A/N: I'm a very bad person who had this written earlier but didn't post it…whoops. "Flabby fat and lazy, you come in and whoopsy-daisy!" –Does "Be Our Guest" Lumiere/Babette tango alone- . And to my surprise, 'inventorying' is actually a word and it's actually spelled that way. Wow.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

We slept as we had in the forest- innocently in the same place, awakening tangled together, sometimes embarrassingly so. However, I usually woke first, which was fortunate given the bit of aversion I still had about being touched, and I still refused to be touched at all in public and probably always would.

A few weeks passed in this way. I felt ill-used, not having been assigned to do anything against the Wizard, yet I got the feeling he was looking for me. Why I could not begin to guess at. I hadn't done anything truly awful, yet with my very public exit, I supposed he had had no choice but to make me a symbol or chance revealing his true evil plans. Not that the majority of the apathetic Ozian population would probably even care. But still, I thought he was searching for me. There were wanted posters, and Gale Forcers patrolling more often than usual, and as it turned out I was right. Horribly right.

I came home late one night from my assignment of inventorying a newly arrived shipment of weapons. The cold gun-metal turned my stomach. I hadn't told Vendran or the twins about my magical abilities- in fact, I downright lied about them. I said it was just a nasty rumor, given to hide the fact that an unarmed eighteen-year-old girl had escaped the Wizard's guards.

I opened the door. Fiyero had been sent home earlier than I that evening, and I hoped he had found us something edible.

"Fiyero," I called. "Fiyero, where are you?"

I got no answer and began to panic. I fumbled to get the old fashioned kerosene lamp on.

He wasn't there- but there was no blood or corpse either. Then my eye caught a paper laying on the bed, weighted with a pen. There were words on it that I couldn't make out from this distance, but I didn't need to go closer. The large seal on the paper told me all I needed to know.

The Gale Force had taken Fiyero.

Before I could even think, I was out of the building and halfway down the street, sprinting towards the Palace, my rapid steps keeping time with my flurrying heart. I ran, fortunately still with my cloak over my head. People were staring anyway- a hooded girl running unpursued through the streets was apparently cause for concern. I ran up the Palace's imposing stone steps and pounded on the dark wood doors, tears pouring down my face.

A guard opened the door.

"Miss, you'll need an appoint-"

I pulled off my hood and he gasped.

"No," I said, "What I need is to see the Wizard. Now. If he's busy, you can tell him I said he should have the hell thought of that before he sent you idiots to kidnap Fiyero. And yes, since I don't happen to recognize the authority of your government I'll call it kidnapping if I damn well want to!"

The guard backed away, frightened by not only my being me, but also my hysteria. I pushed in and he didn't stop me- he was probably afraid to touch me.

"Where is he?" I screamed once I had passed through the entrance hall. "Tell me where the hell he is!"

A young man who appeared to work in some sort of office somewhere mutely pointed – apparently no one was going to arrest me, this was easier than I had expected- and I burst into the throne room.

"I am Oz, the Great and-"

"Oh, shove it up your ass!" I responded.

"Elphaba?" he asked, coming out from behind the head. He smiled cruelly. "I've been expecting you."

"Let him go," I said, trying desperately to hold in my impending sobs.

"I'm afraid I can't do that. He's a member of a terrorist organization. That's treason. He'll be executed-"

"No! Please! I'll do anything!" My knees buckled and I fell to the floor sobbing unashamedly.

His smile grew wider.

"Anything?"

"Yes." I looked up. "I'll read your spells. I'll do whatever you want. Just- please- let him go."

"Guards!" the Wizard yelled. Two of them entered. "Bring me the prisoner Fiyero Tiggular." They exited, and the Wizard turned his cold blue gaze on me. "You thought you could stand against me," he sneered. "You thought you and your ideals were strong enough! Well, were they? Were they?" he screamed. "Answer me!"

I took in great gasping gulps of air.

"Answer!" he screamed, and kicked at me. "I'll kill him!"

"No," I said, and the sobs broke through again, giving him satisfaction. I wiped at them and tried with every ounce of control I still had to act as if they burned me. I couldn't give up the safety net of my 'weakness,' too.

Finally, the guards brought Fiyero back in.

"You'll do it," the Wizard said. It was not a question. I nodded, the flow of my tears stemming a bit, and reached into my bag for the Grimmerie.

"Elphaba, don't do it!" yelled Fiyero.

"No," I cried, "no, no, no, no, no, he can't do this, I won't let him, he can't take you away from me too, Fiyero, I love you, not you too, no!" I was dimly aware that I wasn't making any sense, and suddenly a strange pervasive sense of resigned calm came over me.

"Which spell?" I asked the Wizard calmly, my tears suddenly staunched completely. He showed me. I didn't ask what it would do. I didn't want to know.

I read it. I read the words but I thought just one phrase, over and over. Let me do no harm, let me do no harm, let me do no harm, let me do no harm, let me do no harm, let this do no harm…

I focused myself completely and totally on that once phrase, devoting all of my magic power and willpower to it, even as I read the words for him. When I finished, I collapsed at the release of energy and the intensity of my focus.

The Wizard nodded to the guards, and the released Fiyero, who ran to my side.

"I'm…all right," I murmured.

"Now, you'll stay here," the Wizard began.

"No." Fiyero's voice was cold and sharp and insurmountably fierce. "I am taking her home. She is exhausted and if you keep her here, doing this constantly, she'll die, and then where will you be? She has done what you asked and she will keep doing what you ask, but not now and not here. You can find her at our home, since you obviously know where it is and have no problem coming in uninvited."

He helped me to my feet.

"Carry me and die," I hissed under my breath.

"Sorry, Fae," he said, grinning as he lifted me almost effortlessly into the air and carried me outside unimpeded.

…

We knew, of course, that we had to leave our little room, but we decided to stay there one more night, seeing as how we had no idea where we were going to go.

The moment we walked in and Fiyero set me down, I was kissing him.

"Elphaba," Fiyero breathed, sensing the decision I had made, the new foothold I would allow him (hopefully not literally), "are you sure?"

I looked him in the eye.

"Fiyero, my dearly beloved," I said as I unbuttoned his shirt agonizingly slowly, "Do you take me, Elphaba Thropp, to be your wife, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, until death do us part?"

He looked solemnly at me, understanding without words all I was doing and why.

"I do."

I opened myself to him, and let him unbutton the top of my dress as he spoke.

"Elphaba," he said in a whisper, "Do you take me, Fiyero, to be your husband, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, until death do us part?"

"I do," I whispered back as I stepped out of my dress and he out of his pants. "And now, by the power vested in me as a 'wicked witch,' I now pronounce us husband and wife."

And so we were, and so we acted accordingly.