It's my birthday today so I wanted to give you an extra chapter this weekend to celebrate, even if it is really brief. I realized today that I started posting this a little over a year ago and it was important to me to mention that I'm very grateful to everyone who has spent the last year with me on this. 3 Thank you!

The next day in class, he bravely sat next to her, slipping her notes onto the small writing surface that hinged on the armrest of these auditorium seats. She accepted them back without comment, leaning down to slide the files into her messenger bag, and when she sat back up he made sure she'd see the bright-red apple he placed on the desk.

"Thank you," she had said, picking up the apple and turning it over in her hands as she smiled at him.

"Thank you," he returned. "Your notes were impressive. I can't even imagine Dr. Dillamond ever having that much to say."

"That's probably because you zone out during most of his lectures."

"Ah, true."

Her brows furrowed slightly over scanning eyes. "Are you okay?"

He realized she was looking over his bruised cheek and busted lip. He ran his tongue over it self-consciously and tried to ignore the throbbing of his undoubtedly fractured ribs. "Me? Yeah. I'm good."

"Does it hurt?"

"Eh, a little. I've been through worse."

"How much worse?"

He shrugged, saying truthfully, "Like I-didn't-think-I-was-going-to-survive worse."

Elphaba sat up at this, her mouth parting from horror, but her next question was lost as Dillamond called for attention. She looked his way more than once, just as timidly as she was about his tattoos, and he felt lucky that even an ounce of that curiosity she had for academics was directed at him. By the end of class, she either lost interest or lost her nerve, and though he had spent the hour developing a ridiculous and obviously fictitious story that started with him being kidnapped by bandits and ended with him being praised as a god to a rowdy race of tiny elves, she didn't ask him for more.

Even though he had looked forward to coaxing a smile out of her with his absurd yarn, he breathed a sigh of relief that he didn't have to actively lie to her. He wasn't sure if he'd ever tell her the truth: that he had been beaten to an inch of his life by the very men he had once commanded in order to save hers.