It had been awhile since he'd had time to get away. Since the first time he'd set his eyes on the baby, he'd tried to see her once a week. But this time, it had been three.

"Mr. Tiggular, so good to see you!"

They all knew him, now. They smiled at him as he entered, not bothering to ask where he was going or how long he'd be. It was impossible to say if he'd be an hour or four, it really depended on how entranced he got with her.

He'd named her. He called her Fae, but only when he thought nobody was listening. Truthfully, one of the nurses had overheard it one night and found it perfect, told the others, and it was her unofficial name. Fiyero couldn't help naming the little dark-eyed beauty after Elphaba, though he realized now that he might struggle with calling Elphaba that if he ever found her again.

"She's not so colicky, now," he commented from his place in the rocking chair when a nurse entered. The last time he'd been, she'd been a little under the weather, and it had driven him insane wondering how she was while he was tied up with useless Glinda appearances.

"She was barely colicky to begin with," the woman, Elda, smiled. "It's so odd that she never cries."

"Some people just don't cry," he murmured absently, staring at the little bundle in his arms. "She smiles a lot."

Fae certainly did smile often. She would coo with pleasure and stretch her arms toward him when he arrived to see her. She grasped at his fingers, his sleeves, his hair, looking amused with herself the entire time. In the fifteen months since he'd seen Elphaba, Fiyero had never felt so near contentedness as when he was looking at that baby.

"Sir, it's hardly my place, but I have to admit that it's quite clear you wish to adopt this child. I can't think of why you haven't," Elda said, gently.

"What about the mother, doesn't she write anymore?"

"We haven't gotten a letter in a few weeks."

"That's a shame," he said, staring into Fae's eyes. "I hope she's alright."

"We'll never know, really. So have you thought of it?"

"Can I tell you the truth, Elda?" The woman nodded, moving closer to him and pulling up a chair. "I would take her home right now if I could. But that would mean taking her home to Glinda, and... I'm not sure if Glinda and I are ready for children just yet." He avoided meeting her gaze, sure that she would see what he meant.

Elda suspected a divide between the pair, noting that the lonely Fiyero who she observed smiling falsely at public events was very different from the lonely Fiyero who couldn't keep his face from a warm smile when in the quiet nursery alone with this baby. And, though the change in his demeanor was evident, the loneliness was the same. "It's a big commitment," she said, her voice agreeing with both his voiced and unvoiced doubts. "And the two of you aren't married, or even engaged."

"Exactly. Is it even legally possible for me to adopt her as a single man?"

"I'm not sure, sir."

"Please, call me Fiyero."

It was little things like that that endeared him to Elda so much. She'd met many supposedly important people in her years raising children, but never one as genuinely deserving of respect as Fiyero Tiggular. He earned it by giving it, by being a noble man instead of just dancing through his title of Nobleman. "I couldn't possibly," she murmured.

"Then I can't call you Elda, can I?"

"You've got me there," she chuckled. "As I was saying, I'm not sure about a man adopting on his own. A woman, possibly, if she was family... But your status should exempt you from most of those regulations."

"I just can't leave her here anymore," he sighed. "Every time I have to go, it gets harder and harder."

"Why do you suppose that is?"

Elda was, by this point, ninety-nine percent certain that Fiyero was somehow related to this infant. She'd looked a little like him at three months, but now, at six months, the resemblance was getting stronger and stronger. She wondered if he knew, and couldn't admit it. She looked nothing like Glinda, and there would be no reason for them to leave her in an orphanage if she was Glinda's. It would be impossible for him to admit he had fathered the child.

"She's so easy to love," he said. "You know that."

It was true. Everyone loved little Fae, why should Fiyero be any different, relation or no? "She looks like you."

Fiyero, honestly, looked at the child and saw mostly her big brown eyes. It was hard not to get lost in them, and so, when he thought of her, he thought of that feature, so different from his own. It had never occurred to him that she might look like him. "Do you think so?" He was clearly surprised.

"You don't think so?"

He studied the baby in his arms. "She has brown eyes," he said.

"Yes," Elda sighed. "Eyes are just one feature, though."

Fiyero was feeling more than a little uncomfortable, as if a veil was being lifted and the truth had been sitting there behind it the whole time. How old was Fae? Six months? He hadn't been sleeping with Glinda fifteen months ago, he hadn't been sleeping with anyone, except that one night -

No.

It wasn't possible. Was it? "She doesn't look like Glinda, though, so, clearly..."

"Of course, sir."

Elphaba. She looked just enough like Elphaba to have grabbed his attention and not enough like her for him to realize why. Elphaba. He'd slept with her fifteen months ago, give or take. Only once, was once enough? He supposed it was. Of all the amazing things that had happened that night, why couldn't a child be one of them? Elphaba.

Elphaba.

"Does everyone think she looks like me?"

"Not as far as I know. I haven't mentioned it to anyone." She really hadn't. No need to draw potentially negative attention to a man who seemed so interested in giving a good home to a beautiful baby.

"But you do."

"Her face shape, a little. And her nose..." Elda stood. "I don't mean to pry. I shouldn't have mentioned it. I am deeply sorry -"

"No," he cut her off, pulling Fae to him and standing. "No, don't apologize, please. It's an honour to be equated to something so beautiful." He placed Fae, who had dozed off, back in her crib. "Just... Please don't mention it to anyone else? It would cause such a commotion, given my status in Oz. Suspected scandal... I had a pretty low reputation awhile ago, mainly for being thoughtless. But I've been trying so hard to be good."

"You are good," Elda interrupted. "Please continue to come see her."

Fiyero nodded. "If she's here, I'll be here." He paused. "Find out if I can take her home without another name on the form."

As Fiyero left the room, a green woman at the window thought she might cry, but didn't. Some people just don't cry.