AN: Okay, I was messing with you. I feel too bad about leaving you with that cliffy to not update for another three days. So here's the next chapter and I promise you won't hate me again after this.

Thank you all for restraining your murderous impulses, and thank you for your trust (though the fact that pretty much none of you believed that I would leave Elphaba dead actually says that I'm starting to get predictable, but, well, I could never kill Elphaba for real. You all know it).

Kudos to Musicgal3, aka my long lost Australian twin sister, which she had proven once again by knowing exactly how my mind works and being the only one to have figured it all out. *huggles*

Moreanswers24, I love you ranting Spanish at me - I'm taking Spanish class at uni, so this gave me an opportunity to try and translate without actually reading the translation :P. I was pretty close. Thanks for not hunting me down. After this chapter, you won't regret that decision.

So... thank you all very much - for reviewing, for not killing me, for sticking with me through all of my stories... I'm going to finish packing now and then I'm going to leave for London. Look out for the next update - it will contain the longest AN ever, in which I am going to spam you with every little detail about the show and the incredible amazingness of Willemijn Verkaik :).

Bye bye, my friends. Until we meet again. (I know, I'm being dramatic. See you in two days.)

Chapter 33. The strongest thing

Fiyero said that he didn't want to bury Elphaba, and eventually, the others agreed.

It was the first time he had spoken since Elphaba's death. Lori had hesitantly brought up the subject of a funeral, after which Galinda promptly burst into tears. Lori, Hamold and Aurya had discussed some things back and forth and then Fiyero had spoken up.

"I don't want her to be buried."

They all looked at him with a mix of surprise and sympathy. "Yero," Lori said gently, "we have to –"

"I know," he cut her off. "But we're not going to bury her. She doesn't belong in the earth – she belongs in the sea."

Lori had nodded slowly. Fiyero had looked up, his eyes meeting Aurya's. "Let Aurya take her," he said, and his voice broken. "I know you will give her the goodbye she deserves."

Aurya smiled sadly at him. "I will," she promised him.

Fiyero just nodded curtly, then rose to his feet and left the room. He spent the rest of the day outside on the beach, tossing pebbles into the water. He looked up when a turtle crawled onto the beach – the one with the dark patch. The one Elphaba had always talked to.

"Go away!" he hissed at the animal. "She's not here, okay? She's not here. She's gone."

The turtle just sat there and Fiyero almost got the feeling that it was watching him with its tiny black eyes. He jumped to his feet and hurled a pebble in the direction of the animal, suddenly fuming with rage.

"What are you still doing here?!" he screamed at the turtle. "Get lost, you stupid animal! She's not here! She's not coming back – ever!"

Suddenly sobbing, he sank down into the sand, curling up in foetal position and crying. "She's not coming back…" he whispered. "She's never coming back."

The next day, they all stood on the beach together – all except for Fiyero. He'd locked himself in the library, refusing to come out.

Aurya, Lori and Hamold had decided not to take Elphaba back under the water – Aurya would have a hard time making the trip if she had to take Elphaba along, and they figured that it wasn't of any use, anyway. Instead, they had put her on a small raft, after which they said their goodbyes to Elphaba, then pushed the raft with the green girl on it into the sea, watching her until she was nothing more than a dot at the horizon.

Aurya left shortly thereafter, knowing that she had to get back to the people and tell them the news.

That night, she was sitting in the window sill of the highest tower of the palace, staring outside without really seeing anything. The merpeople had all been devastated upon hearing the news of Elphaba's death, and Aurya just didn't know what to do anymore. Take power herself? Find someone else who could rule the people?

At least Morrible was dead. That was the only good thing that had come from this. After Elphaba had died and they had brought her inside of the castle of Adurin Iir, Hamold had gone outside again to take a walk in the gardens, and that was where he had found Morrible. Still in the shape of a fish, she had been trampled. They had no idea who it had been that had stepped on her, and none of them really cared, either. They had burnt what was left of the fish and that had been that.

"Your Highness?" A guard showed up in the doorway of the tower room, looking extremely pale. He was sweating – could one even sweat under the water? Aurya wondered – and he kept on tugging at his collar, as if he couldn't breathe. He swallowed. "There's a… a visitor for you."

Aurya turned back to the window. "I don't want to see anyone right now," she said.

The guard swallowed again. "Your Highness, I… With all due respect," he said. "I think you should see this person."

"No." Aurya shook her head. "Please just leave me alone. I don't want to be disturbed."

"Not even by me?" a new voice asked.

Aurya's eyes widened. She knew that voice… didn't she?

No. Her mind must be playing tricks on her.

Slowly, she turned around. The guard was gone now. Instead, someone else was behind her.

She looked different. She had legs, for instance, instead of a fishtail; her once emerald green skin had faded to a paler shade of green, her raven hair was shining and her chocolate brown eyes were sparkling. Aurya could see the dimples in her cheeks when she smiled a bit shyly. "Hi."

"Hi," Aurya repeated, completely dumbstruck. "How… How did you…" She shook her head and blinked. "This is not possible," she declared.

"What's not?" Elphaba stared at her, clearly confused. "Aurya, what in Oz happened?" she wanted to know. "One moment, I was burnt all over and I thought I was dying; and the next moment I wake up on some kind of raft in the middle of the ocean. I cast the spell that was supposed to change me into my mermaid form, only it didn't work. Then I dive into the water, only to discover that I can't breathe under water anymore, for some weird reason, so I cast the breathing spell on myself and that did work, which means I still have my magic, only not the way it used to be, and… and I don't understand one bit of all this."

Aurya suddenly started laughing.

She knew she was probably scaring Elphaba. Her laughing came out rather hysterically, almost as cackles, but she just couldn't help herself. She was alive. Elphaba was alive!

"Elphaba," she said finally, when she had calmed down a little. "You were dead."

That clearly did nothing to alleviate the green girl's confusion. "I was?"

"You were." Aurya closed her eyes for a moment. "You… you were dead for days, Elphaba."

Suddenly, she swam up and approached Elphaba, looking her over for a moment before hugging her tightly. "Thank Oz you're not dead," she said, tears suddenly brimming inside her eyes. "I have no idea how this happened, but it must be some kind of miracle. Fabala… you have no idea how happy I am to see you."

She let go of her niece and gestured towards the window sill, inviting Elphaba to take place. "Take a seat," she said. "I think we need to talk."

Elphaba sat down and Aurya did, too. She took in her niece, shaking her head incredulously. "I can't believe you're really here."

Elphaba just looked up at her expectantly, so Aurya proceeded by telling her what had happened – from the moment Elphaba had changed Morrible into a fish and fell down into the pond up to when she had appeared back at the palace just mere moments ago.

"So…" Elphaba tried to wrap her mind around all this. "What does that mean?"

Suddenly, Aurya drew in her breath. "The story!"

Elphaba wrinkled her nose. "What story?"

Aurya looked at her, clearly excited. "The story I told you the other day," she said. "About the hybrid mermaid getting caught in a downpour of rain and dying?"

Elphaba's eyes widened when she realised where her aunt was going with this. "Only she didn't die," she whispered. "She shed her mermaid form and became human…" She looked up at Aurya. "Is that what happened to me?"

"It has to be," said Aurya. "I can't think of any other explanation."

Elphaba let out a breath she hadn't realised she had been holding. "So I'm not a mermaid anymore," she said. "Then why do I still have powers?"

"Remember what Morrible said?" Aurya reminded her. "You have magic powers because you're a hybrid – part mermaid, part human. Morrible was right about that. You've lost your mermaid powers, which means you can't breathe under the water or change into a mermaid anymore, and there are probably still other things you will find you can't do anymore… but you still have magic. That's who you are deep down inside and that has nothing to do with the form you're in."

Suddenly, Elphaba gasped. "Wait a clock-tick. If I was dead, then…"

Aurya grimaced when she realised what Elphaba meant. "Yes…" she said. "You might want to travel to Adurin Iir right away, before Fiyero does something rash."

Elphaba looked a little pale. "That's not funny," she said.

"I wasn't trying to be funny." Aurya reached out to squeeze her niece's hand. "It's good to have you back, Fabala," she said gravely.

Elphaba smiled. "Thanks, Aurya." She turned around, moving towards the door, but she stopped when she heard Aurya's voice.

"You're not coming back, are you?"

Elphaba took a deep breath, turning around to face her aunt again. "No."

Aurya nodded with a sad smile. "You can't," she said. "You're human now. You couldn't live under the water if you wanted to."

Elphaba shook her head. "It's not just that," she said. She sighed. "Aurya, I… I died."

"I know."

"And…" She swallowed. "And it was all wrong."

Aurya opened her mouth to say something, but Elphaba was quicker. "And not because I wasn't planning on dying for the next few decades," she said. "That's not it. It… it felt wrong because I wasn't happy."

Aurya closed her mouth and stayed silent now.

"I truly thought I made the right decision back then," Elphaba said softly. "And in a way, it was the right decision. For the people, for the kingdom… but not for me." She looked up at her aunt. "Aurya, all I could think about when I was lying there, was how much time I wasted," she said. "How much time I spent trying to do the right thing, trying to make other people happy, when I could have been happy myself. And I regretted my decision. More than I ever regretted anything before. Because the time I spent under the water, trying to be the princess I never truly was inside… I could have spent that time with the ones that I loved. With Fiyero. That look on his face when I was dying?" She shook her head. "I knew it was wrong then," she said. "It was all wrong. And I wanted nothing more than to make it right."

Aurya smiled. "So now you're going to make it right."

Elphaba returned the smile. "Exactly."

Aurya swam up to her, taking her niece's hands and squeezing them. "I admire that about you, Elphaba," she said. "I know how unhappy you were before, and though it was incredibly brave of you to go on with it despite that, I think you're doing the right thing now. I love you. I want you to be happy."

Elphaba hugged her aunt. "Thank you, Aurya."

"I just want to ask you one thing," Aurya said. "Okay, two things, actually."

"Fair enough," Elphaba said, and Aurya looked at her.

"You need to come back at least once," she said. "To transfer power over to someone else, to speak to the people, things like that."

Elphaba nodded. "Of course. I'll come back right after I visit Adurin Iir," she offered. "The sooner this is done, the better. What's the other thing?"

Aurya smiled at her. "Please visit me every now and then."

Elphaba laughed and hugged her again. "Of course. I will. But you can visit me, too."

"And I will do that," Aurya agreed. She squeezed Elphaba's hand. "Now go. Good luck."

Elphaba kissed her aunt's cheek. "Thank you."

Then she left the palace.

The trip to Adurin Iir took her much longer than usual – probably because swimming with legs was so much slower than swimming with a mermaid tail – but eventually, she made it. She broke through the surface, immediately breaking into a coughing fit as she accidentally tried to take in a gulp of air. She dragged herself onto the beach, sitting on hands and knees as she coughed up water like there was no tomorrow.

And that was how Fiyero found her.