A/N: Chapter Warnings: Alternate Universes, multiple timelines, character deaths, violence, and strangeness.

Nessarose wandered into Boq's room, she couldn't believe he left. At the same time, she could, she had been horrible to him … absolutely horrible. She felt her world had fallen apart, all she wanted was for him to love her and yet he couldn't. She never felt at home unless she was with him, he gave her home … he made her feel whole. Now he was gone and she was alone … she would always be alone.

She found a box with his journals in it, old journals he had been writing since before Shiz and yet continued after she had enslaved him. This was all she had left of him … all she had left of the home she wanted, the home she felt when he was there. She could feel the tears falling down her face and landing on his books. Tears coloring the outside of his journals … sparkling tears shining out.

With every wish for his happiness, with every regret for what she had done to him, with every hope that he could still love her, and with every breath she had left to breath she had made this come true. Her tears becoming the fuel of her love for him, her wish to make things better … her wish for home again, and these tears would guide him home.

He didn't know why he had come back to this place. This horrible place that had been his prison for so many years it seemed an eternity. Yet here he was, in his old room in the dusty mansion of the late wicked witch of the east. No one came here anymore, no one dared … they were afraid that upon entering her old residence they would come upon some curse she had left behind.

He wasn't afraid, he had nothing left to fear from her … he had already lost everything, she had already taken it from him. He wasn't even human any more, he couldn't feel the wind against his skin nor smell the musty halls of this old house. He was a man of tin … a monster … heartless. He wasn't himself anymore, he was a thing that shouldn't even exist and sometimes he wished that he had been allowed to die instead of being forced into this hell.

His hands came upon his old journals … they were out. Did that mean that his Governor had been reading them? That was somewhat disturbing, yet why should he expect privacy when he was given nothing else from her. Something was wrong with them, though. There were sparkling spots on them, he wasn't sure what they were … but they seemed to draw him in.

He opened the last journal to the last entry and saw his old writing … something about a letter being delivered to the mansion. It was from Miss Glinda, she was engaged to Fiyero … he knew that didn't work out, Fiyero was dead now. He wished he could have been glad about that, glad that Fiyero could no longer taunt him with his perfection, but he didn't have a heart and didn't feel glad about anything. He didn't even feel love for Miss Glinda anymore … he felt nothing, he wasn't able to.

Suddenly he started to feel something … faint and dizzy. His world was fading around him and then materializing again. He took a deep breath … a real breath. His eyes widened and his heart sped up. Wait … he could feel his heart beating! He had a heart! He brought his hands up to look at them, they were flesh instead of tin … he was human! He started dancing around the room, so thrilled about the fact he wasn't stuck in that stupid tin can any more it took him a moment to register the sound of the bell.

He looked down at himself … the uniform, the horrible silver uniform. He was her slave again … he was that wretched witch's slave! He walked out of the room and made his way to her study, he wasn't sure what to expect. Yet what he saw made his heart fall down … he was becoming delusional. It was Elphaba by her armoire and his Governor sitting in her chair.

This was the moment before he was made into a tin man. He looked nervously from one to the other and then noticed the glint of metal on the table. He reached out for it; he needed to protect himself from these horrible witches who had destroyed his life. He heard Elphaba's voice, "It's just me, Boq, I'm not going to hurt you"

"You're lying!" he screamed as he ran away from her, towards where? Into the room … oh wait, this wasn't going well. He had his back against the wall; the letter opener pointed towards the wicked witch of the west, and realized that this was happening just like it had before. He shook his head; he couldn't let this happen … he had to do something!

He flung himself toward the green monster, lodging the letter opener into her throat before she seemed to realize what he had done. She gasped and grabbed onto his uniform coloring it red with her blood before she collapsed on the ground. "Boq!" he heard his Governor screech behind him.

He turned to look at the wide eyed shock on her face. He backed away from her … she didn't deserve the sweetness of death. She deserved something worse; she deserved to be left alone and helpless. Then she stood and walked toward him, causing him to trip over the body of the woman he had just murdered and fall on the ground beside her. He had forgotten she could walk.

"Boq, why? Why did you do that?" she struggled toward him, her feet uneasy and unaccustomed to supporting her weight.

He began to crawl back away from her, "She…" he looked over and pulled the letter opener out of the throat of his victim and pointed it toward the woman wobbling her way over, "Don't come any closer!"

If possible, her eyes widened even farther, tears falling down her face, "Boq" she shook her head, "This isn't like you"

"How do you know?" He spat before he felt his world begin to fade again … now what? Suddenly it came together into a picture of brutality. The image of Elphaba bleeding on the floor, another of Nessarose, and yet another of … Glinda?

His mouth fell open as he stood up to walk over to the images, sketches hung in this strange room. A room locked off with a heavy iron door … a prison. He took a sharp intake of breath; he was in prison for killing Glinda? No … no, no, no! That couldn't be right, he would never kill Glinda!

He looked at the pages … journals he had written, angry words. Words about Glinda … how she had never loved him ... that word was written thousands of times in scratched lettering … never, never, never. He killed her because he realized that she never cared for him and never would … never ever would. He collapsed on the ground looking at his hands, his human hands. His murderous, monstrous hands and he found himself wishing that he was still that heartless tin man, at least then he wouldn't have touched a single blond hair on his angle's perfect head.

He noticed the box … the sparkling spots and he had to leave … he had to get out of here. He picked one up and read from a random location. He decided no matter what happened; he would never kill again for the risk to who he might kill after that. He wasn't a killer … he wasn't supposed to be a killer. He read … the arrival of Fiyero Tiggular …