She looked at her bed and felt cold. Was she to sleep alone after going through all of that? Wouldn't he come for her? Elphaba was suddenly sure she'd made the biggest mistake of her life. How could she live this way – be taken and then thrown away? It was her choice and she'd made it, but she'd never expected it to be this way. What she'd wanted was to share her life with him, not let him have her body and then be tossed out.
Head low, she climbed onto her bed and sat at the head of it, her knees pulled to her chest. Elphaba had never in her life felt so degraded and hurt. She couldn't even knock on his door; it was forbidden. As everything that her life was now came to it's terrifying realization in her head, Elphaba began to cry.
She'd come in, wouldn't she? Fiyero wondered to himself. Maybe she didn't want to see him after everything. If she needed a few minutes away from him, he certainly couldn't blame her. But he wanted to hold her so badly. He just wasn't sure if he should walk into her room at the moment. What if she looked at him with hate in her eyes? Such a thing he knew he couldn't bear.
Forget that! Damn it, she was his and he was hers and if she had fallen asleep already, perhaps, she'd never come in, and they wouldn't even spend the night together as man and wife. After what must've been half an hour, he bolted to the door and knocked.
Elphaba lifted her head from her arms. "What?"
He came in and saw the way the tears had marred her face. "Fae," he rushed to the bed and dragged her close, "what is the matter?"
"Why do you want us to sleep separately? I don't understand and I don't think it's right, Yero." She shook her head sadly.
"I don't. I thought… I was worried you were angry with me so I thought I'd wait for you to come to me."
"I'm not supposed to." Elphaba looked at him confusedly. "Your mother said I'm not supposed to enter your room unless you specifically call for me."
"Well, that's not how it's going to work. That is our room. This room? This room doesn't exist. I'll demand that they tear down the damn walls!"
Elphaba wiped her eyes. "Really?"
"Lie with me?"
She lifted her arms so he could carry her. "Of course. Well, if you don't mean any more, well, you know. I'm terribly sore."
He tucked them into bed. "I'm sorry it had to be like that."
"It wasn't bad, Fiyero."
He wrapped his arms around her. "I couldn't tell what you were thinking. Tell me what you felt, please."
She didn't know what was happening to her. Perhaps because of what they'd gone through only hours before, she wanted to cling to Fiyero, and so she did. "It hurt, at first, but you know that. You were very patient, by the way."
"I didn't want to cause any more pain than I had already."
"When it stopped hurting so much, and you started to, like, move, it actually felt incredible. I think I," she flushed, "you know, went over the top."
"You were crying," he said.
"I'd been trying not to since the beginning. But I didn't want to scream or make any noise, because everyone was around us and I felt embarrassed, but when it got so good… the tear just went. It wasn't a bad thing, Fiyero," she assured him. "There was no avoiding that it would hurt, but it got better and that's good, I guess."
"I'm still sorry."
"I know you are. And you need to stop being sorry. Everything tonight that was bad wasn't your fault, so don't blame yourself. I don't blame you. You wanted everything to be the best it could and it was. Thank you for letting me sleep in here."
"It was never a question. I didn't let you. You should. It's the way it works. My mother must've scared you pretty bad, though."
"She did, I admit. I was very close to running." Elphaba admitted.
"I'm glad you didn't. I can't believe her."
"I'm not so sure it's her fault."
"What do you mean?"
"All of the things she told me are probably the way it is for her. If I were in that sort of a situation, I wouldn't deny that misery loves company. She's only the way she is because of how she is treated."
"You mean my father?"
"I'd assume so," Elphaba answered.
Fiyero thought for a moment. "I'll never understand them."
"Don't try to. It might turn you into something awful."
Fiyero's mother stood outside the door, brooding. When she had been young, she'd gotten to one of the servants and arranged so Fiyero would be raised less to tradition, which is why he was so against it now. She'd wanted to stop the tradition and did it the only was she could. But meeting Fiyero's young wife, she hadn't felt that the girl was good enough for Fiyero, and thus hoped maliciously that he would behave like his father after all. Now she wasn't sure if she was happy or upset that he hadn't. Her husband called for her from the next hallway over and she trudged obediently back to his room. But for once he wanted something else.
"You were spying on them?"
"Pulino, I told you, there's something strange about that girl…"
"So she's a bit stubborn. Fiyero will tame that when he wants to, Benita. Let him deal with it himself."
She hung her head.
"So… what was going on?"
So it was hypocritical. She didn't protest. She knew better. "He went into her bedroom and carried her back into his. Then they cuddled up to one another and, when I left, they were talking about sex and love and marriage and such."
"What were they saying?"
"Oh, he was apologizing for hurting her, and she was telling him it was fine. Then they started talking about all of the cultural traditions out here and he said he'd have the wall between the rooms knocked down and get rid of the other bed. He promised her they'd always sleep beside each other and so on."
Pulino snorted. "That kid is such a dreamer."
She sighed. "Other people have done it."
"Not out here, if they were raised properly."
"But what if he wasn't? What he wasn't raised to believe all of this? Perhaps when he was young he wasn't taught what we meant to teach him?"
"How?"
"I don't know," she said quickly. "I was just suggesting that. I don't have any idea what is really in his mind."
Elphaba looked up at Fiyero as he kissed her again and again. She could see what was on his mind very clearly – they weren't covered by blankets at all. "Oh, Fiyero, you know I'd love to, but you can't imagine how much it still aches."
Fiyero's eyes lit up. His kisses quickly trailed downward. "I'll have to kiss it and make it better than, won't I?"
Elphaba had no further argument.
It was two hours later when he finally stopped and she wasn't sure how many times she'd clutched at the sheets and moaned (quietly, of course). When he smiled again at her, she remembered what his mother had said, about wanting something in return. She knew his mother was wrong about most other things, but this… she wasn't sure. His eyes were hard to see through.
Elphaba had never wanted to do this. No way. It had not been on her list of sexual acts she'd ever perform (not that she'd had a list). But she did it anyway, telling herself it was her duty as his wife to please him. Shyly, almost, she tugged him off of the bed and made him stand up as she went to her knees.
He groaned deep in his throat and ran his hands through her hair. She spat out the liquid that filled her mouth, and the floor was a mess. Fiyero couldn't help but laugh at the way she looked afterwards, like a kitten, with a little smudge on her chin.
Elphaba wiped at her face mercilessly. "Oh, damn it, where did I miss?"
He licked his finger and wiped away the sticky fluid from her chin. "Right there. It's gone."
She looked at the floor and shuddered before obediently returning to bed with him. "Okay."
He grabbed her wrists. "Wait." After studying her face, he turned away from her. "You didn't have to do that."
"What do you mean?"
"You didn't want to do that."
"Fiyero, I…"
"Are you going to try and claim you wanted to? It's pretty obvious in your eyes."
She sat down on the bed. "I didn't."
"Why did you?"
"After what you did for me, Fiyero, what was I supposed to do? It was only fair."
"Quid pro quo?" He mumbled. "This for that?"
"Please, come, let's get to sleep."
"You have to understand something, first." Fiyero moved back towards her and sat beside her, pushing her hair out of her face. "I don't want you to ever feel like you have to do anything. Do you understand me? If I want something, Fae, I'll ask."
She looked at him incredulously. "How the hell did you grow up here? It makes no sense."
He grabbed her and wrestled her to the bed. "I don't know. Bedtime."
Elphaba allowed him to rearrange them on the bed and she slept, finally, in her new husband's arms.
Benita looked at the clock. It was getting very late. He hadn't asked her to leave yet. Just at that moment, he stirred beside her. "Pulino?"
"You're still in here?"
"I was waiting for you to dismiss me."
"You can go."
Benita stood and wrapped her robe around her, turning to look at Pulino once before she entered her own room. He was facing the other way. She wondered when she should announce she was pregnant again. That would keep him off of her case for a while. Carefully, she lit a candle in the darkness of her room; she'd never been fond of too many lights. Tiptoeing, she made her way down the hall. The younger couple was asleep, together. Absently she wondered if she'd ever once spent any time actually sleeping in Pulino's bed. It was no surprise when she thought about it that she realized she hadn't. Not once.