A/N: The beginning of this is Glinda POV, which I have dedicated to Lillian Townsend… SQUEAK! gets published! Mm…if you need to ask something about the rudiments of a kerosene lamp, ask…I know this from American Girl doll accessories from when I was seven…and again, why don't I use this space in my brain for something more productive than a diagram of an antiquated lighting method I read eight years ago? This is a bit short and doesn't really move things forward a bit, but I needed to put it in :)

Disclaimer: Not mine.

I was a bit worried about Elphaba, and all she'd gone through. I thought, really, that I was beginning to understand her better for the first time in my life, and I really wanted to talk seriously to her. So, even though it was a bit late, I walked down the hall to her room and was poised to knock on her door but I paused, hearing a noise. A crash, a laugh that was unmistakably Elphaba's and a chuckle that I guessed was Fiyero's, a rustling, and Elphaba's voice in what could only be described as a squeak.

Well, that wasn't something I'd ever have imagined would happen back at Shiz! Milla and Shen-Shen and Pfannee were wrong about that, too, it seemed.

Well, Glinda, I thought to myself, you're a bit slow on the uptake. They have two children, after all. I guessed I just never thought of Elphie like that. Holding in my laughter, I turned away.

Seriousness, it seemed, would have to wait.

…

Even after Fiyero and I were done and were supposed to be sleeping, every few minutes one of us would start laughing over what he'd done to the lamp. He'd flipped it over, somehow, onto the bed and kerosene had started dripping and we'd thought it would catch on fire, so he blew it out but something had gone wrong and he got a burnt rag in his face for it…then he'd thrown the lamp, which miraculously hadn't broken, and done something incredibly dirty with the rag and things in general and I made a squeaking noise more generally associated with Glinda, although not in lovemaking- which had caused me to think of Sir Chuffrey and Glinda, and to share that with Fiyero, so then we laughed even harder like schoolchildren at a slumber party until we tumbled together off the bed and sat laughing on the floor in a heap.

Fiyero smiled at me. "I'm so glad you're all right," he said.

"What do you mean? You think falling on the floor would hurt me?" I asked, pretending offense.

"No- I mean- with everything, that's happened to you, in your life, in prison, everything- most people would not be falling on the floor shrieking with laughter after that."

"And why not?" I asked. "Even though I don't generally make it a practice to get positively giddy with laughter. In fact this is the first time I've ever done it. It feels quite close to insanity, actually."

"Extreme emotion- when you are the most yourself- and insanity, when you are least, have a fine line between them," observed Fiyero, pulling me back into the bed and flipping me over him until I lay on the other side.

"Ow. Maybe you're not the least yourself when you're insane. Maybe you're another facet of yourself…maybe you're even more yourself," I argued. "Maybe insanity's just a combination of extreme emotions."

"In some cases, maybe," said Fiyero. "Not psychosis."

I thought of the Wizard, my father, and shivered.

"No," I agreed, "I don't think so." I rolled over onto my elbow again, facing Fiyero. It was two in the morning at least, but I was past caring. "Do you think my father's a psychopath?" I asked him.

"Frex?" he asked, confused.

"No, my real father."

"Well…" Fiyero thought a moment. "He had grandiose delusions, he acted on them. He doesn't seem to be all that firmly in touch with reality…I don't know."

"I think he is. I think he's a sociopath, too. He doesn't have empathy for suffering. Or maybe he's just a bastard."

"Elphaba…" Fiyero looked at me hard. "Why are we talking about this?"

"Oh, I don't know…I just…" I paused for a moment. "I want to know how he could have that done to me. I want to…not understand…but…just see, a little bit, into how he could possibly think of doing that…" I leaned over and turned off the remaining lamp. "Never mind."

Fiyero said nothing, but he wrapped his arms around me and held me for the rest of the night, until I woke up and found, to my surprise, that I really had slept.