A/N: I thank the person on Deviantart that inspired me to do this fic. Unfortunately, I can't remember who you are. Whoever you are, I love you.

.:xoxo:.

"We're off to see the wizard—the wonderful wizard of Oz!" The quartet skipped down the yellow brick rod before stopping to take a break under a willow tree.

They flopped down in a heap on a patch of grass. Not long after, the young barn girl dozed off with the Lion as a pillow and the (usually) yapping terrier as a makeshift teddy bear. The tin man set to sharpen his axe on the tree while the scarecrow sat down and began to rid the grass of weeds. As he reached out to pull another, something caught his eye and he looked up at the beautiful flower.

A green flower.

He felt a pang somewhere within him and that sent memories racing.

.:xoxo:.

"I wake up my body…and make up for lost time…

Say there's no future…for us as a pair…

And though I may know…I don't care…

As long as you're mine…"

A flash.

"Yero…my hero…"

His heart melted and there was another flash before the scene changed to a more painful one.

.:xoxo:.

Hung up upon poles and planted in the middle of a field, Fiyero began to lose focus. His eyelids grew heavy and were shut before long. His breathing slowed as he considered letting do.

There was a small tingling feeling in the pit of his stomach and he ignored it…but it was not long until the tingling evolved into a burning sensation and he winced, confused.

"What the-"

Before he could finish his sentence, the burn erupted from his middle and pulsed rapidly through his veins. He ground his teeth and eyed the pebbles near his feet, trying hard to distract himself from the pain.

It was working well, at least until the second wave of torture. Unable to hold it in any longer, he screamed out. And then it all clicked.

Painfully, he shifted to glare in Kiamo Ko's general direction. He knew what was going on, knew where she was and what she was doing.

Fiyero saw her in his mind's eye: hunched over that dusty ancient book, cloak billowing behind her, hands waving about exaggeratedly as she frantically murmured the gibberish inked in that book.

She was saving him.

Saving him from being beaten to death later, courtesy of the Wizard's guards by lighting his veins on fire with the unknown jinxes and spells of the
Grimmerie.

A third wave of pain and Fiyero screamed out again in agony. Crows flew ahead to send the message.

.:xoxo:.

The pain faded and he was back in the present in his straw-filled self. Glancing around, he noted that the barn girl was still asleep on the Lion with that annoying dog in her arms. Then a glint of blonde caught his eye.

It was Nick the tin woodsman. But regardless of how brainless he currently was, Fiyero knew who was within that metal can…he was the shy lovesick munchkin boy so many years ago. And even after all these years, he really still was that lovesick boy.

It was ironic, really.

A heartless metal man was holding a picture of a winsome woman, sighing wistfully at it.

"She looks familiar…"

"Yeah…she's Glinda…"

Boq mumbled something else.

"…What?"

Fiyero was stunned when the blow from the tin man sent him flying backwards and slamming into a tree.

"…She was your fiancée! And now…you…you can't even remember who she is! How dare you! You don't deserve her…you—you superficial bastard! You don't deserve her!"

It felt weird to see what he remembered as a shy munchkin boy to be now towering over him wielding an axe menacingly and spewing vulgarities even he did not existed.

Another memory…

.:xoxo:.

He winked at the blonde barn girl sitting on the white fence with the small black terrier yapping at her heels. Her eyes widened and he grinned with a short "hello."

A crow swooped down to peck at his face but he shook it off with a glare.

"…How did you do that?" He almost missed the awed whisper.

"Do what?" Fiyero glanced down at the farm girl clad in plaid clothing and her straw-coloured hair pulled into two neat braids.

"Well…for a start, scarecrows can't move. Or even talk, for that matter…"

"Well! You're talking to one now, aren't you?" He grinned and she tilted her head to the side thoughtfully.

"…Would you like to come down?"

"Yes. …Yes, that would be nice…"

The girl grabbed a pole and proceeded to prod him down and there was a soft "frump" as he landed in a heap of straw.

"Oh my! I'm terribly sort…are you alright?"

Fiyero scrambled to his feel and hastily brushed himself off, realized what he was doing, and stuffed the straw back in.

"Huh? Oh yeah. You can kick me, you can punch me, heck, you can even stab me but you can't ever hurt me." He gave a goofy smile and was thankful that the girl was too naïve to notice his eyes telling a different story.

"Well, I'm off to see the Wizard of Oz, because I want to get home!"

"…The wizard? …Can he really do everything everyone says he can?"

"…At least that's what Glinda the Good Witch of the North said…to just follow the Yellow Brick Road," She pointed to the golden road nearby. "Into the Emerald City…"

Glinda…Emerald City…wizard…witch. It all rand a dull bell in his head and he knew he was supposed to understand all these weird visions but he just could not no matter how hard he tried. Was he missing something? Because these flashes of lovemaking sessions with a green girl…what was her name again? He recalled another girl, of natural colour and a head full of luscious golden hair…they had their flings but he could not remember what he did before he was hung up…much less remember his feelings for girls when he was back in school. There was another boy too…a small, shy Munchkinlander with a huge crush of the classy blonde.

Biq? Boq? …Glinda? Galinda…? Glenda? He desperately tried to remember their names. But the more the thought about it, the fuzzier the memories got until he finally gave up.

At least for now.

"…Do you think the Wizard could give me a brain?"

"Sure! Why not?"

He returned the smile. In the meantime, he needed to keep those memories alive.

.:xoxo:.

"You…you love her…don't you." Some things finally began to make sense.

"Don't be foolish. How can you love without a heart?"

"Then how am I able to have memories without a brain?"

There was a moment of silence before the straw man heard the tin man sigh in resignation before helping the formal up as Dorothy awoke.

"I think we'd better get going before it gets dark…I don't want to be walking near the Quadlings when it's dark…" Brrr stretched and shivered as everyone got to their feet to continue their journey along the Yellow Brick Road.

As the others skipped off, Fiyero held back to study the flower.

The emerald green struck a chord in his heart, tugging at his heartstrings. "...Why do I feel this way…?" He thought silently to himself as he scrutinized the flower.

The bright slender petals bloomed in a lily-like fashion and on closer inspection, he noticed that there were patterns of sapphire blue speckled on the inner part of the petals at the base of the style.

He felt a pang somewhere in the midst of straw in him and he was as confused as ever.

He looked up and realized that the others were almost gone. Without a second thought, he carefully plucked the flower from its stalk and cupped it gently in his gloved hands as he chased after the rest.

A breeze blew by and just at that moment, the sun peeped up behind the clouds where it had been hiding.

Nobody noticed the pattern of small diamond-shaped patches of sapphire stitched onto the burlap sack holding him together as it glistened in the sun's rays.

.:xoxo:. -Epilogue-

"No one mourns the wicked!" The crown chorused as the wizard presented the tin man with a stuffed heart, the Lion with a badge of courage and the scarecrow with a certificate of intellectual achievement.

But Fiyero felt no achievement.

In fact, he felt lower than before. He sighed and looked over at his companions. The Lion announced that he was going to take over his father, now that he was brave, in ruling the Great Gilliken Forest. The tin man said he would go find love and looked meaningfully at the scarecrow. Clearly, Boq wanted Fiyero's fiancé.

And he could have her.

Because Fiyero never really cared about Glinda anyway. Because he wanted something else. But even with the certificate of intelligence, he was still unable to fit all the pieces together, still did not know how the green girl fit into all this.

Before long, Dorothy clicked her heels and was swooped back to Kansas, the Lion padded to the forest; Boq shouldered his axe and stalked towards the Gillikens.

The scarecrow looked around at his departing companions and suddenly realized that he was very lonely indeed. Feeling sorry for himself, he took another look around and started to rethink his options.

He could go back to the fields to be a meaningless bunch of straw. No. Never again would he do that. He could follow the Lion…and get mauled by other wild animals about a million times his own weight. Even with a head full of nothing but straw, he knew enough to know that he most certainly did not want that ending.

On the other hand, he could be completely clueless and follow the winged monkey that was tugging at his burlap sack and walking a few paces westwards before scampering back to tug at him some more.

There was another pang in him as he looked down on the monkey and he was still clueless. Hoping the monkey had answers, he decided to bet everything he had on it.

But then again, there was nothing much he had left.

.:xoxo:.

The monkey led him up the dusty stairs of a castle in the far west. Although Fiyero was positively sure that he had never been here before, strangely enough, he somehow knew every part and furniture of this place, albeit a tad vaguely.

Fiyero emerged into one of the top towers of the castle to see the monkey knocking sharply on a dusty trapdoor.

It shook a little and without thinking much or rather, at all, Fiyero bolted forward to unlock it. He grunted a little under the weight as he opened it but when it was fully opened, he found the amount of work done to be thoroughly inadequate of the reward obtained.

The green girl clad in a typical black dress crawled out of the small hole and straightened up, dusting herself off. She turned around, tossing her long, silky raven hair ever so slightly and hard black shining eyes met soft blue threaded ones.

She was surprised, in a good way, to say the least. And he was satisfied…happy…ecstatic to have all the missing links in his memory found with just one look.

It was not a jolt of sudden realization, no. It came to him gradually. And when even the finest details made every sense, all he had was the small smile upon his lips as he muttered that magical word.

"Fae…"

It was hardly a statement, no. It was a declaration of love uttered with the utmost love and respect.

And it was enough for her, for their feelings had always been reciprocal in every way.

"Yero…"

She said it with equal adoration as he got up to caress her emerald skin tenderly. He paused, suddenly remembering something, and reached into his burlap sack to produce the speckled green flower, still miraculously preserved perfectly.

Grinning, Fiyero placed it in her hair as they mounted the old broomstick together. It was time to find time, time to catch up, and time to hold on.

Because blue diamonds belonged on green fields.