AN: Just when I was starting to think that my desperate need for more Fiyeraba fluff was starting to wear off, I looked into my souvenir brochure (IT'S SO PRETTY. Look at the cover for this one-shot, then imagine it big and glossy, and you know what I'm looking at right now. I think it might be my favourite photo in the entire book) and I felt that need coming up all over again, so... yeah. Yet another ALAYM-ish fic. Or, well, post-ALAYM, I guess. But still.

"You're so tense," he said, rubbing a particularly painful spot between her shoulder blades. "Just relax, Fae. It'll all be fine."

"Oh, yes, of course," she muttered, flinching away from his touch. "I broke my best friend's heart, I endangered the man I love, and every single person in all of Oz wants to see me dead. Of course it'll be fine…" She trailed off when she saw his face. "Why are you grinning at me like that?" she asked suspiciously.

"Because," he said, still grinning. "You just referred to me as the man you love."

She rolled her eyes. "Trust me, if I didn't love you, you'd be a newt by now," she grunted.

He chuckled and pulled her closer again. She tried not to shiver when she felt his warm hands on her bare skin, but she failed horribly.

"I love you, too," he whispered, his breath tickling her neck. Then he softly kissed her lips. "Just let go," he mumbled. "I know you're always worrying about everything, but not tonight. You can worry again in the morning. Tonight, it's just you and me, and if this is all we have…"

He never got to finish that sentence, because by then she had pressed her lips to his again and she was kissing him, her despair and her need for him almost tangible.

She buried her face in the crook of his neck and he held her tightly. "Fae?"

"I'm a horrible person," she muttered.

He kissed the top of her head. "No, you're not," he said. "You didn't do anything wrong, Elphaba. It's my fault that Glinda got hurt. I should have told her how I felt about you ages ago, but I didn't. It was my fault that I had to drop it on her completely out of the blue, not yours. You two will make up. I'm sure of it."

She sighed. "I guess," she conceded. "But I hate hurting her."

He kissed her again. "Didn't I just say 'no worries'?"

"Mm," she murmured.

He pulled her cloak tighter around them both, using it as a blanket, and continued to softly stroke her back until he felt her relax a little. "There," he said. "That's better."

She opened one eye to glare at him.

He just smiled and kissed her nose. Then he gently pushed her down until she was lying on her stomach and his fingers started dancing across her skin.

She squirmed. "What are you doing?" she protested.

"Working out those knots in your back," he said. "Seriously, Fae, have you been taking care of yourself at all?"

She huffed, secretly enjoying the feeling of his fingers kneading her stiff and painful muscles. "It's not like I could just walk up to the Gale Force and ask them for a back massage," she quipped.

He couldn't help the chuckle that escaped his lips. "Well I, for one, would have been happy to comply," he teased her.

She propped herself up on her elbows to look at him. "What was that all about, anyway?" she wanted to know, a sharp edge creeping into her voice. "You're saying you were in love with me for a long time, so why in Oz did you join the Oz-damned Gale Force? You tried to kill me!"

"Never," he said immediately. "Fae, I tried to steer them away from you. I told them that if they would see you, they were supposed to report back to me, not shoot you. I did the best I could to keep you safe."

She looked up at him.

He stared down at his hands, stilling them. "Okay, so maybe it was a bit of a brainless move," he admitted. "But what else was I supposed to do? I wanted to find you. More than anything. I needed to find you. And I had no idea how I should go about that. So when Morrible offered me the job…" He shrugged. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

She chuckled weakly. "Maybe you're really stupid after all."

"Not really stupid," he corrected her. "Just really, really in love."

She reached out to lace her fingers with his, squeezing his hand. "I love you."

He smiled and leant down, spreading soft kisses across her back. "I love you, too," he murmured, his fingers slowly working on a knot in her lower back, then moving upward, massaging her skin.

She sighed with pleasure. "Ooh, that feels good."

"I bet. I'm working through two years' worth of stress here," he said jokingly.

"Try twenty-two years," she muttered.

He ran his fingers through her soft, raven hair, before moving them down again to gently rub the rigid muscles in her back. "I really missed you," he said softly. "I should have said something, that day with the Lion Cub, or else the day you left for the Emerald City… but I didn't. And then while you were gone, I realised how I really felt about you, and I wanted to tell you when you'd get back…" He trailed off.

"…only I didn't come back," she finished quietly, and he nodded.

"Yeah."

She turned to lie on her back, pulling the cloak up to cover herself. "I missed you, too," she confessed. "I… I never let myself dream about you, because you were so out of reach for me – not just because you were my best friend's boyfriend, but also just because you were… well, you. But I did love you, even back then, and the past few years…" She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again to look at him. "The thought of you… was really the only thing that kept me going."

He captured her lips in another soft, sweet kiss, and she snuggled against his chest with a content sigh. She shouldn't be feeling safe right now. She wasn't safe. Basically, the Gale Force could storm out from between the trees any moment now.

But she did feel safe. Right here in Fiyero's arms, she felt safer than she could ever remember feeling in her life.

"Yero?" she murmured.

He stroked her hair and her back. "Yeah?"

"What…" She swallowed. "What happens tomorrow?" she asked him in a small voice.

He kissed her forehead. "I don't know," he said quietly. "But it doesn't matter."

She looked up at him. "What?"

"It doesn't matter," he repeated. His hands slid around her waist again and on to her back, pressing her closer to him. "Because tonight," he whispered, "tonight I'm yours, and you're mine, and that's all that matters. No matter what happens, Elphaba, I will love you forever."

"Forever?" she whispered.

He nodded. "Forever."

"Until the day you die?"

He kissed her. "Far beyond that day."

She pressed her cheek against his chest and wrapped her arms around him, burrowing into him. He continued to stroke her back and he felt her relaxing against him. "I love you, Yero," she murmured. "So much."

He leant down to nuzzle her cheek, pressing soft kisses to her face and throat. She curled into him with a happy sigh, feeling warm and snug and safe and… well, loved. Something she never thought she'd feel, especially not after she had become the Wicked Witch of the West; but it was true now.

She loved him, and she knew he loved her in return. Maybe Fiyero was right. Maybe that was all that mattered. Even if all they had was this one night, at least they both knew that; and as long as they truly loved each other, neither of them would ever really be alone.

Reassured by that thought and the feel of his arms around her, she slowly drifted off to a peaceful sleep.