"I couldn't see anything else for myself, so I borrowed one of your shirts." Elphaba hoped she sounded as sexy as she thought she did, but probably came off so outrageous that it was embarrassing for the both of them. It wasn't every day she tried to seduce a married man.

"No, that's fine," Fiyero laughed. "You wear it better than I do." Although he usually wore pants with his shirts.

Elphaba strode over to the bed where he had waited patiently for her and seated herself as close as she could without sitting in his lap. Her bare knees leaned against his hip.

"I know what you're doing, Elphaba," Fiyero said plainly. He was neither condoning nor discouraging.

"How could you possibly know what I'm doing?" Elphaba scoffed. "You couldn't predict the movements of an apple in a fruit basket." She squeezed his shoulder and then slid her hand down to his elbow and gripped it tightly.

"You of all people would know about obligations." He was joking now.

Elphaba took it the wrong way. She was sure he was laughing at her. "Just because you live in the palace and you're married to a beautiful society goddess doesn't set you that much higher on the social ladder."

"No, but I think I'm much higher than someone who doesn't exist," Fiyero teased.

"What is one night going to do?" Elphaba was on a mission and when she was on a mission she was ruthless. Glinda wasn't her focus at the moment.

Fiyero, however, decided to turn the tables to further his own investigations. "Have you ever been in love, Elphaba?"

"What kind of question is that?" Elphaba snapped, narrowing her eyes to slits.

"One that you're avoiding."

"Fine." Elphaba bit her lip. "...no."

Fiyero patted her knee, which was still propped against him. "You're lying." Elphaba grimaced and he continued, "You had to think about it."

"Well, even if I have been in love...what's it to you?"

"I need to ask you something important...and you have to promise me you'll think about it."

"According to you, thinking automatically changes my answer," Elphaba mocked, still irritated by his last question.

Fiyero ignored her. "What is love?"

"Why don't you ask Glinda?" was the immediate retort.

"I did," Fiyero confessed, "and I'm not sure I'm in agreement with her answer anymore."

"Well, in that case, I suppose I'll have to think about this for you," she replied sarcastically and leaned her head against his shoulder. Somehow he felt that she was taking this seriously and pretending not to, but he couldn't be sure.

Finally, she voiced her answer. "It's undefinable. Why is it that when you look at your love you can't possibly decipher what they're thinking, despite the fact that they are much less intuitive than you are? When you look at them, you don't see anything else. You could be in the grandest castle and only see them, as if the universe has contorted itself to work around them, rather than through them like it does anyone else. It drives us to insanity and we still participate in it. It's madness and it's uncomfortable and it's useless. It's like being enslaved by your own freedom. It's like describing the taste of water. The eternal enigma. How was that?"

"More accurate than Glinda," Fiyero decided and then chose to divulge his soul. "I've been married to her for seven years and nothing's changed. Is it supposed to be like that?"

Elphaba laughed cruelly. "You're asking the wrong person."

"You had parents didn't you?" Fiyero shot back.

"For six years," she said bluntly and saw his eyes fall to the ground. "What do you think love is?"

Fiyero was surprised at her curiosity. The day Glinda asked him something philosophical would never come. Is that why he needed Elphaba? "It's kind of like politics, I guess- if I do something wrong Glinda can hold it against me forever. It's an Oz damn battle, is what it is." His answer was more to please her than anything else.

"I may not be experienced, but that doesn't quite sound like love to me." Elphaba rose to her knees and locked them on either side of his hips. She slung one arm around his neck and used the other hand to tilt his chin up. "So who do you propose is on the other end of my battle?"

Fiyero smiled up at her openly; hiding in plain sight. "I know who you're in love with, but it's not something I want to hear right now."

"Why?" She chose to make the first move. Tightening her hold on his arm, Elphaba leant down and kissed his neck, just below his jaw. "Because you have a wife?" She kissed her way towards his chest, but stopped just before his collarbone. "I had a husband." Kissing below his ear, she felt his jaw tighten. "And you were my lover."

Having had enough, Fiyero grasped Elphaba's shoulders and forced her back, so she was sitting flat on the bed in front of him. "The Rebellion is not a spouse and would you listen to yourself?" Fiyero ran a hand over his face and neck as if to remove any trace of her affection. "What you're saying...it's disgusting!"

Elphaba wasn't deterred. All of her life, people thought everything she did was disgusting. She had even come to think of herself as a despicable human being. But that's what suited her so well for this kind of life. She trailed two fingers over his thigh and around his hip. "You take such good care of Glinda." Her voice was low and inviting. "Don't you think you should take care of me too?"

"You just told me your husband takes care of you." He wasn't smiling anymore. It had evaporated like a child's favourite puddle.

"You just told me he wasn't my husband." Elphaba glanced up at him through her eyelashes. She rose up to her knees and pressed her chest in close to his. Their faces rested inches apart. She slowly flattened her palms against his face and then slid them down to his chest, undoing the buttons along the way. Her eyes fell to the skin and she gasped out of pure joy. The blue diamonds she had been missing for so long were still there, bright and bold like compass points. She kissed the first one, traced the outline with her lips and then moved on to the second, pressing her lips against it more hungrily.

Fiyero slid his hands up her thighs and rested them on her hips, holding her in place. "What do you want?"

Elphaba undid the rest of the buttons clumsily and slid the shirt past his shoulders. She kissed a few more diamonds, savouring every one. "Glinda is amazing in every way, but there are still some things I know I can do better than she can." The fact that he wasn't denying it made her more excited. She pushed down on his shoulders until he was flat on the bed.

Running her hands through his hair, caressing his face and kissing his chest, Elphaba made sure to memorize the feel of Fiyero's warmth beneath her fingertips and the shape of the diamonds she was kissing over and over. The heat was building until she couldn't take it anymore, slipped her shirt over her head and rolled back into the pillows so Fiyero could take control. He still didn't say anything and had a hardened look in his eyes, but he responded just the same.

Finally, their lips met. Crushing and desperate. Fiyero gripped Elphaba's hip and ran his other hand gently along her inner thigh. Elphaba's breath caught and she pulled away from his lips slightly, but he found her again and they continued. By now it was torment. Their lips moved faster and faster and Fiyero slipped his tongue between her teeth, running it along the roof of her mouth. He tugged at her hair and Elphaba gave up.

It was better than she remembered, raw and more frantic than before because this time she had spent seven years keenly aware of all she was missing. She was everywhere, but he was controlled. Elphaba slid her hands down his back and pressed him in deeper, but he didn't respond. She was hurting emotionally and he didn't seem to notice. He just continued with his own pattern and Elphaba was forced to follow or forfeit.

But he kept going. Everything was losing its coherence to Elphaba. She heard the blood rushing past her ears and she knew it just wasn't the urgency of their movements. A thumping noise was echoing through her brain and kept getting louder and louder with every heaving breath she took. If her heart was pumping this loudly, maybe it was trying to tell her something. Or maybe it wouldn't stop until the message was forced out. It was terrifying.

And it was growing even louder and she couldn't stop it. She couldn't hold it in anymore. As the final heat surged through her, she screamed out her passion.

"I love you, Fiyero! I love you!"

As he eased himself next to her, Fiyero didn't bother looking her in the eyes, feeling that it would be more painful than avoiding them.

"I'm sorry," she blurted, the anger seeping from her voice. She sat up straight and tried to keep her posture strong and firm. "That wasn't a good-"

"It's nothing. We just need a good night's sleep," Fiyero interrupted rudely and flopped onto his side, facing away from her. He hadn't meant to sound that way and wished he could take it back. It had just come out. His brain was screaming, I'm confused, Elphaba! I'm confused!

"Goodnight," he added tenderly, trying to replace the harshness of his earlier tone.

"Goodnight," Elphaba murmured, feeling degraded and rejected. She leant back and watched him for a few moments. At least he wasn't lying there in self-loathing, regretting her presence, because his breathing was shallow and he didn't seem to mind her shifting closer to him. In a last attempt at demolishing the empty feeling that was growing inside of her, she wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her forehead into his back. Part of her hoped that he could feel the wetness of her tears against his skin.

Disappointed that she had not seen it coming sooner, Elphaba sat alone with the covers tucked under arms, reading and re-reading the note Fiyero had left her. He wrote that he had left early that morning. He wrote that he was returning to Glinda. He wrote that she could stay as long as she wished. He didn't write that he loved her. The note was empty; the writing plain. Even though it had been her test, Elphaba felt that she was the one who failed it.

As soon she had noticed his absence, Elphaba felt all of the problems that had accumulated on her shoulders that she was left to face alone. There was Rose back at the house, growing and growing. How would Elphaba ever be able to look at her again? And the whole Rebellion. She was the poster girl for failure. Everything was annihilated. Their plans, their hopes. Everything was gone because she didn't execute the plan properly. How could she show her face?

And on top of it all, Fiyero had left her more broken and hurt than ever. Giving her a taste of his love and then tearing it away as quickly as he could. Had he known the damage he inflicted or was it an accident? Either way she hated him for it.

Yet, she was still hopelessly devoted.

The only thing to do was for Elphaba to pack up and leave. She hid the Grimmerie inside of her cloak and made sure she was completely covered. It was a long, lonely road back to the Emerald City.