Forever and Again Wicked

By: PortofSeas

Disclaimer: Though I love Gregory Maguire's characters (yes, even that horrible Avaric) I do not own them.

Author's Note: I know, I promise to get started on a Teen Titans or Ruroken story soon, but this was bugging me so much I couldn't even work on my regular stories. This is the story of Elphaba, after the conclusion of Son of a Witch. I loved the ending of the show (from what clips I've seen) and as a devout book fan, I wanted to incorporate both. I don't believe I will incorporate the clockwork dragon, though. And there will be little mention of Liir's relationships with either Trism or Candle (though Candle will be a given, considering her child) This is purely my hybrid of the show and book. Tending more toward the book, it brings in those aspects of the show that could work with it, without being out of canon. I'm sorry for all of the fans of "Dancing Through Life" Fiyero, but this is Arjiki prince and father Fiyero/scarecrow.

Read and Enjoy.

Chapter 1: Remembering what a diploma couldn't.

It was just a piece of paper. A silly, useless scrap of nothing that proclaimed that he was intelligent. He hadn't done anything to deserve it. He wasn't really intelligent… but the wizard's diploma had given him a confidence, a sense of knowledge that somehow truly made him intelligent. At least, so he thought.

That first spew of intelligible words from his burlap-sack mouth had been an attempt at the Pythagorean theorem. Sweet Oz, looking back on it now, he hadn't even realized he hadn't said it right. It was only a few days later, after the departure of Dorothy and the Wizard, that he realized his flaw.

The sum of the squares of the legs of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the square of the hypotenuse.

Yes… that was the right formula. How silly that noone had caught his error the first time. Not that it mattered any. Once the fanfare was done and the excitement over, he was nothing more than an enchanted scarecrow, wandering the streets of the Emerald City. Thinking he had a brain.

And then it occurred to him. How had he managed to decipher the actual theorem, if he didn't have a brain? By this time he'd dismissed the diploma as a useless scrap of paper that the Wizard had given him to settle a whining presence. So where were these thoughts coming from? A new confidence he had developed? Was confidence the key to intelligence?

A few more days passed and he dismissed that idea as well. Confidence was belief in oneself, not the key to more knowledge. Knowledge was found and earned. And the fact that he realized this on his own gave him no respite from the questions that filled his once-empty head.

It certainly didn't help matters that he didn't need to sleep nor eat nor do any sort of human activity that usually distracted such, what could it be called, deep thoughts.

Days slipped by, weeks… for all he knew it could have been years before he finally came to a conclusion that perhaps it was memories that gave him this knowledge. Memories unlocked by a sudden childish belief that the Wizard of Oz could give him a brain. This led to the worst series of thoughts yet.

Scarecrows didn't have memories. He'd been magicked to life by those magic slippers Dorothy wore. So how could he have possibly had memories?

That was a sickeningly simple answer.

He had not always been a scarecrow. He had been something… well, something more. He had done things, known things, learned things that he had forgotten when he had been enchanted. An enchanted scarecrow. That had to be the most original thing in the book.

He found that intelligence made him rather cynical.

The Scarecrow sighed, leaning against the underside of the bridge, one of the many that criss-crossed the Emerald City. Glinda had come and gone, and in her stead some cheap imitation of himself. Nobody noticed, of course. To the rest of the world, a single scarecrow looked just like the next one. Of course, that could be nothing good, considering that he might have very well been just like each and every one of them years ago.

After that glorious epiphany, he had run amok throughout Oz, searching for answers. He'd frequented fortune tellers, self-proclaimed seers, and even the occasional maunt for answers. They provided few, except for one novice in particular.

"Can you help me?" he had pleaded after pouring out his desperate story to the young girl. The maunt had regarded him with bewilderment and disbelief, then a sort of deranged pity-as one might feel for the mentally unstable.

"Of course," she said sweetly, taking his straw-stuffed glove and leading him through the mauntery. "Perhaps all you need is some religious guidance, for the Unnamed God sees and loves all creatures…"

But he had stopped paying attention to her speech concerning the goodness and dignity of all things under the sun.

There he had seen people gathering and praying in the dusty cobbles outside, pious despite the posters that had been unceremoniously plastered on the walls. His mind had begun to itch, then burn with something he couldn't quite touch. The maunt had stopped, turning and noticing his interest.

"Oh, yes, this is where some of the faithful come when they cannot spare the time to come into the main chapel." She had said this with a definite tone stating that they certainly ought to make time to come into the chapel, but the Scarecrow had paid no mind. The incessant prickle in his mind had become maddening. The feelings that had accompanied it were…

Well, looking back on it now he could say they weren't too bad. But at the time it had been horrendous.

Staring down at the pilgrims and worshippers, he had thought he saw a figure, bundled up as though it was the dead of winter, bowing respectfully.

Then she had looked up.

And he had found himself staring into the face of the Wicked Witch of the West. He had almost cried out in alarm when the vision, or memory or whatever it was, vanished. Had he been human, he had no doubt in his mind he would have broken out into a cold sweat. Even now, after all this time, that wretched woman haunted him.

"What patron saint do you honor here?" he had asked suddenly. The maunt had regarded him suspiciously, but hadn't been the sort to pass up an opportunity to pass out information.

"Saint Glinda, same name as that Lady Chuffrey, but not the same woman."

The scarecrow had only nodded. Saint Glinda… he would have to remember this mauntery, for whatever good or ill it might have brought.

More time had passed, and eventually wit had driven him to Gillikin. After all, he had been educated, else he wouldn't have known the things he knew. Shiz University had been rumored to be one of the best learning establishments in Oz.

He had strode as confidently as he could into those halls, admiring the view despite his rural appearance. Everything had been shined and polished and loved on, like some precious statue in a housewife's living room. And yet…

It brought no memories. Hurriedly, he had rushed to find the headmistress-at least he remembered that the University was run by a headmistress!-only to be stopped by a surly looking elf in a starched uniform.

"Please," he had begged. "I need in to see the headmistress."

"Nuffin for it, then," the elf snapped. "I may be replacing a clock'ork fool but I don' fink I'm as dumb as one."

"I need to find out if I ever attending this school," he had gone on, but the elf only raised a bushy black eyebrow.

"You?" he had chided harshly. "You ain't bin ta this school. Ain't no scarecrows I ever seen here, and ain't no boys 'oo was allowed in. This 'ere is a girl's school! Now off wi' ya, the 'eadmistress is very busy."

After that encounter, the Scarecrow had gone into serious self doubt about whether or not this was a worthy mission. Part of him didn't want to follow all the clues only to discover that he had actually been a girl! Of course… if he had been a girl than back then he-she-whatever would have thought being a male scarecrow was horrible.

There was no possible way he was a girl!

After several terrible moments of consideration, the thought finally occurred to him that perhaps he had gone to another school. So much for those magnificent brains of his.

Several days later and an eventual trip to Crage Hall had yielded a treasure trove of precious memory. A studious munchkin bent over books and going on about some girl named Miss Galinda, two boys with very little capacity for being serious, a careless rich boy with no real concern for others. The Scarecrow distinctly remembered that he was unpleasant.

"Who would want to have skin the color of shit?"

"Well, who would want shit for brains?"

The first he had recognized as an insult thrown at him. The second voice, though…

Just another mystery that needed solving.

After a time of traveling about Gillikin, he had opened up a vast quantity of memories. Places he'd been, people he'd known. Even an unfortunate visit to the Philosophy Club, which he would have preferred not to have entered.

And yet, each memory seemed haunted, tainted with the presence of the Wicked Witch of the West. He knew her by no other name, as he had only just come into being as Dorothy passed him on the road. Why did the Witch seem to enter his memories so often? Was it some horrible spell she had placed on his before dying? That she would enter his mind?

Why was she so gentle, though, in his memories? The Witch he remembered had been cruel, unfeeling, even mad… but not sweet. She hadn't clung to Glinda-how had he managed the stroke of luck to have known Glinda in his childhood?-she hadn't tended to some poor armless creature dotingly.

She hadn't sung like some sort of haunting angel.

Elphaba.

That was her name. Her real name. Elphie… though the armless girl had mentioned a nickname of Fabala.

Elphaba Elphie Fabala…

Something was missing.

How many years had passed he couldn't be certain. Down to Munchkinland and back, he never picked up anything useful. Stray thoughts he had thought in that past life, fleeting images that meant nothing.

Discouraged, he had returned to the Emerald City, trying to piece together what he had learned. He had been a person of some importance, with dark skin and some sort if interesting marking. He had been friends with Elphaba (he had found he preferred to call her Elphaba than the Witch) and Glinda, the armless girl, the munchkin Boq, those two funny fellows, and had some fort of relation with that nasty Avaric fellow. He'd been married, wih children, but their names and faces were lost to him. It added up to something, he knew.

He just hadn't known what.

In the years he had been gone, the Emerald City had changed. Under the Apostle Emperor Shell Thropp (again, a name that meant something obscure) it had been renovated and changed into something else. Unique, but alien. He had seen little hope in finding more answers in this place.

Caught up in another moment of disgust, he had wandered idly through the city. His most forward thought was: How could he have ever associated with Elphaba like that? Had he known no shame? And along that line of thought came others. Why had he enjoyed her company in his memories? What was the plug that stopped the rest from coming through?

He had clung to the diploma over the years, as though touching it like a talisman would help him to unlock more mysteries.

Without realizing it, his feet had led him to a decrepit boarding house. Without realizing what he was doing, he had walked inside. Without realizing what was about to happen, he had asked to look around.

"Of course," the landlady said, smiling toothily. "If you're looking for accomodations, we've got a spare room up there, half the regular price."

"Why is it half price?"

Her smile wilted some, without actually fading.

"Oh, some poppycock about a murder or something, but you needn't believe that."

He had allowed his feet to lead him up the dusty steps. Clearly this place hadn't always been a boarding house-the walls still held the disrepair of a building abandoned too long to be renovated. The thought had crossed his mind that perhaps the new owner had simply moved in, built on, and claimed it.

At the top of the steps his feet turned, leading him into a room that had probably not been touched in decades.

Despite the straw and twigs that made up his light form, the Scarecrow felt suddenly heavy under the hideous weight of memory.

This was her room. This was where they had been together, in their sinful paradise. A white cat, stale crackers, a black scarf with red roses wrapped around a perfect emerald waist.

Blue diamonds on a green field.

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The Scarecrow sighed and whacked his head ineffectively against the stone bridge, wishing he had teeth to gnash together. The new, fresh memory of his visit to Elphaba's apartment was wrought of pain and depression. That was the place where he had truly lived.

And truly died.

The memories now filled his head in a way he had never dreamed back as the brainless Scarecrow. His adultery with Elphaba, betraying Sarima, his children,his life. His name, her name.

Elphaba Fabala Elphie Fae.

And Fiyero. Yero her hero.

She was dead. And when she had died, he had felt no remorse. Surely what he knew know was remorse tenfold. How he had become the Scarecrow he didn't know. Perhaps she had cast a spell. He wished she hadn't. Then they could have been together in death.

But that would be wishing her death, wouldn't it?

And those thoughts lead to more thoughts too ugly to be 'intelligent', only prodding the wounds deeper. He had to find her. He had to help her somehow… But how could he make amends to a dead woman, incredible though she had been?

She was at Kiamo Ko. Or had been when she'd died. What had happened to Sarima and his children he couldn't fathom; he didn't want to fathom it at the moment. The first step was to get out of the Emerald City and return to his palace, to see what had become of it through the eyes of a prince.

Standing, the Scarecrow Fiyero edged out from under the bridge and began to make his way methodically toward the Vinkus. Winkie country.

He had a brain, he had a heart, he had nerve. He even had memories.

If only he could still have her.

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And thus ends the first chapter of Forever and Again the Wicked. Read and Review honestly, please.