The Same Old Stars

A/N Just a drabble that kept bugging my brain, after watching youtube video's :)

For those that might be reading Skin Deep, I am tweaking the next chapter right now so it should be there soon :)

Thanks for reading!

He wraps his arms around her as they fly the broom through the night. As much to feel her body against his, as to keep from falling. She is desperate to put as many miles behind them as possible.

He knows he should be too but he can't seem to get his priorities straight. He can't focus. He's completely absorbed by the feel of her slender body in his arms, her hair in his face. He wants to press his nose into her neck, his lips, but he won't.

He needs to remind himself to be careful, to not hold her too tightly.

She's so much thinner than he remembers and although he knows full well he's traveling on a flying broom with the Wicked Witch of the West, he also thinks she's much more fragile now than she was 4 years ago.

When he first saw her in that throne room, in her lacey dress with her hat on and a defiant look on her face, the first thing that had rushed through his head was that Elphaba Thropp had become a woman.

Now that he was with her, holding her, feeling her muscles tense every time his fingers brushed over her stomach, he knew that she wasn't.

Not really.

She had grown, grown up and she had a different dress on, longer hair. But she was still that girl, unused to being touched. Unused to being liked.

So he keeps himself from pressing his body closer to hers, from crushing him to her. From running his hands through her hair and pressing his lips to her neck and whispering to her about how he missed her and how he loves her and how he wants her. He doesn't do any of that. He just holds on and lets her do the rest.

He just holds on and tries not to think about how he's on a flying broomstick and revels in her nearness. Revels in the fact that she is right there. Her scent encompasses him and he tightens his hold on her, if only slightly. She shivers against him and he wonders now what she is thinking. What she is feeling.

About this. About him.

Because he didn't ask her how she felt before he jumped on that broom with her. He doesn't know what she was thinking when he spoke the words that changed the life of three people in less than a minute.

"I'm going with her."

He only knows what he felt when he saw her standing by that ridiculous golden head. And there had been nothing rash about his decision to go with her. He'd been planning a life with her for much longer than he cared to share, telling himself they were mere fantasies, just dreams. The only thing that was different was that she had found him, instead, but he wasn't picky about that life with her, really. He would take what he could get.

So the moment he saw her, yelled at her and saw the hurt in her eyes, followed by the relief when he'd turned his rifle to the wizard and told her to go...it broke his heart but it also gave him hope. Hope that she felt for him what he felt for her. Hope that he'd get that chance.

So when Glinda had asked the most important question, he'd answered not with hesitation, not with doubt but with determination. And with that incredible sense of relief that comes with finally saying out loud what you've been keeping in for too long.

"I'm going with her." I'm in love with her. I love her.

He hadn't looked at her eyes then, only grabbed her hand and ran.

He'd led her through passages, corridors, shortcuts. He'd taken her up to his office, on the top floor, as fast as they could go.

She'd followed in silence but he could hear the questions forming in her mind. He could hear her thoughts, doubting him, baffled and unnerved at what he had just done.

He'd gone straight for the window in his office, where the walls were covered with maps, leaflets, posters of her face and he'd flinched at the sight of it but when he'd looked at her to see how she took it, he couldn't detect any emotion, her face impassive as she studied the maps and the notes on the wall. He opened the window then, to draw her back to him.

"Does that thing carry two?"

She'd looked at him with a strange look on her face. As if she was trying to determine whether he was serious, whether or not he was somehow, some way, faking it. Fooling her. She must have come to the right conclusion though, because she answered.

"I've never tried."

"Well then." He waved his hands in a nervous, frazzled gesture. "No time like the present."

She'd taken a deep breath, as if to gather courage, straightened her shoulders, got on the broom and positioned it so that he could get on behind her but before he could, she'd grabbed his fore arm. Her eyes bore into his.

"I'm not a fool. I know I owe you my life. I need to at least try to return the favor. You come with me now, you'll be a fugitive. You'll be hunted for the rest of your life, however long that may be."

He knew she phrased it like that on purpose. To scare him off. Too bad his life hadn't been much different from a prison, to begin with.

"You can find some other way to repay me later. We need to leave."

"Fiyero."

He looked at her then. Stared at her as hard as she was at him. She wouldn't give up, he could see the battle in her eyes. She was too tired for this, too frenzied, too scared, but she wanted to believe him. She wanted him to mean it. She wouldn't let herself, though. She always did the right thing.

"You have a fiancee here. A career, however vile. A life. If you leave now, with me, you will become what I am. You'll come to regret but it'll be too late. You will never be able to come back."

He grabbed her arms then, forced to look at him, to pay attention. Stared her down.

"Is that a promise?"

She shook her head then. A small smile fought its way onto her face.

"You were always a fool."

He'd smiled too, because he knew he'd won.

"Always will be."

He'd clumsily climbed on behind her, grabbed her waist and they'd set off just in time to see what was left of the Gale Force storming into the room.

"Hold on to me," was the last thing she'd said to him.

And now here he was.

Holding on.

I hope, of course, that you'll review, but I hope even more that you enjoyed...

Oh, and the thing with Fiyero's office being filled with posters etc of Elphaba, is something that Scandalicious Intentions dreamed up, in her wonderful, wonderful story 'Witchy Woman' so please read and review that story and remember that I ...borrowed without permission ;)

Thanks to deeplyshallow for telling me which fic and author it was!