AN: Um... yeah. Let's just say it will get worse with Fiyero before it gets better... but it gets better at the end of this chapter, and there will be some Fiyeraba fluff coming in the next one! (I think.)

Thank you all so much for reviewing, it means a lot to me. Virtual... um... pie? No, you probably wouldn't want that... :P home-baked chocolate chip cookies? ... to all of you.

LifeinWatercolor: Oops, my bad. I was originally planning for them to be like, fourteen, fifteen in the previous chapter, but then I realised skipping to them being a bit older right away would be better, so I did, only I forgot to change it :3. I did now, though. Fiyero and Cohvu are eighteen now and Galinda and Elphaba are seventeen.


Chapter 7. Apologise

After that, the situation with Fiyero didn't get better. In fact, it only got worse.

He kept on 'dancing through life', dating girls and hanging out with his 'friends' from school. He started drinking alcohol and going to parties more and more often, and more than once, he would come home from one of those parties completely drunk. Cohvu had started ignoring him as much as possible, Galinda often got mad at him because of his behaviour whenever she would come to Adurin Iir, and Elphaba tried to act as normal as possible towards him, but she was finding it harder and harder to keep doing so. Hamold and Lori had talked to him about it more than once, but he refused to acknowledge that anything was wrong, and they were starting to grow desperate. By the time he turned eighteen, Lori was about ready to send him to a boarding school.

When Elphaba was sitting in the dining room one Saturday afternoon, sipping her coffee and reading a newspaper, Fiyero came stumbling in, his eyes bloodshot and looking as if he had just rolled out of bed – which probably was the case. He poured himself some coffee and plopped down onto a chair with a grunt.

Elphaba looked up, arching one eyebrow at him. 'Hangover?'

He grumbled something unintelligible in reply.

She rolled her eyes and returned to her newspaper. He watched her for a while, frowning. 'Just say it already,' he finally snapped.

She looked up in surprise. 'Say what?'

'What you want to say.' He glared at her. 'That I look like crap, that I should stop behaving like this, blah blah blah.'

'If you've figured that much out yourself, then why do you need me to say it?' she retorted, and his glare intensified. 'So you were going to say it.'

'Actually, I wasn't.' She folded her paper. 'But now that you're bringing it up: you look like crap and you should stop behaving like this.'

'You can't tell me what to do,' he snarled. 'It's not like you're my mother or something!'

'Yes, well, you don't listen to her, either, do you?'

He snorted. 'You're the worst friend ever.'

'Friend?' She shot him a glare so icy that for a moment, he feared he was going to turn into an ice sculpture. Her voice was calm, though, as she spoke. 'I'm not your friend, Fiyero. Not anymore.'

That took him off guard. He blinked. 'What?'

'You have no idea, do you?' she asked him quietly. 'What you're doing to everyone around you. You're alienating the people that love you most, Fiyero. Cohvu has stopped talking to you. Your father is desperate and your mother is devastated because of what you're doing. You're not talking to anyone, all you're doing is getting drunk and kissing blonde airheads and going to parties. Even Galinda is starting to hate your guts, and she's about the most forgiving person you'll ever meet.'

'Yeah, right,' he said in a bored tone of voice, taking another sip of coffee. 'You're just exaggerating, as always. Why can't you all just leave me alone?'

'That's what we've been doing for the past few years!' Elphaba snapped at him. 'But clearly, that didn't have any effect! Why won't you just listen to us?'

'Because you're all wrong! My life is perfect the way it is, and stop pretending like I'm 'hurting' you guys or something stupid like that. It's not like I'm being mean to you or something, I'm just living my own life. I'm allowed to do that, aren't I?'

'Oh, so you don't think calling someone vegetable names because of her skin colour is mean?' Elphaba hissed. 'Or calling your mother an annoying nosey parker? That's all perfectly normal to you?'

He remained silent.

'She cried, Fiyero,' the raven-haired girl told him in a low voice. 'She cried about it when you left. You are hurting us. All of us.' She shook her head. 'But who cares, right? Nothing matters, always keeping cool, just keep dancing through life, because that's what you do best, isn't it?' She sighed and rose to her feet. 'I don't know why I even bother anymore,' she declared. 'I'm going to go now.'

'Go where?' he demanded, and she shot him another glare. 'For a swim.'

She left the room then, and he frowned, thinking it over a little. Then he realised what she had said and his eyes widened. 'A swim? What?' He jumped to his feet and hurried after her. 'Elphaba?'

He ran out onto the beach, just in time to see her approaching the water, ready to dive in. Speeding up, he launched himself in her direction, catching her before she could touch the water and throwing her over his shoulder in one movement.

She pounded her fists on his back. 'Fiyero Hamold Tiggular!' she yelled. 'What in Oz do you think you're doing?!'

'Me?' he shouted back, sounding panicked. 'What do you think you're doing?!' Without waiting for an answer, he took her inside, stalking into the dining room, where his parents were sitting, talking and sipping their drinks. They looked up when Fiyero and Elphaba entered.

He set her back down on her feet, but kept a firm hold of her arm as he declared in a slightly higher voice than usual, 'Mom, Dad, Elphaba tried to kill herself!'

Lori and Hamold's eyes widened. 'What?'

Elphaba looked just as stunned as they did. 'What?' she echoed, and Fiyero frowned and looked at her. 'Don't play stupid,' he snapped at her. 'I saw what you were doing! You were trying to jump into the water!'

Slowly, it dawned on her what he was thinking. 'Fiyero,' she began slowly, but he shook his head. 'Don't bother denying it, I saw it!' he shouted.

'Fiyero!' she snapped, yanking her arm free from his grip. 'I'm only allergic to fresh water!'

He gaped at her. 'What?'

Lori looked absolutely stunned. 'Fiyero… you didn't know?!'

'You heard me,' Elphaba said to the prince, ignoring Lori for now. 'I was doing exactly what I told you I was going to do – taking a swim. I can touch sea water. Glin and Cohvu taught me how to swim a few months ago.'

His mouth was literally hanging open in shock. 'But…' he spluttered. 'But… how… what… when… When did you find that out?' he demanded, sounding angry.

'Last summer.'

'Summer?' He looked pale now. 'But… but that's almost seven months ago!' he protested, and Elphaba looked at him pointedly. 'Exactly.'

'Elphaba,' Lori said gently. 'Didn't you tell him?'

She shrugged and crossed her arms. 'Why should I?' she wanted to know. 'He doesn't care, anyway.'

'Of course I care!' he protested. 'Fae, you can touch salt water! That's amazing!'

'It's so amazing that you failed to even notice it for the past seven months,' she pointed out sharply.

He had no reply to that.

Hamold looked at his son gravely. 'Yero,' he said. 'You barely even have an idea of what is going on in everyone's lives anymore. You're always either away from home, drunk, or hungover.'

'That's not true!' Fiyero protested hotly. 'I know exactly what's going on in your lives!'

Elphaba stepped up towards him, standing on her tiptoes and moving so close to him that their noses were almost touching. Her eyes were narrowed to dark brown slits, sparking with anger, and she jabbed her finger in his chest. 'Did you know that Glin and Cohvu are dating?'

His eyes widened. 'Wha-'

'That they have been together for almost five months now?'

'Five months? But-'

'Did you realise that it was your parents' wedding anniversary last week?'

He gulped.

'Did you know that Cohvu's little sister got sick with scarlet fever a month or two ago and nearly died? Did you even notice that Cohvu didn't come to the caste for two weeks because he was afraid that he was contagious and that he might give it to us?'

He didn't say anything. They all knew that the answer was no.

Elphaba was shouting now. 'Did you notice that your mother cried after you yelled at her the other day? Did you know that your father barely sleeps anymore because he worries so much about you? Did you know that every time you call me an artichoke, or a broccoli, or some other kind of vegetable, I go up to my room and throw things around yelling curses at the top of my lungs because I'm afraid I'm going to do that to you if I don't do it to inanimate objects? Did you know all that? Do you even care?'

He still didn't say anything, and that only fuelled her rage. She started gesturing around wildly, not noticing the small, green sparks that were flying back and forth between her fingertips. Neither did the others.

'I don't know why I'm still trying!' she shouted at him. 'You're the meanest, most obnoxious, selfish, brainless, and horrendible jerk that everexisted, and I hate you! I hate you, Fiyero Tiggular! I took it all, I tried to convince myself that there was a reason you were behaving this way, that it would pass, that you didn't mean it, but you know what? I think I was wrong. Perhaps this is just who you are. And if that is the case, I don't want to have anything to do with you ever again!'

She brought her arms down in a wild movement, and the moment she did that, every single fluid in the room suddenly splashed upwards in some kind of fountain. The contents of Lori and Hamold's glasses, but also the water in the few flower vases that were standing in the room, suddenly flew upwards, towards the ceiling.

Elphaba quickly jumped back from the liquid to prevent it from burning her. She blinked and looked up. The Tiggulars were all gaping at Elphaba, and the green girl turned on her heels and stormed out of the room, running through the hallways and up the stairs to her room.

She closed the door behind her and pressed her back against it, breathing hard. She wasn't sure what had just happened, exactly. A rush of… power had just surged through her body, and before she knew it, the water had spouted up… but had she done that? Because she had gotten so mad? She'd never gotten this angry before in her life.

And the fact that she apparently controlled fluids wasn't even the most important thing that was bothering her. No, for a moment, while she had felt that strange power in her veins, it had felt like she was thrown back into the past. A fleeting memory, nothing more but a feeling that she had experienced this power before, along with a flash of darkness and an echo of screams, but she didn't know what that meant. Was she remembering? Everything that had happened to her before the Tiggulars had found her – was it still somewhere in her head? Could she somehow recall those memories?

She leaned her head back against the wooden door and closed her eyes for a moment. Then she spun around, yanked open the door and ran out into the hallway, making her way towards the front door.

She needed some air.


When you left Adurin Iir and followed the beach a mile or so towards the north, you would reach a spot where the sandy beach turned into a small, rocky area, housing rocks of all sizes. It was an excellent place to hide – which they had done plenty of times when they were kids – and to climb, even though Elphaba didn't really have a desire to hide or climb right now, that was where she went. She positioned herself on one of the lower rocks, dangling her feet in the water and staring off over the ocean.

After a while, she discovered a sea turtle crawling over the beach not too far away from where she was sitting. She recognised the animal by a mark on its shield, and she smiled. 'Hi, turtle. Long time no see.'

A few years ago, she had been there when this particular turtle – along with its siblings – had hatched. She had watched the small turtles inch along the beach and towards the sea; there was one, with a dark mark on its shield, that had stayed behind a little. It was clearly a bit weaker than the others and it had difficulty making its way towards the water on its own. Elphaba had carefully picked it up and taken it to the sea, watching it swim away. The year afterwards, it had returned, and ever since, it popped up on the beach near the castle every now and then. There were other turtles, of course, but she could recognise this one; and silly as it may be, she often talked to it. It gave her the opportunity to sort out her thoughts without actually having to talk to herself.

The turtle stayed still in the sand, watching her with one eye, and she sighed, hugging her knees to her chest. 'Sometimes I feel like I am a puzzle,' she confessed to the animal.

It tilted its head a little, as if it was listening to her.

'I mean, at some point, I start thinking that I know who I am now. That I know myself, my strengths and my weaknesses, my likes and dislikes… it feels as if I suddenly see the picture the puzzle that is me is supposed to become, and I start putting the pieces together…' She paused. 'And then something happens that makes me realise that I can't finish the puzzle, because certain pieces are missing.' She looked at the turtle. 'Do you understand what I mean?'

It lowered its head and shuffled a bit further towards the rocks.

The green girl rested her chin on her knees. 'I just don't know if I can ever really know who I am if I don't know who I was,' she said softly. 'I don't know who my family is or how I was raised, I don't know anything about the first six years of my life… and thought sometimes I think I can get over that and move on, there are also times when I feel like the not knowing is holding me back.' She sighed again. 'I just wish I knew.'

She splashed some water up with her toes. 'And now those weird… powers. What does that mean? That I'm a sorceress or something? A witch? I don't understand a thing about it – and see, there it is again. I'm sure I would understand if I only knew more about my past.'

Suddenly, the turtle made a soft hissing sound, and Elphaba looked up. She groaned when she saw Fiyero heading her way. 'Oh, great. The very last person in the world I want to see right now.'

The prince walked up to her, but she didn't even glance at him. Instead, she kept her gaze fixed on the sea turtle as she spoke. 'See, turtle? That's Fiyero Tiggular over there. You know, the boy that wasn't there when you hatched.'

Fiyero sighed. 'Fae…'

'He used to love you,' Elphaba told the turtle. 'All of you. But, you see, he's been abandoning everything and everyone that he used to love. Because he wants to be popular or because he's just turned into a jerk, I'm not sure, but it remains a fact that it's just you and me now, buddy.' She leaned down to touch the turtle's shield, petting it. 'Don't worry, though. I won't abandon you.'

Fiyero remained silent. Elphaba didn't raise her eyes, still keeping them fixed on the turtle as she addressed Fiyero now. 'I've been watching them hatch by myself for the past few years now.' She looked up, but turned towards the sea, staring at the blue water instead of at him. 'Every time, I hope I'll see you there, that you'll come out and watch them with me, that you'll prove to me that you haven't changed as much as I'm starting to think you have… but you never come.'

He still didn't say anything. Instead, he clambered onto the rocks as well, sitting down next to her, though not uncomfortably close. They were both silent for a while.

'I'm sorry I called you an artichoke,' he finally spoke.

She didn't respond.

'And a broccoli.'

She picked up a small pebble and threw it, making it bounce across the water surface before it sank into the ocean.

'And a wilted cabbage leaf, an asparagus, a grumpy cucumber, a green bean, a turnip, a sour pickle-'

'Alright, I get it!' she snapped, and he shut his mouth. She sighed, running her fingers through her waist-long raven hair. 'Apology accepted.'

He dared giving her a hesitant smile. 'So we're friends again?'

Much to his disappointment, she shook her head. 'It's not that easy, Tiggular. You've been behaving like a prick for years. You've hurt us all. You can't make it right with a single apology.' She wrapped her arms tighter around her legs and added softly, 'I'm not even sure you can make it right again at all.'

He sighed, looking – and feeling - guilty. 'Fair enough. But I really am sorry,' he added, and for the first time, she looked at him, studying his face, trying to determine if he was serious or not. She noted how little he really had changed in the past years; his sandy hair still a little too long, constantly falling into his face. His sapphire eyes sparkling, though they were sparkling with regret now instead of the regular cheerfulness and mischief. He was still the same Fiyero – on the outside, at least. Could he also still be the same on the inside?

'You're not a vegetable at all,' he said, quietly, but she could see in his eyes that he was sincere. He reached for her hand and, encouraged when she didn't immediately pull away, squeezed it. 'You're beautiful.'

For some incredibly stupid reason, that made her blush.