Content Advisory: Grief/Angst, Imagery of Child Endangerment/Death

CHAPTER TWENTY: DECISION DAY

"…to think that someone couldn't possibly do something for you out of the goodness of their heart. Out of friendship. Out of love."

"Get out."

Glinda set off down the hall without a word.

"Glinda! Glinda wait!" Fiyero called, setting after her.

"That's right! Go on! Follow her!" Elphaba yelled after him. "I know how you hate to see her cry!"

Elphaba, taking advantage of their absence as a means to escape, charged the opposite direction down the hall. Her fingers twitched and tingled and her heart pulsed so strongly she wondered how her body could still contain it. Curtains billowed as she passed by as if gusted by a great wind, doors slammed shut, and candelabras broke off their hinges as she stalked by them. She he did not slow until she reached the spiral steps to the east facing tower and a voice in her head urged her to slow.

Watch your step, watch your step. These stairs get steep.

She closed her eyes, the rage within her combatting her innate instinct to protect. Finally, with a deep breath, Elphaba ascended the stairs with begrudging caution until she pushed the door at the top open. A gush of spring air warmed her face as she stepped out of the castle and into a disrespectfully gorgeous day. No clouds were present to mar the seemingly endless blue sky.

It was the kind of spring day people dreamed about.

A thought occurred and, before she could help herself, Elphaba snapped her attention to the watch on her wrist. She closed her eyes and braced herself, trying and failing to manage her hopes before opening them to find that the time had stayed quite the same. The minute hand taunted her with its consistent ticks, mocking her wishful thinking.

No, she was not dreaming. The day she was living was real. Horribly, horribly real.

The most perfect breeze Elphaba had ever felt rippled past her hair. It made her want to scream. Scream! How could nature stand to produce a day so lovely when her own world was splitting apart?

"Elphaba."

Elphaba turned to see Fiyero standing at the tower's entrance.

"How did you find me?"

"I followed the mess."

"Fitting. That's what you've been doing since you met me. Mindlessly following my path of destruction."

"Glinda left. She just went up in smoke before I could catch her."

"She must have practiced since Shiz. She was terrible at teleporting in class."

Fiyero paused a moment.

"She was trying to help us, Fae. Now I don't even know where she went…" he said. "Or if she's going to come back."

"How terrible for you. To be left with only me," Elphaba said bitterly. "The villain. The cynic."

"Elphaba…"

"It's fine, Fiyero," Elphaba sighed. She gave her head a small shake and turned to stare hopelessly towards the horizon."I cannot fault you for preferring Glinda's worldview to mine. For finding comfort in it. You two have been so similar from the start. It's little wonder why I gravitated to you both," Elphaba mused. "I, the tragic tip of this…triangle."

Fiyero slowly moved to stand beside Elphaba.

"She sees things in such a lovely light, doesn't she, Yero?" Elphaba said knowingly. "It's enthralling…it's addicting to be in Glinda's glow. She has this enchanting way of making you believe that the things you want…really can come true."

Elphaba sighed deeply and closed her eyes.

"And I that can't offer you that same light, Yero. I suppose I'm sorry for that. But the fact of the matter is that I've only ever lived amongst the brutality of the real world. And I've accepted it in the past, but lately? I confess that I—" Elphaba's voice hitched as her heart jumped to her throat. "I am so tired of living there alone."

Elphaba swallowed and braced for the argument. However, rather than scold her for her pessimism, Fiyero merely took Elphaba by the hand and tenderly guided her into his embrace. Her head fell against his chest and, despite the steadiness of his arms, she could feel his heart pumping furiously against her ear.

"I'm so sorry, Elphaba," Fiyero murmured against her hair. "Every time I thought too hard about it my mind just…shut down. I guess I haven't changed as much as I thought." He pulled back to look at her face. "I never meant to make you feel abandoned by me."

"I forgive you."

Elphaba was surprised how quickly she'd granted it. She was even more surprised that she meant it.

"I know why you did it and I love you for it," Elphaba murmured. "I've been watching that beautiful mind of yours at work. Trying to think of some way—any way that this could end with us all staying together," Elphaba said. She took a breath before whispering the rest. "But there isn't."

Fiyero closed his eyes and his jaw quivered with his effort to stay composed.

"Alright…" he mustered in a gravelly tone. "Alright then…"

Understanding that enough was finally enough, Fiyero opened his eyes to Elphaba, as ready as he'd ever be to receive the truth.

"Burden me, Elphaba."

Elphaba cupped his face in her hands, both relieved and devastated to finally be bringing Fiyero into the truth she'd known for so long.

"They won't stop, Fiyero," Elphaba said, stroking his cheeks with her thumbs. "They won't forgive. They will hunt me until I am dead."

She spoke with gentleness, with love, so that she may guide Fiyero into reality as painlessly as possible.

"And they won't spare our baby."

"I just can't…" Fiyero struggled. "I just can't see how—"

"Yero…what you've experienced with me these past few months only scratches the surface of all the cruelty I've witnessed. I've seen things I can never unsee. Remember our Lion Cub?"

"Of course I do."

"They put a child in a cage and showed it to a classroom full of students…that's what they let people see," Elphaba explained delicately before bringing one of Fiyero's hands to rest flat over her belly. "It'll be all the worse for him. Our baby. Fiyero, my love…our boy will become Oz's most wanted child."

"Oz's most—but he's a baby, Elphaba! He's not some dangerous threat."

"I know he isn't. You know he isn't. But they won't ever see it that way, Fiyero, they will never see it that way. Even if they didn't kill me—if they locked me up instead—they'd still take him from me," Elphaba said hoarsely. "They'd prod at him, cage him, run tests to further their 'studies' on wickedness. Or worse…even worse…"

Fiyero looked at Elphaba who was visibly shaking.

"They could hurt him, Yero. Our little boy. They could…" Elphaba's eyes glazed over, imagining the worst as if it were a cruel prophecy. "They could kill him. Just like that guard tried. Just like they've done in my dreams over and over and over again. They'll kill our child, Fiyero…and then they'll say it was in the name of goodness."

Fiyero shook his head over and over, unable to speak.

"Fiyero, so long as he has any connection with me…he'll be in danger. For him to be safe, for him to have a chance at a normal life…" Elphaba braced herself to say it. "Nobody can ever find out that he's mine."

"No," Fiyero shook his head. "No, he needs us, Fae. He needs you. You're his mother."

"What he needs is his best chance…and that's not with me," Elphaba shook her head. "It's not with me, Yero. As much as I may wish differently, as much as I may want to change it…I cannot be his mother."

"There has to—" Fiyero said, his chest heaving. He looked out at the horizon, out upon the finest day they'd ever seen. His fingers dug into his own hair, as if urging his brain to work. "There has to—there has to be something! Something…something I haven't thought of yet! I can do it, Elphaba. I can—I can think of something else."

Elphaba approached and gingerly turned Fiyero's face away from the horizon before taking both of his hands.

"Fiyero? The answer isn't out there. It's not in The Wizard's palace, it's not on Glinda's board…it's with us. His parents," Elphaba explained brokenly. Fiyero's eyes lifted to hers. "It's with us deciding if we love our son…enough to let him go."

Elphaba's words had been Fiyero's final straw, and she powerlessly watched as he broke under the weight of it. With a sudden choke he crumpled forward into Elphaba, clung to her for dear life, and began sobbing hoarsely into her neck. Elphaba flung her arms around him, holding him fast as grief clobbered him in wave after heaving the first fit slowed, Fiyero pulled away from her, impatiently wiping his face with his sleeve. He found a loose stone on the wall and violently chucked it off the tower with a grieved shout. Elphaba watched without judgment, allowing him his moment. Her realization had been a dull, slow growing ache. Fiyero's was hitting him all at once, acute and agonizing.

And there was nothing she could do.

"What—what—" Fiyero stammered. "What do we do? We can't leave him just anywhere. We've got to find someplace safe!"

Elphaba shivered at his familiar phrasing. A vibrant memory occurred of a drizzly day at Shiz. Running with Fiyero, a hunted child in tow, desperate to find a safe place for him. The more things changed the more they stayed the same.

"The way I see it we have two options," Elphaba said with glum irony, recalling Glinda's presentation. "And they both begin…with my leaving Oz."

Fiyero went still and looked at her with bloodshot eyes.

"What?"

"I have no future here, Fiyero. That much has been clear to me for some time," Elphaba explained. "If I want to live…then I have to leave. I'll deliver the baby in secret. He'll be taken somewhere safe. Then…I'll make Oz think I died. Make them think they killed me. I've got some tricks up my sleeve. I can make it feel real."

"So, what…" Fiyero trailed off, trying to process it. "We fake our deaths and go off together? Leave our boy behind to be raised as an orphan?"

"Yes," Elphaba confirmed regrettably.

"Couldn't—" Fiyero said. "Couldn't we take him with us? Leave Oz but take him with us?"

"There's a reason people don't leave Oz," Elphaba said seriously. "Who knows what could happen out there? We could end up homeless, injured, starving…and that's if we make it through the desert at all."

"But it's like you said, we don't know what's out there! What if…what if it's not as bad as all that? What if we make it through just fine? Then we'll have given him up for nothing."

"You're right, Fiyero. What if. I have what ifs too," Elphaba said gently. "What if we bring our newborn into the desert and he overheats? What if we can't keep him warm enough at night? What if he gets sick?" Elphaba paused for a moment. "Or what if he dies in my arms because I can't make enough milk to feed him?"

She shook her head.

"No. No, Fiyero. I can't risk his life on what ifs. I can risk my own…but not his. Never his."

"I hate this. I hate it," Fiyero said. He hated knowing Elphaba was right.

He clenched his fists and took a heavy breath, fighting back an aftershock of tears.

"Well if we have to do it then we'll do it," Fiyero said thickly over the lump in his throat. "Right?"

A dreadful lurch seized Elphaba's stomach and she looked down to anxiously fiddle with her watch band.

"Right?" Fiyero asked again.

"There's still the second option," Elphaba said weakly.

She did not look up at him. She could not look up at him.

"Elphaba?"

"I have to leave Oz…" she reiterated. "That much is set in stone."

"Right. So we—"

"But you don't have to."

Elphaba's whispered phrase was followed by a perfect breeze which whistled through the otherwise silent tower.

"What do you mean?" Fiyero breathed at last.

"I mean that you can stay," Elphaba said. "You can stay in Oz."

Fiyero stared at her.

"The rumor that you're bewitched already exists, so…we let them believe it," Elphaba continued to explain, fingers trembling as they continued to toy with her watch band. "You could snap out of the curse upon my death. People will forgive you…and then you'll be safe."

Elphaba stalled her fidgeting fingers and took a brave breath.

"You'll be safe to raise our son."

"You're not serious," Fiyero said in a hushed tone.

"They'd believe it. It would work—"

"It would work? It would—" Fiyero said in a disbelieving tone. "Who cares if it would work?! It—okay then answer me this. How would I explain the child? How do I just conveniently have a baby—"

"Glinda."

Elphaba still could not manage to look at him, but she felt his eyes on her. Staring, staring.

"She still loves you, Fiyero," Elphaba said simply. "She's still in love with you…and you're in love with her too. I know you are, Yero. I can see it."

"Fae…"

"The two of you can marry. You can say the boy is hers or that he's adopted, but either way she'll raise him as her own. With you. The child can have two parents, Yero. He'll be doted upon—he could even claim his birthright as a Tigelaar! And…" Elphaba swallowed. "And I know Glinda will make an excellent mother to him because she already loves him and—"

"Glinda is not his mother."

"I know, but—"

"Glinda is not his mother."

"Yero—"

"No, I said Glinda is not his mother, Elphaba! Glinda isn't you!"

Elphaba's eyes finally snapped upwards over Fiyero's passionate response. His eyes were bloodshot, his chest heaving.

"You're right, okay? I won't say I don't love Glinda. I've always loved Glinda. I always will. But she is not you, Elphaba. The way I feel for her is not the same…and you of all people should know what I mean!"

"Why's that?"

"Because you're in love with her too!"

Elphaba opened her mouth to speak…but slowly closed it. She respected Fiyero too much to uselessly deny the truth.

"You're right," Elphaba admitted quietly. "I am. But don't you see? That's what makes this plan so perfect. I love Glinda, I love you, and I love our baby. Everybody that I love wins."

"Wins?" Fiyero said coldly. "You call that winning? Because I don't think so and I'm sure Glinda wouldn't either. Tell me, Fae. In this winning scenario of yours, what happens to you?"

"What?"

"You, Elphaba!" Fiyero exclaimed. "You! The other piece of your perfect plan! What would happen to you?!"

"I would go. I would leave. You would never see me again."

"And you think I'd be fine with that?" Fiyero yelled. "For you to bear my child and vanish like you're some sort of surrogate? Some kind of concubine?"

"It's what makes sense for the most amount of people," Elphaba said calmly. "The most amount of people can win here."

"Of course, Elphaba. Calculating Elphaba. Treating this like it's some kind of numbers game. As if my heart has no part in the matter!"

"Fiyero…with time—"

Fiyero scoffed bitterly.

"Time. Okay, sure. And how much time would I need to get over you, Elphaba? Fifteen minutes? A day?"

"Fiyero."

"I don't know, we've been through so much together. It could take up to a week!"

"Be serious."

"How can I be serious when you're taking me for a joke?!"

Elphaba hesitated and Fiyero closed his eyes for a long moment.

"As if—" Fiyero began, but his voice cracked. He shook his head and swallowed, gesturing helplessly to Elphaba. "As if I could ever recover from losing you. As if I could live with that. As if there is any amount of time that's long enough…for me to stop loving you."

"You'd have our son."

"So he'd be my consolation prize? What a terrible burden for a kid."

"Yero, please…"

Fiyero desperately approached Elphaba and grasped her swallowed and looked down, afraid to look him too closely in the eye.

"What if he looks like you, Fae?" Fiyero said softly. "And I don't mean green. What if he has your chin? Your hair? Your eyes?"

"Don't…"

"What if he loves books? Or what if he's loud and talks over people? What if he has your smile, Elphaba? Your laugh. What then?" Fiyero shook his head, picturing it. "I'd be crushed. I wouldn't be able to look at the boy. Is that the kind of father you want me to be? One who can't even look at his own son?"

Elphaba closed her eyes.

"Don't make me raise him without you, Fae," Fiyero begged. "I can't. Don't put me through that."

"The alternative is not raising him at all."

"But I'd still have you."

"And what if I change, Fiyero?!" Elphaba asked, snapping her eyes to his.

"What do you mean?"

"What if I'm different after I lose him? What if I go mad, or mean, or numb?" Elphaba fretted. "What if in the process of losing him…I lose myself too?"

"Then I'll learn to love who you become."

"But what if you can't?"

"I can. I will. Because I already promised you, Elphaba. I promised on our first night here. We made love in our bed and then I held you in my arms as you cried so hard it broke my heart," Fiyero said. "I said I wasn't going. I said I wasn't leaving you. I said that I wasn't going to let you lose me, Elphaba, and I meant it. I meant it then…and I mean it even more now."

Elphaba was speechless.

"Do you love me, Fae?"

"Yes," Elphaba answered emphatically. "Of course I love you, Fiyero. I will until I die."

"Then why?" Fiyero asked. "Why are you trying to get rid of me? Again."

"Because what if this was how it was supposed to happen, Fiyero?" Elphaba insisted. "What if this was how it was always supposed to happen?!"

"I don't understand."

"What if everyone has been right about me all this time? From the beginning?" Elphaba asked. "What if wickedness is born and I've just been too blind to see my own affliction? After all, the proof of it is stained to my skin."

"Don't tell me you're finally buying into the shit people say about you—"

"Well you hear something enough times from enough people—"

"I can't believe I'm hearing this, Elphaba! This is your weakest excuse yet!"

"It's not an excuse, Yero! I'm just—"

"You can't just—"

"I'm just saying—"

"Because—"

Elphaba half groaned half screamed in loud, long frustration.

"I'm exhausted, Fiyero!" Elphaba shouted. "Okay? I'm exhausted. I am so, so tired of fighting it—"

"Fighting what?"

"Fate, Fiyero! I'm tired of fighting fate's design!"

Fiyero frowned in confusion.

"What the hell do you mean?"

"I mean what if I really was meant to be on my own? What if I was meant to be an outcast, meant to be The Witch, meant to be wicked—"

"You weren't."

"What if I was meant to be alone, Yero? What if I really was meant to die alone in the end?" Elphaba asked desperately. "Like Nessa did."

The tension in Fiyero's face softened.

"Fae…"

"My destiny may well be to lose the ones I care about, Fiyero. Doctor Dillamond, Nessa, now our baby—" Elphaba choked. "It's only a matter of time before you and Glinda become part of the penance I must pay."

"Penance for what?! You're not some curse to us, Elphaba! Glinda and I love you—"

"Yes, and that's more than I ever thought I'd get! Maybe, someday, that will be enough for me. To know that I once knew love. To know that the people I love are safe and together. That they're—"

"If you say happy I swear to Oz—"

"Stop fighting it, Fiyero!" Elphaba shouted, her eyes growing wilder. "Stop denying the evidence right in front of your face! 'The truth is not a thing of fact or reason, it's what everyone agrees on.' The Wizard told me that."

"What, you're listening to The Wizard now?!"

"The people have spoken, Yero. Even my family, my sister, my parents agreed!" Elphaba exclaimed. "My very own parents, Yero!"

Elphaba closed her eyes with a dejected sigh.

"Fiyero, carrying our baby has proven to me how primal, how instinctual it is to care for your own child…and they still—still rejected me. It'd be the height of hubris for me to think that I know better when everyone else has already reached an agreement."

"Not me. I don't agree."

"But it's not only that," Elphaba said hopelessly. "I've spent my whole life fighting my intended path and what have I to show for it? In all of my years of following my gut, trusting my instincts, trying every day to do what I believe is right…I have never, not once, succeeded. Don't you see, Fiyero? Never once have I succeeded in making something…good."

Fiyero took a good, long look at her.

"Yes you have…"

With a tender approach, Fiyero reached out to place his hand on Elphaba's rounded stomach. Elphaba's lip wobbled and she closed her eyes, understanding where Fiyero was headed with this. They stood in silence for an extended moment and Elphaba fought not to cry, but she at last let out a shaky breath as they both felt their son shift within her.

"Feel that?" Fiyero said softly, moving her hand to place it under his.

"Yes."

"Feel him?"

"Yes…"

"He's good, Fae," Fiyero whispered. "Our son is good. You know he is."

"Of course I do," Elphaba whimpered.

"You made him. We made him Elphaba. And he's as good of a thing as there ever was."

Elphaba's throat and chest ached from the strain of withholding her heart. It was too much to manage, too much to comprehend. The innocence of her baby. The devotion of his father.

"Is it not enough to part knowing that I love you, Fiyero?" Elphaba asked hoarsely. "That I will always love you?"

"No…no it's not enough," Fiyero said. "Elphaba…please. I'm exhausted too. I'm exhausted from hanging onto you when you seem hell bent to shake me off. But if that's what it takes to keep you…then I'll do it. If I have to spend the rest of my life convincing you…then I'll do it! Because you're worth it, Fae. You're worth all of it."

The toll her actions had taken on Fiyero was obvious to Elphaba, the way she pushed and pulled and pushed and pulled at him. Giving him outs at every turn, all the while crying for him not to leave her side. Elphaba considered the confusion Fiyero had been made to endure. And yet…here he still stood. Begging for her to stop dismissing him.

How much longer could she stand to resist?

"Do you really want me to stay behind, Elphaba?" Fiyero asked.

"What?"

"Do you really want me to marry Glinda? Do you really want me to raise our son without you?"

"Don't ask me what I want, Yero," Elphaba said. "It doesn't matter. It never has."

"It matters to me. What do you want, Fae?" Fiyero coaxed gently. "Look at me and tell me."

Elphaba closed her eyes and gave her head a small shake, resisting the question.

"Fae…"

Fiyero caressed her face and Elphaba exhaled at the feeling, weakened by his warmth.

"What do you want?"

Elphaba's lips parted but she still could not answer.

"What do you want?"

"Fiyero…"

"Elphaba what do you want?!"

"I want you!"

Elphaba opened her eyes to meet Fiyero's and her shoulders slackened in pitiful surrender.

"I want you, Fiyero," Elphaba whimpered. "I want you by my side."

Her tone was apologetic, remorseful. Ashamed to ask for him.

"I don't want you to marry Glinda. I don't want you to stay behind. Every time I think of leaving Oz without you…I can't breathe. I just can't breathe, Yero. If I must lose our son—if I must lose him then I could not bear to lose you too!" Elphaba professed. "Not you, Fiyero. Not you. Oz forgive me, anyone but you."

"Then don't leave without me," Fiyero said, as if it were obvious. It was to him. "Stop this self-sacrificing nonsense and take me with you."

"And that's what you really want?" Elphaba whispered, too scared to hope. "To risk your life in the desert? To leave behind your parents, Glinda, everyone you've ever known?" Elphaba paused before the worst. "To forfeit the chance to know our son?"

"I want you, Elphaba," Fiyero answered simply. "I want you too. For the rest of my days I want you—however many more there may be. Even if we don't make it. Even if we die on our first day out there. If we die…we die together. But I want to be there for it, Elphaba. I want to be there for it all."

"Fiyero…"

"Giving up our son is the worst thing I can imagine. It's the worst thing in the world. But I can survive it. I can survive it knowing that he's safe…and I can survive it so long as I still have you."

"So can I," Elphaba whispered. "At least I believe so."

"Whatever may come, Elphaba, we'll face it together," Fiyero vowed. "You're not going anywhere without me."He brought Elphaba's hand to his lips and kissed it before holding it against his own heart. "I'm coming with you."

I'm coming with you. Having braced herself for a different outcome, Fiyero's words finally sunk deep into Elphaba's bones. He was coming with her. He was coming with her. Like the night he chose to run away with her, he had chosen her once again. Over comfort, over Glinda, even over raising their baby.

Fiyero wanted her.

Overwhelmed, Elphaba brought Fiyero's hand to her cheek as a humbled sob burst through her lips.

"What is it?" Fiyero asked.

"I didn't think you'd choose me," Elphaba confessed, weeping softly against his hand. "I didn't think I'd be enough."

Fiyero leaned forward and captured Elphaba's lips in a desperate kiss. To prove he was certain in choosing her, to prove himself worthy of her choice in him. He kissed her before she could speak any more about nobility, responsibility, or what she thought was the right thing to do. He didn't care what was right. He only cared that she was his.

"You're enough," Fiyero breathed between kisses. "You're enough, Elphaba. You're enough forever."

And finally, finally, finally…Elphaba listened. She succumbed to Fiyero's kisses, to his steadfast vows, and burst open the surplus space in her heart that she'd been refusing him access to. No one could say she didn't try, no one could say she didn't give him every chance possible to run, but Fiyero had never once failed her. He'd told her long ago how he felt about her and it was high time Elphaba stopped waiting on him to change.

Because even if she proved right about fate's plan to strand her alone…Fiyero Tigelaar had proven himself a mighty contender against it.

Over time their kisses grew softer, less urgent, until their lips brushed featherlight against each other. It had yet to sink in with Elphaba that Fiyero had as good as offered her forever. Perhaps it never would, not fully, but she felt certain that he'd assure her on the moments she was bound to slip.

"I will always choose you, my Elphaba," Fiyero promised right on time, as if he could read her mind.

Elphaba took his face in her hands and met his eyes intensely, ensuring that he'd hear her.

"And I will always choose you too."

Their future was finally sealed.

Come fire, wind, water, or worse, Elphaba and Fiyero would face the future as a pair. Whether that was in rejection or adherence to fate's design for them…they simply no longer cared.