A/N: Hi, people! Ugh, I hate finals so much. REVIEW! Make me happy! Hey, Kari: FIYERO!
Disclaimer: I don't own it, it isn't mine. Especially Elphaba's memory, that's from Son of A Witch, only Liir dreams it and I put it in my own words.
Liir's stomach flipped and flopped as he held on for dear life to the end of Elphaba's broomstick. They all clasped it, hanging from it like monkeys from a tree limb, not seated as Elphaba usually was when she went abroad, for there wasn't enough room for all three of them. Shell they had left behind in Southstairs, as he'd asked. He'd get back Upside for certain, although the prison was, "certainly where the spoiled bastard belonged, locked up in a sex-deprived, solitary confinement, and probably castrated, too," as Elphaba so delicately put it.
"You hate your brother, then?" asked Fiyero.
"No, of course not, I love the little maniac."
"You have…complex…family dynamics."
Elphaba just gave him her look. She could manage to look haughty even when holding on to a ratty old broomstick with one hand and nearly dangling off into space.
The three of them flew up and up and up the long air shaft. Liir was clutching the broom tightly with both hands white-knuckled, but Elphaba and Fiyero each only used one hand to hang on with. The others they employed in grasping each other, green and ochre fingers intertwined in a symphony of color celebrating the novelty of touch, for to each of them and to Liir as well, touch was indeed a novelty.
Elphaba had scarce realized how seldom she had felt a human touch in the fifteen years since Fiyero had disappeared. In the mauntery, of course, she'd been one of many, indistinguishable- well, as indistinguishable as a green girl could ever hope to be- and no one had much to do with her. But, she remembered, suddenly, something she hadn't before- a flash of herself in a rocking chair, a woven basket at her feet, her hair pinned up wildly, her bare foot shooting out at intervals to rock the small basket and the infant within. Liir. Did that mean he was hers? But after that, not even Liir had much touched her. The only time she'd ever tried to show some motherliness, conventional motherliness anyhow, to him, and he'd shrugged her off and run away to play. That had wounded her more than she liked to admit. But she wasn't very good at motherhood, anyhow. Where would she have learned it? Melena had only been alive for the first eight years of Elphaba's existence, and half that she'd spent intoxicated, or else pregnant, and ignoring Elphaba as if the girl's greenness and other flaws would rub off somehow on the unborn child. Melena had been crazy and self-absorbed and had hated Elphaba quite a bit of the time, too, as well as blamed her for Nessa's deformities, to some extent. And Nanny, well, Nanny hadn't been much of a mother to Elphaba, having been so fixated on waiting on Nessarose hand and- well, foot, anyhow. Elphie had been mostly left to fend for herself. The prickly, sarcastic shell she had developed due to this wasn't any help in developing maternal feeling either. And so she and Liir had mostly needled each other, for sarcasm was what she was best at, and most comfortable in. They'd gotten in each other's way, stumbled awkwardly through each other's lives. But she didn't think herself an entirely horrible mother, if indeed she truly were a mother. Just…unconventional, sort of. But Liir himself wasn't a total failure, that had to count for something. He'd lost quite a bit of his baby fat, Elphaba noted, and with that gained at least a modicum of confidence. He wasn't entirely dull- well, at least not a full-fledged idiot- and she supposed he was determined enough, which, in the end, might be what mattered most.
Fiyero couldn't believe it. He'd been resigned to spending the rest of his life in that dank hole, and he had believed Elphie was dead, and he had guessed, from what he'd heard, that Sarima, Irji, Manek, Nor, and the sisters were dead as well. Yet here he was, flying out of Southstairs- flying! Borne by his magical, so-alive, Elphaba, with a boy that might well be their son, searching for his daughter. As they emerged into the sunlight and the wonderful, wonderful, brightness and color of the Emerald City, Fiyero clutched Elphaba's green fingers tighter, her touch a balm, a benediction- from one who believed she lacked a soul. That, of all her mysteries, had always puzzled Fiyero the most. How could she, she the most sensitive, beneath her thick skin, she the one with the most depth of anyone, she the most individual- yes, he'd say it again, for it was true- not have a soul? If anything, he thought, she believed she lacked a soul because she was so close to it, so in touch with it, so much herself, that she could not detect its presence because she was so used to it being so much a part of her.
Yes, Fiyero decided. That was it. It must be.