A/N: I'm not at rehearsal. I'm supposed to be but I'm not. I'm sick. I should be being productive and typing my Tale of Two Cities summer reading journal, but I'm not. This is more fun. And it's summer. So I'm executively giving myself a break. Besides, I wrote it, I just didn't type it, and I'll bet not all that many people have actually started at all yet and here I am halfway done. So…ha! Also, I'm going with the assumption that the head of each mauntery is known as Mother Maunt.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

"What- what- what?" spluttered Fiyero. "From- that time- at Glinda's?"

"Yes," said Elphaba. "If- I don't know. It's just a feeling."

"So you can't tell me whether you've had a child, but you can tell me you're going to?"

"I was younger then, and busy, and I had adrenaline flowing nearly constantly! How was I supposed to know? And back then I was less the Witch I am now!" she hissed.

"I'm sorry! It's just a little much to take in, that's all."

They were quiet for several moments. Elphaba rearranged herself and lay her head on Fiyero's shoulder.

"Yero," she said, finally, "I think we need to find out whether or not Liir is our son."

"So do I," said Fiyero. Elphaba thought he appeared to be taking the deaths of his family remarkably well; but then again he had been separated from them for fifteen years and had more than likely resigned himself to never seeing them again. And Elphaba knew better than most that the way different people dealt with grief was different. Most, for example, did not slather themselves in blood and then fall into a coma for year, then lose all sense of self for seven more years. Most people were more efficient, or at least less all-consumed, in their dealings with grief than that.

Frex, for example, had lost two loves within five years of each other. And he had managed to be a better father than Elphaba was a mother, even to the child whose parentage he was unsure of, even to the child he didn't like (and whose parentage he should have questioned).

"But who would know whether or not you gave birth to Liir?" asked Fiyero.

"The maunts at the mauntery of St. Glinda, here in the city," she said. "They knew Liir's age, they sent him with me to the outpost mauntery. They assigned me to care for him before that- they must know."

"So let's find out," said Fiyero.

…

The pair woke Liir and Nor in the morning.

"Did you two have fun last night?" asked Liir snarkily. He was in a bad mood from having slept on the floor. Elphaba glared at him.

"I hate to repeat myself, but it's too early to be witty, so shut up, you useless boy, or I'll remove your testicles with my foot!"

"You've used that three times," observed Liir.

"Oh, go jump in a fishwell!" snapped Elphaba.

Nor snorted.

"I don't get it," said Fiyero.

"We're going to go…buy some more blankets," said Elphaba. "And food. Liir, stay here with Nor."

"Fine," said Liir.

…

"We'd like to see the head maunt here," said Fiyero brashly. The young novice looked from the green woman to the Arjiki man warily.

"I don't know-"

"Let them in, Sister Asile," said the Mother Maunt, coming regally down the stairs. "I know this one."

…

"I remember you very well, Sister Saint Aelphaba," said the older woman, pouring them tea in her office. "Miss Elphaba, is it now?"

Elphaba nodded, somewhat subdued by the familiar environment.

"You came to us bloody from wounds not your own on a Lurlinemas Eve, practically sleepwalking, not to mention half-dead despite that you were physically in perfect health," the maunt went on.

"Yes," said Elphaba, shifting in her seat, obviously uncomfortable. "But what I was- that is, what we were- that is- what we were wondering," she finally managed, having some difficulty speaking, "is- did I bear a child?"

"Oh," said Mother Maunt, considerably less than shocked, "I was wondering when that question would come to be asked." She sighed. "Yes, indeed you did, Miss Elphaba. A boy. We called him Liir."

"But why did you never tell me?"

"But we did, Miss Elphaba. We did."

"What!" Elphaba reeled back in her chair, stunned.

"You refused to acknowledge it. Over and over again, after you came out of your coma, whenever we mentioned your relationship to Liir, or what had happened to send you here, or especially who the boy's father was- you would keep saying, 'No, no, I'm not a woman, I'm not a person, no, no, it's all my fault,' and then you would get hysterical and have to be knocked out with one of Mother Yackle's concoctions."

Elphaba looked shocked. "But I don't-"

"You don't remember it? That's what Mother Yackle said would happen, from that and the other concoction she gave you."

"Other…concoction?"

"Yes. You also had terrible nights, my dear child, shakes and sweats and delirium, and you refused to be touched. Mother Yackle, crazy as she was, insisted she be allowed to give you a remedy, and she did. But the two together made you forget."

…

Liir and Nor stared at each other for a while.

"So," said Liir at last, "What- I mean, what happened?"

"Oh," sighed Nor. "You were asleep, weren't you, when I explained it."

"Yes."

"Well then," she groaned, "all right."

"When I was captured," she began, "they brought us to the Wizard. Mama and the others were taken away, but the Wizard kept me with him. He called me an 'insurance policy,' I guess he meant against Auntie Witch, but I didn't know that then. He told me that my family was safe and busy, and they had to help investigate my father's death, and that Irji had to go to boys' school. I believed him. And then, later, he…" she trailed off. "I don't remember much. I didn't spend much time in my head, you know what I mean?"

"Yes," said Liir, even though he didn't.

"So," said Nor, "Auntie Witch and Papa. Are you…?"

"I don't know!" said Liir. "I wish people would quit asking me that."

"I think you are their child. I think you should be. The magical love child of-"

"You are so strange," said Liir, laughing.

"Oh really? Well-"

But Nor was interrupted by the sound of knocking on the skylight. Liir locked up and saw a face peering down at him.

"Cass!" he cried.

…

Outside the mauntery, Elphaba enveloped Fiyero in a long kiss.

"Whoa, Fae," he said. "What was that for? Not that I'm complaining."

"I never really told you how much I missed you," she said. "I had a nervous breakdown, that should tell you something. But also-" she paused. "Once I was myself again, at Kiamo Ko, that empty space next to me at night was full of the worst pain imaginable. I would wake up with the bittersweet taste of your name on my lips, my arms full of air. I swore I could smell you. If I ever dreamed, it was then, of you."

"Oh, Fae," he said. She was crying now, and trying not to, and wiping her eyes ferociously. He thought it must be being here again, where she had tried her best to bury the pain of his 'death' by burying her own self, that had forced these emotions out of her. That and maybe she really was pregnant.

"Well, that's as close as I'll get to being nostalgic," she said, trying weakly to return to the shelter of her sarcasm. He held her tightly.

"Oh, Elphaba," he murmured. "I love you, I really do, I know I do."