Author's note and summary: Fiyero confesses to having met with Glinda in the Emerald City prompting Elphaba in to action as events overtake them. Bookverse speculative oneshot. Very brief sexual activity of the male-female variety. Hold out for the Gelphie. A huge thank you to The Songwriter's Ghost for the betaing.

Fiyero mounted the steps of the corn exchange gently. It wasn't dark yet and all the dust was picked out as it danced in the air around him, highlighted in the orange of the setting sun streaming through narrow windows. He felt a mounting anticipation on each stair.

On the landing he stood outside the door for a moment and hooted quietly, trying not to let his grin ruin the sound effect.

"I shouldn't come in if I were you, Owl," he heard her say, the noise travelling easily out in to the hall. "The cat is here and looking hungry."

Letting himself in he smiled at her. A little at himself, but mostly at seeing her.

"Oh. It's only you. Sorry Malky. No dinner tonight." She was stood at the counter unpacking some shopping, elbows and shoulder blades moving mechanically under her blouse. Items appeared on the counter: bread wrapped in newspaper, a few muddy vegetables. Hardly seemed enough to sustain the level of activity and intensity she operated at.

"It's good to see you too," he said, never entirely sure what sort of Elphaba he would encounter on any given day. When she was naked in bed that was generally a good sign. Anything else could be... problematic. Her temper, good or bad, was dependent on things far outside of his control.

"Yet you mock me," she chided him with indignation that teetered on the edge of a joke. "My perfectly valid concerns about safety are mocked."

Unbuttoning his coat and shrugging it on to a crate he moved towards her.

"Fae..." he crooned gently. "Some news for you, something to lighten your eternally dismal mood."

"Which is?" She was abrupt, she was not playing his teasing game; turning away towards the table and picking up a knife to scrape at vegetables, forcing him to follow her around and stand on the other side.

He ducked down to catch her eye. She was trying to ignore him. "Guess who I had tea with today?" He would not give up on her.

Seemingly despite herself a little smile crept over her lips. "Oh, Yero... go on then. Who did you have tea with today?"

"Crope, old Crope from Shiz and..." he suddenly started to think twice about this as Elphaba's eyes bored in to his, "and Miss Glinda."

Elphaba's hands twitched on the table, fingers retracting as though she were trying to hold on to the flat surface for fear of sliding off.

"You said –" Her voice was shaky. "You said you did not see her."

He was perplexed.

"Fiyero you stood here that first day and you said you did not see her."

"I don't, I don't see her," he remonstrated, arms open, supplicating himself unconsciously. "I saw her. Today."

"What happened? How did this happen?" She was in to her interrogation mode now. He wondered who else it got used on, what crimes they had committed against humanity or the Animal kingdom. Where they as terrible as meeting with old college friends?

"I was buying scarves..." She narrowed her eyes at him uncomprehendingly and he realised he had ruined that particular present. "And she was in the shop with Crope. She dragged us all off to have tea. We talked. That was it."

Elphaba nodded and swallowed hard, pondering her next line of enquiry no doubt. In the meantime she balanced the knife against the table, spinning it on its point.

"How was she?" That concern in her voice. Perhaps something else. The tone a notch higher than usual.

"She's... changed." Off her sharp look he continued quickly. "She seems well, very well. She looks well. But since last time I saw her... she's changed." He couldn't quite articulate it.

Like everyone he had watched Glinda's decline when she came back from the Emerald City without Elphaba. It had been a depression. If he had ever imagined seeing her now he had imagined a quiet, subdued young woman, a placated wife. But today, that performance had been quite the opposite though she had struggled against it and had what he could only describe as a lucid few moments at the end. He knew enough to know Elphaba would not approve.

"How?" she asked suspiciously, eyes narrowing at him.

"She seems... distracted. A touch... hysterical?" He did not normally feel so unsure of himself, so nervy. He was a statesman, he prided himself on his effortless diplomacy. Elphaba rather provoked that in a body, especially in this sort of a mood.

"She always was a little highly strung," Elphaba conceded.

"Not always," he prompted. "I never knew her like that."

"No, indeed, you missed that fun. What impeccable timing you have my dear boy." That was more like it. She was smiling at him now. For just a moment he was reprieved.

"I do rather don't I," he said flirtatiously, skirting the table to be closer to her. "Somewhere between possessed antlers and strange green girls in chapels..." He made to take said strange green girl in his arms but she was not quite done with him, evidently.

"So what happened?"

He advanced again, kissing her neck. "Told you," he mumbled. "Scarves... tea..."

Thin arms were pushing him away though. "Control yourself," she muttered darkly, subduing him. "What happened during the tea?"

"We talked," he answered, blunt, accepting defeat momentarily and perching on a crate, watching her.

She sighed at him, one hand on the table and one at her hip. "Must you make this so difficult?"

"Fine. We talked about people, about the old days. She wanted me to get in touch with Avaric so we could all get together with Nessa."

Elphaba simply nodded. "She is still in touch with Nessa?"

"She was more or less Nessa's sister."

"Yes, yes." It was more distraction than anger. But she was pausing again, lost in thought and not even trying to disguise it.

"Fae, what is it? What do you want to know? If we talked about you? If she asked after you?"

She looked at him and there seemed to be such a gaping loss in her eyes that he was glad he was sitting down.

"What did you tell her?" Elphaba was afraid. There was a current of fear in her voice, noticeable for being so uncommon, so unlikely.

"I said nothing. That was what you wanted, wasn't it?"

Nodding she said "Yes, of course." But she turned her back. Even then he could see her hand move to her face.

He wanted to rise, to comfort her... he didn't. It was all too much, too much weight bearing down on him rendering him completely helpless. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have told you."

"No, no." She passed a sleeve over her face, rubbing her eyes in the crook of her elbow. "If it had to happen I would rather you told me. Of course I would rather it had not happened. It is a weakness, to think about things left behind."

Things left behind? There had been a few moments of openness, of contrition about missing her old friends, about wishing to see them again. But now, he realised, he had made it all too immediate. And this was not 'friends', this was someone quite particular.

In the time it took him to blink all their interaction was reassessed. "If you could have chosen anyone to see you that day... would it have been me?"

There was a sadness in her eyes. Not for herself though, for him.

"It is not as if you chose to see me though, either. It happened, Fiyero. You weren't looking for me. I wasn't looking for you. It just happened."

He had wanted to see it as fate, or destiny. But apparently it was just chance.

"But it wasn't a coincidence though was it? When I found you, in the chapel, I had been looking for – I was there for – well, I was thinking of Glinda. Of our Glinda." The word 'our' seemed wrong for a moment. "But then, you were too."

There was no denial or affirmation. Nor was there a protest – but her eyes were begging him, pleading with him, to stop. In a flash though, it was gone.

"I do think of her. I worry about her."

"This isn't about obligation, Fae. You're not obliged to look after her."

"It never occurred to me that Glinda needed looking after, she sounds to be more than well provided for at present. A baronet didn't you say?" There was a cruel edge in her voice, she was pushing everything away. "Be wary of releasing me from obligations though."

"Me? I am an obligation to you?"

"I provide you with a service, do I not? Let us not pretend this arrangement is entirely for my benefit."

"And let us not pretend it is some heartless transaction." He felt aggrieved.

"No," she agreed. "I do love you."

"In your own way," he modified.

"Which is all I have."

He knew that and was grateful for it anyway. What they had was complicated and shrouded in mystery even from him, a central participant. He would not have it any other way.

She stalked over to him but slowly, deliberately. He rose to meet her and she traced a line along his jaw and down his neck, then digging in to his flesh through his shirt as she continued downward.

"Come, be my hero," she said seductively, pressing all of his buttons and something else besides.

He was intently aware of where her hand was and it did not take long before impulse betrayed him and she knew the desired effect had worked. She smiled wickedly and hooked a long bony finger over the open neck of his shirt. He was hopelessly ensnared and guided helplessly over to the bed.

He had wondered sometimes... hoped, to be honest, about his role in her world. At best he had thought himself a welcome distraction from the grind of whatever her daily life held. In his mind, his fantasies, he dreamt about protecting her. A buffer against the inhumanity, that maybe someday he could prove himself to her. In his really wild moments he thought about saving her from all this, once she had achieved some closure, that he would save her. Take her away, keep her safe, liberate her from her turmoil.

It was madness, he knew, because Elphaba neither wanted nor needed protecting or saving.

But now, in the dark with the candles burned out, as she straddled him – one hand on his chest, the other on the wall, eyes so very far away – now he knew what he was distracting her from. Who. He knew what he was protecting, what he was shielding her against. That if Elphaba needed saving it was from the memories and torment of the most unlikely oppressor.

The dynamic between Glinda and her had long confused him more than anything. When he had discovered her, when they had first talked, Glinda had been the very first person she had really asked about. At that point she had been almost too casual, flippant. He had thought it anger, lingering resentment. Instead maybe this was what that had been hiding. The potential of this.

And how could he argue with that? With his lonely wife back in the Vinkus and yet him in the bed of this incomparable woman? It was almost a comfort to think that Elphaba was similarly torn. But which, of Glinda and he, was the ideal object? Which was the guilty burden? Was he her Sarima or her Elphaba? Or something else?

Without realising what he was doing he put his hands to her hips. "Wait. Stop."

"Suit yourself," she said as she rolled from him and simultaneously gathered a blanket around herself, now just a shadow in the dark as she rose from the bed.

"Maybe I should go."

"Maybe," she said, but it was an agreement. "Maybe you had better leave off for a few days."

He sat slowly and tried to look over at her but she was little more than a disembodied voice. "Will you go to her?"

There was a silence. He wondered if perhaps she had managed to slip from the room. But not in just a blanket.

He pulled on his shirt and felt around on the floor for his breeches, dislodging the cat from them and giving them a flick to clear the inevitable hairs. Dressed, he moved more by memory over towards the door. He crashed in to a crate with a curse but at least it reminded him to pick up his coat. It was cold outside. Hell, it was cold inside. The doorknob was icy in his hand. It was only at that point she spoke again.

"What did she say?"

He was startled, he rattled the handle with his quick tremble. She was close and could obviously see better than he could, or was using some other sense only the enigmatic Fae was in possession of. But it wasn't just that, it was the sound of her voice, the raw vulnerability that split her open. The words were a pain that cut through her, before then cutting in to him.

"To tell you she misses you still." He opened the door and left, not wanting to know what might happen as a result of those words.

Elphaba returned home the next day and paced back and forth in the dim light, recounting all the arguments out loud, deliberating at great length about her various options. At one point she pondered covering the whole of her room with pros and cons scrawled on the wall but added – still out loud – she felt that might look like madness. Malky, sat on the discarded cloak licking herself, could only agree.

In general Malky simply viewed her with disinterest, unless she happened to have a saucer of milk which she would cruelly hold above the impatient animal to secure at least a few moments of attention.

"The thing is, Malky," she said as she stroked the dank fur, "I already made up my mind over this, over all this, years ago. New... how shall we say? – evidence – should not make a difference. This was never predicated on how dear Glinda might feel, only on what was right for her, what would keep her safe. To allow her back in to the world. She had no need of a moody green friend then, nor does she now."

Malky regarded her with scepticism and – now the milk was finished – moved away, shirking from her and the nascent insanity.

"You need not look at me like that," she tutted as Malky settled on the windowsill, one wary eye still trained on her as she got to her feet and brushed off her skirt. "Perhaps I am a little short of company. Though I never was particularly good at it before. But this was never supposed to be about me!" she exclaimed suddenly, startling the poor cat almost halfway out the skylight.

"Selfish!" The rant began again. "Fiyero fell in to this on his own, which is bad enough. I cannot now drag Glinda in, so close to the end. And yet what if it is the end? To have never seen her again?"

The thoroughly bored Malky yawned as Elphaba paced again.

Very much in spite of her better judgement Elphaba found herself slipping in to the Florinthwaite Club through the back servants entrance and in to the suite of Lady Chuffrey. She opened the door only enough to slide through and closed it quietly.

Startled blue eyes were on her immediately. Glinda rose from her armchair, dropping her book to the floor.

"Fiyero!" Glinda breathed in such a way and looking so staggered that for a moment Elphaba thought to look over her shoulder to see if he had joined them.

"It's Elphaba, actually," she said, lightly. Though now was probably not the best time to be poking a little fun at Glinda. The banter and hectoring was so familiar, even after all this time. "I know it's been a while, but –"

"I knew," Glinda was continuing though. "I knew he saw you. I knew, or I hoped."

A darkness rose up along Elphaba's neck and in to her cheeks. She was trying to remain calm but she could not stop the flushing. Glinda, here, in front of her. Glinda talking about Fiyero... it was too much. These were different worlds, different lives and they were now colliding. Not knowing what the end result would be, what the new world would look like was too precarious a feeling for Elphaba to be comfortable with.

"Oh... So, that is how it is." Glinda began and Elphaba just knew from the tone employed that no good would come of it. "How long have you been going on with him?"

"We..." she searched for the right phrase, "ran in to each other. The other month."

"I see."

Elphaba looked at Glinda properly. She was still beautiful, of course. Her hair was shorter, there was a little more to her and she looked better for it. Her clothing was perhaps even more outrageous. She looked tired though, tired like Elphaba felt. Here they were, what, twenty three? Still so young. But old.

"How have you been?" She felt more tongue tied than she ever had. The room was so bright with lights she felt like it was ablaze.

"Well. Well, I suppose." Glinda was curt, her walls were all back up. "And you?"

"Well enough." Elphaba though was not the sort to prostrate herself in the mud at Glinda's gates and plead for entry.

"Good."

This was ridiculous. "Enough pleasantries!" she snapped.

But Glinda was frustrated as well. "You failed to send me an agenda. You can't just turn up after five years and expect me to know what to do."

"I thought you might have had an idea." She had hoped Glinda might have had an idea.

"A script I rehearsed every night whilst trying to fall asleep? What I would say if I ever saw you again? Did you like to think of my countless hours rehearsing? Was that a comfort to you? I found it didn't really help me."

The words stung Elphaba, despite thinking she was prepared for it. She folded her arms, ready for more.

Glinda had moved herself to behind the chair, holding on to the back and putting a barrier between them. Elphaba was pleased to note it was far too large for the girl to use it as a weapon.

"But I never knew it could ever happen. How did you imagine this would go, as you came here? Once you decided to do this? Had you prepared a speech? Did you think I would be grateful? Or angry? Did you think at all?"

"I don't know."

"Why, Miss Elphaba, something she does not know, hark at that."

Elphaba rolled her eyes but did not feel she had any particular right to intervene. Glinda was, of course, right. She had no business here upsetting things that were otherwise best left alone. Only her own selfish needs, desires and curiosities.

"Oh Elphie!" Glinda was capitulating on her own, she needed no input from Elphaba it seemed. The use of the nickname was not missed; Elphaba felt a surge of familiarity, of warmth in the pit of her stomach. "However I imagined it – it was not supposed to be like this."

"Then make it how you would like it." Elphaba took a step forward and surprised them both with the tenderness in her voice.

She saw Glinda soften some more. "The last time you saw me... you kissed me."

As that were undeniably true Elphaba chose to say nothing.

"Why?"

Her mind spun out of control. All she could think to do was deflect the issue, buy some time. "After all these years," she said with a little snort, "that is the one thing you want to ask me?"

"Well I think the 'why' question encompasses more than one thing," Glinda pontificated.

Scrutinising her Elphaba said "Fiyero said you had changed."

"Fiyero caught me in a bad moment. I was having a bad day. I have been having a bad day," she fixed Elphaba with an accusatory look, "for about five years. Since my best friend did the one thing in the world she knew I most wanted, followed immediately by the one thing I least wanted."

"But you know why," Elphaba protested.

"No, Elphie. I never knew why." There was aggravation back in her voice but the 'Elphie' stayed.

Not feeling quite able to get in to that she counter-accused. "Neither did you come after me."

"Eighteen year old me against this vast city searching for you who did not want to be found, yes, that would have been a workable plan. I was too sad, for a long while, to do anything other than get out of bed and go to class. Then I was too angry. Then... I don't know. I accepted it. You didn't want me. I would have held you back, I was not good enough or clever enough or passionate enough."

"No, no, no," Elphaba corrected. "You did not want me. You could not want me. That was not the life you were supposed to have."

"And this is?" Glinda waved a hand around the lavishly furnished and decorated room. "This is what you abandoned me to? You thought this was better for me?"

"I did not mean for you to marry some minor aristocracy twice your age!" Elphaba snarled. "You could have done near anything Glinda, if you only believed it of yourself."

"With you. With you I could have. Without you there was no point."

"This is exactly the kind of sentimentality I was trying to avoid."

"Oh well I'm sorry if my sentimentality offends you." She was not sorry at all, Elphaba wanted to note, but refrained. "Or offended you, back then."

"Now wait, I didn't –"

"It's quite alright. You are quite wrong though."

"Am I? How?" she asked suspiciously.

"Yes. I would have done anything. I would have given up everything. That life you thought I was supposed to have. Certainly this life, it's not up to much. No matter. I would have done anything. If you had believed it of me. But, in the end, you didn't."

"I'm not sure what I believe," she muttered, sinking under the weight of it all. The tiny Glinda was actually dragging her down.

"You didn't believe in yourself," Glinda said pointedly. "Which I believed in more than anything."

"Maybe," she admitted distractedly. "It was all yet another of my failings. I failed you. It was wrong of me. I was scared, if you can believe it, in my own way. It was selfish. I only knew how much I had wanted to, for so long."

"Wanted to what?"

"To kiss you," Elphaba said candidly, a little surprised Glinda wasn't there already.

But the look of shock coming back at her said that Glinda had really had no idea.

"Glinda..." she protested. "You knew that. You know that. Don't you?" She had thought she had at least left the girl with that. Apparently not. Another failure.

"That day, of Ama Clutch's funeral, after the – the – the –" Even after five years the words to articulate it would not come for Glinda and Elphaba's mind only vaguely recollected why that might be. A binding spell, still potent.

But she remembered the aftermath well enough. "I remember," she said, freeing Glinda from the frustration.

"And that evening, I wanted to go to the Philosophy Club. With you."

"Yes."

"And then you dragged me off on that fool's errand here, to see that mad old Wizard. But every night you held me, you held me in the dark and I never felt... I never felt so alive. I never felt so happy. Before or since."

Resolve melting away faster than she could control Elphaba stepped closer and reached out a hand to Glinda, remembering all too well the intoxicating feeling of having the girl in her arms, the almost-pride in believing she could provide that comfort, that security. But that was in anonymous inns, in straw-mattressed single beds. That was not the way Glinda was supposed to live and in the world she was supposed to live in it would not have been the same. Still, now, for a moment, she craved that feeling, her body ached for it.

"Don't touch me!" Glinda hissed. "You have no right to touch me. If you've decided that's what you want then I shall make you wait another five years before you can have it."

"Glinda!" Elphaba protested, starting to get impatient.

"Did he say why he lied to me? Though obviously he told you."

"I don't know why he does anything he does," she said, truthfully admitting complete defeat in the understanding of his ways. She hadn't wanted him to have discovered her at all and had not understood his persistence. But persistence was flattering and Oz knew she needed something, someone.

"Do you love him?"

"Yes. In many ways." That was a lot left unsaid. Elphaba knew Glinda could see it, blue eyes were cast down. "Do you love your husband?"

"Yes. In a few ways."

The next question – the question about each other – refused to come from either of them.

"It hardly seems fair," Glinda mused, almost dispassionately but Elphaba could see the tears in her eyes before she turned away. "I was actually looking for you. But he found you. To the victor belong the spoils."

Ordinarily Elphaba would have reacted rather violently to being described in such a way. But Glinda's attempt at rage was too half hearted, too pathetic to be offensive.

"Just because he found me," she said, approaching Glinda slowly from behind, "Doesn't mean he gets to keep me." Her arms slid around Glinda's waist and she felt Glinda instantly melt, the anger and tension dissipating. The silly thing really was too easy to please.

"I shouldn't have thought so," Glinda murmured back, her arms laying on top of Elphaba's. "You are so very much your own person. No-one gets to keep you. Not for very long anyway."

That was a bit close to the bone and Elphaba began to pull away. Glinda spun round and held on to her hands though.

"If you leave me again..."

"What?" It might have sounded abrupt but the tone was gentle.

"Just... don't. Don't make me find out what. Please Elphie." It was desperation and Elphaba hated herself.

"I have business over Lurlinemas. After... I will return. If you would like me to."

"Of course! But you must, Elphaba. You must."

Elphaba nodded. Either she would return or Glinda would know why she did not, the newspapers would undoubtedly mention the green Thropp Third Descending caught in a coup.

"Right now, my sweet, I belong to something else. A thing, do you understand, Glinda?"

Glinda nodded and Elphaba really did believe she understood, she squeezed at their hands still clasped together.

"Where will you be spending the holidays?"

"In Frottica. With my parents." Tears were still welling in Glinda's eyes though she was clearly trying to hold them back.

Elphaba nodded, satisfied.

"Did you came back just to leave me again? Is that what this is about?" Glinda's hands dropped. Elphaba let them go.

"I came back to..." It was more or less true though, wasn't it? Just like last time she had kissed Glinda thinking perhaps it would be her last chance, now she was here again. Last chances.

"It's alright. I'm glad you did. I would be gladder if you did return though."

"I will." But there was doubt written all over her face, she knew. Glinda could see it and the tears came.

Though poised to leave Elphaba reached out and grasped Glinda's wrist, pulling Glinda to her, hugging the poor girl against herself, crushing in to her chest. Glinda sobbed just once. Elphaba rested her cheek on the top of Glinda's head both wishing she had never come and wishing she didn't have to leave.

"I love you." Glinda said, muffled in to Elphaba's shoulder but still perfectly audible. "In so very many wonderful ways."

"And I love you." Elphaba disentangled herself, opened the door and walked away, again.

On Lurlinemas Eve it was snowing a little.

When Glinda sat in a warm parlour with her family all she could think about was Elphaba, not even that this might be the last time she ate such fine food and received such fine gifts.

When Fiyero followed Elphaba in to the madness and watched her enter the Church of Saint Glinda again he knew that whatever happened tonight things would be different.

When Elphaba felt everything was lost, her mission a failure and her room in the warehouse was full of the blood of what could only be Fiyero she reeled with her last energies to the only place she could think of.

When Glinda returned from the Pertha Hills and Elphaba made no appearance within the month she began a search that would upend the whole Emerald City and all of Oz if it had to.

And when Elphaba roused from her delirium in the mauntery of the chapel of Saint Glinda, her own Glinda was there.