AN: Yes, your reviews cheered me up immensely. Yes, I am a genuinely cruel person and I love seeing you, Elphaba, Fiyero, Galinda, and everyone else in pain. And yes, I was genuinely bummed that I didn't have the guts to actually kill off Elphaba, Fiyero, or Galinda. *grumbles* I'm too much of a softie... (Someone said later that I could have had something go wrong with Galinda and Boq's lifeboat, killing them. WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT BEFORE?!)

Anyways, thank you all ^^ and here you have the second-to-last chapter!

17. My Heart Will Go On

Elphaba awoke to the feeling of fingers touching the side of her face and then softly combing through the hair behind her ear. She yawned and frowned when she realised where she was, blinking. She had fallen asleep at a table in the corner of the café whilst studying; she'd been sleeping with her cheek on one of her arms. She hadn't been able to help herself – it was so warm and comfortable in here, and she had not slept properly in ages.

Only then did she realise that she could still feel those fingers caressing her face and hair and she suddenly shot up angrily, ready to tell this person off, whoever it was. "What in Oz do you think you're –" she began, but she abruptly cut herself off when she saw the person in question standing in front of her.

There were tears in his azure blue eyes and he was smiling softly. "Fae."

She could only stare at him, drinking him in. He watched her as she slowly brought a trembling hand up to her mouth and her eyes filled with tears. Then a single sob escaped her lips and she threw herself into his arms, clinging to him like she was never going to let go again as she sobbed her heart out into his chest.

He held her close, guiding her to sit back on the bench she'd been sitting on before and pulling her into his arms. She hid her face in his shirt, crying, unable to believe that this was real; but it was. His scent, his face, his eyes, the pressure of his strong arms around her… it was all so very real, but she could not begin to fathom how that was possible.

"Let's go someplace more private," he whispered to her when she had calmed down a little. She sniffled and nodded, wiping her face with the sleeve of her dress before leading him out of the café and towards her dorm room. She never let go of his hand and he never let go of hers, squeezing it tightly.

Once they were in her dorm room, she turned to him, her eyes wide.

"Yero," she whispered, but before she could say anything else, he had closed the distance between them and his lips crashed against hers as he pressed her against the wall. She kissed him back, her arms around his neck as his closed around her waist. He picked her up and carried her over to her bed, looking down at her with a burning intensity in his eyes.

She sat up then in order to be able to look at him properly. She reached out to trace his features with her fingers and she choked back another sob. "I thought you were dead…"

"I almost was," he whispered as he ran his hands up and down her arms, leaving goosebumps in their wake. She burrowed into his arms with her head under his chin and her cheek pressed against his chest.

"I don't even really know what happened," he admitted. "I stayed on the ship for as long as I could, but then it broke in half and it went down… I fell into the water. I was wearing a life-jacket, so I stayed afloat, but it was so cold… I tried my hardest to stay awake, but… everyone around me was… dying…" He shuddered a little and she snuggled closer to him, wrapping her arms around his waist. He pressed his cheek to her hair.

"I fell unconscious," he said softly. "I thought that was it. But one of the lifeboats came back and I heard them calling. Somehow, I heard, and it was enough to wake me again. I called back to them and they pulled me out of the water. By the time we were rescued by another ship, I was sick, and apparently I only got worse as time progressed. I was taken back to the Vinkus and my parents had their best physicians taking care of me, but I've been unconscious for a long time and my fever wouldn't break. It finally did, a week or so ago… but I wasn't really coherent enough yet to start searching for you. Mum said I rambled on about you when I was still feverish – she thought I was hallucinating. And then she read me a letter from my younger sister Cyara, who studies here at Shiz as well, and she said that you were here… and I had to go. I got a horse from the stables and rode all the way here as fast as I could."

She was speechless. "You…" She sat up, looking at him. "You weren't even healed yet… and yet you came?!" she asked incredulously.

"Of course I came." He looked back at her with a solemn look in his blue eyes. "I love you. I was so afraid that something might have happened to you after all, that maybe you hadn't made it… you have no idea how happy I was when I heard from my mum that you were here, at Shiz." He lowered his eyes, embarrassed. "I didn't even tell her or Dad that I was leaving. They'd never have let me go," he muttered. "I just left late at night without saying anything, though they'll probably know where I went…"

Elphaba did not know what to say.

"I had to see you," he said simply. "I had to see for myself that you were okay."

She buried her head in his chest again, soaking his shirt with tears, before pulling away and kissing him. They kissed for a long time before breaking apart again and Elphaba ran her hand down his face.

"You threw Avaric out of the boat," he said, stroking her hair. "He came back to us, seething. What happened?"

She bit her lip. "He told me… as we were going down, he told me that…" Her eyes filled with tears again and she sniffled. "That he had lied to Father and Nessa, and that there was no boat… that they were going to die on the ship so that I would become Governor of Munchkinland and he could claim that title alongside his own." She closed her eyes for a moment. "I just… I had to. My magic responded and I didn't even feel guilty about it – I just… I couldn't lose all of you and still be stuck with him. I just couldn't."

"I know," he said soothingly, kissing the top of her head. "It's okay, Fae, I understand. Of course I do."

She nodded slightly and told him how she had been saved eventually. He pressed her a little closer, feeling the warm weight of her in his arms and marvelling at the fact that he was still alive and she was, too, and that she was here with him.

"You should rest," she said, her voice sounding thicker than usual because of the tears she was still holding back. "You… you probably only made things worse by travelling all the way here. I should get you a doctor."

He shook his head. "I'm fine," he said, but she made him lie down nonetheless. He tried to pull her down with him, but she refused, instead pulling the blankets over him and tucking him in before pressing a kiss to his forehead.

"I'm going to get a doctor," she said.

He grabbed her hand. "Don't go. Not yet."

"I'll be right back," she said, but he actually looked scared and she softened. "Yero…"

"I'm fine," he insisted. "Really. Please don't go."

She gave in with a sigh, crawling into the bed with him. He drew her into his arms and buried his face in her hair as he held her close. After a while, she could tell by the sound of his breathing that he had fallen asleep – he must be exhausted after the long journey he'd had.

She gingerly detached herself from him and slipped out of the room, leaving a note for him on the nightstand just in case. She first went to the infirmary to ask for a nurse who could check Fiyero over and then she went to the administration building, asking where Cyara Tiggular was staying and making her way over to the girl's dorm room.

She was surprised to find the girl she had been talking to a few days earlier on the other side of the door. "Cyara?" she asked, before remembering herself and curtseying. "I mean – Your Highness…"

"Elphaba!" The blonde girl's face brightened. "Fiyero came to you, then, didn't he?"

Elphaba stared at her, speechless, and the princess laughed.

"I received a letter from my parents the other day," she said. "They suspected he'd come here, to see you, and they asked me to keep an eye out for him and contact them the moment he showed up."

"He's in my dorm room," Elphaba said softly and Cyara nodded quickly, grabbing a coat.

"Let's go."

Fiyero woke up to not just Elphaba's face, but his sister's and a nurse's as well, all looking at him with varying degrees of concern. Elphaba was biting her lip, clearly worried; Cyara looked a little angry; and the nurse smiled at him and started shining into his eyes with a bright light. "Hello there, Your Highness. How do you feel?"

"Fine," he grumbled, wanting to glare at Elphaba for not listening to him, but he couldn't. Instead he obediently allowed the nurse to examine him and the moment she stepped back, Elphaba moved to his side, lacing her fingers with his.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I had to."

He squeezed her hand. "I know, Fae. It's okay."

The nurse told them that the prince's life was not in danger, but she would still like to have him transferred to the infirmary so that they would be able to keep an eye on him. Fiyero protested, but Cyara agreed with the nurse and before long he found himself in a bed in a white and way too sterile room in the infirmary of Shiz University.

Cyara demanded the full story of what was going on and together, Fiyero and Elphaba told her everything about what had happened on the ship and afterwards. He was exhausted after that and fell asleep before long. Elphaba climbed onto the bed with him and snuggled into his embrace, closing her eyes as well and revelling in the feeling of having him so close.

A nurse came after a while, frowning disapprovingly.

"Excuse me, Your Highness," she said to Cyara. "Would you mind waking up your friend? Visiting hours are over and she is no longer allowed to stay here."

"Tough luck," Cyara answered drily, "because she is staying here."

The nurse's frown deepened. "She is not family, Your Highness. I know she's not. I'm going to have to ask her to leave." She stepped towards the bed.

"If you so much as try to wake her up," the Vinkun princess said as she rose to her feet, her sapphire blue eyes narrowing, "I'm going to have you fired before she is even out of that bed."

The nurse blinked.

"I'm royalty," Cyara reminded her. "You know I could if I wanted to. She's staying here."

The nurse was clearly not happy with that, but she nodded reluctantly. "Of course, Your Highness." She left the room.

Cyara smiled to herself and leant back in her chair. After what Fiyero and Elphaba had been through together, there was no way she was going to let them be separated because of some stupid hospital policy.

"Elphaba?" a voice whispered.

She opened her eyes, blinking slowly. The first thing she saw was a woman's face and she squinted. She knew at once that she had never seen this woman before, but the sapphire blue eyes and the general features of her face spoke volumes.

She quickly scrambled to her feet. "Your Majesty…"

"Just call me Lori," the woman assured her, giving the young witch a smile. "It's nice to meet you, Elphaba. Cyara has filled us in on everything she knew about you, and of course we had our suspicions because of the things Fiyero said during his fever…"

Elphaba glanced at Fiyero, who was still sleeping soundly in the hospital bed, and she flushed as she looked back at the Vinkun queen. "I'm so sorry," she said softly, "about him, you know, coming here without telling you, and…"

"That was not at all your fault," a new, gruff voice assured her. It turned out to belong to a man that looked like she imagined Fiyero would look in thirty years, only with brown eyes instead of blue ones. "He's stubborn as a mule."

"Yes, well, who in Oz could he have gotten that from?" Lori asked sarcastically, raising an eyebrow at her husband.

Cyara, who was sitting in a chair on Fiyero's other side, chirped, "We both take after you, Dad. Don't try to deny it."

The king laughed. "I won't." He shook Elphaba's hand. "Hamold Tiggular. It's a pleasure, Miss Elphaba."

She nodded, a bit dazed and overwhelmed by the presence of the king and queen of the Vinkus in this small infirmary room. Cyara hopped to her feet.

"I'm going to get some bad hospital coffee," she announced. "Anyone else?"

Lori declined, but Hamold and Elphaba both accepted the offer. Hamold sat down in a corner with the newspaper he had been reading and Lori took a seat next to where Cyara had been sitting.

The blonde girl returned not long thereafter, carrying three cups of coffee, two of which she handed to her father and Elphaba. They sipped quietly for a few moments, none of them saying anything.

They all started when Fiyero suddenly murmured, "Do I smell coffee?"

"Yes," said Elphaba, a little anxious. "Is the smell bothering you? Because I can get rid of it, if you want to."

"No way," Cyara said immediately, scowling at her brother. "I need this coffee. You just deal with it, Tiggular."

Fiyero chuckled weakly. "It's fine. It doesn't bother me."

"Are you sure?" Elphaba asked him and he smiled at her.

"I'm sure." Then his gaze drifted to his parents. "Oh. Hi, Mum. Dad." He fumbled around for Elphaba's hand, slipping his fingers into hers. "I see you've met Elphaba."

"We have." Hamold smiled. "She's a lovely young lady, Yero."

"Next time, though," Lori said, narrowing her eyes at her son, "would you mind not giving us a heart attack and just telling us what you are planning on doing? We would have arranged a carriage and a doctor to come with you – not to mention the fact that one of us would have come with you as well. For Oz's sake, Fiyero, what were you thinking? I don't even want to think about what could have happened!"

"I know," he said, lowering his eyes, clearly a bit ashamed. "I probably should have told you, but I was afraid you'd try to stop me… and I had to see Elphaba. I just had to. I had to know for sure that she was alright."

The green girl in question smiled a bit shyly at him and he squeezed her hand, tugging at it to bring her closer. She sat on the edge of his bed and he drew her to sit beside him, pulling her into his arms.

Lori sighed. "Oh, Yero. We understand. We do." She shook her head. "Though I must admit, I had never expected this of you."

"Yeah," Cyara said, swallowing a mouthful of coffee and making a face at the taste. "What happened to the scandalacious Fiyero Tiggular, who did nothing but pull pranks and party all day long to the point where Mum and Dad had to cut you off and basically gave up all hope of you ever growing up?"

"I think that Fiyero Tiggular fell in love," Hamold said with a knowing grin at his son, which Fiyero returned.

"What now?" Lori asked, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow at her son. "Did you have anything in mind?"

"Actually, yes." He took a deep breath and looked first at Elphaba, then at his parents. "I want to stay here."

"Here," Lori echoed. "At Shiz."

Fiyero nodded. "I don't want to go home yet," he said. "More than anything, I want to stay with Elphaba… and I guess it would not be such a bad idea for me to finally get a degree," he added sheepishly. "I didn't miss that many classes yet – I could catch up. I'll try harder this time, I promise. I just really want to stay here with Fae…"

His sister coughed loudly.

"…and with Cyara…" Fiyero said, rolling his eyes at his sister, but he was grinning. "…and study here."

His parents shared a look. Then his mother nodded.

"Okay," she said. "That's good. I'm glad. I'm proud of you, Yero."

"Me, too," said Elphaba softly, and he beamed at her.

They weren't alone again until later, when Hamold and Cyara had left to get some rest. Lori stayed with her son and Elphaba, but she had fallen asleep in one of the hospital chair.

Elphaba was lying on her side, facing Fiyero and tracing his face with her fingers. She couldn't believe that not too long ago, she had given up all hope of ever being happy again. Her father and Nessarose were gone and she'd been convinced that Fiyero, and even Galinda, was gone, too… and now here she was, and he was so very much alive, and she didn't think she'd ever been more relieved.

He combed his fingers through her hair and voiced the things she was thinking. "I can't believe you're here."

She shook her head. "Me, neither."

"Everything is going to be different now," he said, pulling her closer and resting his chin on the top of her head. "Nothing is standing in our way anymore. It's strange, isn't it? To think that about two months ago, we didn't even know one another… and then when we did, there were so many reasons why we couldn't be together. And now here we are."

"Yeah…" She sighed sadly. "I just… I wish the cost weren't so high."

He squeezed her waist gently. "I'm sorry, Fae."

"Me, too." She looked up at him. "But at least I still have you," she said. "You have no idea how much that means to me."

"I think I do, sweetheart." He leant down to kiss her. "I really think I do."

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