A/N Thank you so much to those that reviewed! You have no idea ( actually, you probably do..) how much it means. I am very grateful that you took the time to let me know what you thought and I hope you'll do it again :)

I have most of this story written now and I should be updating regularly. It will go AU at some point..just to warn ya :)

Chapter 2

It wasn't easy. But then, he hadn't thought it would be.

He knew she was defensive, and he supposed that being the way she was, she'd had to be, so he tried not to be hurt by her brush offs.

He started by sitting next to her in most classes. He did better that way, anyway. Sitting next to Galinda was all fine and dandy, and he did have a good time with his lovely blonde girlfriend, but she and her posse of girls talked entirely too much about shoes and nail polish and they kept getting told off by all the professors. Now, he was never one to be scared of being told off, but if he was going to get in trouble, he'd prefer it to be over something else than his girlfriend's shoes.

Galinda sat next to Elphaba sometimes, but Elphaba didn't like being distracted and had told her bubbly room mate to not feel obliged to sit next to her in every class, because what would all her friends think? Galinda had protested of course, but after being told plainly by her green room mate that she wanted to listen and not talk, and could Galinda really do that?, she'd pouted and moved back to where Phannee and Shenshen were gushing over magazines. She had clearly not expected anyone else to take Galinda's place and the look she'd given him when he'd sat down had almost made him reconsider his resolution to befriend her. Almost.

When he sat next to her, he kept silent, took notes every now and then, and marveled at how she knew all the answers to every question. He got points for that at least, he told himself. She hadn't told him to sit somewhere else. But then, she hadn't told him much of anything. In fact, she barely spoke to him at all. She answered questions he directed at her and she was never really impolite, but she never initiated conversations, she never tried to engage him in anything, she not once tried to linger after class and she didn't accept any of his invitations to come and hang out with his and Galinda's friends.

He understood the latter. In fact, he wasn't even always all that happy to being hanging out with that crowd. He found that the definite downside of using his brain; he had a much clearer insight into how trivial their conversations were. The upside of using said brain was that he was starting to do a bit better in his courses. He even knew the answer to some of the questions his professors asked him. The first time that had happened, he'd been trying to get Elphaba to talk to him and the professor had asked him a question. Without thinking and without looking up, he'd given the right answer. The professor had been surprised, Galinda stumped and Elphaba had looked at him with her eyebrows raised and a hint of a smile tickling the corners of her mouth. It had been worth it.

Galinda made continuous efforts to socialize her new best friend. He was glad, she truly was a nice person and she didn't care what others thought of her friendship with the school outcast. She was determined to change the way people felt about green skin and sarcasm and though she wasn't having much luck so far, she kept it up and she had at least achieved that no one picked on her when Galinda was around. Or when he was near, for that matter, because being the other half of the IT-couple, meant he would surely tell Galinda if he ever were to see. Since he was so clearly trying to befriend the girl, most people figured he was just doing it because he was Galinda's boyfriend, and she was Galinda's room mate. As a result of some strange and innate female logic he couldn't understand, the fact that he was "willing to be seen" with Elphaba made him even more popular with Galinda's friends. How on earth they could honestly believe he would go through all this trouble only for Galinda's sake, was a mystery to him.

He really wasn't.

He honestly wasn't sure why he wanted to be friends so desperately. He did have friends, however shallow they may be, and it wasn't like she was tripping over herself to welcome him into her life. It was just...he was fascinated by her. Because she wasn't tripping over herself to accommodate him. And because no one else wanted to be her friend. It wasn't pity that motivated him, though. It was simply that he wanted to know why no one else bothered. And why she never bothered. And why Galinda did bother. And why she did bother with Galinda. The girl was an enigma.

And Fiyero Tiggular was never one to walk away from what sparked his interest. He was spoiled. He always got what he wanted. She was the very first that simply, blatantly, flat out refused to be impressed by him. He loved it as much as it frustrated him.

So being nice to her simply because she was Galinda's room mate might have been how it all started, back at the Ozdust, but these days, he honestly liked the girl. She was sharp and funny. And the rare times she let her guard down, if only just a little, he got to see a side of her that he was sure very few people had seen and he was proud that he got to see it. Proud that she was starting to trust him enough to smile sometimes, to not reply sarcastically to everything, to just tell him, without being cynical or defensive and without questioning him, what her favorite season, her favorite song, her favorite ice-cream was. Of course, then he'd gone and bought them both some ice-cream and she was uncomfortable again. But she didn't stomp off and she didn't throw it away. She'd sat there and read her book while eating her ice-dream, so he'd done the same and as they'd walked back, she'd said thank you for the ice-cream, see you tomorrow, so he figured he'd won.

He took her out to dinner. He'd tried to pry her out of the library for lunch. She'd refused, as she always did, but when he'd shown up at her and Galinda's dorm that evening, looking for her for a reason he'd forgotten already, and Galinda had told him her room mate was hiding somewhere because she was having a sleep over with the girls, and isn't that just so much fun, Fiyero! I invited Elphie, of course but she gave me the funniest look!, and he'd known without a doubt she'd spend the evening in the library. He'd told her he would not, under any circumstance and for any reason, take no for an answer and she needed to eat anyway. She'd frowned, mumbled, muttered under her breath and packed her stuff. But she'd gone with him.

She'd let him order her food, which he did just to annoy her, (and it did, of course) and she let him order wine, which he did because he was pretty sure she'd never had any (if Nessa was anything to go by) and at which she hadn't even blinked. He marveled at how this girl could get angry so easily over things that no other girl would ever get angry about. He'd never met a girl who would yell at a man because he tried to carry her bag. He was sure he'd never meet one that would huff and glare because he said she looked nice. He'd meant it, too. She'd taken to wearing her hair down sometimes and lately he found himself wanting to run his fingers through it just to see if felt the way it looked. He didn't though. He wasn't ready to think about the consequences, for either of them, if he did that.

He caught himself often doing things simply because he wanted to see her reaction. Like ordering wine without asking her what she wanted, if she'd ever even had any. It turned out, as she told him, in the soft light of the restaurant, as the night grew darker and the wine loosened her up the tiniest bit, that she'd stolen some from a bottle her dad kept in the basement. She'd gotten sick but she hadn't told anyone and her father never found out. (And the way she'd said that last part, made him think her father was not a man he'd get along with.)

He also caught himself not telling her things because he already knew what her reaction would be. Like telling her he liked, adored, the way she stuck a pencil in her hair to keep it out of her face as she studied. Because telling her that would only result in her never doing that again.

All in all, the road ahead was long still, but he was gaining mileage.

School, in the meantime, was much less of a success. The main problem was that Fiyero wasn't actually brainless, but he was lazy. And laziness resulted in disappointing grades for most of his classes. He wasn't stupid enough for his grades to be abysmal, but just lazy enough for them to be bad. That had never been an issue, really. Plenty of schools to go around and with his status as royalty, he was sure to be accepted in every single one of them. However, he didn't want to leave Shiz. He'd gotten his first notice off Morrible yesterday. If he wanted to stay, and she'd looked at him pointedly then, as if she knew...something, he was going to have to pass his classes. And if he was going to pass, he would have to work harder. He hadn't said anything when he'd gotten his essay back, but he had looked at his grade, flinched and resolved to maybe do a bit more next time. Morrible had mentioned the possibility of a tutor and although Elphaba was the most obvious choice, but, it was the strangest thing, he didn't want to ask Elphaba for help for some reason. He could probably get Galinda to help him or something. Maybe they could do some sort of study session in the park somewhere. He didn't notice Elphaba sliding her notes in his direction until the edges of the paper pressed against his fingertips. He looked up, eyebrows raised.

"You can do better, Master Tiggular. Don't waste my time."

And with that she walked away, leaving him to stare after her in silence. She never gave up her notes, though Boq and Nessa had asked for them before. She was always willing to help, would spend hours with Galinda, mostly with much protest from the blonde, working on whatever class Elphaba insisted she needed better grades in. She would revise endlessly with Boq when he was nervous about a particular exam (and Boq being Boq, he was nervous about every upcoming exam) and she would proofread all of their essays, but she never simply handed over her notes for them to copy, insisting that if she were to allow that, then they could simply skip all the lectures from now on and just copy her notes (nobody wanted to tell her, that is exactly what they'd had in mind) and arguing that they would learn the most if they did the work themselves. Now, however, she had handed over her notes. All of them.

A smile made its way to his lips. Yup, he was making progress.

Elphaba fumed all the way back to the dorm. She had no clue what possessed her to hand over her notes to Fiyero Tiggular, of all people. What was she thinking?

She never just gave up her notes, not even to Galinda! He had just looked so...forlorn..and..well...puzzled, when he'd gotten his essay back. She had never read one of his essays because he never bothered with properly writing one until the very last minute, but she was sure he could do better than the D's and F's he was currently getting. He wasn't an idiot. At first, she'd thought he was, and then she'd desperately hoped he was, but he wasn't. He definitely had a brain. He just wasn't using it. And so far, he hadn't even glanced at his grades whenever they'd received their exams or essays back.

Today had been different. She knew that he'd had a talking to from Madame Morrible, because Galinda had been complaining about the unfairness of it all, but she'd thought he'd shrug it off, the way he must have in the previous schools. But then in class, just now, he'd looked ...almost determined. As if he knew he could indeed do better and maybe he was about to try. And she didn't want him to loose that. She wanted him to work harder, to do better. Because he was smart and he could do so well, if only he tried. And he could achieve something. And he should stay at Shiz, because he obviously liked it here, and he had friends here, and he had Galinda.

And, well...she supposed...she didn't really want him to leave. He wasn't really all that annoying. And he made Galinda happy, which made her happy. And he was...nice. To her. He would probably insist they were friends, even. And she didn't have that many, had never had any, and she liked not being alone.

And since he the deadline for his essay was in only a few days, she feared he'd give up before he even started and she wanted to help him. She always did the same for her sister, for Galinda and even for Boq. Why shouldn't she do the same for Fiyero, if they were indeed something resembling friends now? She'd considered for a split second to offer to help him write it but she was rather afraid he'd say yes. Because that would mean spending even more time with him and her stomach did a somersault at the mere thought. The way it often did when she saw him enter the classroom, when he'd sit next to her, threw one of those infamous grins her way or whenever she thought about him for too long. She didn't like the direction her thoughts were heading these days. She'd go to bed and stare at the ceiling and she couldn't stop the images that she kept so far in the back of her mind during the day, from hurling forwards.

She had to hold her ground and, with that, her distance. She knew exactly what was happening. She wasn't ready to admit it, though. Not even to herself. She'd never felt any of the things she was feeling before. She'd never really felt anything about anyone, because there'd been nobody around to feel them for. But she knew now what friendship was, she knew the twirling in her stomach as Galinda smiled at her and ordered two caramel latte's, because they're just so feminine, Elphie. That black bitter coffee is not doing you any favours, and she drank the sweeter than sweet concoction purely because she loved Galinda ordering two of them, as if it was the most normal thing in the world to have friends and buy them coffee. She also knew that what she felt when Fiyero was near her, was not the same.

She enjoyed walking to class with a twittering Galinda, but she liked even more, more than she cared to admit, walking and sitting next to Fiyero. She didn't fully grasp why exactly, but it made her uncomfortably warm inside when he would dump his bag on the desk, plop down in the seat next to her, casually leaning back and grinning one of those insufferable happy-go-lucky, self satisfied grins at her. He'd tell her good morning, and he'd poke her in the side with his elbow whenever she rolled her eyes at his ridiculous attempts at flattery. She just couldn't offend him, it seemed! Whenever she tried, he just grinned and winked at her. Stupid fool.

And she couldn't think of a reason for him to want to sit next to her all the time. At first, she'd thought it must have been a bet or something, so she'd huffed and said nothing and ignored the notes he was trying to pass her. But he kept doing it, kept showing up, kept balancing his chair on the back legs, while one arm draped over the back of her chair, which made her uncomfortable and distracted her, and tapped his pencil until she told him to knock it off. She'd rolled her eyes, huffed and snorted. She'd been cynical, sarcastic and plain rude. And he still hadn't gone away. He was still sitting next to her in nearly every class they had together. In fact, he was only trying harder. He invited her to everything and was disappointed, but never pressed the issue, when she declined. He invited her for coffee, which she never accepted, offered to take her out to lunch, at which she only rolled her eyes, and he walked her back to her dorm after class, even when she ignored him completely for the duration of the walk.

It was taking a lot out of her, to not accept his friendship when he seemed so clearly to be offering it. The thing was, she didn't understand it. And what she didn't understand, she couldn't rationalize. And that meant she'd have to take the chance, and that, in turn, meant she'd be setting herself up for disappointment.

But it was getting to be too hard. He tried too hard. And she liked him too much. And it didn't seem like he was getting any closer to giving up.

Like last week, when she had let him accompany her to the local bookstore, because he'd just fallen in step beside her and refused to go away. It had been a nice day and she just hadn't been in the mood for any fighting. He'd needled her favorite ice-cream flavor out of her (she should have known, really, knowing him, but he was so different when it was just them, that she forgot sometimes, that it was Fiyero Tiggular, Prince of the Vinkus, ladies man extraordinaire, she was talking to), he'd shown up outside the bookstore, holding two enormous ice-creams and he'd told her to please not say anything and just eat it, and she'd almost stopped to ask him why.

Why he was doing this. Why he was hanging out with her, steering her towards the park, buying her ice-cream, when he could be with Galinda, or his friends, doing whatever it was they did. But she'd stopped herself and forced herself to forget it. Why would she question him? Why would she ruin this, when she was having a good time? Because she was having a good time. With her room mate's boyfriend. Somewhere, deep down, she knew she should have issues with this but...if he didn't think it was too weird...then...she could simply enjoy the day, right? Because the sun was shining and there were no exams looming and she'd gotten her books and she did like ice-cream.

And she'd noticed that people stared less, even as she'd made her way through the town center. People always stared at her, of course, but it seemed that Fiyero's presence convinced people that she must have some degree of humanity or normalcy that made the famous Prince walk next to her, touching her arm and laughing with her. Not once had people in stores ever been more than polite to her, but when Fiyero was right next to her, everything changed. She was still being stared at, she was still a novelty. But no one dared to insult her, because Fiyero Tiggular was her friend.

She'd guess that he wasn't unaware of it completely but she also knew that he could never guess the depth of what his friendship meant to her. He was the first one who not only truly accepted her for who she was, but who liked what he saw. He was the first to take her to lunch, to treat her to dinner, to give her a present. To smile at her when she walked in without any trace of anything else hidden behind it. He was the first, aside from Galinda, to actively seek out her company because he enjoyed it, to look for her when she wasn't there, to always invite her, never forget her. He was the first man in her life who showed her kindness.

And Oz, she wouldn't, couldn't, shouldn't admit it, ever, to anyone. But she loved that he was her friend.

And she hated that she loved it so much.

Thank you for reading!

If I were to give out chocolate covered Fiyero's...would that make you review?