Disclaimer: I do not own RENT or Wicked. Thank you.

Note: All my Mark/Elphie stories are spawned from a lovely little RP community called "desperatefans". Blame them.

No Matter

He loved her, no matter what she thought he should feel.

"Why do you love me?" she sobbed to him one night. "All I ever do is hurt the people I love most…I hurt you…" the tears ran down her cheeks, leaving burns, and she wouldn't let him wipe them away.

"Just because you hurt me doesn't mean I don't still love you." He told her firmly, and wiped the tears with his shirtsleeve. "I love you. You can't change that by hurting me. You're stuck with me forever."

He loved her, no matter what people said.

"Beware, boy. She's deformed." The Ozian woman hissed as he passed, his love's hand held comfortingly in his. "She's wicked." he spun around, despite his love's quiet pleading call of "Sweet, don't…" and grabbed the woman by the arm.

"She is beautiful." He told her in no uncertain terms. "She is kind. She is wonderful. She is my wife and I love her." The woman balked, and he let her go without another word, took his love's hand in his again, and continued on his way.

He loved her, no matter what fights they had.

"If you want to be in New York so badly, why don't you just go back?" she screamed at him from the other side of the bed.

"Maybe I will!" he shouted back. "At least it would get me out among people. You're to scared to even set foot outside!"

"I have good reason to be afraid!"

"Fine, then be afraid! I'm out of here." He stormed out of the bedroom and was halfway down the stairs before the wave of guilt and remorse hit him. He turned and raced back up the stairs and burst into the room he had just left, not wasting a moment in getting on his knees next to the sobbing woman and wrapping his arms around her.

"I'm…sorry…" she sobbed.

"God, don't cry…" he pleaded as tears streamed down his cheeks. "I love you. I'm sorry. I won't leave you. I love you…"

He loved her, no matter what, through thick and thin, for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, until death would part them. And even after that, he'd love her.

They were an odd pairing. There were no blue diamonds on a green field. They were from two different religions, two different cultures…two different worlds. But filmmaker and green-skinned outcast loved, no matter the fights, no matter the hurt, no matter the stares.

And they were happy.