A short one... but necessary. So please don't kill me. Seriously, don't kill me.

Fiyero knew what he had to do. He had to break up with Galinda. He was never going to be with Elphaba, but he'd rather be alone than lie to his girlfriend anymore. It wasn't fair to her.

He hated himself.

He'd been throwing liquor and sex on top of his sins and his conscience, but the pile had imploded. And the sins were so inumerable, the points at which he could have stopped were so frequent, his confusion as to how everything had gotten so complicated so quickly was so potent... nothing could make things seem better anymore.

Galinda would be upset, of course. But it was the right thing to do.

She found him. Of course she did. "Oh, Fiyero, you'll never believe what's happened! Elphie has gotten a letter from the Wizard asking her to meet him, and she's invited me to come with her to the Emerald City! Isn't it wonderful?"

Now would be an awful time to tell her. "Of course! When do you go?"

""In a week!" Well, maybe he could tell her now. A week was sufficient recovery time, wasn't it? "Oh, Fiyero, I just have so much to do before I go! So much to pack! This is so exciting! Well, for Elphie, too," she added, grinning.

"Of course it is. Is there anything I can do to help you get ready?"

He would tell her when she got back. He really would. But there was no need to ruin her good mood now, especially if she was going to be shopping and packing most of the time.

But the Emerald City did not go as planned. And when Galinda returned home in tears, Fiyero felt the suffocating grip of duty latch on once more. It wasn't that she said she didn't know what she'd do without him, it wasn't that she was crying.

It was that she'd returned alone, and neither could survive the loss of Elphaba without the other.

It didn't occur to him to look for Avaric until Boq said he hadn't seen their class mate anywhere.

Fiyero came across him in Elphaba's favourite corner of the library.

Avaric's eyes were bloodshot and wet with tears. "She's gone," he said. "She's gone and she's being hunted. I should be with her, I should be protecting her."

"Nobody could have seen this coming," Fiyero offered.

Avaric nodded, gazing sullenly out the window. Then, he seemed to realize something. "Are you alright?"

"Galinda's devastated, and that makes it hard."

Avaric nodded again. "But she has you, right? That's bound to make it easier..." He seemed lost in thought for awhile. "There won't be many of us who know she's not what they say, now. We'll have to stick together."

It was Fiyero's turn to nod. "Is there anything I can do?"

"No, thanks, man. I'll be alright."

Avaric's bed smelled like her. He slept in the library.

Fiyero spent the next few days with Galinda, taking comfort in comforting her. It was easier to avoid his own pain if he could focus on the blonde's misery instead.

And he couldn't leave her now. Avaric was right: there weren't many of them who knew the truth about Elphaba.

oxOxo

The years passed.

Galinda changed her name to Glinda, in some strange ode to Elphaba via the way her favorite professor pronounced her name. Fiyero pretended it was as admirable as Elphaba living Ozknewwhere and Avaric joining an underground resistence.

He joined the Gale Force, and his eagerness to find and capture the Wicked Witch of the West earned him promotion after promotion until he was Captain of the Guard.

His unending attempts to find Elphaba didn't ever lead to her, however. For years and years, he searched, and, of course, the first time he came close, he was followed by his Gale Forcers and a huge group of Witch Hunters. Elphaba had set up residence in Kiamo Ko, a castle belonging to Fiyero's family. He'd mentioned it once, suggested they run off together and go there.

Fitting, that she inhabited it alone, now.

He saw the lines laid for explosives, and stopped the group, putting a finger to his lips, and gesturing to them to remain where they were.

Fiyero moved around the left flank, following the fuse line in the dirt, and popped up in the grass behind Avaric, who jumped, and aimed a rifle at him.

"Av, don't," Fiyero whispered. "You've gotta get out of here."

"They're after her... Run on ahead, I'll divert them, buy you time."

"They'll kill you."

"That's a risk I'll have to take," he said, shuffling forward.

"Avaric, you can't go out there and die for her," Fiyero said, pulling the man back.

"Yes I can, and I will," Avaric replied, rising to a squat, which Fiyero mimicked. They both peered through the grass at Fiyero's men and the Witch Hunters, still frozen where he'd left them. "It's better this way. You can go to her and help her -"

"Av -"

"You're who she'd want, anyway," Avaric said. Fiyero gaped at him. "I could always tell when she was lying to me. I'm not some dumb fool rushing into a certain death in the name of a woman who doesn't love him never knowing she loved another. It's either you or me, Tiggular, and, to spare Elphaba, it can't be you. So go save her, get out of here."

"I can't leave you here."

"Then we both die and so does she." He pulled Fiyero to him for a fierce hug. "Love her the best way you know how or I'll see to it that you suffer for all eternity." He released Fiyero. "Now, go. Go!"

As Fiyero snuck off the opposite way, Avaric set off the chain of explosives, which injured a few but didn't kill anyone, then surrendered himself. In all the commotion, nobody thouht too hard about where their leader had gone; probably to round up any other rebels and kill them with his bare hands! Fiyero's second-in-charge addressed Avaric, who, in a one-on-one fight, would have licked the guy with one hand tied behind his back. "You alone in those bushes?"

"Who else in all of Oz would help me? Everyone else hates her, right?"

Avaric never was one to lie outright, he was far too honest for that.

"But you don't, do you. And you nearly killed these men to protect her."

"I love her."

"He's a traitor! Hang him!"

And so they did.