A/N: hello again :) Alright, this will probably be my last update until September, on account of computer trouble at home. And since it's been taking me awhile to crank these out, I doubt I'll have another chapter finished before June 10, when classes end. I can't post after then, cuz the computer lab's closed during finals. Anyway, enjoy (i'm sowwee it's so short!)
always,
-Linz-

Elphaba waits through the days, waits for her underlying fears to subside, for herself to warm up to Fiyero's company, for some small sense of security to wrap its arms around her. However, security is not forthcoming. Yes, in the past three days Fiyero's gotten easier to talk to, and she isn't nearly as wary of him as she used to be, but something still feels off. She can't relax, not fully anyway. It's as if someone is still watching her, breathing down her neck, waiting for her to make a mistake. She sits with her legs tucked underneath her long black skirts, staring skywards at the interweaving canopies above her.

"Hey," Fiyero asks, shaking her from her silence. "What's the matter?" He drops rather gracelessly to the ground beside her. It's taken him less time to get used to her presence than she has to his, as is made apparent by the casual manner in which he holds himself, the familiar informality of his words. She's more reluctant to expose herself that way, though it definitely has become easier for her to make herself converse a bit with him. It's not the sort of thing she's particularly keen on getting used to, but it's not as if she has much of a choice, either.

"Nothing's wrong."

"Something's definitely up. I've been irritating the monkey for the past fifteen minutes and you haven't once looked up to tell me to knock it off." He replies, giving a halfhearted smile that can't quite conceal the suspicion and concern in his eyes. "You're not saying much today. You were kind of sort of maybe almost talkative yesterday. What happened?"

"I never talk that much to begin with. Yesterday was a freak accident." she says, unable to keep the dry comment from escaping her mouth.

"Don't beat around the bush. I know you're not one to do that. What's wrong? You're…different, somehow. You're hiding again."

"It's nothing important, really. I was just thinking."

"Be careful, Elphaba, think too much and your brain'll start to hurt." he says, his goal to lighten her expression a little.

"What is that, some residual personality from your Shiz days?" she asks, the comment just as dry as the former one. He continues on, choosing to ignore her sarcasm.

"No, I'm serious. What's been going through your head? It can't be anything trivial if you keep acting all shady like you just were." He settles himself in next to her, making it pretty clear that he won't be moving any time soon. "I can't exactly tell anyone, if that's what you're worried about. Unless you count Chistery or a tree or something." His words bring a slight curve to her mouth, an expression that so seldom alights on her face. He can see it sometimes in her eyes, always in her eyes, in the shy, fleeting instant before she averts her gaze from his face.

But all too soon the smile fades, and she speaks up.

"Something's…I can't place it, and I can't pinpoint why, but something's definitely off, not normal, for lack of a better word." Her focus turns inward and her eyes grow vacant as she gazes with a blank stare into Fiyero's face. She looks not at him, exactly, but past him, past who he is, to the details surrounding how he's come to be sitting here with her, involved in an almost-conversation.

He sees the look in her eyes, and begins to get nervous. He'd thought she'd gotten past the whole shrink-away-from-all-contact-with-this-man stage of the game by now. After all, she's spent the better part of four days with him already.

"Like…like how? Is it me or – I don't know…"

"No! No, of course it's not you," she assures, the words pouring out in an apprehensive rush. She can't allow herself to push him away. She's wanted this for a long time, hasn't she? And now that he's here, paying attention to her, she can't understand why all of a sudden this situation feels like the very antithesis of everything she is and has come to be.

:Stop being an idiot, girl. You know better than to let some far-fetched wish beat you.: her head tells her, and she forlornly accepts it as truth, resolving not to let her stupid childish hopes get in the way of what she knows she can't have.

"Then what?"

"I told you, I don't know what it is."

He shrugs, easing himself backwards so he's propped up on his elbows, almost laying down on his back. "Maybe it's the weather. Something in the air, you know? A storm on the horizon."

She nods, not quite convinced. "Could be." She doubts that could be what's wrong; the gorgeous watercolor sunset isn't exactly doing anything to help prove Fiyero's inference. "It's so pretty." She murmurs, staring into the sky. Her heart smolders inside, sick with jealousy. She's never believed that the sky she so loves could ever make her feel so inferior. It seems to scream at her :You are an eyesore:, throwing the terrible fact in her face, flaunting its superior beauty. The warm rosy stripes painting the heavens could never look as lovely anywhere else, just as green looks so out of place on anything else but grass. Elphaba averts her eyes. She can't stand to look at the sunset anymore. She tries to fight off the sensation of building tears, and a headache begins to take shape behind her eyes. But a few glittering droplets succeed in breaking through her barriers. They slide down her face, testimony to her desperate desire to save herself from any more pain. But, oh, the pain she causes herself surpasses all.

Fiyero notices. "Elphaba, what…?" he doesn't know what to say. Instead, he keeps his mouth shut and pushes himself up, moving to wipe the tears from her face. In the haze of liquid clouding her vision, she doesn't even notice him until his hand brushes her cheek. It startles her and she tries to disengage herself from his touch, stuttering nonsense words in fright and grief and an unmistakable need to tell him everything, yet forget he ever existed.

Something finally snaps, after all this time, and all decorum and resolve and everything she's made herself feel and see and believe for so many long years is shot to hell. She sobs, curling in on herself as her world collapses around her. She is still as solitary as ever, not searching for help or comfort, just the inward solace she's never succeeded in finding before.

Fiyero watches her cry. He hurts for her, wants to make her stop. He's had no idea until now how someone could be so strong and so broken all at once. She was always so together, always knew who she was. But now, it's as if she's realized that the person she thought herself to be never truly existed at all.

"No, no, Elphaba, shhh…it's alright, shhh." He feels terrible, wanting desperately to help her but not knowing how. He reaches out, and she lets herself be drawn into his arms, to overwhelmed to realize what she's doing or even care anymore.