AN: This was born partly from my realisation/nervous breakdown/identity crisis-ish thing I had the other day, and partly from me listening to the song Bitch by Meredith Brooks a thousand times over the past few days :).

I am

"Fiyero?"

The prince looked up from where he had been doing some paperwork at his desk. Elphaba, who had been curled up near the fireplace, had turned around and was now looking at him rather than the pages of the book in her lap.

"Yes, sweetheart?" he asked her, pushing his papers aside to give her his full attention.

She bit her lip. "What am I?"

He let out an incredulous laugh. "What are you?" he repeated in mild amusement. "What kind of question is that?"

"One you apparently refuse to answer," she said. "It's simple, really. What am I?"

"You are my wife," he replied. "You are the mother of my children. The future queen of the Vinkus. You are the person I love more than anything or anyone else in this world. You are -"

"Wicked?"

"Wonderful," he corrected her with a stern look.

She sighed and let herself fall back, so that she was stretched out on the couch and staring at the ceiling.

"Sometimes I just feel like I have to be all these things at the same time," she said quietly, "and at other times I feel like I am nothing at all."

He pushed his chair back and rose, moving over to sit on the couch with her. He pulled her feet into his lap.

"The first part, I can understand," he said. "I feel like that sometimes, too. You have to be a mother, a wife, a crown princess, a daughter-in-law, a friend… you have a lot of roles to fulfil, and I understand that that is hard sometimes or that you feel like you can't handle it."

He leant forward to place his fingers under her chin and tilted it upwards so she would look at him.

"But I don't ever want you to feel like you are nothing," he said quietly, "because you, Elphaba, are everything."

She blushed, but didn't say anything; and when he dropped his fingers and she adopted that thoughtful expression once again, he knew the conversation wasn't over yet.

"It's not just the roles I have," she said after a while. "It's also… who I am. My personality. Sometimes I feel like I don't know what's me anymore, and what is only what people think I am… and then I wonder if maybe that isn't just the same thing, because if everyone says you are a certain way, don't you at some point become that?" She hugged her knees to her chest. "If an entire country tells you for years that you are wicked…"

"No," he told her firmly. "No, that's not true. People can say or think whatever they want, Fae." He scooted closer to her and wrapped her in his arms. "You are only what, and who, you want to be… and that can be as many or as few things as you would like. You, sweetheart, are beautiful, and witty, and smart, and a little sarcastic at times…"

She chuckled wearily.

"…and sweet, and caring," he continued, "and passionate, and altogether amazing. You're a lot of things, Elphaba… but you are not, nor will you ever be, what all those empty-headed, ignorant bastards that we call people," he spat out the word, "say you are. You are not wicked, Fae. If you are wicked, then I am a Quadling swamp rat."

This time, her chuckle was more sincere.

He smiled and pressed a kiss to her lips.

"So tell me," he asked her, "what are you?"

She smiled impishly at him, turning in his arms.

"I'm a witch," she whispered, punctuating her statement with a kiss. "I'm a lover." She kissed his throat. "I'm a child…" She nosed open the first button on his shirt. "I'm a mother…"

He instantly recognised the lyrics of a song that had been popular when they had still been at Shiz, so long ago, and he smiled.

"I'm a sinner; I'm a saint," she continued, kissing his neck as her fingers fumbled with his buttons. She shrieked and quickly wrapped her legs around his waist when he suddenly rose to his feet, holding her up as he looked down at her.

She gave him another mischievous smile. "I do not feel ashamed," she declared.

"And you shouldn't, either." He kissed her, then started carrying her over to the bedroom, laying her down on their bed.

"I'm your hell," she breathed as he started working on her own buttons.

"You're my dream," he corrected her.

Her eyes closed when he started planting kisses across her jaw line. He was holding her in his arms like she was something delicate and precious, the way he always did. It was one of the things she loved most about him.

She arched into him when he planted a kiss on her collarbone, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. "I'm nothing in between…"

He grinned his lopsided grin at her, running his fingers through her hair as he pressed a soft kiss to her forehead.

"You know I wouldn't want it any other way," he whispered before kissing her deeply.