Chapter 10: An Inn Near Shiz, Several Weeks Later

The slap didn't hurt much. It wasn't the first one. It was, however, the first time her father had slapped her in front of someone else.

In an instant, Fiyero got between them. "I don't think that's necessary…"

"You don't know what she's done!" Frex shouted. "Why don't you ask her?"

"Sir, I'm not concerned with that at the moment. If you could just leave us alone, we'll do what you want." Elphaba heard the undercurrent of anger in Fiyero's voice.

She wanted to tell him not to argue for her, and to let her fight her own battles. But she knew that when he found out, Fiyero wouldn't be too pleased with her, either. And she had nothing to say.

"Tell him what you did. Tell him about this." Her father dangled the now-empty bottle in Fiyero's face. "Then I'll leave."

"Fine. What is it, Elphaba?" Fiyero turned to her, still shielding her with his body.

"It's a potion." She said softly. "A potion to assure that certain things don't happen. Like pregnancy."

He blinked slowly before looking back at her father. "How did you know?"

"She's always been a sneak and a liar. She stayed in the rooms beneath the church for a few days during the winter holidays. This was under her bed."

It must've fallen. She had meant to dispose of it…

After a deep breath, Fiyero said, "I understand. Can we be alone now?"

Frex sneered at her, but backed away. "I've made sure she won't be able to get more, if you're concerned. The alchemy shop at which she was buying this illegal substance was raided last night." He slammed the door as he left the room.

Elphaba stepped back slowly. "I'm sorry."

"How long?" He asked simply.

"Fiyero, please. You don't understand."

"How long?" He repeated.

"The whole time," she admitted. Elphaba couldn't meet his eyes. "I'm sorry."

Fiyero strode across the room. "All this time we've been doing this why, then?"

"Oh, please, like you were complaining. You get sex! It's not like I was torturing you."

He didn't respond to that, and instead asked, "Will it even be worth it to bother tonight? Or does it stay in your system?"

She was a little impressed that he had even thought to ask that question. "I took a spoonful daily to keep it effective. I haven't had any in two days."

"Why, Elphaba?"

"You knew I never wanted this. I told you when we first met."

"But you didn't tell me this. You told me you would play your part. I believe those were the words you chose." He sat down on the bed and placed his elbows on his knees, propping up his forehead in the palms of his hands. "I thought, even though neither of us was completely enamored with the idea, that you'd at least go along with it like I have…"

"No." She stopped him. "You do not get to compare what you have to do with what I have to do. You would not have to drop out of Shiz for at least a semester. Your body wouldn't be irrevocably changed. You wouldn't be riddled with hormones and pain and discomfort for months on end." While she felt bad about lying to him, she did not necessarily feel bad about what she had done. "This is my life and my body. I gave you some of it, Fiyero, but I wasn't giving up my autonomy for a child that may or may not save us all."

"That's selfish of you. And you're not a selfish person."

"It's not selfish, Fiyero. It's skepticism. Since when did you believe that this was really our destiny? I remember we both were a bit uncertain last we spoke about it."

"I still am. But… but there are a lot of coincidences that don't add up, Elphaba." He sighed and looked back over at her. "The Wizard only put this law in place seventeen years ago. I think Dr. Dillamond is right. He or someone close to him had a similar vision. I don't know how that's possible unless it means something."

"Why us, Fiyero? That's what doesn't make sense to me. There are other Eminences, other tribes. There's also Gillikin and Quadling Country. Why us?"

"Because we're the right age at the right time. Or maybe… maybe we're supposed to be together. I don't know. There are moments when I wonder if we would've been fond of one another if we hadn't been thrown together in this room. We both would've gone to Shiz, anyway. Our parents may have intervened, but maybe this would've happened on its own."

She scoffed. "I'd be locked in my room studying all day. I never would've even noticed you."

"You come out to lunch with the lot of us sometimes."

"Galinda makes me."

"And she would make you either way."

"Who's to say I would even like you in this alternate life of ours?"

"Do you now?" He asked suddenly.

"Why does it matter?"

Fiyero laughed almost sadly. "I suppose that's an answer. And I suppose you refusing to trust me enough to tell me you were taking that potion is answer enough."

"I've been taking it since the beginning. I didn't know you!"

"And there have been plenty of opportunities since to tell me the truth, Elphaba."

"What would you have said?"

"I'll never know, now. But I'll tell you what I wouldn't have done. I would not have told your father. Like you said, it's your life and your body, and I think that's a conversation that needed to be between us. He didn't need to be involved in that."

"He's been involved in it since the beginning, though." She threw her hands in the air and let them fall before sitting beside Fiyero. "I am sorry."

"I trusted you. I like you. I just assumed it was the same for you."

This floored her. "You're fond of me?"

"Does that surprise you? Yes, as a person I like you. As a friend. As whatever it is we are in here and out there and in that lab. I don't know what any of that means, but I do have a fondness for you."

"Because you have to?"

"Because I do. Because you're passionate and fierce and… well, attractive… I mean... I'm sure you've noticed that I am fond of your body, at least?"

She smiled a little at that. She had noticed, but had figured that, given her looks, he was merely attracted to the fact that she was a woman and was there for him to touch. It had not even occurred to her he might think her attractive. But she had no intention of letting him in on her self-doubt. "Well, yes. I just… I thought the talking and the conversations were because you had to."

"No one told me to care about you at all." He shrugged. "All they told me to do was to get you pregnant, which you apparently made sure wouldn't happen."

She sat for a moment, staring ahead in silence. Her relationship with him had been strictly business. Of course, she'd noticed it turning friendly, and had merely figured he was trying to make it easier on both of them. Perhaps his parents had urged him to be kind to her. For him to actually want to have any sort of connection with her, friendship or otherwise, was a foreign concept to her, though it suddenly seemed appealing. "So we're friends?"

"I don't know. Friends trust each other. So do lovers. You don't trust me. And now I can't trust you, Elphaba. I have no idea where that leaves us."

"I've never trusted anyone, Fiyero. And while I enjoyed our discussions and even liked helping you study, I didn't realize it meant anything to you. I thought it was something to pass the time or just something you thought you had to do." Carefully, she placed her hand on his. "I'm glad we're in this together. But no one has ever talked to me the way you do. No one has ever touched me the way you do. I didn't know what it meant."

"It means that I care for you. Right now, though, Elphaba, I'm not sure what anything means. I wish you could've at least told me."

"I might've eventually."

"That's hard to believe." He looked over at her and drew his hand away. "What do we do now? I don't want to force you into having a child you don't want, but I also believe we need to do this."

"We do what we're supposed to. I told you from the start that what I wanted didn't matter. At the time, I was taking my own precautions. But my father expects this from us. We go on doing what we've been doing, whether I like it or not."

"That doesn't feel right to me." Fiyero stood up again. "Your father can't force this on me if I back out. I'm sure my parents will be disappointed, possibly even angry. Still, there's not much they can do if I refuse at this point, is there? I'm sure we can have this dissolved, right? If this isn't what you want, I can walk away."

"Fiyero, don't." She felt her chest constrict, and didn't understand why. "We can't just act like this never happened. And…" And if the Wizard was behind the suppression of the Animals, why shouldn't she want to overthrow him? If this was real, as the evidence was starting to suggest, then this could be the only way. Elphaba had always been skeptical of magic, but being at Shiz had proven to her that at least some of it was valid, even useful "And maybe part of me does want this."

He eyed her with suspicion. "Why?"

"Because Oz needs to change. I'm not certain this is how it happens, but if it works, I wouldn't complain." Elphaba surprised herself by getting up and going to him, touching his face. "And maybe these little visits we have are somewhat enjoyable."

He didn't draw away. "I suppose that should be enough."

"And there's one other thing… I'm pretty fond of you, myself." She smiled at him somewhat uncomfortably, but honestly.

He returned the smile halfheartedly. "Then you need to trust me."

"I think I'm learning to." She looked up at him. "And I am so, so sorry. I should've told you. Maybe not at first, but I should've before now."

He slid an arm about her waist. "Yes, you should've. Is there anything else you're keeping from me?"

"Not that I can think of. I do think that, after we get out of here, I'll be having an in-depth conversation with my roommate about sorcery. Maybe she'll help me understand what happened seventeen years ago."

"You'd tell her?"

"Of course not. But that is her specialization. And I certainly don't want to ask Morrible."

He laughed at that. "I can understand."

After a moment, she said, "I think my father expects you to punish me somehow."

"You're a grown woman. I'm your husband, not your father. We've talked about it. I don't even understand what sort of punishment he would expect." Fiyero cocked his head. "He really does treat you like his property and not his daughter."

"He's better about Nessa, I guess. But she's more pliable, anyway."

"Your sister?"

Elphaba nodded.

"I've never seen her. You never talk about her."

"Now you want my life story, is that it?" Elphaba laughed a little, giving him a light hearted grin. "It's not at all entertaining and certainly not as thrilling as you might think it is." She tugged away and sat back down on the bed.

"Nonetheless, shouldn't we know about one another? Wouldn't that make it easier to trust each other?" He followed and put an arm around her shoulder. "Tell me about your family. I want to know about you."

"Really?" No one had cared before. Once they realized there was no salacious reason for her coloring, they usually bored of her pretty quickly.

"Yes." He kissed her forehead.

"My mother was nothing like my father. She was flighty and spoiled. She was also very flirtatious with men. Nanny always told me she didn't believe I truly belonged to my father."

"Nanny?"

"My mother's Nanny, actually. She's been with us since I was very little. She's a blunt, harsh woman. If I'm similar to anyone, it would be her. But she was usually occupied taking care of Nessa. Nessie was born with a deformity because… well, Mother wasn't happy. Father expected them to live this pious and simple life, and that wasn't who she was. I always wondered how they fell in love in the first place. She was constantly chewing pinlobble leaves or drinking milkweed flower. Sometimes I think maybe she was unhappy because of me - what I looked like."

"You can't possibly think that, Elphaba."

"I've never told anyone this, but I was born with a full set of teeth. And they weren't normal teeth, Fiyero. They were fangs. Eventually they fell out, and my normal teeth came in. But I imagine that my teeth along with my coloring had my mother convinced that she had birthed a monster. Anyway, she was so high all the time that Nessarose came out wrong, somehow. She has no arms. She's a beautiful girl, but the drugs my mother took caused her malformation."

He ran his thumb over her shoulder gently. "It must be difficult for her."

"Father had a chair built for her, since she can't stand because of balance issues. She can steer it with her feet if she has to, but usually Nanny or I would push her around. Other than the arms, she looks normal. She takes after my father in her devoutness to her faith, which my father is abundantly proud of. And then I have my only normal sibling, Shell. He's my little brother. Although, I guess my mother never could birth a normal child. She died delivering him. By that point, though, she was so far gone on the drugs that it was like the walking dead, anyway."

Fiyero pressed his lips into her forehead again, but didn't say anything.

Elphaba shook herself out of her memories. "What about you, though? What's it like in the Vinkus? I've always wondered. And… well, the diamonds…" Her hands automatically went to the one on his neck.

He smiled at her and unbuttoned his shirt to reveal his chest. "It's tradition at age fifteen. They are the symbol of my tribe. Blue colored diamonds are the strongest of all diamonds, and hardest to shape. And the diamond is already the strongest gem. They are meant to represent unyielding strength."

Elphaba's fingers traced along his chest, entranced. "So everyone has them?"

"Only the men, and only those of importance within the tribe." He covered her hand with his, squeezing it. "You like them." It wasn't a question.

"They're beautiful," she told him. "On your skin, it's almost like they dance and ripple on their own." Her hands were at his abdomen, and his was, too. Instinctively, she reached for the button on his trousers. Before unfastening them, though, she met his gaze questioningly.

He grabbed her hand and kissed it before kissing her hard on the mouth. They fell back onto the bed together, breathless already. Elphaba never got her punishment.

Author's Note: If you look back, you'll see I dropped several hints that she might've been trying to avoid pregnancy from the beginning. But I thought perhaps it was time she had a reality-check and that she re-examined what was going on.