A/N: Yes, I do realize this fic has been unattended to for awhile- sorry, AP Euro called. I did use "Wonderful" as the basis for an essay on "What is History" and Dr. Dillamond's "some of us still favor form over content"- well, the form over content part- in an essay on Renaissance education, so…
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Three years passed by quickly. Addie graduated college the year after we met her, and she stayed at the castle intermittently. Fiyero and I stayed in the city, working for the Resistance, and returned summers to spend time talking and wandering the grasslands nearby with Addie and darting surreptitiously through the halls trying to avoid Igneus and his unpleasantries. The year we were twenty, however, Igneus called Fiyero back to the castle. He preferred to pretend I didn't exist.
It is time for you to learn responsibility and to begin instruction in your future duty as king, Igneus had written. Fiyero had laughed bitterly after he'd finished reading it.
"The man's forty-six years old and as healthy as I am. He doesn't need me to learn this stuff now, he's not dying. He's punishing me, the bastard. I. Hate. Him." Fiyero stood in the middle of the room, clenching his fists.
"Fiyero," I said quietly, my own ever present guilt coming again into my voice, "you don't know that. Maybe he is sick. Maybe he does need you." I got even more quiet. "Maybe…maybe he just misses you."
"My father doesn't miss anyone, Elphaba," he said, colder than I had ever heard him. "He loves himself and his power. There's no room for anyone else. I'm just a way to perpetuate his power, and someone to exercise it on."
"I think you're wrong," I said, intuition flooding my mind and making me blink. "I think he misses your mother."
"Well, that's just fucking great, isn't it," spat Fiyero, beginning to pace. It struck me that he sounded and looked exactly like me. "That makes it my fault."
"We've been over this, Yero. It's not your fault," I told him fiercely, my inflection oddly familiar. Our eyes met and we burst into laughter.
"My God, I'm turning into you," I said, after we could speak again.
"My God, I'm turning into you," said Fiyero, making a face of mock horror. I swatted him with the letter. As quickly as the laughter had come upon us, we sobered.
"What are you going to do?" I asked.
"I don't want to go," said Fiyero, "but I can't just ignore him…" A horror-struck look came over his face.
"What is it?" I asked, alarmed, whirling to face the door to our little room. It was firmly closed. There was nothing there. I turned back to Fiyero, a question written plainly on my face.
"I really can't ignore him," Fiyero gasped. "He might come here." I relaxed for a moment with the relief of safety, then glared at him.
"Do you want me to die of cardiac arrest at twenty?" I demanded. Fiyero laughed.
"If you weren't so tense-"
"If you weren't so easygoing I wouldn't have to-"
"If you weren't so anal retentive-"
"If you weren't so messy-"
"If you weren't so compulsive-"
"If you weren't so damn lazy-"
We turned to each other and started laughing again.
…
"So we're going?" I asked later, after we had made love.
"We're going," groaned Fiyero, dread heavy in his voice.
…
So, we went. When we arrived at the castle, Addie was there too. She came running out to greet us, red hair flying. When she got closer, we could tell she had been crying.
"Addie, Addie, what's wrong?" Fiyero asked, as his sister catapulted herself into his arms.
"Father," she cried, "he's dead-" Then she seemed to realize where she was and what she had just said, and she started laughing. "Good God, Fiyero, he's dead. He's dead. The old bastard is dead, never to torment anyone again."
Fiyero looked slightly shocked.
"We are so damn dysfunctional," he murmured, and he barely said anything else for the rest of the day, as plans for a memorial service and coronation were made, chiefly by Denedra.
…
That night, Fiyero finally spoke again.
"Sweet Lurline," he murmured, "I'm a horrible person."
"You are not a horrible person," I told him. "You are a wonderful person. You are the single best person in Oz. I love you. That's not an easy achievement to attain, you know."
He laughed slightly, but not fully. "I know."
We loved each other with a quiet passion and urgency, and when I awoke the next morning, a look of complete peace had spread over my husband's features.
Three weeks later, I realized I was carrying our first child.
Addie exclaimed over me. She'd worked as a midwife's assistant before, and she'd delivered many babies around the village whenever she stayed here. There was nothing much else she could do around here with her Human Sciences degree from Ozford University.
"Elphaba," she asked me one day about a month later when I was sitting outside, "have you even told Fiyero yet?"
My heart sank.
"No," I admitted.
"Why not?"
"If you hadn't figured it out- why the hell do you look in people's laundry, anyway, Addie? That's just creepy- then I wouldn't have told you. I wouldn't have told anyone, not for a long time," I informed her.
"Again, why not?"
"Because I don't want people fussing over me!" I announced. "For the love of-"
"Are you two talking about me?" asked Fiyero teasingly, sauntering outside and plopping himself on the chair between Addie and I. The palpable tension in the air was evident to him after only a moment. He glanced between us, taking in the harsh sets of our faces and the glares in our eyes, and he sighed.
"What are you fighting about?" he prodded.
"Elphaba should tell you," Addie said.
"Addie should mind her own business," I responded.
"Elphaba should be less hostile to her own loved ones," Addie shot back.
"I wouldn't feel too loved at the moment if I were you," I retorted, and she huffed back into the castle, leaving an openmouthed Fiyero alone with me.
"What the hell?" he asked finally. I groaned.
"There's something…I have to tell you," I said after a moment.
"What?" asked Fiyero, looking concerned.
"I'm pregnant."
A/N: Yeah, I know, I know. Get a new plot, Emily! But they're all different, I swear. And I needed it for this scene I already wrote that takes place later in the story.
