They cohabitated.

They didn't have sex either, at first. The fact that Elphaba was more whirlwind than woman had more than a little to do with it.

She kissed him, muttered something vague, and dashed out the door helter-skelter, like a fox being chased by a pack of hungry hounds.

"Elphaba!" he called after her as he watched her once again disappear into the snow, ut she didn't answer. He turned around and examined the small room before him. It was not a bad place, for a fugitive sans funds. A double bed was tucked into one corner, with a plain quilt spread over it and a light brown afghan folded neatly at its foot. Pushed up against the foot of the bed was a small, narrow, table covered with neat piles of papers and diagrams, quills, and inkpots. Guiltily, Fiyero glanced through them, petrified that upon her return she would notice any small disturbance in their organization. Diagrams, instructions on various explosives…he turned away, cursing at himself for willfully forgetting this side of her. Of them both, for he found the soldier in him recognizing makeshift versions of the weapons he himself had used. He turned to inspect the rest of the room. A mirror leaned up against one wall, a few thin dark dresses hung on a nail beside it. An ancient armchair in one corner. And the books. Piles and piles of books, under the coffee table covered with candles, under the desk and the bed, in the crates serving as a window seat, stacked against the walls, used as a kind of bedside table holding a small clock and a kerosene lamp- not Elphaba's brightest idea, Fiyero thought. A window dominated one wall, and through it Fiyero found he had the most amazing view of the City he had ever seen. The palace sparkled in the distance, as did all the other glamorous businesses and apartment buildings in that, the wealthiest part of the city. And the moon hung full and fertile above it all, creating the perfect picture of fulfillment and smug satisfaction.

Fiyero was quite glad he was not a part of that picture.

Across the room was a weathered door. He opened it to find a tiny bathroom inhabited by a claw foot tub, a small toilet, and a disheveled pile of the remainder of Elphaba's clothes. Recalling the desk in the main room, he wondered how she could be so fastidious about one thing and so utterly opposite about another.

Wandering vaguely back into the other room, he plopped onto the bed and kicked off his boots, deciding to wait for Elphaba in comfort. He picked up the book she had left, spine up, on the bed, dog-eared her place, and began to read. If he was going to live with the smartest girl in Shiz, he had might as well at least make an effort to improve his own lazy mind…

She returned after he had fallen asleep sprawled on the bed. She smiled tenderly and arranged the afghan over him. He turned over and groaned, she noticed the spine of her book poking into his back and moved it. Unaware that he was awakening, she yanked off her boots, undid the buttons of her high-necked dress, slipped out of it almost faster than was humanly possibly, shucked off her undergarments and raced into the bathroom.

Fiyero sat up gaping and was still there nearly twenty minutes later when she emerged, wet-haired and clad in a grey nightshift that fell above her knees, leaving her legs exposed, thin, childish, and vulnerable.

She stood in front of the mirror leaned against the wall and began to work out the tangles in her unruly hair. Seeing him sitting up in the reflection, she jumped and gave a choked off, un-Elphaba-like shriek.

"I thought you were asleep," she said.

"I know, so did I." He grinned. "I thought I was dreaming."

She took a moment to process this, and then he found a balled-up black dress flying at his head.

"Hey!"

"You stupid concupiscent male," she said. "You're lucky it wasn't the brush."

He could tell from her tone, though, that she was more embarrassed than angry.

"I'm sorry you took your clothes off in front of me?"

She glared.

"I'm sorry…I wasn't asleep?"

The eyebrows went up.

"I'm sorry…I was here?"

She burst out laughing and clambered up on the bed beside him.

"Good book?" she asked.

"Works like a lullaby," he admitted.

"You're exactly like I remember you," she told him.

"Hey!"

"Let me finish. Pretending you don't know anything, but really, Fiyero, you do." She smiled at him and he tucked the rarity away to treasure.

"I know something you don't know," he told her.

"What?"

"I love you."