Tell me it's not true
"I knew I'd find you in here."
Her husband's voice travelled through the quiet library and she smirked, hiding her head in the latest book she was reading. "I just needed a few minutes. Away from stupid people and children, as much as I adore our babies."
Fiyero laughed and shook his head. "Fae, you rule over those 'stupid people' now." He crossed the room to where she was sat, curled up beside the fireplace.
"Do I have to? We've been at this for a year and I still have no idea what I'm doing."
He bent down to kiss her and he nodded. "If I have to, so do you. That is... Unless you'd like to give in to traditions of the good housewife and-" He laughed when she hit him with the book. "I'm just saying! I wouldn't exactly say no to the bedroom activities. I don't hear you complaining either."
"Fiyero Tiggular if you think I'm going to hide away like a feeble woman you're out of your mind."
"There's my spitfire." He smirked and dragged her to her feet. "Still not denying it though."
"Well, of course, I thoroughly enjoy it too, and you'll never hear any complaints from me." She smirked and kissed him. "Why are you bothering me?"
He responded to the kiss with a grin. "Because we're needed, we have to talk about trades and other boring things."
She pouted. "But I was getting to the good part of my book."
"You can come back to it later." He promised and pulled her out of the library.
"Fine. Just don't chastise me when I call someone out on their stupidity."
"Since when did you start answering to me?"
She paused. "Good point."
He laughed and he lead her to a drawing room where they were supposed to meet with the tribespeople. They both stopped at the all too familiar figure standing in the middle of the room.
"You again." She growled, her anger causing the lights to flicker. "I thought I told you to leave us." Her skin darkening with barely concealed fury, her now-controlled magic threatening to break its restraints and lash out.
Oscar raised his hands. "Elphaba, please, hear me out. I'd like to make amends, or at least start to. I know I have a very long road to earn your forgiveness-"
"You think I would let you back into my life after what you've done?! I made that mistake once, you almost fooled me into making it a second time. There will not be a third."
"You know... I never stopped thinking about your mother."
A window cracked. "Don't you ever speak of her. Get out."
"I very nearly talked her into leaving Munchkinland with me."
"That's enough. My wife has told you to leave, and you will not cause her any further distress." Fiyero stepped forward and grabbed the old man by the collar and dragged him forward. "This time guards answer to me, not you, Your Ozness." He spat the words out as if they were poison to his tongue before calling for his sentries and he threw Oscar out of the room. "Take him to the cells in the tower. The Queen will decide what to do with him later," he ordered before retreating back to Elphaba.
She had not moved, she was still trembling with vicious hatred and anguish, and in his distraction, he hadn't noticed that she was very close to sending the room into total darkness and blowing the windows clean out of their frames.
"Fae," he spoke softly, gently holding her by the arms. "Fae-Fae." he kissed her temple. She gave him no acknowledgement as he curled his arms around her.
"Where are the children?" she asked once she was calm enough to speak.
"They're safe. My mother took them out for the day," he explained. He watched as she looked up at him, her dark depths were devoid of any emotion, not even the fire he saw every day. "They took him to the tower cells, and they await your next instruction."
She nodded. "Fine. Let's get this over with."
"Are you sure you'll be alright?"
"I don't need to be coddled, Yero, I'm fine!"
"Alright, alright." He conceded with a heavy sigh as they took their seats.
After three exhausting hours, their talks with their people had had satisfactory results, and eventually, Elphaba had managed to finally calm down. The trade deals had not been the arduous task she initially thought. They both started to stand when Glinda was shown into the room.
"What in Oz...?" Fiyero raised an eyebrow at her.
"Okay... Don't get mad at me."
Elphaba groaned. "You know that doesn't help anything when you say that to me... What did you do now?"
"I have thought of the perfect way to bring you both back to the folds of the Ozian community."
Elphaba blinked, quickly piecing up the puzzle her friend was leaving her, and Fiyero attempted to rub away an oncoming headache. "Don't even think about it." She told her.
"Why not? What better way to clear your names than to bring Emerald City trade to the Arjiki tribes?"
"Glinda-"
"I've been reading-"
"Sweet Oz you know what a book is?!"
"Elphie!"
She smirked and she could hear her husband laughing beside her. "Fine, go on."
"Anyway... I've been reading up on a few things... Before the power got to the Wizard's head and he tried to take over everything, there actually was a deal between the Vinkun people and the Emerald City."
Fiyero nodded, remembering this piece of history. "We'd provide cottons and silks and a huge variety of fabrics to the rest of Oz, and in return get something back from each province. For example, farm produce from Munchkinland, rubies from Quadling Country. Livestock from Quox. The City being the central organisation would distribute things."
Elphaba nodded, listening to him. "Right... And this means... What for us?"
Glinda grinned. "Well... Once people see you're not as bad as the Wizard and Morrible said you were, they'd have no choice but to accept you. Your people love and respect you both, and if they can-"
"We didn't have a tough act to follow." Fiyero pointed out. "Now, I love my parents, but my father was the reason those deals fell apart and we were ostracised. Too pig-headed and stuck in his ways and was quite happy for the rest of Oz to believe us to be uncivilised savages."
"And you can bring it all back together again! Just think about it, we can put things in place now, and then we go from there. Oh, Elphie, I know it's not exactly how we planned working together, but this is the best way, I promise!" Glinda pleaded.
Elphaba sighed and shook her head. "Lin, I don't know... I'm... It's been five years since I died."
"And most of the witch hunters are dead. Trust me, they'll listen to me now."
Fiyero watched his love fight an internal war in her head. He knew they'd both give up everything in a heartbeat to go back home if they could.
"Together we're unlimited." Glinda sang softly. "Together we'll be the greatest team there's ever been. Elphie... Dreams the way we planned them..."
A faint smile tugged her lips, looking up at her best friend. Those words... Those childish promises that were spoken over a decade ago that at the time seemed too good to be true. And now... Pale hands gripped her own as she was gently hauled to her feet. "If we work in tandem..."
Glinda grinned now. She had her approval and she knew it. "There's no fight we cannot win." She told her. "I mean it Elphie. We can do this. All three of us. We can bring Oz back together again for the sake of our children."
Elphaba twisted to look back at Fiyero.
He raised his hand. "You don't answer to me, Fae." he reminded her and smiled.
"No, but this is a joint decision."
He nodded and stood up. "I'm in if you are." his heart grew in size at the sheer relief and joy he saw in her face and he grinned. He hugged both of them.
"Glinda Upland always gets what she wants. I thought you knew this." Glinda giggled.
"How did the first engagement go again?" Elphaba smirked.
"Ah, now you see, that was Galinda. With the Ga!"
"Of course." She drawled.
"Elphaba!"
She grinned now. "You're just too easy."
Fiyero laughed and shook his head. "Do you realise looking at the two of you like that it's as if the last ten years didn't happen."
Glinda shrugged with a smile and pulled Elphaba out of the room.
"I know that smile isn't completely genuine."
Elphaba sighed and her shoulders dropped. "The Wizard never left Glin."
"What? Where is he? What happened?"
"He first found us back at the cottage... He was trying to talk to Leila and I told her and Liir to go back to the house... And then he came back earlier on."
"Did he say what he wanted?"
Elphaba scoffed. "Forgiveness, of all things. I mean, really, as if a few words and a promise to be a better father is going to make up for the fact that he ran me out of my own home, made sure I could never live a normal life ever again and pushed me to fake my own death."
"How did he find you...?" she linked her arm with her friend's.
She shrugged. "I wouldn't be at all surprised if he just asked questions. Nobody really saw the real him, anybody can ask a question, especially when it concerns a novelty like me. I'm a green Munchkinlander who married into the Royal family. Things like that don't happen in Munchkinland, much less to someone like me." She sighed. "Fiyero sent him to the tower, and I can deal with him as I see fit."
"Come on."
"Where?"
"Where do you think?" Glinda rolled her eyes and pulled her through the corridors. "You're going to deal with this right now."
"I don't want to be anywhere near him right now." Elphaba pulled her arm free.
"The longer this goes on the angrier you'll get. You need answers and the only way you're going to get them is to confront him."
"I don't care."
"Yes, you do." Glinda sighed softly. "Elphie... You're my best friend and I love you, but you have to stop being so stubborn about this. I know... I get that you don't want to get hurt again, and Oz knows that man has done more than enough to you..."
"So you think I should forgive him?"
"No. I'm saying you need closure, otherwise it will continue to eat away at you. You have him right there, up in that tower. All the answers you've ever wanted. Get them and then get rid of him."
Elphaba paused, taking everything in. Eventually, she nodded. "Fine... Fine, let's go." she walked up to the tower with her. She nodded to the two sentries guarding the cell. "At ease, gentlemen, I'll call you back when we're done."
"Yes, Your Highness." The two men nodded and they left the two women to it.
Oscar looked up at the sound of her voice, unsurprised to see her standing there with Glinda at her side just as she had done all those years ago. They looked older than their nineteen-year-old counter-parts, more world-weary. That, again, was his fault. "This life suits you, Elphaba. You were born for it."
"Spare me." She scoffed. "Why are you here? What makes now any different to ten years ago?"
He gave her a resigned look and a half-hearted shrug. "Quite frankly, I don't know the answer to that myself. I suppose I'm here because I want to make amends. I want to do what I should have done all those years ago, and would have done had I known. I never knew, never would have guessed the truth even back then. All I knew was that you looked so much like your mother." He stood from the bench and paced the small cell. "Elphaba, I know... I know that no matter what I do right now, it will never be enough to erase what I did to you. I should never have let Morrible get as far as she did. You, your friends, you were all caught in the crossfire and you shouldn't have been."
"I never did anything to you! And you let her call me evil! Wicked! You are the reason I cannot go home! The reason my children can never know the truth! Oh, they know little things through childish stories, but they don't know the truth behind them." She cast her mind back to their favourite tale of the Scarecrow and the witches and she shook her head.
"Madame Morrible thought it would be best to try and silence you. We couldn't let you speak out about the plans, it would have caused a revolt."
"With the Animals, yes! But I doubt anybody else would have cared a twig! You were a coward. A fraud. Back then, nobody believed in you more than I did. Even as a child, I almost wished you were my father, that you'd find out all of the cruel things I had to go through, the abuse, verbally, physically -" she cut herself off before she could reveal more. "I dreamt that you would find all of that out and take me away from there. That you would be able to magick away this horrendible, disgusting colour and make me normal like everybody else."
Glinda bit her lip, keeping her arm linked with her friend's.
Oscar nodded, feeling ashamed of his actions. How could he tell her now that he did know, he'd known the whole time and did nothing to stop it? He chose to lie instead. He was good at that. "Elphaba, I wish I had known. I wish I'd known the truth even back then because I'd have been able to do exactly as you wanted."
"Yes, well... It's too late for wishes and maybes... I learned long ago that wishing only causes more pain."
"I found out the truth about you when I thought it was too late to do anything, too late to apologise. When I got in that balloon, my intention was to leave Oz for good, only it didn't work out. I did get back home, but a snowstorm pulled me back to Oz three years later. That blasted balloon has a mind of its own."
"Where did you end up?" Glinda asked, a silent 'what?' at Elphaba who elbowed her.
"Ix." he sighed. "There were talks... I thought they were stories, people who believed the Wicked Witch was not all she seemed..." He looked at them both. "I enquired about them, nobody knew me as their wonderful Wizard, I was simply Oscar. And the ladies told me that the Vinkun Prince had gone back to his home and had married a green woman, and the young couple were changing the Vinkus for the better, bringing them back into the light, rather than the darkness of tradition. I left Ix and tracked you both down because I wanted to know if the stories were true."
Elphaba blinked, unmoving, stunned that she did, in fact, have some support from human beings that were not her best friend or her family.
"You see, Elphie, I told you that you were doing good."
"And because you've heard a few stories you think you can, what? Get to know me? Tell everybody that the supposed dead Wicked Witch of the West is actually your daughter? That it gives you the right to act like a parent? I've had my share of bad parents in my life, and yes, Frex may have wanted to kill me over the years, but he never actually sought to do so. At least not after Nessarose was born and I was forced to atone for his fuck-ups and he fully blamed me for them." she scowled. "You don't know me. You may have known my mother for a fleeting moment, but I can assure you, you were just one in a long line. It's just my unhappy luck I ended up with you as a father, and not some Quadling glassmaker or Gillikinese 'nobleman' with one too many mistresses. My mother was not a saint, and certainly no better than them."
"Elphaba, please. I'm an old man, I'd like to put things right while I can."
"You can't."
"I'd still like to try."
Elphaba simply scowled and pulled her arm free of Glinda's and walked away.
"You've hurt her too much. I don't know if you'll ever be able to make this right." Glinda told him simply. "You shouldn't have come back here. Elphie, wait for me!" she rushed after her.
"Keep him in that tower for now. He may call himself the Wizard, but he's got no more magic than either of you two, you'll be alright." Elphaba was explaining to the two men. "Oz knows how I ended up with it..." she added to herself, rubbing her head as the sentries took their positions outside the cell once more.
Eleanora returned with the children a few hours later, waving them off as a nanny came to take the three of them away for a bath.
Fiyero looked at his mother, cringing slightly at the worried look on her face. "Which one did what this time?"
"Do you know what age Elphaba came into her magick?"
"Uh... As far as I know, she's always had it, a bit like our son... Why? What did Liir do now?"
"Not Liir this time. Leila-Rose had an explosive episode."
He groaned and pushed a hand through his hair. "Right... What happened?"
"We were eating dinner, and we heard a group of old, gossiping women disrespecting Elphaba, the language and the names were quite colourful and upsetting. They were silenced when Leila-Rose shouted at them to stop, and then their dinners... quite literally... exploded before them."
Fiyero snorted and covered up a smirk with his hand, pretending to look thoughtful. "Sorry... That imagery was quite..."
"Oh, Fiyero!" she scoffed, rolling her eyes.
"So... They're both just like their mother. Only, he's the calmer one and she is... Elphaba mark two." he nodded.
"Who is?" Elphaba walked in after saying goodbye to Glinda.
He turned to face his wife. "Our darling daughter made some old gossiping witches' dinner explode in her face," he smirked.
"What?" Her eyes grew wide. "Fiyero, it's not funny!"
"Oh, but it is! She was defending you. And from the sounds of it-"
"If she really is going to be like me she needs to have better control than I did."
"It's not a bad thing, Fae. Sure, it's not ideal right now, but it's okay. We can manage it and we can deal with it. She knows by now that magick is nothing to be ashamed of, and she's always said she wants to be like you."
Elphaba sighed. "She still needs to know that what she did today is not okay. I'll... I'll talk to her after her bath."
"Be gentle with her, Elphaba. She thought she was doing the right thing." Eleanora smiled. "Mother is God in the eyes of a child. And they adore you."
She nodded, smiling a little. "I will. Thank you for having them today."
"No need to thank me. I am their grandmother, after all, I love having them, it keeps me young. How did it go this afternoon?"
"I think we made some progress," Elphaba answered before Fiyero could comment. "Glinda's found a way to bring back the trade agreements between the Vinkus and the rest of Oz."
"Wouldn't that defeat the object of you going into hiding?" Eleanora raised an eyebrow.
"Quite possibly... But I trust my friend to formulate a plan that would keep things peaceful. Until we can be completely sure, I've decided to remain in the background on it, and Fiyero will do the negotiating."
His eyebrows shot up into his hairline at the revelation. "I will?"
"Well, I can't very well do it until I'm sure there won't be an uprising. Glinda and I talked this through, among other things. And you're better at that than I am, I lose my cool a lot easier than I should. With other people, I have to be diplomatic-"
"With Glinda, you will not hesitate to call her blonde, I get it." he groaned. "Fine, fine I'll do it," he smirked.
She kissed his cheek with a grin. "Thank you."
Eleanora gave her son a questioning look.
"Mother, I learned very early on in our friendship, whatever Elphaba asks, I've never said no. She knows this and she will take full advantage of it, too."
"Oh, don't act so hard done by, it's not like you complain," Elphaba smirked.
Eleanora shook her head with a laugh. "I'll leave you both to it, goodnight."
"Goodnight." he kissed his mother on the cheek and watched her leave. "Are you ready to talk about what happened in the tower?" he turned to his wife.
"When the children have gone to bed," Elphaba shrugged and they both headed up to the play-room, finding the three of them playing together.
Ashender looked up, dropping the teddy bear at his side and reached for his mother. "Da!"
Elphaba smiled and scooped her one-year-old up. "So he's not scared of me but his first word may well be 'dad'. Perfect." she laughed and sat in the rocking chair in the corner of the room.
Fiyero grinned. "Now, don't get jealous, Fae."
She scoffed and shook her head, looking back at her youngest. "Your daddy's talking nonsense again." she lightly tickled him, smiling at his high-pitched squealing and giggling.
The nanny walked by the open door, shooting her a disapproving look. "You'll get him all worked up and he'll not sleep so quickly, which makes my task a bit harder." she told her.
Elphaba rolled her eyes. "And I've told you that I can and I will put my own children to bed, and that your services are only required during the day."
The older woman tutted and scoffed, walking away with a shake of her head.
Fiyero raised an eyebrow at the interaction. "I can always find another if you want me to?"
She shrugged. "She just can't handle the fact that my ways are different from other mothers she's dealt with."
"She still shouldn't talk to you that way."
"Mama?" Leila-Rose looked up from her doll. "Why do people say you're bad?"
Elphaba froze and she felt her heart stop. "Who said that to you?"
"The mean old ladies made Leila use her magic. She didn't mean to hurt them." Liir protested in his sister's defence.
She sighed as Fiyero took Ashender from her arms, and she stood. "Come with me."
The twins looked at each other.
"You're not in trouble. Come on."
With that, they followed their mother to their bedroom and climbed on to the bed with her, curling up either side of her, Fiyero stood by the door.
"In your life, you might encounter people who will say bad things about me. And it's okay to be sad by that, but you cannot let that anger get the better of you. These people... They see me as a bad person because it's what they've been told. They're too small-minded to see past things-"
"Because you're green?" Leila asked.
She nodded.
"Mama... why are you green?"
"I don't know the answer to that one, my sweet. It's just how I was born."
"Can I be green?"
Elphaba looked at her daughter, confused, and she laughed. "Why on earth would you want to be green?"
"Because I can do magick now! And if I was green too then I could be like you!"
Elphaba felt her eyes stinging with tears and she laughed again, hugging them close to her and she kissed their heads. "You're you. And you're perfect as you are."
"Mama..."
"Yes, Liir?" she discreetly wiped her eyes before they saw her tears.
"Papa's story... is he really a scarecrow?"
"What do you think?"
He paused, thinking about it, much to the amusement of both parents. "I think he is."
Elphaba smirked over at her husband. "I told you that story was too obvious."