AN: Thanks for all the reviews :). Glad you liked the Galinda-slap, hihi.

I'm not going to finish posting (and possibly even writing) this before I go to London, so I'm going to have to leave you un-updated for a few days... sorry :(. Probably on Days of summer, too. But I'll update again soon after I get back!

You'll all like this chapter, I think.

Chapter 26. Another now

Galinda slammed the door to her dorm room shut behind her, eyes flaring.

"Elphaba Thropp," she said angrily, stalking into the room, "I thought we had agreed to meet at the Primrose Café at seven. I get that you're not hungry, but you have to eat and… Elphie?" she asked, her anger quickly turning into concern when she saw her roommate sitting on her bed with a notebook open in front of her, crying. "What's the matter? Are you okay?"

Elphaba sniffled and wiped her nose with her sleeve. "I'm fine."

"You're not fine." Galinda sat down beside her and peered at the notebook. "What is that?"

"It's…" Elphaba slowly ran her fingers across the cover. "It's something Fiyero gave to me."

She winced at the loud squeal that escaped her best friend. "Oh, Elphie! What's in it? A declaration of love? All the songs he wrote for and about you when you were still together and when you were apart? His diary?" She giggled at her own joke, but her eyes widened when Elphaba looked down. "Oh my Oz. His diary?"

"Sort of," Elphaba admitted. "It's… it's about Aliyra, and about me… he said something about his mother helping him find a way to cope with everything and I think this was it. I think he wrote it all down… and he wanted me to read it."

"Well, what does it say?" Galinda asked, bouncing up and down on the bed excitedly.

Elphaba shook her head. "I can't tell you, Glin," she said apologetically. "You wouldn't want me to tell Fiyero about the things you write in your diary, either, if you had let me read it. It's confidential."

"Okay, I can understand that," said Galinda. "But can you at least tell me if it changes anything for you?"

That was something Elphaba had been wondering herself. "Well… I understand his relationship with Aliyra a whole lot better now." She caught her lower lip between her teeth, chewing it thoughtfully. "And the way he felt about me… it seems like he's been having a lot of doubts about his own intentions from the beginning. He wasn't sure if he loved me for the right reasons, but… but he did love me. And after a while, apparently he realised that…"

She stared down at the notebook again, thinking about everything she'd read. She understood. Everything he had written made sense to her. She only wished she'd have known all this before.

"What if it's too late?" she said softly, fidgeting with the notebook as she looked down.

Galinda understood what she meant immediately and wrapped her arms around her roommate in a hug. "It's never too late, Elphie. He knows now that you still love him, and you know that he still loves you."

"Do I?" Elphaba asked, her voice breaking.

Galinda's heart went out to the green girl. "Oh, Elphie… how can you still doubt that? You just said you've read this – don't tell me it doesn't say how much he loves you. I know he does."

"It does say that," Elphaba admitted quietly. "But…"

"No 'but', Elphie." Galinda shook her head. "Just accept it, because it's true."

Elphaba sighed.

"Come on." Galinda held out a hand. "Let's go have dinner. You can think about it, process it, and then tomorrow you can go talk to him. Okay?"

"Okay," Elphaba agreed, accepting Galinda's hand. She surprised both the blonde and herself by suddenly hugging Galinda. "Thank you."

Galinda smiled and hugged her friend back. "You're welcome."

The next afternoon found Elphaba sitting underneath a willow tree near Suicide Canal, re-reading Fiyero's journal for the third time.

She just didn't know what to think… or what to do. She loved him. Of course she did. She had never stopped loving him, but she couldn't just go to him and apologise and everything would be alright again… or could she? Was Galinda right and did he still love her, too? She could hardly believe that, but why else would he have given her his journal and asked her to forgive him? Would he have done that if he hated her?

On the other hand, the fact that he didn't hate her didn't mean that he loved her. Maybe he just wanted to go back to being friends. Could she do that? Be nothing more than friends with him?

But then she thought of the months they had spent either apart or fighting, and she knew she could do it, if that was what he really wanted. She would take anything he'd give her. She loved him too much. She just wanted him back in any possible way, and being his friend would be countless times better than not having any contact with him at all.

She was still musing over all that when Fiyero joined her.

He pushed the low branches of the willow tree aside and smiled carefully when he saw her. "Hey."

She looked up from the notebook and quickly wiped her eyes with her sleeves, hoping he hadn't seen the tears in them. "Hey." She scooted over a little to make room for him and he sat down beside her, looking at the notebook.

"So?" he asked, looking like he was already bracing himself for the answer. "What do you think?"

"I think…" She leant her head back against the tree trunk, closing her eyes for a moment. "I think you were right," she said.

She opened her eyes again and looked at him. "Everything you said was true," she said, her voice thick with pent-up tears. "I was being an insensitive witch, Fiyero, and I'm so sorry. I just… I didn't understand."

"It wasn't your fault," he said. "I didn't even try to explain it to you. I was a jerk."

"And I was a bitch." She let out a mirthless laugh. "I just… I can't believe you asked me for forgiveness," she admitted, shaking her head. "If anyone should ask for forgiveness, it's me."

He gently took the notebook from her. "So… shall we just forgive one another, then?" he asked hopefully.

She looked at him. "Just like that?" she asked, incredulous.

He nodded. "Just like that."

She took a deep breath. Then she nodded. "Okay."

They sat awkwardly for a few moments, neither of them saying anything. Then Fiyero spoke up.

"This is ridiculous," he said. "We're both adults. We can talk normally to one another. We never had those weird, awkward silences we're having now."

"We also never had any fights," Elphaba said softly, lowering her eyes. "Things change."

"Not all things."

She looked back up at him.

"Fae…" He shifted a little and took one of her hands in his own, feeling that familiar shot of electricity shooting up his arm at her touch. Oz, how he had missed touching her. "I'm sorry," he said. "I am so, so sorry, about everything… but I know where I stand now. I love you. I never stopped loving you. And I love you because you're you, and not because you remind me of Aliyra, or for any other reason."

She averted her gaze. "I'm sorry, too," was all she said.

He exhaled slowly. "So…"

She fidgeted with the hem of her dress, clearly uncomfortable. "Yeah."

When she didn't say anything else, he inquired carefully, "And you…" He trailed off.

"Everything I sang in that song yesterday was true," she said, still refusing to look at him. "And what I said afterwards was true, too."

He remembered, of course.

"Fae… do you still love me?"

"Do you even have to ask?"

That was probably as clear an answer as he was going to get from her, he knew. She hated displaying her feelings for all to see. And especially now, to him, she wouldn't tell him what she was feeling. Not exactly. He had hurt her too much for that and she was afraid of getting hurt again.

He hated himself for that, knowing how much effort it had cost him to get close to her to begin with, but he was determined to fix it. He had to, and somehow, he would.

Suddenly, he couldn't take this awkward, stupid silence anymore and in a heartbeat, he made a decision. He pulled Elphaba to him and kissed her.

She tensed up in his arms for a moment. A long moment. A very, very long moment. Eventually he pulled away, only to find her staring at him with wide eyes.

"Sorry," he said, feeling like even more of a jerk than he had before. "I, um… I just had to do that, I guess."

"But…" She shook her head. "You and I, I mean… we… we broke up," she argued weakly.

"I love you," he said simply. "And I think you don't really hate me, either… do you?"

She opened and closed her mouth a few times. Then she lowered her eyes and muttered, "Of course I don't."

That giddiness returned and he couldn't keep a broad, excited grin off his face. It wasn't an 'I love you', but it was probably as close to it as he was going to get from her right now.

"So we broke up." He scooted closer to her and put his arm around her, drawing her closer. "And now we're getting back together."

"But –" she started protesting again, but he cut her off with another kiss. "Fiyero –" He kissed her again, effectively shutting her up. She struggled weakly, but when he tightened his grip around her, she gave up and kissed him back.

He grinned and pulled away for a moment to rest his forehead against hers. "You okay?"

She kissed him again in reply and he held her even closer, thanking every deity he knew that he had her back.

"Fiyero," she murmured between kisses, gasping for breath a little. "It's not so easy, you know."

"I know," he said before capturing her lips once more.

She tried to pull away. "We need to talk everything out."

"And we will." He brushed her cheek with his lips. "Just not right now."

"Mm." She already forgot what she had been about to say. "Okay."

He smiled and they kissed for a long time – soft, light kisses; nothing extreme, but somehow these kisses seemed more intense, seemed to hold more meaning, than any of their previous kisses ever had.

She went with him to his dorm room afterwards, but when he tried to kiss her again, she stopped him.

"I mean it, Fiyero," she said. "We need to talk about what happened."

He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, sinking down onto the bed. "I know."

"I don't know if I can do this." Elphaba hugged her knees to her chest. "It wasn't really your fault, you know… it was mine. This was about more than Cedence, more than Aliyra, more even than just you and me… it was mostly about me being scared to mess everything up again, the way I always do." She sighed and blew a strand of raven hair away from her face. "I'm a walking disaster, Fiyero. You saw what happened. That could happen again. When I get scared, I just… close down and start looking for reasons to run away from what I'm feeling, and to make the fear go away… and in this case, that was by breaking up with you. I won't say the situation with Aliyra didn't bother me, because it did, more than I can say, but… but it wasn't really the reason. We could have worked it out – easily – if it weren't for me being a coward."

He shook his head and scooted closer to her. "Fae…" He put his arm around her tentatively. When she didn't pull away, he pulled her into his side. "I know you were scared, and I'm sorry. I should have seen that and I should have tried to help you through it. But I was so caught up in my own problems that I didn't see it. And even after you broke up with me, and… and when you came to Adurin Iir…" He grimaced. "I was a jerk. I was so mean to you, and I want you to know that I didn't mean any of those things. I'm really sorry."

"I know." She leant her head against his shoulder. "Me, too."

They sat in silence for a while. Fiyero started rubbing her shoulders and she sighed softly, leaning against him. Her muscles were so tense that he had to work hard to get them to relax and he smiled when her eyes fluttered shut.

"Yero?"

"Yeah?"

She opened her eyes to look at him. "You're not a jerk."

He chuckled softly and squeezed her shoulder. "You're not a liar. I knew that, I just…"

"I know." She looked down. "You're not a cheater, either. I know you were just upset and a little drunk, and that's why you kissed Cedence."

"And you're not a witch." He sighed and dropped his hands from her shoulders. "I'm so sorry I said that, Fae… I always promised myself that I would be the one person that would always love you for who you are, skin and sarcasm and magical powers and everything… and I do – love you for who you are, I mean – but I was just mad over everything and it slipped out, and I'll never forgive myself for that."

She snorted softly. "Don't be overdramatic."

"I'm not."

"You are." She sat up a little and looked at him. "What about the time I told you that you should just 'go back to dancing through life – or maybe you should try dancing through death, so that you can take Aliyra along'?" She used her fingers as quote marks. "If you're not going to forgive yourself for what you said, then I'm not going to forgive myself for what I said, because I said some pretty horrible things, too."

They fell back into silence. Fiyero resumed massaging her shoulders and she dropped her head back against his shoulder.

"Fae?" he whispered.

She didn't open her eyes. "Hmm?"

He pressed a kiss to her shoulder. "I love you."

She smiled, eyes still closed. She didn't say it back, though. He knew why that was, but he was determined to work everything out with her and make it right again. The way it had been before, only better. He would apologise a thousand times if he had to and he would do anything to get her to say it to him again.

He could wait for that. They were together again now, and that was all that mattered.

They had time.

"Fiyero?" Elphaba murmured. "I've been wanting to ask you something."

"Hmm?"

She turned her head to look at him, slightly puzzled. "Why is there a handprint on your cheek?"