Glinda giggled under her breath and tiptoed into Fiyero's office. She grinned and then threw her arms around him from behind. "Guess who?"

"Oh no, is the ghost back again?" Fiyero joked, unravelling her grip around his neck.

She bent over him and kissed his forehead. "You've been working so hard lately!" she exclaimed. "What could possibly be so important?" Fiyero leaned back in his cushiony chair and pushed away from the desk, where the stack of papers he had been going through continued to mock him. Glinda took the opportunity and jumped into his lap, with her arms still circling his neck. "Is it top secret?" she said sullenly.

"No, no, you can know. Just don't go telling everyone."

Glinda giggled again. It was habitual. "This is about Pfannee's surprise party again, isn't it? I swear it was Avaric who told her!"

Fiyero shook his head slightly. "The Wizard's really paranoid about something right now. He's tightening security around Southstairs."

The humour sapped out of Glinda's expression. "Should we be tightening security around us too?"

It didn't take a lot of theorizing for Fiyero to see her point. If there were people targeting the Wizard at this moment, wouldn't they also be targeting Oz's powerhouse couple? "I think we'll be okay. Just be careful, Glin."

"Alright," she said sheepishly.

"Promise?"

"Of course," she promised and giggled as he kissed her nose. "Can we go out tonight?"

"What did you have in mind?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe we could just walk around..." Glinda took his hands in hers. "Hold hands..." She kissed him. "Kiss a little bit..." She snuggled into him. "You've been so tense lately."

He pulled her closer and she inhaled deeply; breathing him in. "You know I've been under a lot of stress, Glinda." It wasn't an understatement. Every day he was called out for duty and marched around. He never would have thought that as the captain he could feel marched around, but in truth it was the military that moved Fiyero, not Fiyero who moved the military. Even the Wizard was putting him on high alert, having called him in personally four times this week, which alone wasn't easy seeing as that mechanical head gave him chills. Then the Wizard had asked him to take an inventory of Southstairs. Yes, Fiyero had to go into Southstairs and put together lists of prisoners. Doesn't that sound like fun?

There were three types of prisoners in Southstairs: the guilty who were not to be crossed, the innocent who cowered in their corners and the Animals who sat listlessly in their cages. It angered Fiyero that they weren't even allowed out in the open, but left to the rage of the brutal guards.

Needless to say, a few hours in Southstairs had left a permanent depression on Fiyero's soul and now he was required to make a trip once a week to that hellhole to ease the Wizard's paranoia. Things like that he couldn't explain to Glinda.

"You're thinking again!" Glinda teased and then took a more serious tone. "I don't like when you do that, it makes you unhappy."

"Me?" Fiyero faked surprise. "When am I unhappy?"

"Everyone gets sad at some point," Glinda replied pointedly. "Even me..." She trailed off for a moment, remembering things that she'd rather not remember. "But that's why I do my charity work! And that's why you should join me!" Fiyero began to protest, but Glinda shushed him. "That's a worry for another time, now go get ready and we'll be off!" She hopped up gracefully, despite her heavy gown, and pulled him up along with her.

Heading up the spiral staircase to their private room in the palace of the Wizard, Glinda and Fiyero changed into dressier outfits that would leave the public in awe of their idyllic beauty. If there was one thing Glinda Upland knew how to do more efficiently than anyone else, it was make an appearance. Even without makeup and overdressing she made a statement. Her soft, but piercing blue eyes; curly blonde hair and naturally pale skin worked so flawlessly with her soft features that it seemed almost unnatural.

As Fiyero waited on the bed Glinda perched herself in front of the mirror and fixed a sparkly, bold earring on her ear. It all happened so fast that Fiyero sometimes had a hard time seeing Glinda as a wife. There are ways that she had grown: she trimmed her hair shorter, filled out some, and put an end to the snobbish attitude, but underneath it all she was still that girl from Shiz who would stop at nothing to be loved by all. It reminded him that he was exactly the same. But then again, he thought, maybe that's what tied them together so strongly: their insecurities. Then another thought followed. Did that mean they were only using each other?

He quickly shook off the thought. Glinda was wonderful. Fiyero looked at her and instantly felt his heart melt and his emotions soften into happiness. Then his brain kicked in once again.

You look at your mother and it makes you happy. You look at a puppy and it makes you happy. What the hell makes Glinda any different from your mother and a puppy?

So the thought struck Fiyero. If he still felt such a strong friendship with Glinda, what was the purpose of marriage? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was money. Lots of money. And they were extremely useful to the Wizard and Madame Morrible out in public. They were the messengers. So if someone were to shoot the messenger, well...the Wizard was still safe. Surveying Glinda again, Fiyero thought it through. For the most part he had always considered their relationship healthy. They had sex and they went out together. They talked about everything. In fact, Fiyero credited himself with knowing more about Glinda than anyone else did and he knew she could say the same for him. Why was it that he still felt the same around Glinda as he did the day she ran into him on Dirt Boulevard? And why was it that he could meet Elphaba on the street and be having sex with her not six hours later? What separated marriage from friendship with a fancy ceremony?

And for that matter, what the hell was love anyway?

"Fiyero," Glinda giggled, "I love the expression you make when you're confused."

Fiyero stopped his thinking and looked at her amusedly. "Doesn't that mean the face I'm always making?" He rose from the bed and stood beside Glinda, who reached up and brushed his nose with a fluffy powder brush.

"That's true," she said playfully, "I suppose I just love your face in general." She stood up and kissed him tenderly. "Are you ready to go or do you need to touch up your makeup?"

"No, I think I'll do this one au natural."

"Alright, then." Glinda looped her arm through Fiyero's and skipped out of the room, descending the stairs and heading straight through the foyer to the main doors. Every time she walked out of the doors she felt energized and put together. Public outings were almost an addiction.

As they walked through and out into the crisp night, the guards saluted them. Glinda smiled warmly and Fiyero nodded politely. All of the way down the boulevard people stopped and watched Glinda and Fiyero crack jokes as they walked past brightly lit store windows, as if trying to gather up some of the happiness left behind by their starry smiles. And as they wandered past, every person thought the same thing: there goes the image of perfection, not yet trundled over by the weight of the world.

It was true and they both knew it. Fiyero and Glinda had never been through anything overly difficult to overcome. They rarely argued and they weren't worried for their wellbeing. There weren't troubles with wealth and only minimal safety concerns.

Fiyero and Glinda walked together in a comfortable silence, not like any silence they shared with anyone else. It wasn't stifling, but rather comforting, knowing that in these rare moments when their brains were whirring, they were still in it together.

Finally, they found themselves at the end of the street, where the strings of lights looped around and headed back in the other direction and the stores gradually became less inviting and less lit. But there at the end a band played quietly; invitingly. Fiyero perked up under the weight of a new idea and offered a hand to Glinda. "May I have this dance, Lady Upland?"

Glinda suppressed the colour that was rising in her cheeks. "Here?"

"Of course."

Hesitantly, Glinda placed her hand in Fiyero's and the other gently on his shoulder. He wrapped an arm around her waist and they swayed back and forth in perfect time with the music. The lights reflected brightly in Glinda's eyes and she smiled that affectionate, gentle smile that would make anyone feel at home instantly. Glinda was home. She was comforting and caring, if not slightly unsure of herself and her decisions, but that only made her more endearing. Fiyero was proud that she was all his.

Suddenly a question came to his mind from his long and arduous thinking session earlier. "Glinda, I need to ask you something."

Her eyes twinkled. "This sounds important."

"What is love?"

Glinda blinked. "That is a very heavy question." Yet it did provoke many thoughts in her head, not that she wanted to even try to sort them out.

"Can you try to answer it for me?" Fiyero begged.

"But shouldn't you already know what it is?" Glinda asked suspiciously, tightening her grip on his shoulder.

"I do," Fiyero said honestly. The statement was as pure as it gets. "But I don't know..."

Glinda tilted her head bewilderedly, wordlessly conveying her point.

"I think you could do it, Glin, I know you can."

Inhaling deeply, Glinda bit her lip. One of the many pretty habits Fiyero adored. "Well...I was always told it was something shared... it's that feeling of trust when you know that no matter what you do, there is someone who isn't going to judge you. It's the person that knows every detail about you and loves you all the more for it." She glanced at the large diamond embedded in the engagement ring she never removed from her hand. "I mean... we use the word love for everything, and I'm hugely guilty of it myself, but when someone tells you they love you, it's because they couldn't possibly imagine feeling the same way about another person." She smiled, clearly proud of herself. "How was that?"

Fiyero grinned. "That was amazing, Glinda." He felt reassured, as she had just spoken his exact feelings for her. Something like that couldn't just happen by chance; it meant she felt the same way and that's what their love was. In his sudden rush of happiness, he twirled Glinda around and she smiled, sharing in his feelings.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Emerald City, Elphaba cried out as she delivered her baby girl and wished with all of her heart that her pain could end the way her mother's did.