Empty Arms

"Fae? Fae, where are you?" Fiyero reached out with his hand, groping the other side of the bed. Not feeling anything, he cracked an eye open. "Fae?" Nothing. No-one. Fiyero rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling, running a hand through his messy hair and expelling a heavy sigh.

It was the same every night. Fiyero would dream of his wonderful Fae, her beautiful voice haunting him…and then he would wake up, his arms wrapped around what he thought was her figure. Only she was never there – what he thought was Elphaba Thropp was indeed actually only empty air.

Fiyero suddenly felt very hot. Stifling hot. Realizing that the fan wasn't moving, the young man got up to turn it on, unbuttoning his pyjama shirt as he went. As the blades slowly began turning, Fiyero made his way back across the room to stand in front of the window. He opened the windows and leant out, tilting his head up slightly and closing his eyes as he let the cool night air wash over his face.

Standing there for a few silent moments, Fiyero's eyes opened as he heard a voice.

"Fiyero?"

He looked around, but, seeing no-one, decided it must have been his imagination. He noticed a breeze was starting to pick up. Perhaps that was all it was.

He turned to go back to bed when the voice called his name again, more urgently this time.

Fiyero squinted as he peered into the darkness, his eyes straining as they darted in the direction from which he thought the voice appeared to be coming.

And then he saw her.

There, settled amongst the leaves of the tree that stood proudly outside his window, was a figure.

"Elphaba?" He rubbed his eyes, expecting her to be a vision. But she was still there. He frowned. "What are you doing here?" he asked, motioning for her to enter his room.

He waited patiently as the girl crawled along the sturdy tree branch and slid into his room. His breath caught when he realized the close proximity of their bodies, and as she slowly raised her eyes to meet his, he knew she had had the very same reaction. They were so close; it was so tempting. It would be so simple to just lean down and…

But before he could finish the thought, Elphaba had stepped away to move further into the room, redirecting her gaze to the door.

"Elphaba?" Fiyero moved up behind her and gently settled a hand on her shoulder. He expected her to shake it off, but she didn't. "Elphaba, what's wrong?"

"I'm sorry, Fiyero; I shouldn't have come here. I should go." She turned back to the window, but Fiyero caught her arm. She stopped and looked at him questioningly.

"You've come all this way for a reason; there's no point in doing that and then leaving without even telling me why you risked Morrible's wrath to trek over here in the first place."

Elphaba sighed heavily. "There's nothing wrong. Not really."

Fiyero raised an eyebrow.

"Okay," she conceded, "I just…oh, man, this is going to sound so stupid. Especially coming from me." She gave an insecure chuckle. "If you must know, I couldn't sleep. And it's not just Galinda's snoring keeping me awake."

Fiyero laughed softly. "Then what is it?"

Elphaba froze, turning her head away.

"Elphaba?" Fiyero reached his free hand towards her chin, gently forcing her to look into his eyes.

"I…I can't stop thinking of you," she confessed. "You're going to think me absolutely pitiful, going on like this…when you've got a girlfriend…"

"Not at all." He was smiling tenderly at her. He let his thumb trace her cheek. "In fact, I've got a confession of my own."

Elphaba cocked her head in confusion. "What?"

"This is one of my continuously-recurring fantasies."

"What is?"

Fiyero grinned. "You creeping into my bedroom in the dead of night."

Elphaba narrowed her eyes at him in suspicion, wondering what the catch was, causing Fiyero to let out another low laugh.

"Look," he proposed, adopting a serious tone to his voice, "why don't you stay here the rest of the night? Save you the trek back to your room. Perhaps then we'll both get a good night's sleep." Seeing her expression was still one of suspicion, he added, "Please?" gazing into her eyes intensely.

Eventually, Elphaba nodded hesitantly. "Well, okay."

Fiyero smiled and pulled her over to his bed. "It's a double, so there's plenty of room for you." He grabbed a pillow and tossed it onto the floor, causing Elphaba to frown.

"What are you doing?"

"Sleeping on the floor."

Elphaba shook her head. "You don't have to."

Misunderstanding, Fiyero insisted, "It's no trouble."

"That's not what I meant."

Fiyero frowned. "Then what did you mean? Because if you think I'm going to let you sleep there –"

Elphaba interrupted him, shaking her head again. "I meant I want to share the bed with you. If you want to." She averted her gaze shyly, blushing slightly.

Finally Fiyero understood. "I would like that very much." He picked up the pillow and put it back on the bed, before crawling in and tugging Elphaba after him. Once she was settled on the bed, he put his arms around her and pulled her closer.

"What about Galinda?" Elphaba whispered.

"There's not exactly enough room for her in here as well. Besides, I thought she was happily snoring her head off over in your room. I don't particularly feel like listening to that all night."

Elphaba allowed a tiny laugh to escape before becoming serious again. "I meant…well, she's not going to be happy when she finds out about this, is she?"

"I'll break up with her in the morning. Now go to sleep."

As he felt Elphaba's breathing even out, Fiyero's mind wandered. The whole situation felt surreal, like a dream. Perhaps it was. Perhaps he was caught between fantasy and reality, as seemed to happen so often to him. Perhaps he wasn't really holding Elphaba in his arms.

But, at that moment, Fiyero couldn't care less about whether it was real or not. Because, to him, right then, even if the entire night had been a figment of his imagination, having Elphaba with him was by far better than once again waking to the cold sensation of empty arms.

And, even if the whole thing had been a dream, he would still break up with Galinda in the morning.

Disclaimer: I DO NOT own any of the characters mentioned in the above story; they belong in their entirety to L. Frank Baum and Gregory Maguire. I DO, however, own the story, which is protected in my name under Australian Copyright Law dating back to 2012.