AN: I realized about six paragraphs into this that I'd written myself into a hole. I was following the story in my head and not paying attention to facts. Yes, this is musicalverse, and I intended it to follow the musical almost exactly (the AU scenes set during intermission). However, I have changed one major point: I put much, much more time between the Lion cub incident and the Emerald City than exists in the musical. I would guess about three months.
"Fae, you're back, thank Oz," I breathed as I pressed her to my chest.
"No. Not really, Yero . . ."
I hated it when her voice had that sharp edge to it; that always meant something I didn't like.
"Mmm?" I asked, and buried my face in her hair rather than admit that I'd guessed what was coming.
"I just came to get some things and to talk . . . I'm sorry, but I'm a curs—"
"You are not a curse!"
"Shh. Yero, be good and let me finish."
I nodded against her hair, and she took that as her cue to continue.
"Remember when all this started?"
She didn't have to explain what "all this" was—it was her and me and Glinda, the triangle Glinda didn't even suspect, the lies and the love. And I did remember . . .
"You deserve a girl like Galinda, Fiyero. She's beautiful and perfect and popular, and heaven knows I'm not that girl."
"Elphie, you're beautiful and perfect—perfectly flawed, a beautiful disaster. Galinda is always hiding behind her makeup and her curls, and you—you're just you."
"Really, Fiyero, all that thought after one illegal incident with a cage and a Lion cub? All that thought in less than five hours?" she arched her eyebrows at me, and I wanted to kiss her.
"Not really," I answered, almost surprising myself, "I think I've been thinking about this for a long time. Well, longer than five hours anyway. I just didn't know how to say it, you know. I want to give us a try."
"Fiyero, there is no us. There is you, Galinda, and one mistake. We have never existed, and we don't exist now."
"Is that right?" I responded in the only appropriate way: I kissed her. The part I wasn't expecting was where she kissed me back, where she seemed to actually want me.
"Now what do you say?" I asked. I still held her hand, but I was keeping my distance—sort of—until I got the answer I wanted.
"You have to stay with Galinda," Elphie informed me.
But we were past the point of no return. Looking back, I think we both knew it then, but we were too weak and arrogant to admit it.
"I remember," I said, "I remember you were there, and nothing else mattered."
"How long ago was that?" my Fae asked me.
"About three months, I think."
"And you know I haven't been with anyone else—well, ever, but certainly not since then."
"Of course, Fae, I trust you," I said, and then I winced because Glinda trusted me and Elphie both . . . and we were betraying her even now.
Fae backed away from my embrace and took one of my hands in both of hers. She laid my hand across her flat stomach. She was biting her lip; a bad sign—she only did that when she was upset or nervous or both.
"So, you can sort of say hello to your baby," she whispered.
"I, wait—what did you just say?"
"I'm pregnant," Fae said in that coffee-bitter tone I hated hearing.
"Sweet Oz, Fae, how long have you known?"
She wrapped her arms around my neck and mumbled her answer into my shoulder: "About six days. I came back—I had to come back—to tell you, so you wouldn't, you know, be shocked if it leaks that the Wicked Witch is pregnant. See, I told you I was a curse. I can't even be with the man I love without causing problems."
My heart flip-flopped when she said she loved me. She'd been saying that for less than three months, and I still felt giddy whenever I heard those words in her distinctive voice. That probably wasn't good. Not when I was still supposed to be dating her best friend. Oz, Fae's pregnancy wasn't good news considering my current—official—romantic attachment. So why was I thrilled?
"Fae, baby, that's amazing. I can't wait to meet my—our—daughter," I told her.
"You can't be serious," she stepped back and stared at me.
"Why wouldn't I be?" Oz, let her understand.
"Oh, I could think of a few reasons. Try this: because you're a prince who has an image to maintain, or maybe because you're dating Glinda, or maybe even because the mother of your baby is the Wicked Witch?"
"None of that matters to me. I don't care what people think—not since I realized I loved you. I've just kept all this up for Glinda, and you know I would've broken up with her if you hadn't sworn never to speak to me again if I did. Plus, you're not wicked. You're just a little out-of-favor right now."
I winced internally at that last statement; she wasn't wicked—I knew that better even than Glinda—but anyone who could inspire the vitriolic wanted posters I'd been collecting was definitely more than a little out-of-favor.
"Look, Yero, I have to go. I need some stuff from my room and you can't be found with me."
"Fae, don't do this!"
"Do what?" she snapped, and I caught just enough fire in her eyes to make me guess she knew where this was going.
"Don't run."
"Oz, Fiyero," she paused and combed her fingers through her hair, "it's not like we'll never see each other again."
"Isn't it?" I asked, and my voice broke.
"I don't know," she admitted.
"Then stay with me—tonight, at least. Just don't run off and leave us pretending we're not dying inside missing each other. Tell me it's not too late for us to make something of this. Oz, Fae, tell me I haven't been fighting for nothing."
"You haven't, I promise. I love you, Fiyero. I wish that was enough to fix all this, but it never has been. For me, nothing ever will be."
"That's not true, Fae. We'll find a way to make this all right. I just don't know how."
"Mostly, I hate it when you lie to me. Right now, I want to believe you," she said, her eyes closed. I imagined she was dreaming of the same life I was: peaceful, out-of-the-limelight, with my ring on her finger and our baby sleeping between us.
I pulled her into my arms again, and this time she didn't resist. I hoped my Fae was just losing herself in the joy of being together again, after ten days too many apart.
That night, with my Fae sleeping against me, I prayed—to whomever might be listening—that someday there would be something to show for Fae and my love. I wanted to leave more than a lonely kid with a dead mother and brainless, heartless father who hadn't had the courage to save his mother. Somehow, that bleak future was looking very, very possible and the happy-ever-after I wanted was looking impossible. If the storybooks recorded Fae and my lives, what would they tell?
I prayed I would have the courage to play my hand rather than fold, and I prayed the same for Fae.
AN: Elphaba1fan - Thanks for both your reviews. I hope you continue to enjoy :)
