So, apparently, I uploaded this chapter into my Doc Manager but did not post it. Oops. Well, here it is now!

I think this is my favourite chapter of the ones I've written so far - both Fiyeraba-wise and sass-wise.

9. Fervid As a Flame

"Elphie!" Glinda cried the moment her roommate set foot in the room. "Finally! What took you so long? I was starting to think you'd never come back! We wondered if we'd chased you away forever!" She bounded over to the green girl and hugged her. "Oh, Elphie, I'm sorry – I know we've been taking this whole thing a bit far, maybe," she apologised. "We'll try to keep ourselves in check. This isn't even really about you doing well in the pageant, after all – it's about you doing well enough to not look suspicious, but your real mission is catching Bomb Threat Guy. I should have kept that in mind. I'll help you with that from now on, okay? Can you ever forgive me?"

Elphaba absently patted Glinda on the back. "Of course, Glin."

Glinda beamed at her. "So where have you and Fiyero been?" she gushed. "Was it nice? What did you do?"

Her friend shrugged. "We went to get ice cream," she said. "Took a walk. Had lunch. Spent the rest of the afternoon reading together." Kissed, she almost blurted out, but she didn't. For one, she knew how Glinda would react: she'd either burst into squeals and demand all the details, or she would not be okay with the idea of her best friend and her ex-boyfriend together. Neither scenario was one Elphaba was prepared to deal with right now. She needed to sort some things out for herself first.

Fiyero, as she found out the next day, seemed to respect that, though that didn't stop him from making clear to her how he felt. He was waiting in the courtyard with Boq and Nessa and the moment he laid eyes on Elphaba, his face lit up with a beaming grin. She could feel herself blush and she tried to avoid his gaze, but it was difficult. Even as she focused on the conversation between Glinda, Boq, and Nessarose, she could constantly feel Fiyero's eyes on her.

They moved to their respective classes, but things weren't much better in the classroom. Nothing to do with Fiyero this time; it was just that this particular History class was the first class of the week Elphaba had together with not just Milla, but Pfannee and Shenshen as well. After the ball that weekend, they'd gotten particularly obnoxious and the moment they saw the green girl, they started making frog noises.

Dr Dillamond, who had just come in, flushed visibly with anger. "Girls!" he chided, horrified. "This is very childish behaviour!"

"Don't bother, Doctor," Elphaba said to him. "I'm used to it."

He looked even more horrified at that, even though he'd seen it happen plenty of times already in his own class alone. Nessarose pressed her lips together in disapproval, but didn't say anything. Elphaba glanced at Fiyero, who looked just like she imagined she had looked right before she'd unleashed her magic on the whole class over a Lion cub.

"Let it go," she told him. "They're not worth it."

He raised his eyebrow a bit sceptically. "Is that what you tell yourself every time this happens?" he demanded.

She shrugged. "Yes."

He softened at that and took her hand under the table. She was a little surprised by the gesture, but the small smile he gave her melted her and she squeezed his hand softly.

Glinda, meanwhile, had turned around in her seat and said hotly to the offensive classmates, "You three are just jealous because she is in the top twelve of the Miss Emerald competition and you didn't even make it past the second round!"

"I did, too!" Pfannee argued shrilly.

"And me!" Shenshen added. Milla, looking ashamed now because she actually hadn't made it past the second round, kept her mouth shut.

"Oh, that's right," Glinda said, innocently batting her eyelashes at her former friends. "Pfannee did make it further than that… just not far enough, did you?" She smirked. "And Shenshen – it's such a shame your daddy pulled you out. Then again, it's not like you'd have won in the end. They look at personality, too, you know. They'd never let someone like you win."

Shenshen flushed bright red. "That was mean, Galinda!" she cried.

Glinda scowled at her. "It's Glinda now," she said snippily. "It has been since before last summer. Which you would have known if you'd have been nice to Elphie, because then we'd still have been friends."

"Why would I bother being nice to that?" Pfannee sneered. "It would be like being nice to the broccoli on my dinner plate!"

Dr Dillamond scraped the floor with his hoof to get the class's attention. "Girls!" he snapped. "This is uncalled for! One more such remark and I'm sending you to the Headmaster!"

The girls, however, completely ignored him.

"She is your princess!" Glinda was saying hotly to Pfannee.

"How did she get so far in the competition, anyway?" Milla asked. "Just because she's the princess? It's not like many people find an artichoke so attractive."

"The princess thing is the only thing she has going for herself," Pfannee said to her friend. "I bet that's why Galinda – sorry, Glinda," she mocked, "ditched us for her. She found out about the princess thing and decided she wanted the power coming with being the princess's roommate and best friend. That's the only reason that asparagus is in the Miss Emerald pageant and the only reason anyone is ever nice to her." She shot Elphaba a dirty look, but the green girl just yawned.

"That is so original," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Let me guess: the next thing you're about to call me is a green bean. Am I right?"

Shenshen looked wide-eyed and a little sheepish, indicating Elphaba had indeed probably been right. The dark-haired witch rolled her eyes and turned around in her seat again.

"Never mind, Glin," she said to her roommate. "It's fine."

"It is most certainly not fine!" Glinda cried. "Those three are pigs!"

The three girls gasped in unison as if that was the most terrible insult they had ever heard.

"It's a good thing there are no cameras allowed on campus," Nessa muttered. "Otherwise this would have been filling pretty much the entire next episode of Miss Emerald."

Elphaba could only agree. Especially since Glinda and the girls seemed far from finished with their argument.

"I never even saw her in the earlier rounds," Pfannee said nastily to Glinda. "I bet Daddy Wizard just paid for his precious little vegetable to get a spot in the final twelve. He probably bribed some people or something."

Elphaba stiffened a little, since this theory was rather close to the truth, but Glinda didn't miss a beat.

"You were in the Munchkinland rounds, you dolt," the blonde said with a sniff. "Elphaba is from the Emerald City."

"Well, Nathalinia didn't know her, either, did she?" Pfannee argued. She glared at Elphaba. "Never mind, though. It's not like you are ever going to win, either," she scoffed. "You may have everyone fooled with your princess trick, froggy, and wrapped around your little finger because you have status, power, and money now; but we've known you before all that happened. We know better. We know what a monster you really are!"

Before Elphaba knew it, Fiyero was practically launching himself across his chair, clearly intending to punch the redhead. All three girls started shrieking dramatically, even as Elphaba quickly held the prince back.

"Stop that," she snapped at him, roughly pushing him back into his chair. "I can fight my own battles and I will not have you going around punching girls in the face. You're better than that, even if they aren't. Oh, for Oz's sake, stop squealing!" she added to Pfannee, Shenshen, and Milla, who were still gasping and wailing like someone had just tried to murder them. "You're giving me a headache!"

"They really are pigs," Nessa said in wonder, which made Elphaba grin a little.

Glinda giggled, too. "They are."

Dr Dillamond had been trying to call the class to order for a while now, but he couldn't make himself understandable over the noise. Surprisingly, most of their classmates seemed to be on Elphaba's side, although she suspected that was – as Pfannee had said – mainly because of her royal status. The girl had been right about that: much more people were going out of their way to be nice to her now that she turned out to be a princess, which was annoying, but she supposed it was better than being called names all the time. Only the students who really seemed to hate her, such as Pfannee, Shenshen, and Milla, had persisted in doing that.

"He tried to punch me!" Pfannee shrieked at Dr Dillamond.

"She called Elphaba a monster!" Fiyero defended himself.

"Because she is!" Milla yelled back at him, which made him go red in the face again, but Elphaba closed her fingers around his arm so tightly it actually hurt.

"Don't you dare," she hissed at him.

"I'm going to Madame Morrible!" Pfannee was crying. "I'm going to file a complaint against Fiyero!"

"Morrible isn't Headmistress anymore, you idiot," Glinda reminded her none too friendly. "She can't do anything about this, anyway. And thank Oz she can't, either, because she was just as stupid and disgusting as you three. Good riddance!"

Dr Dillamond cried in shock, "Miss Glinda! That is no way to talk about your teacher!", even though he knew as well as Glinda and Elphaba did what Morrible had tried to do. Still, he couldn't be seen supporting such talk about his colleagues in public.

"I'm going to tell her you said that!" Pfannee shrieked in unholy glee. "She'll never award you or artichoke here any points then!"

Glinda blinked. "What are you talking about?"

Milla smirked at her former friend. "Madame Morrible is on the jury panel for the final Miss Emerald shows, Glinda," she said sweetly. "Didn't you know?"

"You'll never make it!" Pfannee cried, laughing a little hysterically. "We'll make sure of it!"

Elphaba, however, had frozen. Morrible was on the jury panel? She glanced at Dr Dillamond, who met her gaze. He looked just as startled as she felt; she thought he couldn't have known about this, either. She swore softly under her breath. Morrible, involved in the beauty pageant… it wasn't hard to guess who was behind the bomb threat now.

Dr Dillamond slammed a hoof onto his desk. "Silence!" he bellowed.

The noise in the classroom died down.

"Miss Pfannee and Miss Milla," Dr Dillamond said calmly. "Please report to the Headmaster."

More indignant squeals, which went ignored by the Goat.

"Just us?" Milla demanded. "What about Blondie there? Or Princess Snot-Monster?" She and Shenshen giggled about that for a while.

"Or that filthy Winkie?!" Pfannee added rudely.

Dr Dillamond started saying, "I will not tolerate name-calling in my class!"; but before he'd even gotten to the end of that sentence, Elphaba had already twisted in her seat, eyes blazing, and Pfannee was hurled backwards, chair and all, and pinned against the wall.

A shocked silence fell over the class.

"Pfannee," Elphaba said, her voice shaking a little with pent-up anger, but her face blank. "Why don't you apologise to Fiyero for that very rude thing you just said about his people?"

Pfannee spluttered, clearly shocked and a little frightened, but Elphaba's burning gaze held hers until she relented and squeaked, "I'm sorry".

Elphaba exhaled, relaxing her grasp on her magical powers. Pfannee's chair clattered to the floor with Pfannee still on it, trembling violently.

Dr Dillamond let out a sigh. "Miss Elphaba," he said tiredly. "I really don't want to have to do this, but I can't play favourites – you know that. I'm sorry. Report to the Headmaster, please."

She nodded and gathered her things, not looking at any of her friends even though she knew they were all looking at her. She slung her bag over her shoulder and, without another word, followed Pfannee and Milla out of the classroom.

Thankfully, Elphaba's visit to the Headmaster's office was quite short. He kept her, Pfannee, and Milla waiting in his office until Dr Dillamond had finished teaching his History class and when the Goat came in as well, the Headmaster asked him what exactly had happened. Dr Dillamond told him, causing Elphaba to be left off with a warning and Pfannee and Milla with detention. They barely even protested; after Elphaba's magic trick, they both seemed to be rather scared of the green girl.

When Elphaba came out of the Headmaster's office, she found Fiyero waiting for her in the hallway.

He gave her a lopsided, sympathetic grin when he saw her. "Hey. Was he very hard on you?"

She shook her head. "Just a warning," she said. She shrugged. "Even if it had been detention, it would have been worth it. Pfannee shouldn't have said that. It was an insult not just to you, but to your people."

"What about all the things she said about you?" he asked her a little angrily, but she just shrugged again.

"That's different."

"No, it's not," he countered.

She glared at him and he sighed. "I'm not going to win this fight, am I? I mean, I hated you doing this – standing up for others, but not for yourself – when we were still just friends, but I hate it even more now that we're…" He trailed off. "What are we?"

"Are we not just friends anymore?" she asked him a little uncertainly. "I mean… we could continue being just friends. If you want to."

He gave her a look. "I think I made it fairly clear that I don't want to, Elphaba."

A dark red blush crept into her cheeks and he grinned at her. "You're pretty when you blush."

"Shut up." She stomped his arm. "Were you serious, then?"

"Yes." He studied her face. "Were you?"

Her blush darkened, which was really the only answer he needed. He placed his hands on her hips and drew her closer, kissing her softly.

She swatted him away. "Not here. What if someone sees us?"

Fiyero frowned a little. "You want to keep it a secret?"

"What is 'it'?"

"Our…" He faltered. "Well, relationship, I guess."

She stared at him, a mild panic taking over. Her voice was higher than usual when she asked, "How did it go from a few kisses to a relationship?"

"You just said you were serious about this," he protested and she smirked a little.

"Technically, I never said such a thing," she pointed out. "You asked and then you just assumed that I would say yes and you kissed me." His face fell and she quickly added, "I would have said yes, though."

He glanced back at her and then chuckled. "This is weird. We've been friends all this time, and I've liked you, well, that way, about seventy-five percent of that time… I've been wanting to kiss you for so long. And now I finally can." Before she knew it, he'd stolen another kiss again and when she scowled, he grinned at her once more, slipping his arm around her waist.

"Come on," he said. "Let's go have lunch with the others. I know you, so I'll save the kissing and hand-holding for a while – from now on, anyway – and I'll just give you some time to think about all this and what you want with it. Not too long, though, because then you'll over-think it and I'll have to spend hours and hours trying to convince you that you really are what I want, regardless of how strange or impossible you think that may be."

She stared at him as they walked, dumbfounded. "How…?" She shook her head incredulously. "Never mind. I guess you really do know me."

"Oh, trust me," he said, still grinning. "I really do."

Poll is still open!

Any favourite lines? Let me know :).