It was sunny, the kind of sunny where the brightness made everything seem just a little hazy to Fiyero's blasé eyes, and which were closed anyway. He was lounging, the ground under his favorite pearlfruit tree by the Suicide Canal feeling hard and a bit uncomfortable, but the moment he felt lips fall swiftly on his he forgot all about that. His grin spread as he opened his eyes and features of a green face appeared above him. She was smiling – she appeared calm, untroubled, and happy as she often did in the cultivating atmosphere of Shiz University – and because he could, he lifted his head to steal that gentle smirk off her lips. She giggled into his mouth and suddenly feeling the familiar rush of warmth fill his entire body.

"Oh how my heart yearns for Galinda," Boq said somewhere near, but Fiyero ignored him for the siren draped over him. "But she won't look twice at me!"

"C'est la vie," Galinda sang brightly.

He didn't care that they were there, at least not until it made Elphaba turn her head away toward them and away from his affectionate kisses.

"Boq, I turned you to tin so you don't need a heart, remember?"

"Oh right, I forgot about that."

Fiyero's neck strained to see too, but the sun glinted so brilliantly against Boq's buffed metal that Fiyero was blinded, so he buried his face into Elphaba's neck. He kissed it, wanting her to squirm and writhe and everything that turned him on.

But before he could find that special spot under her ear, she had leapt from him and took off across the grass, her plaited hair bouncing with every step and her blue frock whipping around her knees, tossing a laugh over her shoulder and urging him to catch her. They were running so fast the world became a green blur, the lawn and the trees disappearing from sight, and though he pushed himself harder her graceful gaits carried her that much farther that much faster. She disappeared around a corner; sliding as he came to the same corner, he saw tall green walls, at least two stories high, surrounded him. She was gone. But on the ground was a golden-brown fuzzball, also egging him on.

"Do you know where she went, Brrr?"

The little Lion rubbed against his ankles and bounded off, far too gaily, and Fiyero took off down the corridor of bowing arches and ambient light at a sprint behind him with dread filling his gut. Though it was only a few hundred feet ahead, it felt as if he had run the depth of all five of his lecture halls one right after another, the arches seemingly unending, until finally he had reached the door at its end.

Ice filled his veins at the sight of the Wizard's throne room, with the tall glowing columns and the ceilings so high they faded away into darkness. The fire that billowed theatrically around the mechanical head blistering his skin but he sprinted towards it, for every flare revealed a motionless form of green and black at the base of the tik-tok apparatus. He tried to run to her side but his feet felt like they were sunk in jelly, and when he called out her name it was dampened by the roar of gears and flaming shoots of gas; it felt like hours before he had reached her side.

Elphaba's hair was splayed out behind her, and for a moment he couldn't see the difference between the black tresses and the dark puddle of blood seeping out below them as he knelt at her side. She was alive, if only just, and he picked her up by her shoulders, checking her back and her sides and the patchwork of her midnight black dress searching for the source of all the blood that was now coating his hands, but no colored thread or scrap of tinted fabric revealed it. Yet it had to be hers, for her breathing was labored and her beautiful skin was horribly pale.

She wasn't looking at him, but her eyes were big, pink with strain and fear, focused somewhere over his shoulder; he whirled about in time to see a thick heel flatten the black conical hat just aside of them and to hear a delighted cackle pervade the room.

"You're too late, my dear," Morrible cooed down to him. "You always were."

"No," he said stubbornly to the old hag. "I can save her."

"You've tried, and you can keep trying, but nothing will ever change," Morrible said, her thick makeup distorting her features further as they pulled open in a wretched grin. "No, my dear, this is her fate."

"Oh Fiyero," Glinda said, glittering in her gown at Morrible's side. "Why didn't you save yourself instead?"

And with that she gestured down to him, and Fiyero looked confused at the front of his shirt only to see that it was torn apart, covered with dirt and seeping with the same blood that soaked into his knees. It was only then that he felt the pain from every torn muscle and ligament, from his ruptured hide, from the throbbing contusions and most deeply each broken bone. He cried out involuntarily, his scream so loud and complete it vibrated within him to every shattered bone, escalating the pain even more until the very last of his air left his lungs, and only then could he cease the wails of agony.

Wheezing desperately, he sagged forward, half collapsing on Elphaba's shuddering form below him, and for only a moment did he feel the sensation of her fingers on his face.

"I'm sorry," he coughed, blood dribbling over his lip and down his throat, unaware that the world had turned and that he was on the ground and it was she who hovered above him, tear stains marking her face. "I'm so sorry…"

But that apology would never be enough, for then they were smothered by soldiers, many of whom grabbed Elphaba and dragged her struggling behind the giant head while the rest rained blows of fist and foot into every surface to silence the cries of "No! No, stop!" that slipped between deafening shrieks of pain.

"No!" Fiyero shouted, flailing abruptly, and after one more moment of indecipherable noise the din was gone, save for the raspy gasps from his lungs and the loud pounding of his racing heart. Frantically his fingertips found his sides, digging into the flesh before moving on to his arms and his face, but the immense pain he expected from such a thing had already faded into the internal one that he was accustomed to. He tried to take comfort in that and letting himself finally believe that it had been a dream.

He was in his room at Shiz – which glowed from the light of his overturned table lamp – draped uncomfortably in the old wooden chair at his desk, and he looked around with fear still warping his normally controlled features. Papers and books were scattered everywhere, crinkled and bent and disorganized about the edges of the writing surface and more over the floor; he felt the dull ache just under the surface of his forearm from where it must have hit the desk and scattered the objects. Embarrassed, he started piling up sloppy notes with intolerably trembling hands, not caring about their order but doing so just to distract from the echoes of the nightmare that had him thrashing about and knocking over piles and lamps in his sleep.

A scraping noise at his door startled him and he nearly tipped over in his chair as he made to protect himself, but as the door opened it revealed the gangly resident advisor he never interacted with gaping at him frenziedly and blearily. At least two other students flanked him; they were all dressed in night clothes.

"What's going on? We heard yelling and a crash from in here. Is everything okay? Do we need to call security?"

"I-it's nothing. Bad dream."

"You fell asleep at your desk?"

"Uh…" He tried to remember the previous night, and thoughts of facts and dates entered his head unwittingly. Instinctively he peered down at his desk where his notebook had been what seemed to be so long ago. "Yeah, guess so." He grabbed his pocket watch which somehow held fast at the corner of his desk. It was 3:46 a.m.; the last time he had looked at the arms of the clock had only been just over two hours before, apparently, and he placed a hand to his fuddled head as he tried to figure out how many more data he memorized before he fell asleep. Remembering the RA and his neighbors that stacked in his doorway, he laughed nervously and said, "Dreamt a bunch of Ozmas wouldn't stop tickling me. That's what I get for falling asleep reading. I'm sorry guys, go back to bed."

They chuckled at that and bid him better dreams, but his heart raged too fast from the memories of blood and savagery still clouding his mind and he knew sleep would not find him again. He glared at the pocket watch and sighed, rubbing his eyes tiredly (the one was still spasming maddeningly, even after how many days since Elphaba was here with him) trying to decide what to do. It was too late to find a bar and too early to seek coffee anywhere. Feeling sticky and knotted with soreness, he made up his mind and grabbed a towel, opting for a long, hot shower and leaving the mess of papers for later when he'd come back and inevitably study once again.

All the while, he tried to pretend that he hadn't yearned to dash over to Crage Hall and seek out Elphaba for comfort. Because, revelations of a one-sided joint history filled with lovemaking, death, and horror aside, that was never an option.