Chapter 4

"You're sure this thing'll hold?" Fiyero asks Elphaba, looking skeptically down at the broom again, despite her assurance that without a doubt it would be able to carry them both.

"I've told you four times, I'm not going to let you fall." she replies flatly, speaking only out of necessity. She gives the monkey a scratch behind his ear to give herself an excuse not to focus on Fiyero. Though she's agreed to let him come with her, she's fallen back into her former unreadable state. Just in case, she keeps her voice and face emotionless, her movements controlled and neutral. She still feels the need to protect herself, though from what, now, she isn't sure. Despite the way she's back in charge of herself, she feels more vulnerable than she ever has in her entire life, and can find no explanation for it. She mounts the broom and is about to beckon for Fiyero to do so as well, but suddenly stops herself; she's not sure she wants him holding onto her the entire flight. But she won't turn her back on him now. She would be as good as handing him his death sentence if she did.

"Here, come behind me." she says, haltingly gesturing for him to follow her. She feels his arms circle her waist and she stiffens without meaning to.

"I, uh, I'm sorry…" Fiyero stammers, about to pull his arms away, but she stops him.

"No, no, it's okay. You really have no choice but to hold on. Besides, I'd never forgive myself if I let anything happen to y-" She cuts herself off, hastily turning her face away. She can feel a bit of a blush creeping into her cheeks, wondering if she's revealed too much. No, she doesn't think so. She does owe him for saving her sorry carcass, after all. But still, despite how kindly he's been treating her, something inside her still fears him... or if not Fiyero himself, it's the possibility that she'll drive him away. The prospect of another rejection, especially by this man, of all people, has the potential to hurt more than anything else she's felt in a long time. And that's the last thing she wants.

"I'll steer, you tell me where to go. It should be just about dark enough by now to get out of here without being seen. Are you ready?"

"Alright…now or never." Fiyero replies, bracing himself. He feels his feet lift away from the ground, and his heart throws itself into his throat, beating with a desperate vengeance. "Elphaba, I don't like this…" he groans, doing his best not to look down, though they're not yet even fifteen feet from the ground.

She smiles a little to herself; he who's already risked his life to get her away from the Wizard –or so she hopes-- can't deal with heights. She finds it oddly funny that she can do something he can't; she's always seen him as a being so much higher than herself, and it's strange to her, even a little empowering. But still, she feels badly that he's scared of the flight she enjoys so much.

"I would tell you to keep your eyes shut, but you have to tell me where to go, don't you? Just hold on, then. That's the best I can do for you. Get ready, we're going up."

Fiyero's heart plunges from his throat to somewhere around the very bottom of his feet. The way she's making the broom shoot up above the clouds isn't exactly settling his stomach, either. And he'd thought the initial liftoff had been bad.

"Did you have to make it go so fast?" he moans, tightening his arms around her waist from the complete and utter terror of falling off. She tries her hardest to ignore the feeling, but being as rude and intrusive as the damned sensation is, she remains all too aware of his arms around her.

"I wanted to get behind cloud cover – this way, it's less likely we'll be seen." Despite herself, she's trying not to grin at his fear. It just strikes her as so uncharacteristic of Fiyero for him to be afraid of anything. "Can I ask where we're going?"

"Great Gillikin Forest."

She doesn't ask why, just nods once, and adjusts the direction more towards northeast.

"Stay well between the towns along the train line when we - " Fiyero's voice cuts off with a slightly strangled noise; the wind is picking up, and as it buffets the broom his stomach begins to roil.

Elphaba, on the other hand, lives for this. The wind whips her face, cold and invigorating. She is in her element, and laughs from the sheer thrill of flight. The air wraps itself around her, and just for a moment, she can forget what passed in the last few hours. Chistery weaves around the broom, swooping in wide arcs through the air, screeching in animal joy. In a way, she feels like the little creature, though venting her delight and release in another way. She speeds up the broom's pace through the air, completely disregarding the fact that Fiyero is clinging to her waist for dear life, and her laughter elevates itself. How long has it been since she'd felt like this? Sweet Oz, it feels so good to let go…

Fiyero's never really heard her laugh before. It sounds strange as it falls upon his ears - not bad-strange, but unusual, out of character. And he enjoys it in all its unexpected levity. Now, if only his feet were safely back on solid ground…!

"Finally…" Fiyero breathes as he tumbles from the broom onto the grass. It hasn't yet been thirty seconds since they've touched down and he's already sprawled himself out on the ground, relishing the feeling of being back on land. Once his heartbeat and breathing return to normal, which takes awhile, he raises himself up onto his elbows and hastily brings himself to sit like a normal person. She's looking at him and shaking her head, not smiling but not looking down upon him either. He offers her a sheepish grin, a bit embarrassed. She looks away and watches Chistery dive-bomb a tree a little ways off, and disappear into its branches and leaves. Why did she insist on being so hard to read?

He closes his eyes for a moment, figuring that he's not exactly helping her trust him by staring at her, as if he's been documenting her every move. She gets that enough on a regular basis, so it's the last thing she needs right now from someone who claims to be helping her. That drowsy moment quickly turns into an hour spent dozing with his back propped against a tree. When he wakes, she is sitting beside him, her eyes open just the barest crack, and he's leaning sideways against her. She doesn't realize that he's woken until he pulls himself up off her shoulder. Embarrassed again, he runs his fingers through his hair; so goes the Triumph of the Automatic Nervous Habit.

"Sorry…"

She offers a tentative half smile as she tries to blink herself awake. "It's alright."

"So, uh, where are we? We can't have arrived that fast." He is clueless. For most of the flight he'd completely disregarded her request that he watch their progress and tell her where to go, and kept his eyes shut.

"We're actually closer than I thought we would be at this point. The forest we're in right now is somewhere near that town, what's it called…? Tenniken, I think?" she replies, voice void of most all emotion.

"Wow, if you're right then we've only got somewhere around, what, four or five hours left, weather permitting. I'm just guessing, I mean, I'm not used to the whole broom thing, being as I'm terrified of it and everything, but you seem to be so at home, uh, while you're flying, so I guess you'd probably be the better one to ask about the time that's left - " He catches himself babbling and stills his tongue. Could he possibly make himself look any denser? If nothing else, though, his tripping over his words is getting her to smile some.

"No, I think your guess is about right, time-wise." she replies, casting a fleeting glance at his face. A corner of her mouth quirks upward. She finds herself relaxing, but isn't sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing, though it now seems highly unlikely he'd still be trying to harm her. Anyway, if he was indeed still after her, however far-fetched that may be, it wouldn't matter what she said. She'd be dead no matter which way she looked at it.

It doesn't take her long to decide to let herself relax. She's been reduced to fugitive criminal status, so there's not exactly much else for her to lose, aside from her life. And at this point, she's not even sure if even that would be worth fighting for any longer.

Besides, a friend would be a nice thing to have right about now.

"Thank you, for helping me out." she says, making herself look at him. The fact that she's looking him in the eye catches him completely off guard, and it takes him a moment to register her words.

"Huh? – Oh, uh, you're welcome…" he replies. He doesn't know what else to say, and trails off, leaving her with awkward silence. For some reason, they both feel the need to fill it. Neither can stand the empty stillness.

"We're both kind of in the same boat, aren't we?" he says, offering her a half smile.

"I suppose so." she sighs, "And you have just about the same chance as I do of finding somewhere safe to stay, huh?" She looks out through the trees, towards the new rosy blush of a sunrise. "There's nothing we can do about it, is there?" He nods once, face blank. There's a pause while she fights with herself over whether or not to go on. "So, um, I guess I'll have to get used to having company again…?" She wants to ask herself if that would be such a bad thing after all, but rather than face that posed question and the blush that will probably accompany her answer, she pushes it away, forcing herself to ignore it. But her face betrays her and flushes some anyway.

"Uh…yeah." His voice is uneasy as he catches the blush creeping through her cheeks, figuring that she's not terribly comfortable with the prospect of staying so near him. "I – I'll go, after we get there, if you want to be left - "

"No, it's not you. It might be better, actually, to stay in the same vicinity. The Forest's not exactly the most human-friendly place in Oz…"

"Don't I know it." he replies.

"You've been there?"

"With the Force, yes."

"Oh." He sees her stiffen at the mention of the Wizard's guard, and can practically feel her shrinking away, though she doesn't give him any visible motion to base that on.

:No, not now! Don't back away now, Elphaba, please…: Desperately he grabs at anything that might make her keep talking to him.

"I managed to get myself to the head of the search for you and the Wizard had sent me to look in the Forest a few times. I wanted so badly to find you - "

:You've screwed things up again, Fiyero, you idiot! Why'd you have to say that:

That doesn't sound good to her…she's always been the first one to anticipate the worst, and this instance is no different. Her face falls and her breaths come with a strained, slow evenness as she forces composure on herself. An unanticipated rush of fear and hurt and betrayal washes through her veins as somewhere deep inside, her heart feels as if it's collapsing in on itself. She doesn't even know why she cares so much. To a degree, she's expected it, hasn't she? She understands the fact that there would've been pain one way or another, no matter who chased her down, but why does it hurt as badly as it does?

Why does it matter so much to her that Fiyero, a man she can't even say she ever really knew, is saying these things? The tone of his words isn't arrogant or triumphant, but still…

:Dammit, Fiyero, way to make things worse: He mentally whacks himself upside the head.

"No! No, that's not what I meant! I never wanted to catch you, exactly. But I wanted to know you were somewhere I could get to you, alone, without the other Forcers knowing what I was really - "

:Give up man, just give up, before you scare her away.: Fiyero tells himself as he realizes how perverted those last words of his must've sounded.

"I'm really screwing this up aren't I?" he sighs dejectedly, finally resigning himself to his failure – his irrepressible talent for jumbling words strikes again. Why does he always falter around her? His school days of sweet-talking his way out of skirmishes with authority are a good four plus years gone; he's out of practice there. Besides, he can't put his finger on why she's so intimidating all of a sudden. If anything, she's probably more intimidated by him that he is by her. And there go his fingers, raking themselves through his hair for the umpteenth time. The stupid habit never fails.

"I'm not the one to ask." she says, and hesitates for a moment when he doesn't reply. "I can't say I even know who you are, Fiyero. How can I possibly answer you?" There's a slight hint of sadness in her tone, but he's too preoccupied with his own stupidity to realize it. Elphaba herself, on the other hand, is all too aware of that sadness. She hates with a fiery passion the fact that she's unknowingly allowed such a lapse in her control. She who has always known who she is in relation to the rest of the world, has lost her grip on this young soldier. He confuses her somewhat. His speech contradicts how he's been showing himself to her.

He is silent for an instant, hovering on the edge of his control. Should he try to explain, or is he so far gone he has no hope of getting through to her any longer?

"Can…can I try again?"

He's not the confident boy Elphaba used to recognize from school anymore. In fact, he's just the opposite, more like she herself had been, insecure and nervous, than himself.

"I suppose." is her reply, curt and dispassionate. But she screams inside with a shameful need to hear him tell her something, anything, than what she's just heard.

And explain he does. He stumbles and stutters and takes forever, but he manages to put it in terms she doesn't recoil from. Sometimes throughout his monologue she wants to smile at his awkwardness, let him know she identifies. And a few rare times, she does give him that diminutive sympathetic smile. They boost his self-assurance just enough to help him get over his nervousness at least a little, and stem the flow of stammers towards the end.

"Better?" he asks, waiting the agonizing seconds for her to answer.

She nods. "Much."