AUTHORS NOTE:

Oh My God.

I've been up all night and I need to be up in about.... an hour or so?

Anyway as I was laying in bed, I started to think about this story for the first time in awhile. I got online and started reading through it again, and the bits and pieces I had written up a few months ago.

I was wide awake and ready to take a stab at it. I'm very tired now, so I'm sorry if this seems rushed and short. I'm going to try and work on some more chapters. I have an outline for this story so maybe I'll get lucky and make up like two chapters like I used to. I'm sorry if Elphaba is out of character, and I'm warning you now this story is going to have a lot of angst.

Tune in next time to see what happens next! I have a few more twists up my sleeves.

To say that Elphaba was shocked would be a gross understatement. She was still reeling from the unbelievable truth that had been unveiled to her moments before as she pulled on a slick cloak and hurried into the courtyard outside. The rain had eased up, but even in her delirious state her body was not going to let her take any unnecessary risks.

“What do you mean?” Elphaba had gasped, her anger, confusion and shock had mixed into a giant lump in the back of her throat which made it painful to speak.

“Nanny means just what she said, dear.” Nanny had said, sitting heavily on a chair. “That girl who you have treated so horribly and have hated for all this time is your daughter. She’s yours.”

“That can’t be. She’s…”

“She was born nine months after you left.” Nanny had looked up. She had such an odd look on her face, one of sadness, of pity, of… was that… resentment? “Glinda was disowned when she told her parents. She was all alone. There was hardly anything I could do for her, Nessarose was such a horrible wreck after you left, poor dear, she took up all my time. Such a mess you left us all with, Elphaba. I thought I raised you better than that.”

“…I…” Elphaba had been too shocked to even fall into the chair she backed into. She knocked it over and stood stiffly where it had been.

“An arrangement was made. She was to visit every break, but your father banished her from visiting us. I raised little Melly from a baby. Just like you, just like your mother. But she didn’t have anyone else, dearie, just me. I was her world for the longest time.” Nanny hadn’t seemed to be condemning, she hadn’t judged. She had a faraway look in her eyes, reliving memories of the past. “She was such a little angel, my little Melly. She always wondered about her birthmother, she wondered who her birth parents were. Oh she loved me, she called me Mama, but it was only natural; we were going to tell her, but, well, life isn’t what we want sometimes. You should know that better than anyone, Elphaba.”

But it was just too much. It just couldn’t get through her twisted and clouded mind. She couldn’t imagine Glinda having her child, she couldn’t think of Melena as an infant cuddled in a blanket in Nanny’s arms. She couldn’t see any similarities between herself and the girl she had loathed with every fiber of her being for so many months.

She couldn’t believe she had treated her own child—one that had been birthed by her love—so horribly. She felt such a rush of emotions. She felt shock, anger, resentment, sadness, and one she had become far too familiar with within the last few years of her life; guilt.

She felt guilt for not realizing all of this sooner. She felt so stupid, so pathetic and weak, and… she felt betrayed.

Now as she ran through the dark forest, a thousand questions swirled violently in her mind like an out of control tornado.

Why didn’t she tell me?

Why didn’t she let me know?

Why didn’t she tell me about our baby?

She felt so angry, but she didn’t know why. Would it have changed anything? Was she ready to be a mother… father… whatever she had become back then? Wouldn’t she have run away? Not taken responsibility? Wouldn’t she think that the resistance was more important?

But as the lightning crashed through the sky lighting up the world in a blinding white flash, and the thunder rumbled, and the earth shook, and she could see not far off the form of a staggering brunette woman struggling to carry a limp blonde, all questions vanished from her mind.

No matter what either of them was feeling, they both had a common goal: to save the woman they both loved.

However, the trees which moved around them, their carved faces contorted into wicked sneers and grins, had other plans. Their mighty branched arms swung down wildly, ready to crush their bones and flesh into a bloodied mass upon the ground.

In that instant, as Elphaba watched Melena’s eyes roll into the back of her head and fall to the ground, holding onto Glinda for dear life, about to be crushed, she felt something in her snap.

From her hands wild white hot fire shot out and crashed against the bark of the trees. Each lit up like a match struck on a box. They screamed and swayed, beating themselves violently in a futile attempt to smoother the fire which ate away at their branches and roots.

Elphaba dashed across the burning maze and gasped onto the limp bodies of her daughter and lover and with what could only be described as a miracle of magic, carried them both to safety. The two women felt as light as a feather to her all of a sudden, and she didn’t notice until after she had dropped to her knees and laid them as gently as she could on the ground.

She gazed upon Melena and Glinda who were now both unconscious, and as she watched them, a thought crossed her mind, an answer to her earlier wondering.

If I had known, no matter the fear, I wouldn’t have left.

I would have had a family.

Family…

This… this is my family.

And as she realized this, for the very first time she could ever truly recall, she felt a small tinge of something in her.

She felt…

Hope.