AN: Virtual cookies for Wicked4Life (I expected nothing less from you, knowing you to be a Willemijn Verkaik-fan ;) ), ChaoticSymphonyofDarkness & Fae the Queen. Hurray!

TazmaniaLizard: Sweet Oz, do you read minds? This happens to be just the chapter where I decided to reveal Elphie's age (the age I imagine her to be in this story, anyway) – and I did that before I read your review. Guess what? I wrote in this chapter that she's twenty-four. Isn't that creepy?

I share your opinion, by the way – I haven't even read the book (shame on me?) although I do know quite a bit about it because of all the fanfics I read.

Your review also made me think, and I decided to just ask you guys: what should I do with Gloq? Get them together and live happily ever after? Leave them as friends? Kill them? :P

(Speaking of killing people: EvilLoveTriangle, I can assure you I was perfectly serious about killing everyone.

All right, no, I was not. Or was I? You'll just have to keep reading, not to mention reviewing, to find out :3.)

'Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?'

Fiyero looked at her – she was biting her lip. 'Hey. There's nothing to worry about, I promise,' he said, taking her hands in his and squeezing them. 'My parents won't bite. My sisters might, but only if you try to tickle them for too long.' He made a face, clearly speaking from experience, and Elphaba chuckled. Nuki settled herself on the green girl's shoulder once more. 'And if they do bite,' the Cat added with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, 'so do I.'

Elphaba took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. 'All right, then. Let's get this over with.'

Fiyero bantered towards the door, assuming an authoritative attitude, and looked down on the guards – even though they were merely centimetres smaller than he was. The guards, however, didn't seem impressed. 'Name?'

Fiyero gave them a look that made them both shift uncomfortably, but they didn't budge. 'Prince Fiyero Tiggular of the Vinkus, you idiots. You have eyes – try using them.'

The guards nearly choked when they recognised their prince. 'Sweet Oz, your Highness, we're so sorry!' one of them pleaded. 'Please come in – your companion, too.'

Fiyero gently took Elphaba's arm – she was wearing a cloak and gloves to conceal her green skin – and led her inside. 'Sorry about that,' he said, looking a bit sheepish. 'But the guards here… well, they're a bunch of tough guys with really bad manners, so you have to show them their place every now and then.'

Elphaba gave him an impish smile. 'I think it's kind of sexy when you behave like that,' she teased him, and he rolled his eyes. He looked around the great hall. They're probably sitting in the library,' he mumbled, more to himself than to her. Elphaba, however, immediately brightened. 'You've got a library here?'

He nodded. 'A real nice one, actually – it's very cosy, with a fireplace and a sitting area… My parents and sisters can usually be found there.' He led the way, passing through endless corridors and hallways. Much to the Cat's dismay, they decided to drop off Nuki in Fiyero's bedroom – this would be difficult enough without her possibly making it worse. Fiyero then lead Elphaba back through some corridors before holding still in front of a thick wooden door. He looked at her. 'Ready?'

She swallowed and nodded, although a bit reluctantly. 'Ready.'

He opened the door and stepped inside, with Elphaba close behind him. His parents were indeed sitting there; the green girl eyed them curiously and decided they didn't look too bad. His father was a big man, even taller than Fiyero himself, and he was quite handsome – Fiyero looked a lot like him, she noticed. His mother was also tall, but slender and graceful, with long blonde curls tumbling over her shoulders, reminding her a bit of Glinda.

'Mom? Dad?' he said, and his parents' heads immediately jerked up as if they had heard a voice from the dead – which, Elphaba realised, was actually kind of the case, since they had been believing their son to be dead for months now.

'Fi- Fiyero?' his mother stammered, and his father jumped up and eyed his son up and down eagerly, as if he really, really wanted to believe that it was his son in front of him, but wasn't yet ready to. Fiyero couldn't help but grin as he bowed formally. 'Mother. Father.'

His father was apparently convinced, because he enveloped Fiyero in the biggest bear hug ever. 'Sweet Oz, Fiyero! It is you!'

His mother was with them in a clock-tick, wrapping her arms around her son and crying against his shoulder, not letting him go for several minutes. He shushed her and rubbed her back in a soothing manner. 'It's all right, Mom, really. I'm alive. I'm here.'

'Are you all right?' his father asked, and Fiyero nodded and smiled at Elphaba as he held out his hand to her invitingly. 'Thanks to Elphaba, I am.'

She was blushing now – thank Oz the hood was still covering her face so that no one would see it. Fiyero's father took her gloved hand and kissed it. 'Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts.'

She smiled, even though they couldn't see that, either. 'It was self-preservation, really,' she said, squeezing Fiyero's hand. 'I could never have lived without him.'

The Queen's eyes filled up with tears again. 'Oh, my,' she said, shaking her head. 'Not only is our Fiyero alive, he has found love as well!'

'And not even a silly, giggling Gillikinese girl, but a real woman, too,' his father added, grinning at his son. 'Seems like you've grown up after all.'

Fiyero huffed in response, but then he grew serious again. 'Mom, Dad… May I introduce you to the love of my life, Elphaba Thropp.'

She curtsied the King and Queen smiled at her. 'It's lovely to meet you, Elphaba,' the King said. 'But may I ask why you're wearing gloves and a cloak inside?'

Fiyero looked at them both solemnly. 'There's something you need to know about Elphaba,' he said. 'Please don't… don't judge her right away. She is who you think she is, but she isn't what you think she is.'

'Son, you're only making it worse,' his father told him. 'Just tell us what you want to tell us. What do we need to know about Elphaba?'

Fiyero looked at her and she took a deep breath, removing her hood and pulling off her gloves. The King and Queen just stared at her in awe for a moment.

'My,' the King said finally, breaking the rather awkward silence. 'When I heard people talking about the Wicked Witch of the West, I always imagined her to be… well… an ugly old hag. No offense,' he quickly added after his wife nudged him not too gently between the ribs.

Elphaba couldn't help but smirk at that. 'You're not the only one, I can assure you. And just in case you're thinking that I actually am an old hag who casts spells on herself to keep herself young, that's not true either. I was born in Munchkinland only twenty-four years ago.'

The King chuckled. 'Good to have that cleared up, although that was certainly not the first thing coming to my mind.'

'Just avoiding any misunderstandings in advance,' she told him, which made the King chuckle again. The Queen looked at Elphaba. 'I don't mean to be rude, my dear, but Fiyero… you do have some explaining to do.'

'Well, yes, of course,' he agreed. His parents sat down again and he made himself comfortable in the loveseat, pulling Elphaba down beside him. 'First things first: they may call her the Wicked Witch, but she's not wicked.'

'I can see that,' his father said drily.

'She's also green…'

'Yes, I had noticed that, too.'

His wife punched him in the ribs. 'Can't you just behave for once?' She looked apologetically at Elphaba. 'I'm sorry. You can see where Fiyero got his bad manners from.'

'Hey!' Fiyero protested, but Elphaba merely smirked and kissed his cheek. 'Nothing personal, love.'

He grumbled, but continued anyway. 'So… uhm… yes. Elphaba. She's green because… well…' He looked at Elphaba, not sure if she would want him to tell his parents about her connection with the Wizard, but she explained it to them herself. 'I was born as the eldest daughter of the former Governor of Munchkinland, but my real father is the former Wizard of Oz, although I only found that out recently myself. His miracle elixir is the cause of my green skin – I was born like this.'

Fiyero nodded. 'As she said, she was the eldest daughter of the Governor, but her younger sister Nessarose inherited that position when the Governor died. We went to Shiz together and Elphaba got in sorcery class…'

'So the witch part is true, then?' the King interrupted. The Queen shushed him again, but Elphaba smiled at him to let him know he hadn't insulted her. 'Yes, as a matter of fact, it is.'

'She was such an excellent sorcery student that the Wizard himself requested for her to come see him,' Fiyero told them proudly, and Elphaba muttered under her breath, 'Don't exaggerate.'

'She went to the Emerald City,' he went on, pretending not to hear her, 'along with her roommate and best friend, who also happened to be my girlfriend at the moment, Galinda Upland.'

Elphaba winced at the mention of the girlfriend part and he squeezed her hand reassuringly. His parents nodded. 'You mentioned her in one of your letters, yes.'

'I recall him mentioning a green-skinned girl once, too,' his mother suddenly remembered. She looked at them and narrowed her eyes. 'Wait a clock-tick. Fiyero? Is this the girl you rescued that Lion cub with?'

His face turned beet red. 'Uhm… yes.'

'How do they know about that?' Elphaba whispered to him, also flushing, but Fiyero's mother heard her and she laughed. 'Oh, Elphaba, that was the longest letter we've ever received from him. He wrote page after page about what had happened, and about you – especially about you.'

'He did?' Elphaba was astonished. She knew that had been the day that she had fallen in love with him, but she never thought it had been the other way around, as well. Fiyero avoided her gaze. 'Well… yeah,' he mumbled. 'I, uhm… That was the day I fell in love with you. Even though you didn't seem to feel the same way back then…'

'I did,' she told him, amazed that both of them had been so blind at the time. 'That was the day I fell in love with you, too.'

The Queen dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. 'Oh, my. This is better than all the romance stories in our library!'

Fiyero shot her a look and decided it would be safest to just continue his story. 'Anyway, Galinda Upland, as I was saying, later became famous under the name of Glinda the Good.'

'Wait a minute,' his father interrupted him once again. 'You're trying to tell me that Glinda the Good and the Wicked Witch of the West are friends?'

'She's not wicked,' Fiyero protested. Elphaba rolled her eyes at him and answered the King, 'Yes. Best friends, actually.'

'Go on,' the Queen encouraged her son, shooting a warning look at her husband.

'Well, the Wizard was very impressed by Elphaba, but they had this… well… misunderstanding.'

'That was most definitely not a misunderstanding!' Elphaba interrupted him, her temper flaring up once again. Fiyero sighed a bit irritably. 'Are you guys going to keep interrupting me?'

'He was responsible for everything that had happened to the Animals!' Elphaba went on, probably not even hearing him. 'He had them maimed and murdered, and he robbed them of their speech! There was nothing to misunderstand about that!'

'Fine, fine,' Fiyero recoiled. 'No misunderstanding. She found out he was evil, and she refused to work with him.'

'And he declared her a Wicked Witch?' his father guessed. Fiyero nodded. 'Yeah. Glinda stayed, because she's… well… Glinda.' The corners of Elphaba's mouth turned slightly upwards when he said that. 'She had always wanted to be loved by the people, and she couldn't ignore the call of popularity, so to speak. So she stayed and became Glinda the Good, while Elphaba flew off and started working with the Resistance to save the Animals.'

'We met again years later, when she was freeing the Flying Monkeys the Wizard had held captive. I caught her doing so – I was Captain of the Guard back then. And then, well… I went with her.'

'Morrible then used my sister to get to me,' Elphaba took over. 'She murdered Nessa, and when I got to her, unfortunately too late for me to be able to save, they caught me again. Fiyero saved me, but he…' She bit her lower lip and he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her against him. 'They were planning on torturing me to death,' he said simply, making Elphaba wince again. 'She saved me with a spell.'

'So that was what the letter was about,' the Queen said softly, connecting the dots. 'They thought you had died, but because of that spell, you didn't.'

Fiyero nodded. 'Elphaba tricked everyone into believing her to be dead, so that I could come fetch her and we could leave Oz together. We hadn't accounted for Morrible to figure out what was going on and coming after her before I could get to her. That awful old hag almost succeeded in killing Elphaba.'

'She survived, though,' the King pointed out, earning him another glare from his wife. 'You, my dear, have the most annoying tendency to point out the obvious.'

He shrugged and gave her a lopsided grin much similar to the one Fiyero sometimes gave Elphaba. 'It's a gift.'

Fiyero briefly explained what had happened after Morrible got to Elphaba and how they had ended up here. 'So, now you know everything,' he finally finished. 'The short version of 'everything', but still everything.'

He and Elphaba waited anxiously for their reaction. The King merely nodded, lost in thought, and the Queen smiled. 'Well, Elphaba,' she said, getting up and taking the green girl's hands in hers, before hugging her. 'Welcome to the family.'

Fiyero's sisters turned out to be a bit more difficult to persuade.

They were very happy to see their brother again, that much was clear; they practically jumped him, screaming and crying and jumping up and down with excitement. When they saw Elphaba, however, they recoiled a bit.

There were two of them, both quite a bit younger than Fiyero was; the eldest, nineteen-year-old Rayenna, seemed cautious at first, but when Elphaba complimented the younger girl admiringly with her long, dark, curly hair, Rayenna's face broke into a smile and all of her caution seemed to disappear at once. The youngest sister was seventeen and she looked more like her mother – pale skin and blonde hair, although she wore it straight instead of curly. Her name was Anwen and she did not like Elphaba. At all.

'She is green,' the girl declared crossly, folding her arms and glaring at Elphaba, who looked back with a blank face. 'Really?' the witch said in mock wonder. 'I hadn't noticed.'

The King chuckled and Anwen shot him a furious look before turning back towards Elphaba. 'What if Rayenna and I get green nieces and nephews?' she demanded, which made Fiyero chuckle. He quickly muffled his laugh into a fake cough at the look his younger sister gave him.

'Anwen,' the girl's mother chided her daughter. 'Elphaba is our guest. Be polite.'

'But she is a witch!' Anwen protested, causing Elphaba to smirk. 'Why, thank you.'

Fiyero was amazed at their behaviour – everyone's behaviour, really. He hadn't expected his parents and Rayenna to make friends with his lover this easily, but he hadn't expected Anwen to be this rude, either. He was also surprised that Elphaba hadn't lost her temper yet, what with all the insults his sister was throwing at her, but the green girl seemed amused rather than annoyed.

Anwen's eyes nearly bulged. 'You mean you actually are a witch?'

'I can do magic, yes,' Elphaba replied politely enough, and Anwen narrowed her eyes. 'Are you wicked, too?'

'Anwen!' Fiyero cried, shocked, but Elphaba didn't even blink. 'No, I'm not wicked.'

'Do you have three eyes, like they say?'

'Do I look like I have three eyes?'

'Do you shed your skin like a snake?'

'That would be very interesting, I'm sure, but I'm afraid I'm not capable of that.'

'And does pure water melt you?'

'That's enough, Anwen!' the Queen interrupted, looking embarrassed and angry at the same time. 'I won't let you be this rude to our guest! Behave or leave!'

The girl kept her mouth shut, but Fiyero saw her think everything over. After a while, he noticed his sister talking quietly to one of the servants, but he didn't know what was being discussed and he decided it was probably not important, anyway.

Rayenna was questioning Elphaba about everything she could think of, especially about books, and Fiyero watched, smiling, as Elphaba's face lit up at the subject. Both girls discussed all of their favourite books, of which they appeared to have a lot in common. Fiyero was glad she got along well with his family.

'Elphaba?' That was Anwen's voice, and everyone turned to face the girl. She was standing in the doorway, clearly hiding something behind her back, and Fiyero narrowed his eyes in suspicion. She shuffled closer to Elphaba and Fiyero's eyes widened as he saw what his sister was hiding behind her back. 'Anwen! Don't you dare…' he started, but it was too late. Anwen lifted the bucket she was holding with two hands and before anyone could even so much as blink, she had poured the gallons of water that were in it all over Elphaba's head.

Elphaba was completely drenched. Her hair and clothes were soaked, water dripping from them, and Fiyero winced in anticipation of her reaction.

'You didn't,' the green girl gasped, wide-eyed, glaring at the younger girl dangerously. Anwen involuntarily stepped back a bit, mouth agape. 'You… you didn't melt!' she exclaimed.

'Huh,' the King muttered. 'I guess that proves that rumour to be wrong.'

Fiyero looked at his mother. 'You know, that thing about pointing out the obvious? I think it runs in the family.'

The Queen merely shot him a look before turning her attention to Elphaba. 'Are you all right, dear?' she asked worriedly.

Anwen's eyes widened and she shrank back a bit more, hiding behind her brother. 'Please don't kill me!' she yelped. 'I'm sorry! I just wanted to make sure you really weren't wicked – please don't kill me!'

Elphaba stared at the girl and for a moment, Fiyero worried that she might lose her temper and send books flying around the library – as well as possibly his sister, for which he couldn't even blame her - but then she did something none of them had expected her to do.

She burst out laughing.

Everyone looked at her for a moment, but then they all saw the utter ridiculousness of the situation, and they joined her in laugher. Fiyero wrapped his arms around her, still laughing. 'I'm really sorry about that,' he chuckled.

Elphaba grinned and looked at Anwen, who was still gaping at the green girl wide-eyed. 'Well, now that that little misunderstanding has been cleared up,' Elphaba said cheerfully. 'Do you suppose we could start over? I promise I won't bite. Or kill you,' she added at the frightful look the younger girl gave her.

Anwen hesitantly came closer. 'I'm really sorry,' she repeated, and Elphaba smiled, shaking her head. 'I know. I have to admit, I've never had a welcome like that,' she said, causing the cheeks of the Queen to redden with embarrassment – this was obviously not how she would have greeted any guest of hers. 'But I think it was rather… how shall I put it… refreshing,' she decided, making Anwen blush as well. 'I was just being really stupid,' the younger girl conceded softly.

'No…' Elphaba said, eyes twinkling mischievously. 'Not really stupid.' Fiyero turned out to say the words at the exact same time she did, and they took one look at one another before doubling up with laughter. The others looked at the couple in wonder, but decided not to ask anything.

Elphaba managed to compose herself quickly and she looked at Anwen again. 'All right, then. Start over?'

Anwen nodded, clearly ashamed of herself. 'Please.'

Elphaba held out her hand. 'Hi, my name is Elphaba Thropp. I'm a non-wicked witch with only two eyes, just like everyone else. My skin may be green, but it does not by far resemble a snake's, and water does most definitely not melt me – as you have witnessed not too long ago.'

Anwen smiled a bit uncertainly. 'It's really nice to meet you, Elphaba. I'm Anwen Tiggular, princess of the Vinkus, who always acts before she thinks…'

'Something the two of you have in common,' Fiyero muttered under his breath.

'… and sometimes judges people too soon, for which she wants to offer her sincerest apologies.'

'Apology accepted,' Elphaba smiled back, and Anwen looked relieved.

Rayenna clapped her hands in delight. 'Now could you please, please, please tell me everything that happened between the two of you? How did you meet? Why was she declared wicked? Things like that?'

For the second time in a few hours, they told their story, and both sisters squealed with delight. 'Sweet Oz, that is so romantic!' Anwen exulted, and Rayenna sighed with content. 'Are you planning on marrying her, Fiyero?'

Elphaba choked at that, and Fiyero gave her a mischievous look. 'Who knows?'

She glowered at him and brushed a strand of wet hair from her face. It was only then Fiyero realised she was still soaking wet.

The Queen must have realised that at the same time, because she exclaimed, 'Oh, my! My dear, you're absolutely drenched! Rayenna, why don't you show Elphaba a room – could you lend her some clothes of yours? You two are about the same height.'

Fiyero watched them leave. He was quite pleased with how everything had turned out – his family liked Elphaba and she seemed to like them, too. It could have been worse – at least no one had ended up dead. He smirked a bit at that thought.

His mother got up and hugged him. 'Congratulations, Fiyero. I'm very proud of you. It appears you found yourself quite the perfect woman.'

He smiled, returning her hug. 'I know, Mom. Believe me. I know.'