Fiyero's head felt as though his brain was reeling around in his skull. Every so often he'd close his eyes, take a deep breath, until a limited sense of normalcy was restored, but his eyes would never remain closed for long. They couldn't.

Peels of wood were curling around him and across his lap, disregarded. The blade of his pocket-sized folding knife was starting to dull after hours of trying to carve shapes into chunks from fallen branches, but he didn't care. It did its job and the frustrating project was enough to help him block out the world around him.

The little Lion at his side, however, would not be ignored as easily. He kept bumping Fiyero's elbow with his nose, begging for another piece of the beef jerky that the young prince had in a bag between his legs. Caving, Fiyero grabbed a couple strips from the sack, stuck one in his own mouth and tossed the other one over his shoulder. It wouldn't keep the little beast gone long, but it gave him a moment of peace before the rascal was back, whining for more.

He created a little monster. A jerky-loving monster.

The sky was gray. The weather had been fluctuating intensely the past few days, like a storm was fighting to come in but something was sporadically dissolving it. Miniscule raindrops had been sprinkling down upon him off-and-on for the last couple of hours, dotting his shirt and pants with little wet spots and chilling his skin slightly. The Cub hated the weather, it seemed. Most things frightened him though, so much that Fiyero had taken to calling him Brrr in account of how he shivered at new, scary things. Despite his fears, the little Lion had taken quickly to Fiyero – no doubt heartened by the prince's consistency in feeding him fish and jerky.

His head swam again, and he let his hands fall limply to his sides as he lazily chewed the dried meat and looked around at the forest around him. The light mist of rain was all but invisible except for the glaze it put on the leaves and rocks after it hit; in the last few minutes the wind had begun to pick up, rustling and whistling through the trees. He was propped up against an acceptably comfortable rock in the middle of a clearing; to his left was a stream of cool water that kept a never-ending supply of clever, nimble fish for the little Animal to slap at with its tiny paws, and to his right was the small cave, which Fiyero had loaded with blankets – stolen from Shiz – for his pint-sized friend to use.

His shoulder bag was in there as well, and in it his studies, but he had given up on that hours ago. No matter how much he strained his eyes, he hadn't been able to concentrate on the words in front of him. They fell out of focus, swam in front of him, and all together made no sense.

The last part was expected— Fiyero Tiggular was no genius. Science wasn't supposed to make sense to a guy like him.

But he was the kind of guy that liked to decide for himself if he could or could not do something, and the choice he had made earlier in the day was to try to study for his pointless biology final. The fact that he couldn't absorb anything was something he had trouble accepting. So, he had squinted harder, determined, until his headache overwhelmed him and he settled on the less taxing whittling project.

He hadn't even finished the piece of jerky in his mouth before the Lion was back. Fiyero was enabling this behavior, wasn't he? He sighed, frustrated, and paid no heed to the high-pitched humming that was taking place in the Animal's throat that typically preceded its wimpy whining.

It acted as though it never ate; it ate more than Fiyero did with a stomach a quarter of the size.

"Shoo," Fiyero muttered grumpily, nudging it away, but it continued to peer up at him with its endearingly wide brown eyes, and after a moment it started rubbing against his leg, mewling cutely. Still, Fiyero refused to indulge it, and instead put the knife back to the knot of wood with renewed determination. But the Animal was determined too, and only gave Fiyero a minute before it essentially head-butted Fiyero's hand eagerly.

The knife point went into his thumb and he grunted in pain, leaping to his feet and storming away before he did something horrible like kick the damn thing in anger. It got what it wanted, however, for by the time Fiyero turned around Brrr's tiny head was buried deep inside the sack of jerky.

"Gah!" Fiyero said inarticulately, looking down at the small cut in the side of this thumb. He put it to his mouth to suck it clean, glaring angrily at the creature, and hollered with his finger still against his tongue, "You're so infuriating!"

"Now you know how I felt for so long," a voice that made his heart skip said from behind him. He whirled around, not used to people being able to sneak up on him, and locked gazes with the woman at the other end of the clearing.

Her dress was midnight black, thick and weighty but the wind gave it eerie movement around her. She remained grounded by her tall, frumpy boots and the heavy, coal-colored coat he had long ago stopped thinking was his. Some strands of her abundant, curling hair were pulled back as if to keep them out of her face but the rest were wilder than he had seen in recent memory. Her expression was hard as rock as she took him in.

"You'll get an infection that way," Elphaba spoke finally, carefully treading towards him, though the Lion had already scampered away. She kept her head and her shoulders high, a stark contrast from the girl who had been avoiding him for days. "Not to mention you look like a child."

"Wha—" he started to question, though his question was answered by his thumb muffling his utterance. He yanked it out of his mouth hastily and brushed it against his shirt, feeling a flare of irritation that almost made him wobble in his weariness. He flipped his knife closed crankily and slipped it away. "What are you doing here? How did you know where to find me?"

"I've seen the bottom of your boots propped up enough on just about every conceivable flat surface to be able to recognize your footprints, even in the woods."

"I didn't know you knew how to track people."

"It wasn't that hard," she said simply. By now she was right in front of him and she scanned his face. "You look terrible."

"Thanks for sugar-coating it," he quipped cynically.

"When was the last time you slept?"

"I'm fine."

"That's not an answer."

"I've gotten an hour or two here or there."

"How long has that been going on?"

"What do you think?" he said darkly, and her scrutiny fell at that, suddenly chagrined.

It had been a long time since he slept fully but lately his insomnia worsened. For days he tossed and turned fitfully until he would eventually make his escape from campus. His morning runs became longer as did his treks into the forest. He stopped bothering to go to many of his classes, save for the occasions he had a final or he had to turn in a paper; he couldn't stand the walls or the monotonous buzzing and bullshit of the students.

He definitely couldn't stomach being around Elphaba. He knew better than to approach her again with the way things were left and she had been evading his eye with such a palpable distaste for him that he was sick just thinking about it.

Brrr was preferable company, even with his sharp, pointy teeth and his insatiable hunger and his inexhaustible energy. The Lion was just as lonesome as he was and just as disconnected. Fiyero understood the feelings of loss and uncertainty about how to exist in this world to which he didn't belong, and neither he nor Brrr could ever return to what once had been.

"What is that thing?" she asked, gesturing to the whittled blob in his throbbing hand.

"It was supposed to be a lion, but now I don't know what it is. Did my inspiration run off?" Fiyero asked, looking about. "He'll be back. He's a scaredy Cat." The satire was lost in the gloom of the forest and in the tension between them, and depressively he tossed aside the stupid figurine. He sighed, feeling wary, and kicked around dirt with the toe of his boot. "I didn't think you wanted to see me anymore."

"I just needed to be alone. I'm better that way."

He disagreed, but he wouldn't argue with her. "Then why are you here now?"

"I got the letter."

She uncrossed her arms then, a green envelope revealing itself from where it had been hidden under her elbow, and he took it in. So there it was. The fabled invite. He had only ever heard of it, having never seen it before for himself, and yet it was something he dreaded more than most things in his encore at Shiz.

Fiyero didn't need to ask from where it originated. Aside from his knowledge and expectation of this particular note, the emerald of the paper was the expensive kind specifically made for the Palace and the seal on it was that of the Wizard's. He had been Captain long enough to get a few envelopes of his own that looked just like this. All this insight did was make his heart fall further into his stomach.

"Madame Morrible came up to me today and gave it to me," she said, her voice softening in a way so he couldn't resist meeting her eyes. They were shining, and even with the tension surrounding them she couldn't contain a small smile. "Fiyero, it's amazing. It's from the Wizard. She wrote him about me and he actually responded."

"Congratulations," he muttered as he stared at the broken wax seal, forgoing the Ozian slang he had used last time he uttered it.

She held out the envelope for him to take. He tried not to look at it, for it made him ill inside.

Powerless. That's how he felt, more so now than ever. Like he was at the top of a mountain, knowing without a doubt that a truly devastating landslide was to begin at his feet. For so long, he was careful to step and he swiped up loose stones as quickly as he could, but that didn't stop pebbles from slipping between his fingers. And that stupid green paper was the first tremor, the first jostling of earth beneath him, preparing to cause the very ground where he stood to break apart at any moment…

The stress was encumbering, and it was clearly making him think in overly grand metaphors. Not his usual style.

A frown appeared on her watchful face. "You're not going to look at it?" He shook his head slowly and, clever as she was, she understood why. "You already know what it says." It wasn't a question.

"He wants to meet you."

"How do you know that?"

Fiyero didn't know how to answer so he didn't. He merely looked up at her tiredly as an intensity sharpened her features in a way too reminiscent of her witchy counterpart for his liking at the moment.

"Why do you know what it says? How did you know it was coming? Was this your doing somehow?"

"It wasn't," he said truthfully.

"Don't you dare lie to me, Fiyero. Was this your doing?"

"Absolutely not," he insisted. "Any involvement I had would have been burning that before you ever saw it. The green dye they use is very flammable." The bon mot didn't bring him any satisfaction. He batted at the front of his pants morosely, to rid himself of the wood shavings that caught on the fabric and to give him a moment's reprieve from whatever resentful reaction she might have.

"What in Ozma's name would make you do that?"

He thought when this moment came the truth would just come pouring out like water from a spigot. But months of reticence had created a bigger clog than he realized and his weariness was making him distrust himself.

The words just weren't coming.

Elphaba growled loudly at his silence, spinning about with her hands flailing and cried, "This is my life! This is everything I've ever wanted and you're mocking me about it without so much as a hint as to why! I'm done with your secrets, Fiyero! Just stop with them!"

"Pardon me if I'm hesitant to open myself up to you. Last time I did it didn't really turn out so well."

"What did you expect of me?" she asked. She was clearly trying to contain herself, but he could still sense the emotion seeping out of her. "What was I supposed to say?"

"Say how you feel," he said simply. "Reciprocity! Yeah, the dumb prince knows a big word. You could just say that you have feelings for me too."

She clenched her eyelids shut, sucking in a slow, fatigued breath. "Fiyero…"

"Don't deny it. You kissed me first."

"Fiyero, please," she whimpered, burying her face in her hands. "I can't do this right now. Please, just tell me about the letter."

"You wouldn't believe me."

"Tell me anyway."

Fiyero tried swallowing down the rapidly growing tightness in his throat, constricting around the words he had long meant to say, and his chest clenching around the breath that couldn't escape and his pounding, palpitating heart. He knew he could no longer lie to her. He had been preparing for this moment for months. But now that his mind was ready his body was betraying him.

He had accomplished braver and stupider things than this before, like the time he had pointed a loaded, cocked rifle at the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz in a palace full of well-trained guards and influential people. He had managed that without even a tremor of his hands. But stick him in front of a school-aged green girl with frizzing hair and no fashion sense and he became uptight and grossly clammy.

"What if I told I just don't want to? Everything – everything – will change, and I don't want it to."

She gestured upwards in frustration, her sigh almost a groan. "What am I supposed to do with that, Fiyero?"

"Just…just know that no matter what I say, that I care about you. You're my best friend."

"You're my…you're my friend too, okay? Just talk."

He reached forward to take one of her wayward tresses and move it back into place with the rest of her wild hair, running his hand over the midnight silk with longing. This moment was covetous, he knew; she watched his circumspection with questioning eyes, but he couldn't bring himself to speak. When he felt her fingertips wrap around his elbow, as though to either stop or encourage his petting, all he wanted in that moment were for things to be simple. He wanted to just be a guy in love with a girl and none of the other stuff. But he couldn't do that. This was something that had to be done, and it wasn't for him but for something far more important: her. She would always come first. So, he took a deep breath.

"All right," he finally conceded, letting his arm fall reluctantly back to his side limply. His fingers felt suddenly filled with lead. "I knew about the letter because…where I come from, you had received it before."

Her brow furrowed deeply as she inspected him. "What in Oz is that supposed to mean? Where do you come from?"

He tried shaking his tense hands out at his side and took another deep lungful, but no amount of air could ready him the catastrophic changes in store. "Well, it's not really so much as a 'where' as it is a 'when'. Elphaba…" Where was the oxygen going? Another breath, this one shallower... "I come from a time different from now, in which I have already lived this present. I'm from the future. A future."

He was still as could be as he waited for her response; she stood there just as silent, her murky hazel orbs frighteningly severe as they moved between his eyes. Another breath…

And she laughed. Sourly. "This is one of your more pathetic attempts at humor, Fiyero, and that's saying something."

"It's not a joke."

"No, you're right: jokes are supposed to be funny. This is pitiable."

"I'm telling you the truth!"

She chuckled bitterly again, her signature smirk more of a sneer as she seemed to realize something. "This is about your crazy dissertation, isn't it? Am I part of some social experiment now?"

"I'm not writing a dissertation; I never was," he confessed seriously. "I was researching time-travel because one day I suddenly found myself in a carriage heading to my first day at Shiz, a year after I had already graduated. I had years of time in my memories too vivid to be a dream and every day, those memories were occurring again in front of my eyes, whether it was the same exact stupid lectures I had heard before or that entrance of yours into the Ozdust. And ever since that day I've been trying to stop bad things from happening, especially to you. And that damn green letter is the foundation to some very bad things."

"Bad things? What sort of bad things? What is that supposed to mean?"

"Elphaba, I need you to listen to me: The Wizard is a charlatan. He has no power. And he knows about the discrimination against the Animals. It was his idea."

He had seen her angry before, but this was different. This wasn't pure anger; it was tainted with betrayal and disappointment and no amount of planning could have prepared him for this slow but blistering-hot fire in her eyes. "How could you say such a thing?"

"He told me himself."

Scoffing, she said, "The Wizard told you he was a fraud?"

"No, Glinda told me that. The Wizard just confirmed it."

"What? Galinda?"

"No, Glinda. Please, just let me explain. Where I came from, when you went to see the Wizard, you never came back. You found out the truth about him and flew off the handle— her words, not mine. You became a fugitive of Oz; they called you a wicked witch."

"Wicked witch? What's wrong with you?" she cried out. "First of all, time travel isn't possible!"

"I didn't think so either, but here I am."

"How?"

"You cast a spell. It's the only explanation."

"Why would I do that?"

"I was dying. Left strung up on a pole in a field to bleed out. I had almost given up when I heard a voice in my head, it was chanting in some language I had never heard before. I-I thought I was imagining it, you know? I was thinking of you then suddenly I was hearing you, comforting me when I was sure I was dying. I felt myself fading – I thought that was it, I was done – but then I was here. Healthy, whole, and hungover as hell."

"You heard my voice? Why me?"

"Because we…" he trailed off, running his hands through his messed hair in anxiety. "In my time, we…uh…"

"Just spit it out, Fiyero!"

"We were lovers, Elphaba. You and I were lovers."

Her eyes grew wide. She fell back with a teetering step. "What?"

He could assure her it was the truth. He could wax on about his feelings for her, about how he had loved her since Shiz, but that's where they currently were and he couldn't bring himself to speak more of the horrors of the future to emphasize his point. Their relationship was complicated enough without the truth involved, but now that it was…

"Fiyero, you're delirious. Go home, sleep this off. You'll be in your right mind in the morning."

"Sleep won't make a difference, Elphaba. I could sleep for twelve hours and tomorrow I'll tell you the same thing, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day, because this actually happened."

"It didn't, Fiyero."

"It's the truth," he insisted, feeling fraught. "It's why I gravitated to you so quickly when I got here! Why I couldn't stay away from you. I still can't! All I can think about lately is how badly I want you once more." Even at this moment, he stole a glimpse at her mouth, the flavor of dried meat on his tongue making him hesitate in claiming hers better than his weary conscience was. "It's just…I've been able to repress it for so long, Elphie, I really have, but then you kissed me. That wasn't supposed to happen. It wasn't part of my plan."

"Your plan," she repeated, looking away with a hollow laugh. "What was it then if it wasn't to make me your paramour like I was in your fantasy?"

"I was lucky to even get you to like me," he reminded her dejectedly. "I didn't hope for much. I only wanted to protect you. I can't let the future repeat itself."

"You're insane, Fiyero," she said darkly. "You haven't traveled through time. We weren't lovers."

"You know me better than that," he said, using her own words against her. He confidently stepped towards her so he was looking down into her eyes; it was like looking down into an erupting volcano. "We're friends, Elphaba. You know me. You know in your heart of hearts that I'm telling the truth, and you know that because deep down you have feelings for me too."

She shook away his attempt to take her hand in his with a violent jerk. "You keep saying that."

"Why else would you have kissed me?"

Her gaze, as impenetrable as a hot, molten volcanic core would be, changed then, and she seemed to slacken as he remained dangerously close. He thought he had won. But then her expression shifted, this empty smile appeared, and she said evenly, "I was curious."

He was without words. He didn't accept that. He couldn't. Wouldn't. He choked on her name, unwilling to allow the words to hang out between them, to be an unwanted truth in a relationship he encumbered with so many lies. Her mouth twitched, as though in a sad, pitiful smile to him, but then her expression faded into that inscrutable mask, hard as stone and just as cold.

"I'm sorry, Fiyero."

With that, she left him there, her bearing too straight to belong to that gangly green girl and too regal to belong to the willful witch as she left the clearing. And though he did his job – he warned her to beware of the Wizard, gave her signs to look out for – and that should have been enough, to imagine that she could not love him in return hit him so mightily in the chest that he wondered how he survived the next few hours being incapable of breathing and with his heart aching as though it was rupturing within him.