AN: I just realized, I never explain that this takes place (well, the part that I don't explain) in the carriage...

Chapter Forty: The Truth

She was asleep. Fiyero twiddled his thumbs, dreadfully bored. "Fae?" He asked softly, not touching her.

Elphaba didn't respond.

He reached to touch her cheek and suddenly she shrieked. Fiyero pulled back and looked at her, wondering if she was okay. Oddly enough, she was still sleeping. Her fists were clenched, though, and she was groaning. "Elphaba?"

"No, please don't… I asked you not to touch me…" It seemed like she was struggling, yet some imaginary force was holding her back. "No… I'm married, I told you… I said I didn't want…" She choked on a sob.

Fiyero realized what sort of nightmare was plaguing her and shook her harshly.

"No, please!" She screamed, then her eyes opened. Elphaba seemed to realize where she was and the tension disappeared from her form as she smiled forcibly up at him. "Was I sleeping?"

He'd heard her do this once before, on one of the nights they'd been together in the city. She'd never known he'd heard her. Fiyero looked out the window. "Elphaba, you were having a bad dream."

"Okay…" She looked at him curiously. "You're sure behaving strange just because I was having a bad dream."

He turned towards her again and swept her hair out of her face. Taking her hands, he pleaded, "What really happened in the city?"

She blinked. "What do you mean? Fiyero, I have no idea…"

"You have a very good idea. Now tell me."

Her eyes watered and she buried her face in her hands. After several deep breaths, she began to explain what had occurred after she'd left him in that grungy hotel room with the note three days after her arrival in the city.

A week or two after leaving him, she'd finally managed to trace "the Resistance" and went to a meeting called by some mysterious leader. One of the veteran members had taken a quick interest in her, and she hadn't seen his real intentions. She'd just been grateful for a friend, at that point. Little did she know what he'd slipped into her drink, or what had happened to her when she woke up in her place the next morning. It hadonly hit her later.

Again, something had been put in the juice she was given, though the effects were not quite the same. She never blacked out, only she began to lose control over her limbs. Elphaba had started to realize that she couldn't move as the next "meeting" ended, and her friend had helped her back to the corn exchange. By that point, she couldn't move quick enough and he had forced her right against the stairs the minute the door had closed behind them. The only strength she'd had was to beg for him to stop, which he didn't. She had barely felt anything.

But she had returned to the meetings, aware that this man who had posed as her friend was only one person, and as long as she was careful, such a thing wouldn't happen again. Returning home that evening, though, someone had been waiting behind the door. Even without being under the influence of anything, she'd still lost the battle and he'd hit her until she could barely stand to move to fight him anymore. She'd felt the pain, only never felt it when he took her. He had continued to hit her even as he had her, and she had felt that, but she had hardly felt anything where he was really touching her.

She had gotten to be more cautious, and after two or three months, a week before running into Fiyero again, she'd gotten the feeling that he wouldn't rape her or come near her again. He'd seemed to pretty much have disappeared. After having checked behind the door, she'd slowly made her way up the stairs above the corn exchange. No one had gotten in the door after her. She'd shut it too quickly. And she was certain that no one was already in the stairwell; she'd searched. But he had been.

This time, he'd been equipped with a knife, threatening that if she even so much as attempted to fight back, he'd slit her throat. She'd closed her eyes and prayed she wouldn't feel it, the way she hadn't before. He'd treated her differently, searching crudely with his hands, shoving things in places where they didn't belong. Elphaba had certainly felt that much. But again, the only thing she'd felt of the actual act was when it was over and there was fluid on her. He'd left. She'd run to the sink and vomited, shaking heavily.

Elphaba had begun looking for somewhere else to stay. Not soon after, Fiyero had caught her. Happy to have someone to keep her safe, she'd allowed him to sleep most nights above the corn exchange with her. She'd never seen her assaulter again.

As she finished her story (in not quite the same words), she broke into sobs and started rocking back and forth on the bench. "You see? I told you, nothing happened. I didn't feel it. It wasn't real. It wasn't… I didn't want…" The rest of her words were completely incomprehensible.

Fiyero was too startled and shocked to react quickly. Instinctively, he took Elphaba into his arms. She'd never looked so small and weak before, not the way she did now. "Why didn't you tell me?" He whispered.

"Because it never bothered me. It was okay making love to you, so it didn't matter. I still felt the same when you and I were intimate; it didn't ruin the pleasure or the joy or the love I feel when we do it. It made no difference."

"But Elphaba, it does make a difference! Your attitude was different."

"That wasn't because of him…"

"Really?"

"Really. Well, I don't think it was. Why should it have been?"

"It made you feel different. If you didn't feel it when he had you, how did you still feel it when I did?"

"I guess you have a very different body, I don't know!" She was shuddering.

"That's why you talked about my body like that, isn't it?"

"I don't know!" Elphaba cried again.

Fiyero inhaled slowly. "Okay, okay. I know. That is why, even if you don't understand it. It has to be. And it does affect us, Fae. You can't just forget that someone raped you, you know."

"But I'm fine. Nothing else changed. Why should it matter?"

"You're crying right now. Something still hurts you. Please, don't do this. Pretending it never happened isn't going to do you, or us, any good. Talk to me about it. Tell me something. I need you to, and you need to." He ran a hand along her chin comfortingly.

"I don't know. I hate that I couldn't defend myself, Yero, I hate it! I should've been able to make him stop. Now I feel so tainted and I couldn't prevent it."

"It's not your fault."

"Excuse me?"

Fiyero bit his lip and looked at her. "You didn't expect that to happen. I was under the impression you thought you were safe on your own. It was a little foolish, but in no way your fault." He assured her.

"I remember when he started talking to me. He seemed to know my main grievance with the Wizard was the situation with the Animals and soon we were drinking to Animal Rights or something. When I woke up the next morning and had no idea what happened after that, shouldn't I have been a little more careful?"

"Maybe. I don't know the exact situation, Fae, I can't tell you what was right or wrong. But I know you didn't walk into that situation intentionally." He paused, feeling angry, defensive, and asked, "What did he look like?"

"He was about my height and Gillikinese. He had dirty blonde hair, broad shoulders… he had some muscle, obviously, if I couldn't fight back well enough… I wasn't really trying to look at him, Fiyero. Why?"

"Nothing. Just… if you happen to see him on the streets in the city or something, you'll point him out to me, won't you?"

"Fiyero!" Elphaba covered her mouth with a hand. "You will not!"

"Don't I have the right?"

"No, I do!"

They both laughed, if only for a short moment. Fiyero's face softened again and he hugged Elphaba. "I wish you'd told me earlier."

"What difference would it have made?"

"I would've been gentler with you…"

"I didn't want you to be. You know that." Elphaba shook her head. "Fiyero, I'm all right. I promise."

"No!" He exclaimed heatedly. "You're not, don't you see that? If you were all right, would you have cried? Elphaba, this isn't something to just dismiss."

"I know it's not. It's just, Fiyero, I'd like to forget it."

"It's not that easy."

"It was."

"You thought so, but you were having nightmares, Fae. That doesn't qualify as forgetting it, or being all right."

"Fine. If I'm not all right, then what do we do?"

"I don't know. Sweet Oz, Elphaba, I don't understand you at all. How could you just brush that off? Well, you didn't, obviously, but…" He trailed off and buried his face in her hair. "Please, let me protect you."

She pushed him away. "No! I can take care of myself."

Fed up with her arguments, he spat, "Right, sure. So tell me, if you can handle yourself so damn well, how did you get raped?"

She winced and scooted away from him, hurt and burdened with the fact that he had a point. "Fiyero…" Elphaba swallowed hard and moved to look at the wall, ignoring him. His comments stung, but she wasn't going to give him the power of seeing that.

They were still sitting facing away from one another when they arrived at the hotel. Elphaba's red eyes and drawn face earned a curious glance from Glinda and a concerned one from Nanny, but neither party bothered to say anything. By now they knew that if the couple was having a problem, it was best to leave it to the two to figure it out. So when Elphaba and Fiyero trudged silently into the hotel room they were to spend the night in, Glinda and Nanny shrugged and followed suit.

Elphaba changed quickly and clambered into bed, rolling over to the side. Fiyero took his time. Pulling the blankets away from the bed so he could climb in, he exposed Elphaba to the unforgiving air of the room, if only just for a moment. She jumped and curled into a ball, glaring at him hatefully.

"Would you please stop looking at me that way?" He asked, settling himself in next to her, so close that if she moved she'd fall off the bed or touch him.

"What way?"

"Like I've done something wrong."

"You think you haven't?"

"No. If anyone's done something wrong between the two of us, love, it's you."

She hissed and made to roll away. Elphaba suddenly realized that she'd tumble down and Fiyero grabbed her around the waist before she could. "Um, thanks."

Again, he asked, "Let me protect you?"

Elphaba sighed heavily and let herself be molded nearer to her husband's body. "Well, you are my hero, after all…"