"What would you have done?" she asked him as they lay beneath the thin protection of her quilt, huddled in each other's arms.
"What?"
"I mean, not you. If it were someone else who saw me in the street. Another Gale Forcer. If you hadn't known me. If you did what you were supposed to."
"Brought you back…to prison." Fiyero admitted reluctantly. He didn't like this conversation, he hated the traitorous hypotheticals the mere thought of which hollowed his stomach and brought bile to his throat.
"And then?" She prodded. "What would have happened?"
"Elphaba."
"No, please. Tell me."
"They would have…hurt you."
"Tortured, Fiyero, say it."
"Tortured." He squirmed a bit. Gripped her more tightly.
"Then?"
"Tried to kill you with water."
"And after that?"
"Elphaba, please!"
Her eyes were burning. "Tell me."
"This is sick!"
"I need to know."
"They would have…they would have executed you." He turned his face aside from hers, felt hot liquid tears form at the corners of his eyes, wanted badly to be sick.
"How?" she asked quietly.
"Fae, please, for God's sake, don't do this."
"I need to know," she repeated. "I need to."
He choked on the word. "B-burning."
He pulled himself out of bed and paced in the frigid air, hoping the cold would cool the fire in his stomach. Elphaba wrapped the sheet around her like a gown and perched on the edge of the bed.
"How?"
"My God, Elphaba! What is wrong with you?"
"Tell me how they would have done it."
"You want to know? Fine," he snapped finally, pulling her to her feet, letting the sheet drop to the floor. "They tie you to the stake," he told her, pinioning her wrists behind her for a moment. "They pile wood around you. Ankle high. Green wood, to make it last longer. And then they tie little packets of straw to you. They would probably throw some green twigs in there, too, to make it more painful." She stared at him as if hypnotized, her face frozen in shock from the moment he had pulled her up. "And then they light it. The fire. And your skin catches, first here," he knelt, ran his fingers along the taut muscle of her thin calves, sending electric shockwaves tingling through her body, "And then here," he touched her thighs, grasped her hands tightly. "And here," his hand whispered across her stomach, her forearms, moved upwards to her breasts. "And then here." He gripped her face in his hands, staring into her widened eyes. He broke away roughly. "And then you die."
They locked eyes for a long moment, and then she moved, dashing to the bathroom, where he could hear her retching into the chamber pot. She emerged and half-collapsed against the wall, holding her head in her hands. Already regretting the harshness of his manner, he dashed over to her side, pulled her into him, crooning her name as he would a child's.
"Elphie, Elphie, Fae, ssh," he murmured, "They didn't, they didn't, they won't."
As much as she wanted to melt into him and allow herself to be consoled, she couldn't. She pulled back, looked into his concerned blue eyes.
"Have you done it?" she asked, hiding the emotion from her voice.
"No! Sweet Lurline, no!" he cried vehemently.
"Have you seen it?"
"Yes. Elphaba, please. Leave it alone now. Please." For the first time, he caught the panic concealed artfully in her face.
She nodded slightly, the gesture belying the words that dropped involuntarily like cold round marbles from her lips.
"I can't," she whispered, "Not that. I can't. No."
He stared at her.
"You're afraid," he murmured, half in wonder.
"Afraid? Of course I'm afraid. My God. I-I…" she broke off and looked away from him as she spoke. "I used to imagine it. All the different ways to die…and finally, I settled on that one. You know. Because it's the way they used to kill witches. I guess they still do." She laughed bitterly. "How we've regressed. I had nightmares. Every night…" she closed her eyes tightly and then opened them again, blinking back tears.
"I would want to confess," she admitted almost inaudibly after a moment. "I wouldn't, but oh God, how I would want to."
"Elphaba, Elphaba, no, you don't have to think about it, you don't have to worry-"
"Of course I do," she half-spat, angry not at him but at circumstance. "Even more. Fiyero. You don't think they do anything less to traitors than to terrorists, do you? Now there's you, too. I can't let it happen to you-" she pulled away and whirled around and wrapped herself in the sheet again. "It's like a curse…everyone who loves me, everyone I love…you should have never come. You should go away, go away and never come back and forget I exist. Please."
He approached her from behind, folded her into him. She turned in his arms.
"No, please, go," she moaned, but she lay her head on his shoulder anyway.
"I will never go away," he told her solemnly. "Never."