A/N: For the next seventeen chapters I'm going to need you all to pretend that Elphie, Glinda and Fiyero didn't go to Shiz together, alright? I'm also going to need you all to write your own Gelphiyerabas, because this is way too much fun for me to be doing alone. Everybody cool with that?

I'll take your silence as a resounding yes!

Fiyero strode away from the receptionist's desk and seated himself beside Glinda, scanning his surroundings for something to fidget with and settling for a loose thread hanging from his sleeve. He cleared his throat.

She waited a moment and then turned away from her magazine. "So?"

"They agreed to take us now," he said, tone curt. "They're moving the current session to the spot after us."

"Good," Glinda said softly, fighting the urge to flee and returning to the article she was attempting to read for the third time. Everyone was giving her the look and it was making her uncomfortable, causing her to writhe inside, as if she had twenty simultaneous itches and no means of scratching them. It certainly wasn't a new feeling. She'd been getting the look since the finalization of the divorce a month earlier, had been letting it get to her for just as long, and now here she was: sitting in a therapist's office because her friends thought she was losing it. Because they were being supportive.

Fiyero studied her, trying to be discrete about it, and then leaned his head back against the wall, breathing in deeply. How was it that not six months ago he had counted Glinda as his closest friend?

"Excuse me," a voice called, startling them in unison. Glinda lowered her magazine and Fiyero opened his eyes – and both nearly became heart attack victims. But if the woman was irritated by their reactions, she didn't show it. "The doctor is ready for you now. He says he'd like to see you separately today."

Before Fiyero could claim the opportunity, Glinda hopped up and rushed into the office, slamming the door with a twitch of her heel. The woman who had informed them of the change of plans flopped into the vacant seat. Fiyero couldn't help but stare as she reached into her bag and pulled out a thick volume to read. She felt his gaze and turned to him for a second before retreating back into the book and tapping her foot against the chair. Every time the boot hit it made a ringing sound.

"And you are?" he asked.

"Extremely agitated," she answered, without looking up.

"That's not what I meant."

The woman's lips curled into a slight smirk and she looked up at Fiyero, the full force of her intelligent brown eyes on him. "I'm the patient whose therapy session you decided wasn't nearly as important as your own. Now I'll be waiting here for another hour."

"I'm sorry about that." His eyes fell to the green hand that was lying on the arm of the chair inches away from his elbow. It seemed symbolic of his entire experience in that office – bizarre, surreal, but still a fact of his existence. Although he didn't see how a hand could be ineffective, so he quickly discarded the analogy and went back to scrutinizing her face. "But that's not exactly what I meant either."

"Well, if you prefer specifics," she sighed, "I'm Elphaba Thropp, relatively new to therapy, graduate of Shiz University, daughter of Melena Thropp, sister of Nessarose and Shell, employee at—"

Fiyero interrupted her speech with a laugh. "Those are quite the specifics."

"And if I'm not mistaken, you're the man OzBeat Magazine has been publishing weekly features on." One glance at the magazine that Glinda had left on the coffee table in front of him told Fiyero that she was right. Elphaba followed his gaze, recognizing the redundant image, and muttered, "Celebrity marriages."

"Well, Miss High and Mighty, what are you here for?"

"A clock told me the Wizard was my father."

The casualness of her tone amused Fiyero and he cracked a smile. "Is that such a bad thing? Couldn't your mother sue for child support?"

"My mother died when I was six," Elphaba said simply, flipping a page.

"I'm sorry," he rushed, feeling guilt course through him, swallowing up the smile. "I didn't—"

"Oh, please, spare me. I don't care for your false sentiment. We all have mothers and we all lose them at some point."

"Alright then." He was slightly discouraged, but he still couldn't take his eyes off her. "Though...if you don't care, why are you here?"

"My sister threatened to drop a house on me if I didn't start seeing someone about it."

"She sounds lovely."

"Oh, she is."

There was no follow-up, no returned provocation, but Fiyero wanted to keep the conversation going. He asked, "So have you noticed any improvement?"

Elphaba laughed, a sound that was high and cold and mildly hysterical – a cackle almost, hardly endearing. "Maybe you've noticed a similar pattern," she said conspiratorially. "It seems that the more money I shell out, the less I improve. What started out as questions about my parents became questions about my high school days and then my perception of reality and...well, you know the whole routine. It's enough to make a girl think she's genuinely crazy."

"If it counts for anything, you seem just fine."

"And so do you." Again she fixed her eyes on his. He could have sworn they were sparkling. "It's finding what's broken inside that's the trick."

Fiyero felt a chill run through him and he squirmed in his seat. "Say what you will about it, but you just might be cut out for this field," he said, trying to laugh it off. "Ever considered it?"

"Once upon a time."

"Didn't interest you?"

Elphaba shook her head. "No more than a plate of spinach and moldy socks." Then, she added, "And don't you dare make a comment containing the word green."

"Huh, there goes my next lead..."

"Well, alright then, let's give it a shot," she said suddenly. "I bet I can guess a few things about you." She turned to him, closing her book, but keeping her finger on the page. "I bet you have a picture of your kids in your wallet."

"Guilty as charged," Fiyero admitted.

"I bet you spend a lot of time working."

Fiyero didn't want to confess to that one so easily, so he didn't say anything.

"I bet you really miss your wife," Elphaba finished, "and I bet you have a lot of friends, but most of the time you feel like you don't have any."

"Am I really that transparent?" he muttered.

Elphaba flipped her book open, radiating mischief as she watched him from the corner of her eye. "You're a therapist's dream case."

"A lofty allegation for someone who received her credentials forty-five seconds ago. From me, no less," Fiyero retorted, feeling slightly disconcerted by the accurate analysis and even more so by the mysterious green gypsy woman who'd performed it. "Is there anything that qualified you for that? Your degree? Experience?"

She shrugged. "I work at a bookstore."

"But you're a Shiz graduate!"

"And you're a prince who works in an office building. Your point?"

"Couldn't you do better than a bookstore?" he blurted, pursing his lips. He wasn't trying to offend her, but he was growing increasingly sure that this conversation was going to give him a stroke.

Elphaba narrowed her eyes. "Reading is my passion. Wouldn't a bookstore be the ideal place for me to work?" She sighed as his eyebrows rose even further up his forehead. "As long as I have enough to eat and enough fabric to keep myself from running around naked then I have enough money, don't I?"

Without thinking, Fiyero did a quick scan of her clothes. Glinda would never have gone out in public in jeans that weren't designer. In fact, she hadn't even worn jeans around the house. Had she ever even owned...but his train of thought ceased when said blonde exited the office on the verge of tears. Despite all the unhappiness and all the anger and all the grief that they had caused each other over the course of the last few months, instinct still told him to wrap his arms around her. But he didn't. He wasn't supposed to do that anymore.

She wiped at her eyes and then came over to him. "I'll pick up the kids after school tomorrow." And with a quick nod, she left.

"Yeah, okay," Fiyero replied hoarsely.

"I bet she's not doing much better than you are," Elphaba muttered into her book, loud enough for him to hear.