Sometimes during their lovemaking, Fiyero wondered where Elphaba got her scars. Sure, he'd only seen them once, and that was in very dim lighting, but he still had to wonder. What happened to her? Who would do something like that?
And one day, he simply couldn't take it any longer, so he asked. And Elphaba had turned slightly brown – he assumed that was the green tint mixing with the blood rushing to her face – and told him in a tight voice that he should get something pretty for his wife, and then she walked off. Fiyero took the hint and left, giving Elphaba time to herself that she obviously needed.
After meandering around the marketplace and buying a few more scarves for both of his women, Fiyero went back to Elphaba's house (Not ours because I'm married to another woman and I could never leave her, no matter how much I hate her and love Elphaba). When she wasn't in the living room curled up with a book, he became slightly worried and walked through the kitchen hoping to find her. When he had looked everywhere in the tiny kitchen (which didn't take too long), he had found a few rats, but not the woman he was looking for. So he made his way to the bedroom, giving the bathroom door a knock on the way there just in case, and finally found her.
Elphaba had fallen asleep on the bed, her left side touching the bed with both of her arms under her head. Her face was streaked with dried tears, but the tear tracks were red and swollen.
She's allergic to her tears. I knew water, but tears?
Fiyero walked over to Elphaba, laying the scarves down by her head, and sat on the bed, enveloping her in a hug. He felt the woman beneath him tense up and push at him for a few seconds, but he kept holding her, allowing her to calm down. When she finally relaxed into the hug – still not hugging him back, because Elphaba wasn't a physical person – he hooked his right arm under her knees and his left behind her neck, bringing her to the bathroom and grabbing her oil to clean off her face.
And while he was rubbing the tracks from her left cheek, he looked into her eyes and it hit him. He wasn't in love, merely in lust. There was so much about her that he didn't know – their relationship had never been about talking and getting to know one another. It was always about a quick fuck before he left to go to his wife – who he hated but needed to keep his father's love. And so he cried, because he knew that he wasn't loved and he never would be loved. When a few tears dropped off of his cheek and
onto Elphaba's hand – which had been clutching the other hand in her lap – the skin that had been touched sizzled a bit, smoke rising up, and Elphaba pulled back.
That night, they slept in the same bed, although on separate sides. The next morning, Fiyero got up before Elphaba and left a quick note saying that he was going back to Kiamo Ko and he'd be back soon.
He wasn't sure if it was a lie or not.