Author's Note: A shorter chapter than usual, but I felt if I tried to make it any longer it would be padding and unnecessary. Thank you so much to Yero and Fae who reviewed the first chapter - you have no idea how much I appreciated it! Enjoy! xx
"What kind of congratulotions letter was that?" Fiyero grabbed the single sheet of printed paper from Elphaba's clawed fingers and stood in the light from the windows, smelling lemony and fresh and ready for their new tenant. "Not even a word of detail."
"Perhaps he felt the letter needed to be smaller to balance out the fact that he spent Oz knows how much money on this trip you're insisting I take." She moaned, shoving her chair away and frowning as she had for the past two days.
Fiyero smiled and patted her head with the letter, illiciting a prod from her that could have bruised him. "Ah but Fae, he is Oz and he does know!"
"Smartarse." She snatched a kiss, the kind he liked the least because he never knew when they were coming and they never lasted long enough for him to enjoy them. "I know he knows. I know he is Oz. He knows everything!" Fiyero nodded, making her frustration grow. "Doesn't any of this bother you? Don't you feel like you're being spied on? I hate that. I've had that feeling my whole life. I just . . . I feel like he's trying too hard to be our friend and it creeps me out. He's not our friend, he's our Ruler. No matter how high up in the damned government we might be working, this will remain a professional relationship." She pointed to the letter, now discarded on the floor, easily blown about by their movements. "That is not professional."
"I know Fae: you've said." He picked up the letter and smoothed it out.
"See! You think so too: you're doing that because you hate the thought of someone reporting back to him that we didn't appreciate the letter!" She dared him to deny it.
"Alright fine, I'll leave it on the floor."
"No!" She said, catching it before it fluttered down. "Then he'll think we didn't like the less convoluted letter and start sending those damned fourteen-page ones again. Or worse he'll have some awful "I'm Sorry" surprise waiting at this house." She walked to his chair and stuffed it in her bag.
"You are so paranoid." He sighed, cupping her face and kissing her. She smiled, comforted.
"Yes, I am. Join me?"
"Never. You do it well enough for the both of us." She huffed and rested her head on his chest, swaying gently from side to side. He breathed in her scent and kissed her hair as the coconut fragrance wafted to his nose. She was using the shampoo he had bought her and he held her a little tighter, glad whenever he could have her so close. He never enjoyed when Oscar would send these reminders and gifts. At first it had been a relief because they felt almost as though the whole experience had been too good to really have happened. Elphaba even mentioned on their journey home that even if it was all just talk she would remember it as one of the greatest days of her life.
Then the letters and gifts began to pile up and eventually they discovered their parents had been informed of their regular contact with The Wizard of Oz. Not one of them liked that, and each had received responses of confusion from home as no one could understand why he might think it appropriate to do such a thing when the three of them were grown adults. Even Frexspar had commented that he considered his eldest an adult, and therefore perfectly capable of dealing with the situation herself.
That had been two years ago. Now, whenever a note or indeed a gift like Oscar's graduation present for Fiyero and Elphaba arrived, Elphaba's eyes darkened a little and her worry would surface. She felt like she was being watched and was growing to distrust Oscar, rather than be grateful towards him. And though she was happy to have done so well at University and overjoyed to be given such grand and purposeful opportunities, the thought of now returning to the Emerald City scared her a little, and she always took the chance to stop and appreciate that she had Galinda and Fiyero with her.
"You haven't finished packing, Yero." Elphaba whispered very softly, tilting her head back a little to look at him and hopefully drive her point home. "We have to leave soon."
Fiyero frowned. "Yes, we do, don't we?"
"What's the matter?" She asked, drawing her thumb over the lines on his forehead that had appeared.
"We really do have to leave." She smiled sadly, nodding. "I met you here."
She laughed at his sentimentalisation of his old room. "No you didn't. You didn't meet me here."
"Not literally." He responded, pulling her back into him and pointing at the bed they had so often used. "But I grew to know you here."
He was not being crude or dirty, she could see that he was upset at having to say goodbye, having attached so many happy memories to the place. "And this has only just dawned on you?" He shrugged. "Fiyero, you're not leaving me, I'm coming with you. We're going away together. You can get to know me on whatever bed you wish."
"Ah, I know that." He lifted her hands and made her dance as he dooh-daahed a make-believe waltz that was out of time and gave Elphaba giggles: Fiyero's favourite noise. "We're going away to a lakehouse. We're going to swim and cook and make love and talk all week and do nothing important for anyone else! Not such a bad gift I'd say."
Elphaba stopped and watched him dance himself in circles quite happily. She turned back to those few last belongings that would never be thrown away and yet never seemed to fit in with anything else. Fiyero had flown into a panic when she had originally suggested he get rid of them. "Alright, Fiyero!" She chuckled. "Please stop singing." He was silent and smiling mischievously at her. "You're forbidden from singing to our children. They'll tear out their ears just to block out the noise."
He jumped over to her, catching her off guard as she turned to stand up again from sweeping dust from the floor. "But you'll sing to them won't you, green girl?" Elphaba let him look at her, knowing they were both picturing their children, still nameless and faceless as of yet, but real nonetheless, before she nodded. She closed her eyes and their lips touched, Elphaba feeling (as she had recently, when they kissed in a certain way) that ghostly presence of a baby inside her and wrapping her arms like grips around his neck, almost willing the feeling to be real.
"Nanny, really! I have my own maid and therefore there is no need for this! OH!" Galinda exclaimed as the old biddy crashed a pile of netted petticoats to the floor. "My skirts! NANNY!"
"So I'm a hindrance, not a help am I?"
"Yes! Yes you are!" Galinda was almost screaming and Nanny took a half-step back. In the doorway, holding an empty reticule Galinda had asked for, Nessarose sat looking quite disturbed. "I have held my tongue, but this is too much! How can any girl be expected to function in these conditions? Nessrose, please take her somewhere else, please! I can manage quite well with the maid and you are . . . well you are just-"
"You're getting in the way Nanny." Came Elphaba's monotone voice, tinged with a hint of satisfaction at having arrived at the right moment to finish her friend's sentence. "Hello there, Nessie." She leaned down to kiss her sister's cheek and was happily received. Galinda stropped over, clambering through mess to Elphaba's side. The green girl almost laughed at the frizz and disarray of the bright blonde hair and the sweetness in the upturned smile. "Yes, Galinda, what is it? Do you need some help?"
"Oh no, no no!" Chimed Nanny. "She needs nobody's assistance, Miss Princess Perfect of the Pertha Paddocks."
"Nanny." Elphaba warned. "Go away. You're annoying practically everyone! Including us and we've only just arrived."
"We?" Galinda asked, not spying that a second person had entered with Elphaba.
"Hey there, Glinny-dinny." Fiyero said, casually. He kissed her cheek and tore a piece of cheesebread from the baguette in his hand. Elphaba took a piece for herself, too.
"You are not to use that name!" Galinda snatched the bread from him and magicked it into crumbs in the disposal.
"Hey!" He protested, looking to Elphaba to back him up, who only continued to chew innocently on her own sandwich. "Then give me a bit of yours." He said quickly, taking it from her hands before she could react and running around the room over unmade beds and cases and shoes. Galinda sighed, exasperated as the couple ended in a heap on the floor, Fiyero refusing to cease tickling her until she brought the bread back down from the air. Elphaba only made it hover tantalisingly just without his reach. Teasing him like a little mouse.
"You two are certainly not helping. The only person in here doing any good is Nessarose. Thank you, Nessie, for my reticule. You may be excused, but I do not know what I would do without you!" She said loudly, to interrupt her friends. Elphaba suddenly felt bad, let the bread drop and apologised. She shoved Nanny out the door on a stupid errand that would never be done and began to restock Galinda's skirts. "Thank you." Galinda offered reluctantly.
Elphaba shrugged and used her magic to shift five suitcases full of shoes. "Galinda, I don't think I saw you wearing all of these shoes in the past three years."
"Is that a challenge?" Galinda laughed, nudging her. Elphaba shook her head but let them see her smile. "Nessarose, you really needn't trouble yourself with that." The unfortunate girl was wrestling with a disagreeable case until Galinda picked it up and sat it on her lap. "You may go; we'll have you called before we leave."
"No, indeed! I want to help. Though I am sorry if I'm being a nuisance, in which case I would go. You were not lying before though, I think." Galinda affirmed that had not been lying and exchanged a happy look with Elphaba. "I am quite excited about starting my final year here. If it is half as good as the one Elphaba and you all have had, I shall count myself very lucky. What a blessing from the Unnamed God that would be!"
Elphaba's shoulders dropped at her last statement. She hated that her sister still clung to such beliefs when in many other areas she was a very reasoned young woman, intelligent enough to excel in her courses here and sociable enough to make good and fairly kind friends. Not to mention brave enough to take on more responsibility for her own care. It did comfort Elphaba that Nanny would stay at Shiz with Nessa, even though the old woman drove her up the wall with madness.
They began to overheat with the number of things to send off from the suite. Fiyero threw open the windows, letting the noises from the square below reach them inside and the cold air left over from their snowy winter circulate the room. Beads of sweat soon materialized and they were thankful to send off the last of the cases. Eventually, Nessa excused herself to call a carriage to take them to the station: there was no reason for such a thing as their telephone worked perfectly well, but the sadness was palpable and Nessa felt awkward and intrusive. Elphaba finally felt what Fiyero had been talking about in his room.
She looked around at the place where she had become like a sister to spoiled and bratty and still occasionally tactless and stupid Galinda Upland. Where she had come to see how very perceptive and good and wonderful Galinda really was. "I suppose I'll miss it here." Which was about all anyone would ever get from her that would come close to an admission of her feelings.
Galinda smiled. "Yes. I'll miss it, too. And I'll miss you, until we meet again in the Emerald City. Only what," she frowned, "two weeks?"
"One, Galinda. Just one week without us." Elphaba corrected her.
"Ah yes. Of course." Galinda sniffed and Fiyero was happy to see Elphaba step forward and embrace her friend. "I promise I'm not overreacting, Elphie."
"Course not." The green girl was heard to mumble, quietly as her volume was blocked by the cloth she had buried her face in.
"Well. Enough, don't you think?" Galinda declared, dabbing her eyes and nose with a pristine handkerchief and picking up her purse and travelling case. She sauntered out of the room much as she had sauntered in and Fiyero kissed away the tears that threatened to spill from Elphaba's eyes as they closed the door behind them for the final time.
Fiyeraba are going on a Summer Holiday! No more working for a week or two! Kisses from Fiyero for reviewers (or Elphaba, or Galinda)! x
