“But it isn’t. Don’t you want a spy on the other side?”
‘I’d like a spy on the other side who was actually sent to infiltrate the other side, not vice-versa.”
“Take what you can get!” Elphaba threw the empty bottle across the room, feeling a strange satisfaction when it shattered.
“What exactly is he? A love-sick puppy who is probably only days away from giving himself away to the other side?”
“He’s not stupid.”
“But he’s in love. It’s the same thing.”
“You wouldn’t know the first thing about love.”
“And neither would you!”
Glaring at the old woman, Elphaba snickered. “You’ve probably never had sex once in your life. How could you say that I know just as little about love as you do? Maybe I understand love. Maybe I don’t. But I certainly know more than you.”
“I’m decades older than you, child. You ought to stop being so haughty and respect your elders.”
“How can I respect someone who has been tricking me and playing with my mind all along? You knew the entire time. I didn’t know nearly as long as you did; you’re the one who hasn’t said enough.”
“I didn’t feel that I needed to tell you.”
“Ha! You didn’t need to tell me? That was what I was instructed to find out in the first place. For years I’ve worked foryou and done your bidding when it turns out I never needed to.”
“You needed to. This could’ve happened for real and then we’d all be in a huge predicament, wouldn’t we? You need to learn this lesson.”
“It wouldn’t have happened for real. All of this only happened because you made me seduce him, you told me to sleep with him.”
“I never made you or told you; I simply suggested it. You got into bed with him on your own free will and you and I both know that. And what if I hadn’t known about him? What if he was leaking information to the Wizard and you knew something about all of it?”
“That isn’t the case. The case is that I knew he was innocent and now you’ve manipulated me into giving him something that could do a dozen things. It could kill him.” As those words came out of her mouth, the blood left her face looking an almost pretty light green. The thought hit her hard. No. Please, no.
“Why would you care? You don’t love him, you said so yourself.”
Staring at the old woman, shocked, she was only just realizing what she’d known for sure all along. But I do. Curse me, I do love him. “What is going to happen to him?”
“Don’t bother telling him now. It’s too late.”
“What is going to happen to him?” Her voice wavered slightly.
“It won’t harm him.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Fine. He has less than twenty-four hours to live. The moment that potion touched his lips, the clock started ticking, dearie.” Seeing Elphaba’s face, she said, “It’ll be painless, I’ve granted him that much. You won’t notice a difference until the last five minutes or so.”
“I… you…” This can’t be happening.
“Congratulations, Miss Elphaba, you’ve killed the traitor.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Famous last words
After leaving Yackle and striding straight through the room full of people in the shelter, she found herself in the cold, bitter autumn weather outside. Once she’d rounded the corner to the alleyway they used to use as an entrance, she leaned against the wall of the building and sank to the ground. She hid her face in her hands as she battled tears and took a deep breath.
“Elphaba!” Madikien ran after her and bent to the ground, trying to tear her hands away from her face so he could look at her. “Elle, baby, what’s wrong?”
She couldn’t look at him, not after what she’d done. Less than twenty-four hours…
“Elphaba, look at me.”
“No.” Her throat burned and her eyes stung. Had she had more time to gather her self-control, she might’ve been able to keep calm. But the sound of his voice was piercing in her ears.
“What is it?”
Still not looking up, she said, “I’m so sorry.”
“Elphaba, relax. Tell me what’s going on, please.”
After a little strained breathing, she allowed herself a glance at him. She didn’t want to tell him. It would hurt him so much. In the last few hours, she’d tell him. That was only fair. Looking athim, looking at his body, she ached and yearned, already missing what was still there. “Can we go inside?”
“Anything you want. Do you need help getting up, love?”
“I’m all right.” She got up and followed him. Inside, she threw off her cloak and sat on the bed.
With concern in his eyes, he sat down next to her, rubbing her back gently with one hand. “What happened?”
He had less than twenty-four hours left. And it was her fault. She decided then that these last few hours with him would be focused on what he wanted, what he liked, what he felt. This was no time to be selfish and angry that she couldn’t be with him longer; he was dying. “Yackle just… said something that got to me, that’s all.”
“What did she say?”
“It’s not important right now.” She tackled him on the bed and kissed him with more passion than she ever had.
“That’s an… interesting mood swing.”
“I just needed a moment, that was all. Can we forget about that?”
“If it was really nothing.”
“It was.” She smiled at him, reminding herself that she had to keep herself under control for his sake.
“Where were we, then?” He carefully rolled over, adjusting so that she was just beneath him.
“I don’t know. We were in any sort of position you wanted to be in.”
“That works. We’re already there.” Sliding her dress off of her and quickly removing the rest of her clothing, he ran his hands along her body, stopping at her waist, itching to continue.
“Do me a favor.”
“Of course.”
“For the next twenty-four hours, forget the rules. Do what you want; don’t even think about my comfort. You’re always so focused on pleasing me, it’s your turn to have all the fun.” Bravely, she guided his hand where she knew it longed to go.
“What is this all about?” He was being overly cautious, well aware that normally this would make her uncomfortable.
“Nothing. I’m all yours. This body is your property for the time being.” She pressed herself against his hand, ignoring the images that floated through her mind.
“Okay…” Gazing at her, he watched her eyes for any sign of discomfort. “Tell me if I do anything wrong.”
“No. I am yours. Understand me? You do what you want with me. Whatever you please. If I feel like you’re holding back for my sake, that’ll hurt me more.” She knew he’d do as he was told.
He loved having her undressed long before he himself was. It gave him time to play with her body, find ways to make her weak in the knees. His fingers grazed her weakness and she moaned with a deeper, stronger longing, all too conscious of the fact that their time was so limited.
“Whatever you want.” She whispered.
He looked at her, her body completely exposed, no blanket or anything at all. He undressed himself and eased inside of her, his movements a little rougher than usual. She didn’t want to let him sleep that night; she tried to keep him awake. But inthe morning, he slept, worn out and tired. She let him sleep for an hour, but only an hour.
As he was sleeping and she was next to him, she looked at him sadly. Tears threatened and she murmured softly, “Please don’t leave me.”
“Did you say something, baby?” He was awake again.
“No. I must’ve been talking in my sleep.” Six hours… ”Madikien…”
“Yes, my love?”
“I don’t know how to tell you this…”
“Just say it straight out.”
“That’s not the best idea.” She sighed, knowing that she had only six hours left with those arms holding her so close. “Yesterday, Yackle had me slip a potion into someone’s drink.”
“Okay…”
“It was the sixth drink she set out. I wasn’t allowed to know who was getting it until after she’d served all of the drinks. I wasn’t even allowed to know what the potion was until after that, too.”
“Whose drink did you slip it into?”
“My dear, I…” The words were caught behind her lips.
“You can tell me.”
“It was your drink.”
“But I feel fine.”
“You won’t in six hours. Oh, Oz, I’m sorry. If I had known, I never would’ve done that.”
“In six hours? What? Elle, what was that potion?”
“This is where it gets bad…”
He could feel her tears near his shoulder. “Elphaba, keep going.”
“What would you do if you only had six hours left to live?”
“What?”
“I didn’t know. I’m so foolish. I never even considered that it’d be you… or that it would kill anyone… She… I was set up in this awful ruse. Oh, hate me… you have a right to.”
He was silent for twenty minutes, still holding her. “You really didn’t know?”
“I wish I had. I would’ve stopped it. Now…”
“Why’d she do this?”
“Madikien, she knew. She knew all along. Even in the beginning, she knew. This was all some cruel joke. I’m sorry. I know it’s not enough – nothing is, now – but I’m sorry.”
“I’m not angry with you. You didn’t know.”
“But I didn’t even worry about you.”
“You weren’t thinking, that’s all right.”
“How can you be so calm right now?”
“I don’t know. But I don’t want to waste time yelling, screaming and crying when there isn’t much time left. You let me do whatever I wanted all last night because you knew, right?”
She nodded.
“That makes a little more sense now. Are you sure there’s nothing that’ll stop this?”
“Yackle doesn’t have a remedy for it. And that damned woman even had a cure for what she gave me…”
“What?”
“At this point, it doesn’t matter.”
“So, what do we do now?”
“Hold each other?”
“Yes. That sounds like a good idea to me.”
“You can’t even know how sorry I am…”
“Shhh, baby. Don’t talk for a while.”
On that battered, wooden bed, beneath the blankets made of wool and cotton, they lay quietly, arms around one another. They made love twice more on those sheets, taking their time and savoring the warmth of each other’s body – warmth they both knew they wouldn’t have for very much longer. Five and a half hours passed, and Elphaba couldn’t let go of him, forhe might fall away when she wasn’t aware.
“I don’t have much longer, do I?”
Fighting tears, she looked at him sorrowfully and shook her head. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. This would’ve happened with or without your help.” He was beginning to feel weaker.
She could feel his arms loosening from around her. Lovingly, she kissed him and held him, knowing he’d be gone any moment. Taking his hand one last time, she criss-crossed their fingers. And then she turned away for a moment, grabbing the blanket with one hand to stop the tears from nipping at her cheeks.
He was slipping away and he could feel it just as well as she could. Knowing that these last words needed to be said, he reached and wiped a tear from her cheek, “I love you, Elle.” Those weren’t the last words he heard, though.
The last words he heard before everything faded away were Elphaba’s:
“I love you, too.”
He squeezed her hand, wanting her to know that he’d heard… and then he was gone.
EPILOUGE: The chapel of St. Glinda
She felt she had to pray, if not for her, then at least for him. And if she had to pray, here was as good a place as any. In the oratory in the chapel of St. Glinda, her old friend, she bowed her head.
It was the anniversary of his death. She hadn’t allowed another person to touch her, even brush against her. Love was a wicked distraction; that much she’d learned. But there was no denying that she had loved and that he was gone. Madikien was gone. Yackle had taken care of Jansied as well, and the remains. The old woman had emptied the room and looked after the body…
Her room was boarded up. She wouldn’t (and couldn’t) walk into the room they’d shared, see the bed they’d made love in, the place he died, or the fireplace before which he had held her. It was too much, and thus the door between the two rooms was boarded. On days when she was particularly distractible, she could almost forget that there had ever been any other room. Malky wandered her room, never once mewling at the boarded up wall, for which she was thankful.
It wouldn’t happen again. She couldn’t allow it to. Love tore her too far away from the cause; it made her selfish. But she had no self. No one mattered in the scheme of things; she accepted that. Still, she couldn’t help but think of him every once in a while. Madikien… I love you.
Just then she heard a noise from behind her. Someone else had entered the oratory. She couldn’t be discovered here. The best thing to do was stay there with her head bowed, and when the stranger saw her, perhaps they’d leave her alone. Footsteps echoed and she worried she might be in trouble.
She heard her name. But that wasn’t possible. No one knew her name except the rest of her circle, and they knew better than to speakit aloud. Yet, it had been her name; there was no mistaking it. Reminding herself to act as if she’d only responded to the noise, not the name, she turned her head and said, “I beg your pardon, sir?” When she saw who it was, she had to struggle to keep herself from reacting, or gasping in shock…
Fiyero?
QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS? E-mail elphiethetragic at moowithme@comcast.net OR post in the thread with the title of this fanfic for the topic in the "Fanfication" section. There is an alternate ending, for some people who were a bit attached to Madikien. That's also under the thread with the same title in the "Fanfication" section. I hope you enjoyed the story!
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