A/N: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Long time, no write. Whatever.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

With her newfound memories, Elphaba was more scared and confused than before.

"You will pay later," Yackle had said. "Oh, how you will pay."

Hadn't she paid enough? Wasn't she finished? Hadn't she endured enough punishment yet?

She'd lost her lover- but she'd reclaimed him, shattered though they both were. She'd been murdered, but she wasn't dead. And now, now, she had more than ever before: a home, a love, a son, a stepdaughter, a best friend, and a- whatever the hell Cass was.

Had she been punished enough?

From the age of not-quite-three, death had stalked her. Turtle Heart. All those Quadlings, dead for no reason at all other than pure and simple greed. Dr. Dillamond. Ama Clutch. Several of her comrades- they and those they had killed. Fiyero. The cook, if he counted. Manek. Irji. Sarima and her sisters. Morrible, whatever Elphaba's own role in it had truly been. Nessarose. Killyjoy, him too, and all his brethren. The crows. The bees. Finally, herself.

Then Death had taken his leave of her, or added it all up and decided she'd come up short.

First, she herself, awakening bruised and burned in a hateful prison cell. Then Liir, who though he had never been dead she had thought him gone from her forever, had been returned to her, then Fiyero, most miraculously. She'd been granted Glinda in her life again; then they'd found Nor, disappeared and likely dead too.

But she hadn't been. Against all odds, none of them were. The old corn exchange was even bereft of squatters, unusual in the still poverty-ridden City of Fake Emeralds. The city glittered, but a precious gem it was not.

Had she endured enough?

Have you paid yet, my poppet?

Yes, yes she had, damn it! Neither Yackle nor Fate nor anything else could begrudge her her small happiness. She had earned it through thirty-eight years of loss and hate and hardship. Couldn't she just have this now? Love, children, friendship. It wasn't so much to ask for. Most her age had had it for twenty years more than she. She was owed it, by Lurline or the Unnamed God or Kumbricia or Fate or the universe. Or…herself.

Her childhood, spent neglected in service to a cause in which she did not believe and to her sister. Her college days, still among her happiest but even then Morrible had tried to recruit her to yet another cause she despised. And then her own cause, the one that consumed her whole for far too long. Her Fiyero, who consumed her body for far too short a time and her heart forever. A year in a coma, seven in denial and dissociation. Her pilgrimage for forgiveness. Then her quest to find Sarima and her family. The knowledge that the man she hated most, the cause of all her miseries, the Wonderful Fucking Wizard, was her father. Nessa's death, the farm brat, the shoes. Those damned shoes. She wondered vaguely where they were now, and why she had wanted them so much. Her nervous breakdown, so long in coming, her "death."

She had. She had paid more than anyone should have to, and why? For her green skin? Her conscience, which the rest of Oz seemed to lack?

WHAT MORE DID SHE OWE THE WORLD?

What had she done to deserve all of this?

For how long was she doomed to pay?

…

Elphaba sat unmoving at the kitchen table, her head in her hands, thoughts still racing. She started at the touch of Fiyero's hand on her shoulder.

"Good morning," he said.

She lifted her head. "Morning," she answered, the sound of her own voice in actual reality, outside the confines of her own head, seeming almost surreal.

"What's wrong, Fae?" Fiyero asked

She looked up into his face. She hadn't realized she had become easy to read, even to him who had known her better and more intimately than anyone, and during some of the years she was at her most obscure. But still…

"How can you tell?" she asked sharply.

"Tell what?"

Liir was looking at them again; but she didn't know how to talk to him since their odd little moment earlier and so she hadn't spoken to him at all.

"How can you tell something's wrong?" she went on, turning back to Fiyero.

"I know you, Elphaba. There is nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with familiarity, with intimacy."

She relaxed slightly, tenseness seeping out of her. "I guess."

"You know. You know that you know. Now what's wrong?"

"I remembered something." Out of the corner of her eye she saw Liir grow more alert. Cass and Nor slumbered on, oblivious.

"You did?"

"From the morning…before." She looked up at him again. "I knew, Fiyero. I knew I was pregnant that morning."

"What?" asked Fiyero, shocked. "Then how-"

"I didn't process it!" she cried defensively, shooting up from her seat. He calmed her with a hand on her arm and gave her a bemused look. She started breathing normally again and continued. "I refused to acknowledge it. I thought I could deal with it…after." She ducked her head and went on.

"I couldn't remember it because I repressed everything that had to do with you. I didn't realize I'd given birth because it would have brought everything back and I couldn't face it," she continued in the same quiet unemotional tone. "I couldn't deal with losing you. I never came to terms with it." Rich sorrow poured like soft fine earth back into her voice. "I couldn't deal with it because I love you more than anything, and I'm so afraid of it." Leaving him with her revelation, as she so often did, she turned to Liir.

"I know you thought I loved Chistery more than you, Liir, but I didn't. Chistery, Killyjoy, all the animals- they were safe outlets for my affection. I knew you were my son, but I couldn't allow myself that knowledge. I couldn't love you because-" her voice broke painfully, gravid with unspeakable sadness- "if I loved you, Liir, I would have to realize that Fiyero was dead!"

Liir couldn't speak. He had never seen her open up like this. He had never seen such horrible pain, either. Fiyero himself could remember only one other time she had been even remotely like this- in her little room, the first time they met after Shiz, after he told her about his family and she blurted that she was married, but not to a man, and inexplicably began to cry.

"Oh, Elphaba-Fabala-Elphie-Fae," he said now, almost crying himself, and as she turned back to face him he buried her in his arms. After a long moment, simultaneously, the two opened their arms and looked at Liir. Slowly, unbelievingly, he stood and walked toward them. When he reached them, they folded him into their embrace, and he felt years of unbestowed love as poignant as Elphaba's pent-up sorrow wash over him, and he stood awash in it, finally belonging.