Chapter 9

It took him a moment to realize what had just happened. She was fine a moment ago! He was by her side almost at the same moment she hit the dry leaves. "Elphaba?" he asked sort of hesitantly, panic sneaking into his voice. He knelt beside her, ignoring the shivering that took hold of his arms as he picked her up, bringing her head to rest against his knees. She didn't flinch. She was almost weightless. The color drained from her face almost entirely. He was getting really scared now. What in Oz was wrong with her?

He tried to remain calm, not to panic himself more than was necessary, but how could he? She was his everything, his entire world. He had literally left everything behind to be with her. And now this? How could he not worry? He remembered that day when she almost fainted on their way home; he remembered all those other small incidents that preceded it. Why didn't he listen to his instincts and insisted they'd stay at the village a little longer? Why in Oz he agreed to go along with this?

Slowly, her eyes fluttered open. She seemed momentarily disoriented, but then her tired eyes met his flustered ones, and she let out a heavy sigh. "I'm alright, Fiyero, don't worry about it," she whispered, closing her eyes again.

"Don't worry about it?" he echoed, getting somewhat agitated. Had she misplaced her mind? Couldn't she see how panicked he was? "Elphaba, for Oz's sake, you have just fainted! Don't tell me you're alright, you're far from that!"

She winced. "Please don't yell."

He looked down at her. She looked really miserable. Why didn't she say she wasn't feeling well? It didn't look as if it had just happened; it looked as if she had been like that for a while when he wasn't watching her. Why didn't she ask him to stop for a while? Why didn't she say something, anything?

He sighed. Stay calm; he had to stay calm. That panic helped neither him nor her. He looked at her again, laying on his lap. She looked so helpless, so vulnerable; it made him feel even worse. He didn't mean to snap at her, but what could he possibly do? They had just walked into the woods; they were literally in the middle of nowhere. He had no medical training whatsoever, or the necessary equipment. Their baggage only contained some dried medicinal herbs she brought along for emergencies, but he knew those, and they didn't seem strong enough to cure whatever it was she had. The closest town was days' walk backwards and there was no way she was able to even go back. "We need to get a doctor for you."

He didn't even realize he said that out loud until she reached out to touch his arm and gave him a persistent look. "No, we don't. Just let it go, Fiyero. It'll pass, I'll be fine."

She tried to smile, but it was obviously forced. He just wasn't sure it was him she was trying to convince, or herself. "Elphaba, in case you didn't notice, you're not fine!" He paused, realizing he was raising his voice again, then sighed. "You promised you'd let me take care of you, but you keep pushing me away! All I want is to find a doctor to tell us what's wrong with you."

"I know what's wrong with me," she snapped back, sort of mockingly. She sighed, as if she could see it hurt him. "It's not something a doctor could cure so just… please, let it go."

He wasn't sure what she was saying, but there was this other thing, that all of a sudden couldn't have been clearer. And now that he realized it, he couldn't believe he was fooled into believing it in the first place. Now it just seemed absurd. "It's not that spell, is it? It never was."

She lowered her head at his observation, like a child who was caught in her mischief. He wasn't surprised when she shook her head. "No, it wasn't."

He wouldn't panic. He'd ignore the thoughts that now span wildly through his head. She looked troubled enough; he didn't want her to see how scared he suddenly was. "What is it, then?" he asked gently, taking her hand.

She looked away, then back at him, straight at him. Her eyes were glistening; he was horrified to detect tears in them. "I'm pregnant."

The words hung mid-air, meeting stunned silence. All around, the voices of the forest resumed, as if unaware of what was happening.

He stared at her for the longest time before he found his voice again. "You're… what?"

She didn't repeat her words. She didn't have to. When their eyes met, he knew his ears weren't misleading him. And now when he knew, everything seemed to have come together; small, supposedly meaningless things that so far made no sense.

"How long did you know?"

She didn't look away. "From the beginning," she replied, and he thought he detected a tiny trace of guilt in her voice. "Almost four months now."

Four months! Was he really that brainless to ignore the signs, to let such a thing escape him? And how could she keep it from him for so long? "Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, somewhat hurt.

"Because I knew you wouldn't let me go on this journey, you would have wanted to wait, or go by yourself, you would have made those ignorant statements about how pregnant women shouldn't go wandering around-"

"That's right, they shouldn't!" he snapped at her, really angry now. "Sweet Oz, Elphaba, you could hurt yourself! You should have told me before we left, we could at least find a doctor to join us! Now what in Oz are we supposed to do if something happens? I won't know what to do, and neither will you!"

She lowered her head, looking rebuked. Now he felt bad. He didn't mean to get so angry, but what was he supposed to do? He knew that if it was up to her, if she didn't faint, she would have probably kept it from him for longer; for as long as she could. It made him feel so frustrated, and to be honest, quite stupid. He believed her when she told him about the after-effects; he trusted her completely without even questioning her. He resented her because she knew he wouldn't question her. It sort of annoyed him that she knew him so well. And now it turned out that all his worries for her well-being after performing that spell on him were for nothing, because the spell never truly mattered. It wasn't the spell that was making her unwell.

Was it anger he was feeling for her? Fury that she kept the truth from him, that she was leading him on? It couldn't be that; he loved her too much to be truly mad at her. It's just… he was still shocked to learn the truth; he surely wasn't expecting that. He suspected that the enormity of it hadn't quite dawned on him yet. But one thing was clear to him. They shouldn't be arguing about it. It was their one chance for happiness, and they'd better hold on to it as long as it was theirs to take.

But before he could apologize for his outburst, she spoke. "I'm sorry. I should have told you, I know I should have, it's just… I needed time to figure out how to tell you."

He took her in his arms then, as if to let her know he wasn't angry. Not at her anyway. He had figured it out now. The situation itself sort of annoyed him with no apparent reason. "Am I that intimidating?"

She laughed softly, resting her head against his chest. "Of course not." She took his hand in hers, and raised them for him to see. "You do realize it might be inherited, don't you?"

For a moment, he wasn't sure what she was referring to. He gave her a puzzled look, but then it finally dawned on him, and he didn't know whether or not he should have taken it seriously. The wildest ideas ran through his head about why she'd keep it away from him, and that was what was on her mind? He held himself back from bursting out laughing. "That's what it's all about? Did you really believe I'd treat it as less my child if it came out green?"

"My father did," she said softly, looking back at him. There was so much pain in her eyes; much more than he expected to find there after all that time.

"I'm not your father. And green, yellow, blue, this baby is ours. There's no way I would have given it up." Her expression softened, and he smiled. He thought he knew how to make her feel better. He raised their joined hands to his lips and kissed her fingers, one by one. "Come on, Elphaba. I thought you knew me better than that."

She wriggled away from his grasp; to get a better look at him, he assumed. Then she tilted her head to one side, frowning, as if realizing what he was trying to do. "You're going to pull off that princely attitude on me now, aren't you?"

"Well, someone needs to," he fired back, smiling, although inside he felt torn. Of course, he was thrillified. A baby. Their own baby. It was something he didn't dare hoping for so soon, but now that it was happening, he couldn't stop thinking about it. But then on the other hand, for him they weren't just ignorant statements; if anything, because it was his wife and baby's lives at stake. Elphaba shouldn't have been there, in her condition. She should have been someplace safe, where a doctor could watch after her. Who would do that now, here, if something went wrong?

They just sat there for a long while in silence, listening to the sounds of the forest. He was finally calming down; the panic he was previously feeling was beginning to wear off. He could tell she was more comfortable now too, by the way she was leaning back into him, and he wrapped his arms around her, cradling her as he had done so many times before since that first night in the forest. It seemed so far away, as if it happened a lifetime ago. He couldn't believe it was almost four months ago. It felt as if his life had changed from end to end since then. So much happened; too much for him to try and make sense of. It was sort of a relief to know that for the time being, he wouldn't have to.

He tried to appear calm as he helped her to her feet again, when she seemed strong enough to go on, but the truth was that he was never as scared in his life. The thought of losing her terrified him. He knew how selfish and wrong it was, but at the same time he couldn't help feeling that way. He knew that if something would go wrong, he would carry it on his conscience forever. Trying to hide it from her, he filled in the tensed silence with light chatter about how their baby would look like, but the anxiety remained down there, unhidden from himself. And then he thought how pointless it was. They had enough to worry about as it was. And what's done was done. If he was scared, he could only imagine that she was twice as scared. They'd just have to slow down their progress. They'd be fine. They'd make it to the Emerald City.

All three of them.