He found her once, in the very beginning. It was his third day in the city, as well as hers, he learned, and she had not yet become as careful. Several questions had led him to her in a grungy hotel, a room which she was paying with using the little money she'd had as her own before they'd married. After bribing the bellhop to let him into her room while she was off doing Oz only knew what, he approached her when she returned late in the evening. At first, she had argued and fought, but eventually she'd broken down, apologized, begged him to forgive her and promised fervently that she would return with him to Kiamo Ko in a carriage the next day. Then she'd taken him to her bed, yawning afterwards and murmuring sleepily that she was exhausted. This had made him realize how tired he was himself, and he'd fallen asleep only to wake to an empty bed and a short, cold few words written on a paper, "Go home."
Fiyero realized she'd only slept with him that night just to get away from him. She hadn't made love with him because she missed him and loved him, only because she'd needed to escape him. That realization sent Fiyero spiraling into depression and he spent two days in his hotel room, neither moving nor eating. Eventually, he'd gathered the strength the begin searching again, and that was all he'd been doing since.
That had been four months ago. Their honeymoon as it was supposed to have been was long over, and he'd barely had a sign of her. His mother wrote daily and pleaded with him to return home, but he stayed in the city. He would not come home without her, he stated stubbornly, and that was how it was going to be. Fiyero swore he would not go back to Kiamo Ko until she was with him or until one of them died. Elyria hadn't written a letter in response to that; his father had, scolding him for making his mother cry. But that didn't faze him in the least.
What he didn't know what that his constant questioning around about her was causing her trouble. One evening as he wandered the streets without direction, he heard a high-pitched shriek. Knowing he likely wouldn't find Elphaba tonight, if ever, he ran towards the source of the sound, scampering into an alleyway and a scene he didn't expect.
Two large men he thought he might have recognized faintly were holding Elphaba flat on the ground, a rag stuffed in her mouth. She was kicking and scratching to no avail. One of the men whacked her hard across the face, leaving her lip bleeding and tears stinging her eyes. He then took the rag out of her mouth. "You're coming with us, missy."
"What do you want with me?" She demanded.
"You're that fierce little wife of Arjiki Crown Prince Fiyero, are you not? Imagine the ransom he'd pay for his precious wife back." The other growled.
"My husband hasn't seen me in more than four months, I doubt he'd pay much to see me again." She spat.
"Oh, he hasn't? He's still in the city."
"He is?" Fiyero heard the hope in Elphaba's voice and bit his lip.
"He's asking all over for you. If he's so desperate to find you, I'm sure he'd pay tons of money just to get you back, no matter the damage done."
"Damage done?" Elphaba repeated.
"Oh, we'll have a little fun with you before we give you over to him." The one with the rag reached to rip off Elphaba's dress.
"Don't you dare touch me!" She hissed, biting him.
The second man slugged her in the stomach and she hissed in pain, curling into a fetal position on the ground. Both men hovered over her eagerly. Elphaba looked away and began to cry.
Fiyero couldn't watch any longer and leapt around the corner of the alleyway, shoving the first man into a wall and banging his head unconscious before he even knew of another person's presence. He rounded on the second, who he didn't have the advantage of surprise over. Ducking what looked to be a knife headed for his throat, Fiyero kicked the legs out from beneath the criminal, stepped onto his stomach and grabbed the knife that had clattered a few feet away. "Get out of here, now!" He shouted.
The guilty man looked towards his friend and back at the exit of the alleyway.
"Go ahead, take him. I want you out of here. Just go!"
As he dragged his partner out of the alley, the thug seethed. "Fucking pretty boy."
"Yeah, I'm a pretty boy, that's why I kicked your ass," Fiyero called back. Watching the two men retreat, he turned his attention to Elphaba, who was huddled in a ball in the corner, her hands over her ears and face in her knees. He crouched down and moved to tilt her face up, but she lashed out, nails down his arm and a kick that almost landed between the legs but instead slammed him in the thigh, sending him stumbling backwards. His arm was bleeding.
She only then looked at who her attacker was, and relief and horror flooded her face at the same time, a perfect merge of irony in her features. "Fiy… what the hell are you doing?"
Regaining his balance, he shook out his arm and stood up, pulling her to her feet as she sat stunned, shaking her head. "Saving you from whatever sort of pain they were about to put you through, that's what!"
"I could've gotten away on my own." Elphaba said, turning away.
"Oh? And how would you have done that? Would you have slept with both of them just to get them out of the way, too?"
Elphaba blinked, facing him. "Fiyero, don't. You know you're the only man I've ever…"
"Save it, Elphaba." He snapped. "Maybe I believe that. I don't know what you've been doing over these past four months, though, and why should I even consider anything you tell me to be true?"
"Because I love you!" She replied desperately.
"And you are my wife and you are supposed to be with me!" He growled. "I cared for you and held you, Fae, and you run away. You married me, or did you forget that? I know, one day, you were sitting around in the study, forgot you were married and decided to just have a rendezvous in the city. I loved you, I still love you, for Oz's sake, as stupid as I may be for feeling such a way, and all you can do is take off!" Fiyero was fuming now, trembling from rage.
"I knew you wouldn't understand," she said coldly, "I knew you couldn't. To stay with you, to enjoy your company every night, to revel in your love every day, would be selfish. Do you not see that there are civilized beings out in this world who can't do such a thing because they're being terrorized?"
"So it's not wrong at all to just pick up and leave after everything we had? After I tried so hard just to create for you somewhere where you would be happy? After we swore to one another millions of times that we loved each other? After you promised you would wait and see what would happen? After we'd gotten married, yet in the middle of our Oz forsaken honeymoon!"
Elphaba took a deep breath. "It isn't right. But it's a lot less selfish."
"Selfish, selfish, selfish. That's all I'm getting here. What are you telling me? Am I selfish?"
"Yes, you are. People are naturally selfish."
"Then give in to that, come back with me."
"No. I can't live like that. I would hate myself! I'd never let myself live with it." She cried, attempting to flee past him.
He was stronger and more adept then he'd ever let on to her, and he got in front of her, moving in her way each time she moved until she gave up, sighed and sat down on a box in the alley. "Elphaba," he began slowly, "you are the only thing in the world that means so much to me I would give up my life for you. I cannot live without you, knowing you're out there somewhere, knowing I could be with you. Please come home with me. In a little more than half a year, you'll be working for the Wizard…"
"Exactly who I'm working against!"
"But you could do that from inside. Don't you see? And wouldn't it, possibly, be more effective? Instead of joining some ridiculous radical group, you could let the Wizard live out his reign and change things from behind the scenes. Maybe do well enough that, when he's gone, you take over. Think about that."
"You think I haven't?" She challenged.
"I don't think you have, no. Because you're too set in one way to consider anything else sometimes." Fiyero folded his arms across his chest.
"I want to know the way things work around here, what goes on…"
"By joining some drastic action group that does… I don't even know what…"
She stared at the ground. "And you shouldn't. I can't tell you, anyway. I'm not a big part of that right now, as I'm not very experienced."
"You've actually begun to… take action?"
"Fiyero, don't you see? It's too late to go back, now."
"No, it's not. Once the Wizard discovers you're going against him, then it's too late. That could be tomorrow, for all we know. If you come back with me now, then agree to 'advise' or help rule or whatever it is he wants you to do after that year out in the world he wanted you to take, you can really do something, Elphaba. Or, or… even… the Vinkus is practically a free state. As you heard your father say, the Arjikis are in the most control right now. We could… I don't know what the word is… separate ourselves from Oz, become our own country." He had no idea what he was saying, but he knew he had to try.
"But that wouldn't save the Animals here!" Elphaba protested.
"If they needed saving, they could escape out to the Vinkus, and the Wizard couldn't do a thing, if we arranged the terms of separation the right way. It would do them good! It would give them a refuge. A place to start again and maybe begin living like they used to."
"But you're not the king, Fiyero, your father is. Would he do this? And who's to say the Gale Force won't just come marching into the Vinkus and take over?"
"Southeast of us is Quadling Country. If persuaded, they'll remove themselves from Oz and join with us. And then there's…"
"Munchkinland. No one knows anything out there. You couldn't persuade them one way or the other."
"But Nessa, as Eminent Thropp…"
"Wouldn't follow you." Elphaba finished. "Or your father. Or the Quadlings. None of which have an organized religion, or are unionists."
"Still, with the Vinkus and Quadling Country, that's a pretty big portion of land for the Gale Force to cover."
His persuasive tactics were good, even if the oaf didn't fully understand the concept of his ideas. They were good ideas, great even, despite the fact that he didn't know the words to express them with quite right. She looked at him, contemplating. "What you're saying is: I could work for the Wizard, try to change things from inside, and if all else fails, we and Quadling Country secede from Oz?"
"I knew there was a word for it!"
She smiled; she couldn't help it. His lack of vocabulary yet strength in understanding of that sort of thing was endearing. It made her almost want to jump into his arms again, to hug him and kiss him with as much fervor as she had on their wedding night. But her face fell, increment by increment. "I'd have to stay at least another month. I can't just disappear, exactly. They wouldn't like that. But if I kind of drifted… maybe."
"Where are you staying?"
"No, Fiyero. You stay in that uppity hotel. I stay where I'm staying." She saw his expression change and she hurried, "I'm not saying you can't visit me or spend a night or two."
"I shouldn't have to 'visit' my own wife or 'spend a night or two' at her place!"
"If you even want me to come back with you, you'd better accept it, damn it!"
He saw that he had no choice. "Fine. Tell me where you are staying, if I can come by tonight. Promise you won't disappear on me."
She promised. And she kept it.