Sorry this update's late! I had a crazy night at work followed by annual Grandpa-and-Grandma day with the two of them and the four grandchildren, so I didn't get home until now and I completely forgot to update. Here you go.

I'm also really glad you like this story so much, thank you all for reading; and I'm glad it's not obvious (yet) who the stalker is!

19. Anxiety

Elphaba's hands were shaking when she lowered the phone and stared at it as if a live snake had just come slithering out of it. Then she dropped it back onto the bed and wrapped her arms around herself, taking a few deep breaths. She knew she'd have to tell Galinda, Fiyero, and Oscar about this, but she needed to regain her composure first.

She tried to concentrate on unpacking again, but her mind kept wandering. She slipped on a pair of shoes and glanced at the time. Deciding it was late enough now for people to be up and about, she left her room and took the stairs down to Galinda's office, hoping her friend would be there already. She didn't usually work on Saturdays, but since she'd promised in a text the day before that she'd be in today, Elphaba hoped she would be here already.

The blonde was indeed sitting at her desk, typing away on her laptop, but she looked up with a brilliant smile when Elphaba came in.

"Elphie!" she squealed, leaping to her feet and throwing her arms around Elphaba in a hug. "It's good to have you back! Oz, I was so worried when I heard about what happened! Are you okay? And Fiyero and the twins? Any lasting damage done?"

Elphaba shook her head. "They're fine," she assured the blonde. "Just scared. The twins are still pretty shaken because of what happened – and so am I, honestly." She took a breath. "Glin… he called me just now."

"Who?" Galinda asked, looking puzzled.

"My stalker."

The blonde froze.

Elphaba sighed and sank down onto the couch in her friend's office. "I think it was him, anyway," she said quietly. "I can't be sure, but who else could it be? He didn't say anything, just breathed down the phone for a minute or so, and then he hung up."

Galinda swore softly under her breath and Elphaba's eyebrows shot up at the language the usually so proper young woman was using, but she had to admit she felt quite the same way.

"Have you told Fiyero?" the PA asked. "You should tell him. He's in charge of your security – he should know."

"I know. I will." Elphaba shrugged. "I wanted to come see you, anyway, so I figured you might as well be the first to know."

Galinda put an arm around the green woman. "I can't imagine how scared you must have been, Elphie. Both just now and back in Munchkinland."

There was a knock on the open door and both girls looked up to find Fiyero standing there, smiling a little. "Hey. Discussing what happened in Munchkinland?" he asked, glancing at Elphaba, but she shook her head and told him about the call she'd just had.

When she finished, Fiyero was looking pale and he clenched his fists. "That bastard," he swore. "Give me your phone, Fae. I'll try to track the number."

"It was anonymous," she said even as she handed him her phone. "I don't think you'll have much luck with that."

He cursed again and Galinda cast him a disapproving look, even though she'd been swearing herself not much earlier.

"I think we'll have to postpone any dating until we've caught our guy, Fae," he said with a sigh. "And any other outings for you, too. I'd prefer it if you didn't leave this building at all for the next –"

"The next what, Fiyero?" Elphaba asked him wearily. "The next week? Month? The next few years? The rest of my life? Where does it end? We won't find the guy unless I go out. You know that as well as I do. We have to lure him out."

"We already tried that, remember?" he said, running his fingers through his hair. Subconsciously, he brushed the fingers of his other hand against the spot on his abdomen where his scar was. "It didn't end too well."

"Maybe if you'd take more guards with you, and mask them as regular passers-by," Galinda suggested. "They could keep an eye out for anything suspicious. They'd be armed, so they could interfere if something happened…"

Fiyero shook his head. "It's too dangerous," he stated.

Elphaba rose to her feet and walked over to him, placing one hand on his arm. "Yero, we won't let you get hurt again, I promise. We'd find a way to make it safe, maybe I could use magic…"

He looked at her as if she had lost her mind. "Me?" he asked incredulously. "Oz, Fae, I'm not worried about me. I'm a tough guy. I'll live. It's my job to endanger myself for you, remember? I'm worried about you. We've seen what this stalker of yours is capable of and I don't want to expose you to him any more than strictly necessary."

"This is strictly necessary," she insisted. "One way or another, we need to find out who's behind it all."

"Not by putting you at risk!"

"What other way is there?"

"She's right, Fiyero," said Galinda, coming up behind her employer. "If you don't take any risks, you'll never find out who's stalking Elphie and she'll have to be on guard for the rest of her life."

Fiyero hesitated.

"Listen." Galinda took out her phone. "I'll text Duran and Gazilon right now to invite them for a night out with Elphie, Cohvu, you, and me. There's nothing weird about a group of friends meeting up, is there? We'll explain the whole situation to Gazilon – Duran already knows, anyway – and ask everyone to keep an eye out for anything strange. Six pairs of eyes see more than one or two, after all. We'll put some other guards in place, too, and we'll try to decide if someone in the vicinity is acting suspicious. We'll all walk back to the Palace after that. We'll be safe in a group and maybe one of us sees something."

Elphaba nodded. "I hate pulling my friends into this, but I suppose most of them are involved already, anyway," she said with a sigh, "and I know Gazilon is worried about me. He should hear the truth."

Galinda looked at Fiyero, who still looked torn, but he gave her a curt nod and she quickly typed a text message, her long, pink nails flying across the keys, and then she sent it out. "There. Sent. We'll catch our guy." She put her phone away and looked at Fiyero again and then at Elphaba, her eyes suddenly bright. "Now," she said, a little too eagerly for Elphaba's liking. "What did you, Fiyero, just say about dating?"

The date for the group meeting, attended by all university friends plus Fiyero, was set for Friday, two weeks from now. Elphaba would have preferred to have it as soon as possible, but that wasn't really an option; she and Galinda, and even Cohvu, could go out during the week and just take a few hours off the next morning, but Duran and Gazilon both had jobs to go to – not to mention the fact that Gazilon lived in northern Gillikin and had to travel quite a few hours to the Emerald City. She'd tried to move it to next weekend, rather than the weekend after, but Gazilon's sister was getting married and he would be gone for a few days, so she was going to have to be patient.

In the meantime, Elphaba had to prepare for her speech at the opening of the children's hospital that Thursday. Fiyero had advised her against going, but some of the tabloids were already speculating on reasons why the deputy mayor had hardly been seen in public lately and Elphaba didn't want to feed the rumours.

"He won't harm me in public," she'd assured Fiyero. "He's never tried anything in public before, after all, has he? I promise, you and the guards can drop me off just off the stage and you can whisk me away again straight after the event. I won't talk to anyone if you don't want me to and I'll go straight back home, but events like this one are important for my career, Yero, and I told you – I refuse to put my entire life on hold because of this creep."

He'd sighed, but relented, and he'd spent the next few days arranging security measures for the event.

Despite the fact that everyone was trying to go on as if nothing had happened, it was clear that they were all scared, once one knew which signs to look for. Elphaba started every day by checking her phone. Usually, there would be a text from Nessa, saying everything was okay and asking if Elphaba was fine, too; twice, there was no such text when Elphaba woke up, in which case she'd call her sister to make sure nothing bad had happened. Nothing had, of course – once Nessa had still been asleep and the other time she had forgotten to charge her phone before going to bed – but they were both anxious and worried for the other.

The twins seemed to be doing well. They got tutored by Cohvu, played games, and asked thousands of questions, just like they always did. However, every morning when Elphaba went to wake them, she found them together in either Xalo's room or Fawn's, sleeping curled up close to one another – something they only did when they were scared or sad. Cohvu kept a close eye on all three Thropps, helping to distract the children during the day and asking Elphaba at least once a day how she was doing and if there was anything he or Galinda could help her with. Galinda gave them all worried looks all day long, too, and Oscar was more on edge than before. They all were.

Elphaba didn't leave the Palace at all, instead opting to work in her office all day long. Any meetings she had, she arranged to be at the Palace and every visitor she had was screened closely. Her claustrophobia was starting to worsen again, but she tried to ignore that, just as she ignored her friends and family's concerned glances.

While she kept busy working and caring for the twins, sometimes spending some time with Oscar, Cohvu, and Galinda, she hardly ever saw Fiyero. He had a lot of work of his own to do, preparing for Elphaba's speech and constantly attending meetings with the security staff to check the camera footage and search for other possible holes in security. Because they were both so busy, it took the green woman a while to realise that he was avoiding her.

The evening before her speech, when she had put the twins to bed, she went down the hallway and knocked on the door to Fiyero's rooms.

He opened the door to find her standing there, barefoot and wearing a pair of pyjama trousers and a tank top with a robe thrown on over them. She was leaning against the doorway, twirling the rope of her bathrobe around as she raised one eyebrow at him.

"Hello there," she said. "Can I come in?"

He stepped aside and she walked past him. As he closed the door behind her and turned around, he already took a breath to ask her why she was here, but she was quicker.

"Why have you been avoiding me?"

His head shot up. "What?" he asked, shocked.

She gave him a wry smile. "I'm not stupid, Fiyero."

"No," he said, chuckling wryly. "You're probably the least stupid person I've ever met." He sighed and sank down onto the couch. She sat down beside him and looked at him expectantly.

"I'm not really sure," he admitted. "I'm just… worried."

When he didn't say anything else, she prodded, "About what?"

He sighed again, impatiently this time. "About you, of course. About your safety, because somehow this guy seems to know everything about you and I'm afraid that if he somehow finds out I'm still around and we're still spending time together, it'll be the last straw for him and he'll turn on you."

Elphaba shook her head. "He tried to murder my children, Yero," she stressed. "As far as I'm concerned, that's worse than him trying to murder me. And besides, that's not for you to decide."

"It is, though," he countered. "I'm supposed to be protecting you, one way or another."

She laid her hand against his face. "As I said before, I'm not stupid. I can decide for myself which risks I do and do not want to take," she reminded him. "And besides, how would he ever find out?"

Fiyero hesitated and Elphaba rose to her feet and moved over to the open door, closing it.

"Fae," he protested, but she rolled her eyes at him.

"My claustrophobia isn't so bad that I need every door open, Yero, even though it's sweet that you thought of it. I do value my privacy, you know. As long as you keep the door between your bedroom and foyer open, I'm good. I usually don't really like locked doors," she said, even as she turned the key in the lock on Fiyero's door, "but right now I think I'd like a little privacy." She gave him an impish grin as she moved back over to him.

He frowned at her. "Elphaba, you don't have to –"

"Have to? Are you serious?" She snorted. "I know you've only known me for a month, Fiyero, but have I ever done something because I 'had to'?"

Now that she mentioned it, he didn't think she had.

She chortled at the look on his face, but then she grew serious again. "Look, Fiyero – if, you know, hypothetically speaking…"

That made him chuckle and she smirked slightly at him before continuing.

"…you don't want anything to happen because you just don't feel that way about me, or don't think you ever could… that's fine. Just tell me. I told you in Munchkinland – I like you and I'd like to see if this could go somewhere, but I need you in for that, too."

He sighed again. "That's not it, Fae. I like you, too," he confessed, then grimaced. "Actually, what you said in Munchkinland about me being in love with you… that was probably more accurate than either of us was willing to admit at the time."

She blinked at him, taken aback. She hadn't expected that.

"It's just that I think maybe we should wait until this whole stalker business is over and then we could –"

"No," Elphaba said hotly. "I am not going to sit here and do nothing because some crazy person decided that I'm the love of his life! Are you serious? It's bad enough that I can hardly get out of the Palace anymore, or meet my friends without there being some ulterior plan and a lot of extra security. My own children can't even visit their playmates anymore. I'm not making any more concessions than that. Don't you see? If I give him that much power over me, I might as well just roll over and do whatever he wants!"

The contents of those letters came back to Fiyero and he shuddered at the implications of her doing whatever that creep wanted. "It's not the same, Elphaba."

"Still," she insisted. "Besides, I told you – that decision is mine, not yours, and I'm saying I want to take the bet." She crossed her arms. "I'm yours if you'll have me. All you have to do is say the word."

He looked at her, his heart aching. It was so tempting, more so than she'd ever realise, he thought. Especially now, all dressed for bed and with her hair loose, but her cheeks flushed with frustration, she was gorgeous; and he knew he really was in love with her. Under any other circumstances, he wouldn't have hesitated for a single clock-tick, but now…

For the past week, he'd been playing that day at the lake in Munchkinland in his head over and over again. He'd never forget the sound of Elphaba's screams, because he still heard them in his nightmares every night. He'd never forget the unconcealed terror in her eyes upon seeing her children hurt or the look of utter relief on her face when she'd realised they were going to be all right. That attack had been aimed at him and it had almost cost her the two things she loved most in the world. He couldn't do that to her again. Regardless of what was going to happen, he couldn't be responsible for it.

Years ago, he might have rejected her because he didn't want to commit to an actual relationship. Now, his reasons for rejecting her were much more mature and much more noble… but he still had to reject her.

And so he said quietly, "I'm sorry, Elphaba. I can't."

She stared at him for a few moments, the look on her face incredulous. Then, however, she composed herself and the look on her face became blank.

"All right," she said calmly, pulling her robe tighter around herself and turning around. "Thank you for making that clear. I won't bother you about it again. Good night, Fiyero." With that, she unlocked the door and left, closing it behind her.

He knew she was hurt, but he just couldn't risk it. He'd failed her once. He wasn't going to fail her again. Her safety, and that of her family, was more important than her feelings – or his.

I feel a tiny little bit guilty for first being late and then giving you this, but I promise you'll get more Fiyeraba soon!