Like What They Say

A/N: This is my first Fiyeraba one shot. Usually I write Gelphie but wanted to have a go at this, so feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Also, to anyone reading 'Overcoming Adversity', I'm sorry for the delay in the chapter but I've had less time to write and also the next chapter isn't coming as easily. So I will try to get it up soon, promise. :)

Black, orange and yellow was tonight's colour palette in Centre Munch. The midnight sky faded behind Colwen Grounds, which was lit by flaming torches and cordoned off by wooden barriers. The square in front was crowded with people standing in every nook and cranny they could find: doorways; balconies; behind pillars; anywhere they could get close enough to hear and see tonight's announcement.

At the front were several guards, and a woman in a glistening gown encased in a humongous bubble.

The only spell she could truly master, thought Elphaba, from her hiding place. My sweet, bubbly girl. She smiled wryly at the memories of their old friendship. She had been young, carefree, obstinate and naïve then. Now obstinacy was the only lingering trait; the rest had been stripped away by the many years of hardship.

Fiyero had balked at her suggestion for a location. He'd said it was far too obvious, that anyone would be able to look up and see. It was too big a risk; she would have no chance of escaping if she was caught.

'I blend in,' Elphaba had insisted, which was true. It might not be the Emerald City but it certainly provided excellent camouflage. She was hiding in a fucking tree of all places.

A babble of anticipation spread across the square as the woman released her hold on the bubble and stepped forward to address her people. Elphaba felt her heart twist as she stared at Glinda the Good's familiar features. She was dressed regally in royal blue, but beneath the mounds of make-up and jewellery were tired eyes and faint lines across her forehead. Her poised façade was good enough to fool the Munchkins, but Elphaba could see, from their years of friendship, that Glinda's shoulders were ever so slightly sagged – she leaned on her staff as though she might keel over without it.

Nevertheless, she beamed at her beloved people, the same way she used to beam to her fellow classmates at Shiz. They bowed before her, praising her with affectionate terms of endearment – 'Oh how good she is,' they tittered to each other, and that one word – 'good' – caused Elphaba to feel as though a knife had been put through her stomach. These simple minds new nothing of true goodness, only the false impression of goodwill that Glinda had been forced to give them.

Elphaba suddenly found herself missing Shiz – albeit, that time had come with its hardships too. It was easy to wish to remain in that period of her life forever, because the loneliness of being rejected by her peers was far preferable to the devastating notion of being exiled from Oz through being declared wicked. But she would never truly wish that upon herself – not when she had a far greater reason to be glad her life had moved forward. She glanced at Fiyero, who sat on a branch a bit lower down than hers. Fiyero hadn't been hers at Shiz, yet here he was now, supporting her in her so-called death.

Still, she looked back out towards Glinda and felt guilty. Fiyero had been hers once, too, and now Glinda believed him to be dead as well.

Elphaba listened intently as Glinda began her speech. Her sweet, melodic voice trilled its praises of the death of the Wicked Witch of the West. She spoke of overcoming hard times, prosperity, and moving forward. Elphaba hoped that Glinda herself was moving forward from the events of last year, and had at least managed to acquire some kind of happiness somehow.

The people cheered their approval. 'No one mourns the wicked!' they cried loudly, and although Elphaba agreed that the wicked ought not to be mourned, she found herself silently cursing the wickedness of Oz's own people. Her hands gripped the tree branch, nails digging into the wood which broke underneath her fingertips. A mild desire to use magic presented itself, but she brushed it off, knowing magic would do her no favours here, but instead seal her own (real) death sentence.

Much as she hated her life, Elphaba did not want to die. She couldn't bear to devastate Fiyero like that. Shattering Glinda's happiness had already been hard enough.

Slowly she began to lower herself from the tree. She no longer wished to view the festivities. Fiyero hastily climbed back down to the ground, then extended a hand to help Elphaba, but she ignored it and jumped the last few feet. Fiyero rolled his eyes.

'I wish we could tell her,' Elphaba said, looking directly into his eyes. 'She looks so troubled up there.'

'Really? She looked pretty happy to me.'

'You brainless straw-head, were you not her fiancé once? Did you not see what she looked like?'

'Apparently I lack the talent for noticing finer details.'

'Actually you're not bad. You noticed my better qualities, and I would say those count as finer details.'

'Fae,' he sighed, placing one hand on her shoulder. 'Have we not been through this already? You are not a bad person. You are not wicked, like they say.'

Elphaba cackled bitterly, her loud voice filling the open space in the forest. She buckled onto her knees, her face contorted into a cold, sarcastic mirth, shoulders shaking. Once she had recovered from the laughter's sudden onset, she raised her eyes manically upwards at Fiyero's concerned face.

'Even I know that the worth of my so-called good deeds does not even begin to match their consequences,' she answered.

'You're a good person…' Fiyero tried to argue.

'Good?! I'm green!'

'But that doesn't change…'

'It changed everything!' Elphaba shrieked, rising from the ground. 'None of this would have happened if I was born normal like everyone else, and don't you try to tell me otherwise. You know it's true.'

'But…'

'I was born a sin, and made to pay for it my entire life! And now I am doomed to live in exile, and die just as sinful as I was born!'

The desire to use magic had presented itself again, but Elphaba's sense of danger had been clouded by anger. The ground started to shake. Fiyero shrank back from her, fearful of their situation. What if the magic spread into the square and the Munchkins caught wind that she wasn't really dead? Elphaba was trembling uncontrollably, the frenzied glint in her eyes a sure sign that she was losing control. Fiyero thought frantically. He had to do something.

'Fae, stop!' he cried, but Elphaba was already rising into the air, arms spread out, expression hysterical. Twigs and leaves were beginning to fall from the trees. The wind circled around them in a forceful gale, blowing Elphaba's midnight tresses around her black clad body. She looked like a demonic angel, a malevolent beauty.

'Fools, they all are, they will pay!' Elphaba spat, raising her arms.

'No! Fae! Stop this madness!' Fiyero pleaded.

'Madness! You think me mad? I rather think myself liberated! Liberated from the confines of the sick decrees of this world! They cannot stop me, the stupid fools!'

Fiyero looked around wildly, desperate to do something, anything. In a fraught attempt, he grabbed a moderate sized branch and threw it at her. It knocked her hand, instigating a pained yelp, and she dropped her hands back to her sides.

To his relief, it worked.

The wind slowly died down; the ground stopped moving. Elphaba dropped back onto the ground and sagged onto her knees. A burning pain speared her eyelids. Aggrieved tears fell and she directed them to the ground where the water would not hurt her. The rims of her eyes blistered from green to dark pink and she used her sleeve to wipe them hastily.

It was one of many frequent occasions where Fiyero did not know what to say. How could one attempt to comfort her when the reality was that her whole world had shattered? He knew that he could come up with useless talk about how various people (and Animals) were at fault for blaming her when she'd only ever tried to help, but what good would it do? It wouldn't change how the Lion cub had grown up a coward. It wouldn't change how Nessarose's unrequited affection for Boq had forced his transformation into a tin man. It was too late to go back and try to change people's opinions. They had already made their choice. They had chosen to think her wicked.

It wasn't fair.

He thought, offhandedly, that it might have been easier to continue to dance through life. He could have stayed engaged to Glinda, gotten married and lived the life of a King. He quickly pushed the thought aside. His heart would not allow him that courtesy – he had been bound to leave Glinda to seek out Elphaba, and he did not regret it for a single second.

It could have been a few seconds later, a few hours, a few years, but eventually Elphaba stood and dusted herself off.

'Let's go,' she said in a low tone.

She grabbed her broom, which lay by the base of the tree. She barely allowed enough time for Fiyero to climb off behind her before jetting into the air. Together they weaves through the forest, covered beneath the treetops, the cold midnight air whipping their faces.

Elphaba did not speak for a while, choosing instead to focus on the journey back to Kiamo Ko in an effort to shake her mind of the growing fear in her stomach. It was blissful relief when the old, abandoned castle came within their sight. The run down place was the only one in which they could be sure they would not be sought.

The peace and quiet brought about a sense of calm as they dismounted the broom, far different to the chaos of the witch's supposed melting. There might have been a few stray animals living nearby, but most life had fled under the impression that the castle was haunted with the witch's spirit. And perhaps it was haunted, by the echoes of Elphaba's soft crying on the nights that she just couldn't keep in her despair of her awful fate, or the screams and shouts as Fiyero fruitlessly argued that she was not wicked like everyone said, because she'd thrown a fit when he tried to call her beautiful. Either way, it was enough to keep out the majority.

Elphaba stared up at the tall, decrepit walls with moss growing out of the crumbling sides and weeds in the surrounding grassland. It was certainly not the dream fairy tale castle envisioned in storybooks; nor was it a grand, impressive structure as the many castles described in history books. It probably had a long history,and it was probably once grand, but years of wear and tear with no one to care for it had brought it down to a shadow of its former self.

In the castle of Kiamo Ko, Elphaba saw her own reflection.

'Don't let me become like what they say.'

The words left her lips like a desperate plea, soft and lacking of their usual bite. Fiyero took her hand and squeezed it.

'You're not anything like what they say,' he reassured her.

'But what if I am? Fiyero, look at me back there, I almost gave in. It would have been so easy.'

'But you didn't,' he replied. 'You didn't give in. And I have faith in you that you won't, Fae.'

'That makes one of us,' she muttered. 'Come on.'

They entered the castle with its tall walls and long corridors and the room in which everything had happened with that young girl and her dog, and the melting. Neither of them had entered that particular room since the incident, but frequently walked past the locked door that led to it. The memories were too painful to want to bear witness to it again.

They had managed to put together a meager attempt at furniture – an old bed frame lined with straw for a mattress and a couple of blankets they had managed to scavenge from a group of passing travellers. Food was scarce, especially since Elphaba refused to eat meat, even for survival. There was no glass on the windows and barely any light at night. But at least it was safe and they probably wouldn't ever have to relocate.

Elphaba shook off her clothes and crawled under the blankets. She was only comfortable to be naked in the dark. Not even Fiyero had seen her properly without clothes. He had tried to insist that it was okay and that she was beautiful, but had never been able to change her mind, and soon he had accepted only experiencing her in the dead black of night.

'I would say goodnight but I doubt it will be,' Elphaba said.

'Any night spent with you is a great night,' he replied.

'Don't lie.'

'I'm not.'

'Yes you are. This is a crap life and you know it.'

'It's worth every second to get to be with you, Fae.'

'Oh cut the crap,' she snapped. 'Let's just go to sleep. I hold no desire to argue.'

He slipped into the bed beside her. It was small but they enjoyed the closeness of each other's bodies. The contact reminded them that there was one person on their side. In the peace and quiet of the old castle, the rest of Oz seemed to slip away as though the whole thing was a bad dream. Perhaps this was a dream, and their dreams were real: they contained no notions of witch hunters or corrupt governments or exile; only each other, and imaginings of better times and different lives. There was no wickedness here; no bad feelings; no risk of losing control because society left them devastated.

As Elphaba drifted to sleep in Fiyero's arms, she had full faith that he would never allow her to succumb to the cruel remarks of the people of Oz. She would never become wicked, like they said.