Title:  The Wizard, the Witch and the Whirlwind

Part 7:  Escape from Witch Mountain

Based on The Wizard of Oz  (1939)

Author:  Shoshana

Summary:   Spock and McCoy pay a visit to Jim Kirk at his childhood home in Riverside, Iowa.  But the three don’t stay there.   

Pairings:  S/Mc    Dorothy/original character(s)    K/Antonia

Rating:  PG-13    sexual innuendo

Word count:  5400

Disclaimer:   Brief dialogue quoted/adapted from The Wizard of Oz, screenplay by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, Edgar Allan Woolf, based on the children’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.   I do not own The Wizard of Oz or The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  Nor do I own Star Trek.  Not a molecule, atom, quark or vibrating string of it.

Author’s note:  Novella length.  Though a Spock/McCoy marital relationship is an important element of the story, the fic is primarily a trio friendship story.  For the purposes of this work, Jim does not disappear/die in 2293 aboard the Enterprise-B.  Thank you to Stef for the beta.  Errors are my own.

“I wish Oswald would get back.”  Leonard’s voice was tense and pitched low.  The full moon was dull red, shrouded by clouds which totally obscured the mountaintop above.  “We don’t know the layout up there, or how many guards are posted.”  They were waiting for the Bouvier-turned-bluebird to return from his reconnaissance of the Witch’s stronghold.   Unable to take the guarded paved road up the mountain, they had had been climbing for more than three hours over difficult, rocky terrain, a landscape which had become more bleak and stark the further they ascended.

From behind Leonard, who was tied to Jim, came Spock’s voice, also low.  “More importantly, we don’t know if Dorothy is still alive.”

“Of course Dorothy’s alive, you and Jim are still here.  You’re both descended from her, remember?”  Leonard had remained skeptical, even derisive, of Spock’s theory.

“Leave it,” Jim said, sharply.  “This isn’t the time to be arguing about our hypothetical genealogies.”

Jim was cold.  His right shoulder ached where a boulder had gashed it, and his left side burned where the nightwing had stung him.  The healer’s ointment had soothed the wound, but had not healed it.  Sharp rocks, brush and thorns, the rope trailing from the harness around his chest, had all scraped his side painfully.

But stronger than his friends, and possessed with better night vision, he led the group up the steep mountainside.  

Jim glanced briefly at the sky.  Red-streaked clouds trailed from the moon like spreading blood stains.  When he was five a playmate’s older brother had frightened the younger boys, telling them a moon like that meant someone was sure to die.  True enough, in its way; people were always dying.  Maybe the only thing Jim had looked forward to in his retirement was seeing less death, at least for a while.  That, and not having to deal with Fleet bureaucracy.   

Would Dorothy die this night?  The Witch?  Himself, perhaps, or his friends?

We’re retired, he thought, and I’m still leading them into danger.

In silence, they continued climbing.  A few minutes later, a small form lighted on Leonard’s shoulder.  The group stopped for a few minutes to listen to Oswald’s report. 

Dorothy – and Toto – were alive, Oswald reported.  Cold, hungry and frightened, the girl was imprisoned in a small chamber sitting atop a stone tower attached to the castle’s east wing.  Oswald was very concerned about Dorothy; she reminded him, he said, of “my girls,” Jim’s nieces Gaila and Dori.  The bluebird was less impressed with Toto:  “He barked and growled at me a lot.”   Oswald had added, disdainfully, “He doesn’t listen.  He didn’t obey Dorothy when she told him to be quiet.”  

Oswald, hiding behind a stool, had been present when the Witch had paid a visit to Dorothy.  “I don’t want you freezing to death before morning,” the Witch had said, laughing, as the Winkie soldier who accompanied her had tossed the girl two torn, dirty blankets. 

She planned to kill Dorothy at dawn.   “First light in sky,” the Witch had said, would be necessary to cast the spell which would release the ruby slippers from Dorothy’s feet.  Oswald repeated to his friends the incantation the Witch had told Dorothy would seal her doom:

First beam of dawn,

Old spell begone

First gleam at sunrise

I claim my prize

First blush in east

Red shoes released

First glow of daybreak

Red slippers I take

First light in sky

This girl must die

First ray to shine

On shoes now mine

The sun would rise, Spock calculated, in approximately four hours and thirty-eight minutes.

Without specialized equipment scaling the tower’s high sheer wall would be impossible, and the chamber’s pair of open-air windows were in any case too narrow for Dorothy or her would-be rescuers to pass through.  Oswald had easily entered, however, and had spoken with her. 

Dorothy had described to Oswald how she had been taken to the tower via the main castle, and led up a narrow spiral staircase to the chamber at the top.  The only other access to the tower, the bluebird reported, was a postern at ground level which opened onto a small enclosed courtyard.  A pair of Winkie soldiers guarded this exterior ground-level entrance.  Another sentry, stationed at the top of the stairway, guarded the locked door of Dorothy’s prison.  

Entering the main castle to get to Dorothy would be too dangerous, they quickly decided.  Instead, Spock, Leonard and Oswald would enter the prison tower through the postern.  After bringing the girl to Jim, they would have to enter the castle proper in search of the broom, probably gaining entrance via the middle landing Dorothy had described to Oswald.  While the others searched for the broom, Jim and Dorothy would escape down the mountain; Jim, with his great size and non-humanoid shape, would be difficult to hide in the castle, and impossible to disguise.

None of them relished the prospect of splitting up, but all agreed the plan maximized Dorothy’s chances of survival.  Jim feared he was sending his friends to their deaths – during, he again thought with grim irony, their retirement.  Leonard, shielding his thoughts from Spock, expected to die.  Spock was only slightly more sanguine about the odds of success than was his mate, and continued to harbor serious doubts about the Wizard’s ability to send them back to their own universe.  Determined, though, to return to that universe, he accepted with Vulcan stoicism the poor odds.  Oswald, for his part, was willing, even eager, to do as asked; he had made clear he wanted to be a dog again, and wished to go home.  

Half an hour later, they were peeking over the crumbling stone wall of the courtyard.  The two sentries, dressed in black and red uniforms very similar to those of the flying monkeys except for tall furred hats in place of caps, stood near a small fire a few meters from the doorway.  A pair of torches attached on either side of the door provided additional light.  

After conferring with Jim, Spock and Leonard crept along the wall until they were as close to the fire as possible.  Oswald landed in the far end of the courtyard, and began to sing.  Chur.  Chur-a-lee.  Chur-a-lee.   

“What’s that sound?” asked the taller, bearded Winkie.

“Sounds like a bird,” responded his younger companion.  “Birds never come up here.”

“Birds have more sense than to come up here,” said the bearded guard.  “Nothing but snakes and lizards and nasty bugs on this mountain.  They’re the only things willing to live near her.”  He reached for one of the torches.  “She told us to check out anything unusual.  Let’s go look.  Maybe moving around a bit will warm us up.”

While the guards’ backs were turned, Leonard threw a handful of poppy powder on the sputtering fire.  Oswald flew away into the darkness to rejoin Jim.     

The guards returned to the fire.  “Whatever it was, it flew away,” the younger Winkie said. 

“I’m feeling woozy,” said the bearded soldier.

“I am, too,” replied his swaying companion. 

Soon both were snoring on the ground.  “Two can play the game of knocking out the enemy with poppy,” Leonard said with satisfaction as he and Spock hastily stripped the guards of their uniforms.  He glanced upwards just as the full moon, momentarily unveiled by the clouds, illuminated the dark top of the tower.  Leonard remembered, with a sudden rush of longing, making love with a flesh and blood Spock on another tower, the widow’s walk of Peter’s house, under another full moon, not so very long ago.  But that night had been hot and peaceful, not cold and full of peril. 

They gagged and bound the guards, and dumped the limp bodies behind the stone wall.  Unimpressed with the Winkies’ corroded weapons and deteriorating boots, they disposed of those as well.  Only after Spock had extinguished the fire with one of two buckets of water sitting nearby did Jim and Oswald approach. 

Hastily, Spock and Leonard donned the guards’ threadbare uniforms.  “Will we pass as Winkies?” Leonard asked, as he tugged a climbing boot back on.    

“Maybe in dim light, to a human’s eyes, or at a distance,” Jim replied.  “The tall hats help by hiding your funnel, and Spock’s hat.”

Spock strapped his original scabbard back on, and Leonard slipped his sheathed dagger back into his boot.  Leaving the postern door ajar, Spock and Leonard entered the tower, Oswald perched on Spock’s shoulder.  On the wall of the vestibule a torch guttered.  Jim remained outside, guarding the entrance.   

As quietly as possible, Spock and Leonard ascended the winding stairs.  Leonard was grateful for the Winkie boots, which muted the clink his metal feet would have made on the bare stone. 

They passed a landing where another torch burned low next to a closed door.  Spock and Leonard exchanged glances:  the door which led to the main castle.  Somewhere behind that door, within the depths of the castle, lay the broom of the Wicked Witch of the West.  And, Leonard suspected, his death and Spock’s.  But not just yet; their first, and main, objective was releasing Dorothy from her prison. 

They climbed another twenty-six steps.  Spock stopped, and nodded to the bird on his shoulder.  Oswald flew ahead, disappearing in the spiral passageway.  

Moments later, from higher in the staircase, curses came, along with the sounds of frantic shuffling, and muted from behind a door, Toto’s bark.  “Damn bird!  Stop it!  How did you get in here?”  The guard came running down the stairs, ducking from Oswald as the bluebird dive bombed his face.  The Winkie’s eyes widened in alarmed recognition only two seconds before Spock knocked him out with the broadside of his sword.

Spock and Leonard rushed up the remaining stairs.  The chamber door was padlocked.  Spock knocked on the door with the sword.  “Dorothy!”  He had to speak loudly, over Toto’s excited yapping.  “It’s Spock!  We’re here to get you out!”

“Spock?  I’ve been waiting for you!  Please, hurry!”

“Hold Toto, and stand aside from the door.”

Leonard swung the axe at the barred door.  The landing echoed with the thuds of the axe.  “I hope this racket can’t be heard down in the castle.” 

Holding Toto in her uninjured arm, Dorothy stepped through the broken door.  Spock took the terrier from her.  “Where’s Jim?” the girl asked.  

“He is guarding the exterior entrance below,” Spock replied.  “We must hurry.”

The group rushed down the winding stairs, past the unguarded landing.  When they were halfway between the middle landing and ground level, they heard shouts and the stomp of footsteps above.  They were discovered.  None of them looked back, but Spock and Leonard heard Dorothy gasp with fear.  Spock wondered if he and Leonard should have entered the castle on the way down, rather than escorting Dorothy to Jim.  Probably, he decided, it would have made no difference.  Oswald, who had been clinging to Leonard’s shoulder, took flight and again disappeared around the curving wall.  His brave attempt to delay their pursuers would prove pointless; seconds later, the shouts of men and the roar of a lion could be heard from below.  They were trapped.

They reached the courtyard.  Jim crouched, snarling and roaring, his ears pinned back, his tail lashing, as he held off half a dozen Winkie soldiers.  Armed with swords rather than bows or spears, the men, two of them already bloodied, were reluctant to approach the lion’s lashing claws and formidable fangs.

The Witch, two Winkies and four winged monkeys poured out from the doorway.  Spock recognized the monkeys as the squad, led by the individual with red hair and protruding ears, which had attacked him in the poppy field.  Dorothy, Leonard and Spock, trapped between the Witch’s retinue and the six soldiers who partially encircled Jim, huddled back-to-back behind the snarling lion.  Spock handed Dorothy her wiggling, growling terrier.  He drew his sword in one hand, in his other the dagger.  Next to him, Leonard brandished his axe.  

The Witch glared at Dorothy and the intruders.  “Fools!  I warned you would die if you encroached upon my territory.  And so you all shall.  The only question is – whom shall I kill first?  Should I kill the three of you now, or wait until after daybreak, when the girl meets her doom, and I claim the ruby slippers?”

Sneering, the Witch addressed the cluster of soldiers who surrounded Jim.  “Cringing cowards.  Afraid of Captain Kitty Cat?  I’m glad you left him uninjured for me to deal with.”  She waved her hand, and iron chains wrapped themselves around Jim’s legs, anchoring him to the ground.  He roared in rage, and the Witch cackled her ugly, high-pitched laugh.  “You’ll wish, Captain, that you had died under my Winkies’ swords.  I’ll give you a slow and painful death soon enough, by sending some nightwings.”

She turned to Spock and Leonard.  “I suspect even my ineffectual soldiers could make short shrift of your poor weapons.  This fur-topped funnelhead is no fighter, after all.  I’d rather deal with you myself, however.”  Again she waved her hand, and axe and sword and dagger vanished from their hands.  The Witch smiled.  “I don’t want to see my pet monkeys bloodied up.”

Spock touched Leonard’s arm.  //The knife in your boot.  Leave it for me.//

Leonard was not about to argue, although he doubted the dagger would be of much help. 

Spock knew the odds were hopeless.  He saw the lights appearing in the castle windows, heard the muffled shouting from within.  Reinforcements were on their way.  Even so, he would fight for his life and those of his bondmate and his friends.    

“Nikko,” the Witch said to the red monkey standing behind her, “you and your group bring the girl to me.  Don’t injure the tin man or the scarecrow . . . not badly, anyway.”  She smiled with malice.  “They are, after all, my visitors.  I wish to make them feel welcome in my home.”  Again, she laughed.  “So welcome that they will never leave.”

The four monkeys took off into the air.  Spock said, “Down!” 

Leonard and Dorothy ducked, and Leonard felt Spock’s hand slip into his boot to grab the hidden dagger.  It slipped clear of its sheath, and with a fluid motion Spock sliced the air with the blade as the monkeys descended.  The knife caught the impetuous red-haired monkey in the gut.  He fell to the ground at their feet in a spreading pool of blood.  Surprised by their unexpectedly armed opponent, the other three monkeys retreated, but not before Spock had left two of them bleeding.

“You’re as useless as those cowardly Winkies!” the Witch screamed at the monkeys.  “And you, you overstuffed sack of stubble!  You’ve killed Nikko, the Captain of my monkey guard!  You will burn for this!”  The enraged Witch held out a hand, and a globe of flame the size and color of an orange flew from her fingers to Spock’s left thigh. 

“Spock!” came Leonard’s anguished cry.  With horror he saw the flames leap from his bondmate’s leg.  The acrid scent of scorched cloth and burning straw drifted on the cold air. 

Spock felt no pain, but he felt fear.  Fire would incinerate him within minutes.  “The bucket!” 

“Bones!”  Jim was wildly lunging in his chains.  “Get the bucket!”

Leonard was standing closest to the extinguished fire.  The empty bucket lay nearby, on its side.  He grabbed the full bucket and tossed the water on Spock’s leg, dousing the flames.  Some of the water splashed onto the hand of the Witch. 

“What have you done?” cried the Witch.  She stared at her hand.  The fingers were softening and shrinking as they rapidly became a blob of green jelly:  where the water had touched her, the Witch was dissolving.  “I’m melting!  Melting!”  The slimy blob that had been the Witch’s hand became viscous, then melted away entirely.  Her sleeve collapsed as the melting effect ran up her arm.  “Curses on you, you clinking, clanking, clattering collection of tin cans!   You heartless, inhuman, hollowed-out hulk!  Who would have thought a walking piece of scrap metal could destroy my wonderful wickedness?”

“Take that, you high-hatted harridan!”  Leonard had felt neither animosity nor vindictiveness when, long ago, he had killed the salt vampire.  In this moment he experienced, for the first time in his life, a warrior’s grim exultation in killing the enemy.  “You were a sorry excuse of a sorceress!”

Only the Witch’s shrieks and the labored gasps of the mortally wounded monkey broke the silence as the liquefying effect spread over her body and she collapsed to the ground.   Retainers and opponents alike looked on in horrified fascination.  Even Toto quieted.  “No!  No!”  The Witch’s ruined face resembled a dripping green candle.  “I’m going!  I’m –”   Finally, as her jaw melted away, her voice was silenced.    

All that was left of the Wicked Witch of the West was a sodden black dress and a pointed black hat and a harmless looking broom, sitting in a in a puddle of steaming green liquid.  Toto, curious, sniffed the puddle.

“Thank you for killing the Witch.”  A murmur swept through the Winkies and flying monkeys as all present turned their eyes to where the wounded monkey Nikko lay.  “He speaks!”  “They killed her!  “I can talk again!”  And louder, as other monkeys and Winkies streamed into the courtyard:  “Hurray!  The Wicked Witch is dead!”

“Thank you for freeing my people.”  Nikko’s words, weak in the chill air, were barely audible over the cheers.    “And thank you giving back my voice and the voice of all my people.”  

Leonard and Spock knelt beside Nikko.  Dorothy, holding Toto, stood above them, grave and silent.  Monkeys and Winkies crowded in a circle around them.  Seeing the pinkish entrails oozing out from the ripped fabric, Leonard did not bother to open Nikko’s bloodied jacket. 

“I’m a physician, a surgeon,” he called out to those standing around.  “Are there tools for surgery here?”  He knew the answer, but was compelled to ask.

“No,” answered one of the Winkies.  “The Witch did not allow us to stock medical supplies of any type.  Such things are for the weak, she said.” 

Leonard turned back to Nikko.  “I cannot save you.  But I can ease your pain.  I have opium.”

Nikko shook his head.  “Let me be.  For more than fifty years, I have not spoken a word, or lived in freedom.  I wish to die clear-headed.”

“It was not my wish to kill you,” Spock said.  “Or to injure you in the poppy field.”

“You were protecting yourself, and your friends, from the Witch,” Nikko said.  “As I obeyed the she-devil to protect myself, and my family. “  Nikko closed his eyes.  “She killed my grandfather, many years ago.” 

“You must be cold,” Leonard said.  “We’ll take you inside.”

“There is not time.”  Nikko’s voice was thinner now, but still clear.  “There are two things, though.  One, if you are a physician, I ask that you treat the wounds of my soldiers.”

Leonard took one of Nikko’ hands in his own.  He still wore the climbing gloves given to him by the Council of Elders.  “I promise to do so.  And?”

“I wish to speak to my men.  Zeb?”

“I am here.”  The crowd parted to let one of the wounded monkeys step closer.  “As are Rylo and Sham.  And the others.”

“Do not avenge my death.”

Leonard remembered Chancellor Gorkon pleading with Jim,

Don’t let it end this way, Captain, as the lifeblood had poured out from his ravaged chest.  

“Do not harm these two, or the lion or the girl.”  Nikko’s voice was a ragged whisper now.  “They have liberated us.” 

“We would do not so, Nikko,” Zeb answered.    

“Tell my wife and my son I love them.” 

“I will tell them.”  

The dying monkey smiled.  “I am glad my grandson will grow up free.”  Nikko’s jaw went slack, and his head fell to the side.  He breathed a few more times, and was still.

Gently, Leonard put down the red-furred hand.  He and Spock rose.  Spock saw Leonard eyeing his burned leg.  “I am not in pain.  I can walk.  Tend to the injured.”  Spock spoke to the soldiers, human and monkey.  “The injured should go with the tin man.  He is a physician.  Others of you, help me release the lion from the chains.  The two men who were on guard duty here are behind the wall over there, tied.  We left another guard unconscious in the tower.  One of my own group, a small bird, is there as well, injured or possibly dead.  If you find him, handle him with care.”   

The injured monkeys and Winkies accompanied Leonard into the castle.  To Leonard’s relief, their lacerations were all superficial flesh wounds which had not caused serious blood loss, for he lacked either needle or suitable thread for stitches.  His main concern was preventing infection, especially in the Winkies cut by Jim’s claws.  The wounded men raised objections – but not for long – when Leonard confiscated for use as disinfectant the entire jug, brought to them by celebrating comrades, of the potent spirits the Winkies brewed on the premises.  His threats to keep his patients all night for observation, or to wash their wounds a second time with alcohol, silenced their grousing.  Similarly brief were the Winkies’ complaints when Leonard (well aware the human soldiers would be indulging later with drunken comrades) administered pain-killing opium to the teetotaling flying monkeys, but adamantly withheld it from the human soldiers.

Leonard used up all of his supply of the healing ointment, which he knew from the Emerald City healer to be effective in both preventing and treating infection.  He was glad to learn from his patients that both the Winkies and the flying monkeys were well familiar with the same drug, forbidden though it was in the castle.  

The two guards he and Spock had dumped behind the wall were brought to him suffering from mild exposure.  Leonard wrapped them in blankets, set them by a fire, and ordered them to drink bitter hot tea.  They grumbled when he forbade them the potent liquor, but cowed by his peremptorily barked orders, they acquiesced.

He examined and counseled the soldier whom Spock had knocked unconscious.  The man had awakened, and it appeared he would suffer no lasting effects from his concussion.  The soldier was violently allergic to alcohol, so Leonard was spared an argument with him about abstaining in the immediate wake of his head injury.

The most seriously injured casualty of the night’s conflict was the smallest.  Oswald was found, stunned and in shock and with a broken left leg, on the cold tower steps.  Leonard set and splinted the leg, and warmed the prostrate bird by a fire.  He feared Oswald had internal injuries from his fall to the stone floor.

It took a long time to release Jim from the chains.  Afterwards, Spock accompanied Jim to the makeshift medical station inside the castle.  Hot water, soap, a pair of knives, clean bandages, poppy powder and the jug of grain alcohol were laid out neatly on a long table.  Leonard was tying a new sling for Dorothy’s arm.  

Her shoulder, Leonard had been relieved to learn, had not been reinjured during her capture and imprisonment, but he was taking advantage of the opportunity to replace the makeshift sling he had fashioned from her petticoat two days before. 

“Your ankles are rubbed raw from those chains,” Leonard said sharply as Jim entered the room.  “Did you really think you could break free, thrashing around like that?”

“The injuries were exacerbated when we were cutting him out,” Spock admitted. 

“Then maybe you should have been more careful,” Leonard snapped.  “Jim, let me see that gash on your shoulder.  Did a soldier get to you with one of those rusty swords?”

“No, I hit a rock while we were going up the mountain.  You didn’t notice the cut before?”

“I had other things on my mind.  Like expecting to die.  Besides, cats are the ones who are supposed to be able to see in the dark.”  Leonard handed Spock a clean cloth.  “Wet this down in the boiled water, then wring it for me.  I don’t – not that bucket, the other one!  That’s right.  Rylo was doing this for me earlier, but he left to celebrate with the other monkeys.” 

Taking the dampened cloth, Leonard said, “Should have figured you’d manage to get yourself torn up, though I don’t know since when cats are clumsy.”  He began cleaning one of Jim’s chafed ankles.    

“Ow!”

“Hold still!  You think soap and water hurts, wait until I put alcohol on this.  I don’t have any of that ointment left.  Great stuff, wish I had it back home.  And I don’t know what I’m going to do about your leg, Spock.  There isn’t any clean straw or hay in this whole blasted castle.  Not much of anything clean, actually.  And no medic, not even a first aid kit.  Miracle anyone in this cursed place managed to stay half healthy.  I was lucky someone brought me soap and these rags.” 

“He seems happy,” Jim observed.  “Reminds me of the time your parents visited the ship.”

“Indeed.”

“I am not happy – there are people injured!  Not to mention monkeys and lions and birds and scarecrows!”  

“No, Bones, you only wish you had that many to boss around.  Last time I counted, there was one lion, one scarecrow and one bird present.”

“Shut up!”

Dorothy whispered to Spock, “He’s even meaner and crankier than Doc Anderson back home.”  The girl giggled.  “One of the Winkies said he was almost as nasty as the Witch!”

Sounds of revelry echoed through the hallways for hours.  Winkies and flying monkeys alike hailed the companions, Leonard especially, as heroes, and invited them to share their celebration.  But Dorothy and Jim were exhausted, Leonard insisted upon keeping vigil over Oswald, and Vulcans, even straw ones, were not ones for carousing.  Jim and Spock noticed Leonard gazing at an inebriated Winkie’s filled cup.  Leonard would have tried the strong spirits, they suspected, had he been able to imbibe.  

Dorothy, too, viewed her friends as heroes, and had thanked each of them at length.  The girl was looking with concern at her fourth rescuer, the small wrapped bundle by the fire.  “I hope Oswald will be all right.” 

“It’s a miracle he didn’t get stepped on and crushed.”  Leonard checked that the bluebird was still breathing.  “I’ve done what I can for him,” he said, sighing.  “I’m a physician, not an avian veterinarian.”

“He played a very important role in saving you,” Jim told Dorothy.  

“He seemed like such a nice bird,” the girl said.  “He didn’t even know me.  I’m sure he must have been a nice dog, too.  I wonder why all of you changed when you came to Oz, but Toto and I didn’t?”

“The Witched Witch of the West speculated her sister put a spell on us,” Spock reminded her. “Perhaps she didn’t have time to put one on you, before your house fell on her.” 

“If that’s true,” Jim said, “it’s likely the Wicked Witch of the East helped seal her sister’s fate.  I’m not sure we would have succeeded tonight, if we had been . . . human.”  Dorothy did not understand the look, shot full of amusement, that Jim gave Spock, or Spock’s raised eyebrow. 

“I agree completely,” Spock said, dryly.  “We would have been unlikely to succeed, if we had all been human.” 

“Or if Oz there had been a normal dog rather than a talking bird,” Leonard said.

Dorothy and Jim retired to nearby rooms, where they would try to get some sleep.  Before leaving, Dorothy kissed her three rescuers.     

“I’m sure, that as long as I live, I will never have better friends than the three of you.”

“I wish Oz hadn’t gotten hurt,” Leonard said after they left.  “And that Nikko hadn’t died.”  The death of the magnanimous monkey captain haunted him. 

“Nikko’s death was unfortunate.  Oswald is, however, a dog in our world.  His life expectancy is much shorter than a human’s.”  Oswald was nine years old – not young for any dog, especially a large one.  Spock regretted the casualties, but with Vulcan dispassion, viewed them as preferable to the destruction of his husband, his friend, or himself.  At the Witch’s death he felt no regret, though he took no personal satisfaction in it, either, the way he sensed Leonard had, however momentarily.

“The flying monkeys here live a long time, they tell me.  Nikko might have lived another sixty years.”  Leonard looked down at his hands, hands which had been unable to save one life, and may have failed to save another.  He and Spock still wore the Winkie uniforms, but Leonard had removed his soiled climbing gloves long since, before treating any patients.  His hands would rust later, he knew, from their exposure to water.  He should be oiled, but he had no heart for pleasure play at the moment.  The smooth metal glinting in the firelight was unworn and new-looking, not wrinkled and discolored like his human hands.  Rusting wouldn’t be unlike the arthritis which threatened to rob him of the ability to perform surgery.  He added, bitterly, “About as long as I would live back home, if I had a normal life expectancy.”

Spock wondered, with foreboding, if Leonard would argue for the Wizard to send them back not to their present, but to their past.  He looked at the hard-won broomstick, leaning against the far wall of their chamber.  Would the Wizard be able to send them back home at all? 

Spock reached for his husband’s hand.  “We do not know how long you will live, Leonard.”  He added, teasing, “After all, you expected to die tonight.”  

“Yes, I did – though that wasn’t nearly as bad as seeing you almost go up in flames.”

“But I didn’t go up in flames, and you did not die.  Nor did Jim or Dorothy die.  Or, so far, Oswald.  All thanks, in major part, to your actions.”

“Meaning me killing the Witch.”  

“Yes.”  Spock regarded his mate.  “This bothers you?”

“What bothers me . . . is that it doesn’t bother me.”

“Leonard.  Nikko took pleasure in mutilating me in the poppy field.  He lived, as he acknowledged, in fear of the Witch, and was protecting himself and those close to him.  You were doing the same.  Do you think Jim took no satisfaction in destroying Khan or Chang?”

“Jim and Nikko were soldiers.  Not physicians.  You and I had a hand in taking out Chang, but I didn’t feel this way then.  Tonight part of me enjoyed killing that accursed hellion.  The nightwings, too, but at least they weren’t sentient.  Though in this place, who knows?”  Leonard, brooding, gazed at the small wrapped bundle near the fire. 

“We are safe.  You have acted this night as healer, to friends and former enemies alike.  Two enslaved races have been liberated.”

Spock squeezed Leonard’s hand.  “You have no need to feel guilty, ashayam.”

Leonard smiled, a small smile.  “You’re right.  Logical as always.”  He did not sound entirely convinced.

Humans were not trained from birth in the disciplines of logic and emotional control.  Spock wondered, for the second time, if his husband would willingly accede to the demands of logic in another matter.

Their conversation turned to what they had learned of the history of the Winkies and the flying monkeys, and to the journey awaiting them when Oswald recovered or died.  They were still holding hands when, as dawn’s light brightened in the window, Oswald finally stirred.  He was confused about where he was, and they recounted to him the events of the night past.  Oswald was relieved the girl Dorothy was safe, and Dorothy expressed similar relief when, hours later, she learned the bluebird was expected to recover.  

After Dorothy and Jim, along with Oswald and Toto, had eaten a very late breakfast, the friends set out for Emerald City.  The flying monkeys and the Winkies cheered and saluted them as they set out on their journey.  The paved road of steps carved into the mountainside made their descent far easier than the climb up had been.  Capable of flight, Oswald found landing difficult, so Leonard carried him a padded box.  Spock bore in his hands the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West – their key, they hoped, to finally meeting the mysterious and reclusive Wizard of Oz.