AN: This chapter should clear some things up... it's a rather interesting one. And of course the next chapter, someone will find out!

HC247, no worries, I'm glad you're still reading! :) And thank you so much for your super sweet review!

14.

Elphaba quickly changed into a simple, but elegant gown, ran a brush through her hair, and washed her face before hurrying over to the throne room, leaving Hero behind with her maids for now. Fiyero was already waiting when she arrived and he approached her, his face worried.

"I talked to some of my colleagues," he said in a hushed voice. "They have no idea who could have done it. No-one had access to the throne room and they'd just seen the Wizard – or, well, what they believe to be his "human form" – a few minutes before, when they escorted a maid inside with something for him to eat. They thought at first that maybe His Ozness had just changed shape," Elphaba snorted at that idea, "but after a while, they realised that there was really no-one there anymore. They searched the entire palace, but the Wizard was nowhere to be found."

Elphaba bit her lip. "Do you think it was someone with magic?"

"Possibly," Fiyero admitted. He glanced to his side and Elphaba did not have to follow his gaze to know whom he was thinking of.

"Morrible."

"I can't think of anyone else," he said and she nodded.

"Me, neither. Like I said, she seems the most likely choice. Not just because she has the means, but also because she has a motive – she didn't agree with Oscar's changes of policies."

"Cassadi, dear!" Morrible exclaimed, interrupting their conversation, and she planted a kiss on Elphaba's cheek. "It's so good to see that you're back! Glinda is still on her way back from Munchkinland, but I'm glad to have your support in this."

"In what?" Elphaba asked suspiciously, but Morrible waved her away.

"Finding the Wizard, of course! We need to spread word about his disappearance and urge the people to help us find him!"

Fiyero was called over by a colleague and moved away; and the moment he did, Morrible brought her face closer to Elphaba's, her hand tightening painfully around the girl's arm.

"Listen to me very carefully, Miss Elphaba," she mumbled in her ear. "I am going to make an announcement out on that balcony and if you even breathe a word against me, I will expose you to all of Oz for who you really are."

Elphaba felt cold chills running down her spine and Morrible continued casually, "I will also murder Oscar."

"So you did do this," Elphaba hissed and Morrible laughed softly.

"Of course I did." She squeezed Elphaba's arm tightly. "I have him, and I will not hesitate to hurt him. The governor already died of shame over you – you wouldn't want to kill your second father, too, would you? Think carefully, dearie. If you decide to oppose me, the Wizard will die and you will live out the rest of your limited days in Southstairs. It would be best for all of us if you'd just work with me here, understood?" She let go of Elphaba's arm and pretended to smooth out the young witch's dress, smiling at her sweetly. "All right, dearie?"

Elphaba's eyes flamed, but she recognised that she could not do anything now. She'd have to play along with whatever Morrible was planning until she could find a way to fix this. "Yes, Madame Morrible."

"Good." Morrible patted her cheek and then linked her arm with Elphaba's, guiding her outside onto the balcony.

Elphaba only barely made it out of Morrible's presence after the speech before she found herself cornered by Fiyero in the hallway.

"What's going on?" he demanded. "First you agree with me that Morrible is probably behind the Wizard's disappearance; and now you're supporting her every claim in front of an audience. Cassadi, you just agreed to make her regent of Oz until the Wizard is found! What in Oz are you thinking?!"

"Not here," she told him, grabbing his arm and dragging him with her to her rooms. She dismissed Vana and Cheri and closed the door behind them, turning around and pressing her back to the door as she took a deep breath and slowly exhaled again.

"I didn't do it out of my free will, if that's what you're thinking," she said, meeting Fiyero's gaze. "And if that actually is what you're thinking, then what I think is that you are rather brainless."

He flushed a little, which told her that had been exactly what he was thinking.

"She has him," Elphaba explained, heaving a sigh and leaning her head back against the door, closing her eyes for a moment. "She told me to go along with everything she says or she'll kill my father." She didn't mention Morrible's other threat, of course, but she didn't have to. This one was bad enough in itself.

Fiyero blanched slightly. "We have to do something."

Elphaba shook her head. "We have no proof," she said. "The people are buying her story about me being too inexperienced to rule Oz by myself, even temporarily, so they support Morrible as their regent for the time being. She has everyone in the palm of her hand. There's nothing we can do – not right now. We need to find out where she's keeping Oscar so that we can expose her, but that's not going to be easy."

"Don't you think there must be another way?"

She bit her lip. "I don't know. None that I can think of at the moment."

"Me, neither," Fiyero agreed miserably. "I think she finally has us cornered."

Elphaba moved over to an arm chair and flopped down into it, bending to pet Hero before raising her gaze to meet Fiyero's again. "So there is no way for us to outsmart her. Is that what you're saying?"

He sighed. "I don't know, Cass. I have no other ideas."

"We can't just give up. I'm not going to spend the rest of my life carrying out Horrible Morrible's orders."

Fiyero chuckled slightly, then sobered. "I get that we can't leave it at this, but I don't know what else to do; and you already said you didn't have any ideas, either."

"Not right now." Elphaba watched Hero as he padded around the room, sniffing at Fiyero's shoes. "But I'll think of something."

"I'll ask Glinda if she has any ideas, too, the moment she returns," said Fiyero.

She looked up at him. "What are you going to do with her?" she asked. She didn't want to keep thinking about Morrible. There was nothing she could do about that right now, anyway.

Fiyero raised his chin. "I'm going to break up with her," he said, sounding sad, but determined. "I don't want to lead her on any longer. I've been thinking about it a lot these past few days, ever since I talked it over with you, and I realised that what I feel for Glinda... it's not love. It probably never has been. I also realised," he continued, softer now, "that I actually do know what real love feels like. It just took me too long to see it."

She frowned, puzzled by that. "What do you mean?"

"It means," he said, sinking down in the chair opposite hers, "that I finally recognised the fact that I've been in love with someone – someone who is not Glinda – for a long time already. Or, well, I guess I did recognise it before," he conceded. "I just didn't want to. It was too difficult. Everything I've done in the past few years has been for her and yet I always refused to admit to myself that I loved her." He barked a laugh. "I guess I really am brainless." His eyes were sad. "And it's too late now, anyway."

Elphaba's heart was pounding in her throat at his confession. She felt like she knew whom he was talking about... but it couldn't be. A girl he had loved for a long time already, only it was too difficult for him to admit it even to himself, and now it was too late. Could he mean...? No, of course he couldn't. Never in a million years.

And yet she asked, "Who is she?"

He hesitated only a brief moment before admitting quietly, "The girl I told you about. Fae – Elphaba. The Wicked Witch of the West," he added bitterly. "So you can see my problem for the past two years."

She swore that her heart skipped a few beats. It still didn't feel like it was beating normally now. "But..." She tried to think of excuses. "You're the Captain of the Guard. You were trained to hunt her down," she said weakly.

He smiled sadly. "I already told you – she wasn't wicked. She was my friend, too, back at university. Even then, from the moment she disappeared, I knew I had to find her. That's why I joined the Gale Force. I don't even know what I would have done if I had found her..." He trailed off. "I should have told her how I felt ages ago, but I was with Glinda and Fae was off to see the Wizard... it all went so fast. And then she was suddenly gone."

She was silent for a while, completely dumbstruck. Finally she asked, "You mentioned the other day that you had this plan for your life that you couldn't go through with anymore...?"

"Finding her." He nodded. "I made that into my life's mission, I guess. I was unhappy. I have been unhappy for a long time. She was the only one who saw that." He ran his fingers through his hair. "But I loved her and I had this feeling that, if I could only find her, things would be all right... so I focused on that." He looked at Elphaba. "I know that if I had found her," he stated with absolute certainty, "I would have gone with her. I would have left everything behind for her, just like that. Even when I didn't want to admit that I loved her, I knew that, deep down." He looked... she decided that "lost" was the right word. "And now she's gone – really gone this time," he continued, "and I just... it feels like I can't breathe. I've been trying so hard to move on – to be happy with Glinda, to focus on my job, anything to take my mind off her. Meeting you has helped, somehow, because you're so much like her... it's like a small part of her is preserved, you know? And I thought I was doing well. I never told anyone about this and I figured if I'd just push it away deeply enough, if I'd just ignore my feelings, I'd be able to move on. And sometimes I'm all right. The majority of the time, though, I'm still thinking about her. I see her around every corner, I hear her voice... I even dream about her." He shook his head. "I don't even know if she felt the same way," he said. "I feel so pathetic, but I just... can't help it. Never could."

She only realised she was holding her breath when she started to feel a bit light-headed and she exhaled slowly, trying to keep her breathing steady despite her entire world being turned upside down by a few words from a handsome prince. It was all she had ever dreamed of and more. She'd always told herself not to wish for anything because it could never come true, but this...

And yet there was nothing she could do about it. She was no longer that girl. She had been, apparently, which was amazing enough in itself; but she wasn't anymore. She couldn't be. Elphaba Thropp was dead and she would have to stay that way.

Fiyero cast an apologetic look in her direction. "I'm sorry," he said, rising to his feet and looking sheepish. "I didn't mean to ramble on like that. You probably don't want to hear any of this, anyway."

She managed a reassuring smile, somehow. "We're friends," she choked out. "You can always talk to me. And... I'm sorry." For more things than he could possibly know.

"Thank you, Cassadi." He smiled and bent down to drop a kiss to the top of her head. "Like I said, you're very easy to talk to and it really helps me clear my head. So thank you."

"You're welcome." Her voice squeaked, but he didn't seem to notice.

"You know," he said, chuckling a little sheepishly, "for a long time, after meeting you... I thought it was you."

Elphaba was still so baffled that she only managed an unladylike, "Huh?".

"I thought..." He shook his head. "Oz, this is stupid, but I thought that... that maybe you were her."

For all the shocks she had had to process over the past few months, this one was the worst. She swore she could actually feel her heart stop beating for a few moments.

"You two are... were... so alike," he continued, "and sometimes you said certain things that sounded so much like her, or even things she actually said to me back at university. For a while, I thought that maybe you were her, that she had only faked her death and was now hiding right beneath our noses..." He trailed off with a smile that seemed to be filled with self-loathing. "Stupid, right? I guess it was mostly wishful thinking. I realised, of course, after a while, that you could never be her. If only because I know she would have told Glinda and me about her true identity – she would never have lied to us for so long... she wouldn't do that to either of us."

And there it was. She had never planned on telling him about her true identity, but after those words, she knew that she had to keep her secret from him, no matter the cost. He had been through enough. She couldn't hurt him like that. After everything he had confessed to her, it would be cruel to reveal that it had been her all this time. And yes, she'd admit it – she'd keep this secret to herself for selfish reasons, too. He'd hate her if she told him and she didn't think she could bear that.

"Anyway, we'll figure something out regarding Morrible," he promised, scratching Hero between the ears before moving to the door. "It'll all be fine. Again, I'm sorry for all the rambling," he said with an apologetic smile at her, "and again, thank you for listening. I'll see you later?"

She could only nod and stare at the door as it closed behind him.