A/N: Shout out to my anonymous reviewer! Glad you liked it. More answers coming soon!

Chapter 35

The flight back to the Palace was quiet. Elphaba was speeding to beat the dawn and Fiyero had still not gotten the hang of flying. His digestive system was warning him that if he didn't adjust course dinner would be making an arrival onto his fiancée's back.

He turned his head, hoping that he could manage to not throw up onto some poor sucker below. Somehow Elphaba knew he was struggling, he would ask about it later as his nausea disappeared. The Palace was soon in sight and she aimed the broom for the balcony.

Once they were on the balcony, Fiyero opened the balcony doors and flopped down on the bed. It had been exhausting to do all of that on top of the previous day's events. They would get next to no sleep now as Sergeant Schultz or Boq would be making a wake-up call by knocking on their bedroom door in short order. That thought went from his head though as he passed out.

"Captain Fiyero, it's almost lunchtime. Master Boq let you sleep since you didn't have any morning meetings. Why are you in the clothes you wore yesterday?" Sergeant Schultz shook the Vinkun's shoulder what seemed like only twenty minutes later. Still, he somehow felt refreshed, which meant Elphaba must have cast a spell.

"I was apparently very tired," he admitted as he sat up on the edge of the bed.

"So was Miss Elphaba. She's bathing at the moment. I'd say you were up to no good, but I suspect that you'd actually have needed to take your clothes off for that," Schultz smirked.

"Don't let Fae hear you say that," Fiyero chuckled.

"I would never say that in front of her. She's a lady," his subordinate said.

"What am I chopped liver?" Fiyero gave him a look.

"You can't put a hex on me," Schultz continued to tease as he went into the closet and pulled out a clean Captain's uniform for his boss. He set it down on the chair and looked over the boots that Fiyero had kicked off. They had mud on them, but he wasn't going to press.

"Point taken," the Vinkun chuckled.

"I'll leave you to it. Mr. Samuels will have lunch ready in thirty minutes," Schultz gave him a smile before heading out of the bedroom door. Fiyero went to the bathroom door and knocked on it. Elphaba told him to enter and he quickly did so.

"Schultz warned me that lunch is in half an hour. We have meetings planned afterwards so what do you want to do?" He asked as he approached the bathtub. She was rinsing off and his mind wandered somewhere that they didn't have time for.

"Well, I have to come up with a story to tell Doctor Talib. I can't go into him only a day later and say that I figured out what my father had been feeding me," she said.

"Medical research in the library should cover that – of course you'll need to actually go to the library to make it look good," he figured.

"I need to corner Mopsi and Popsi for a bit to discuss my mother," Elphaba said as she exited the bathtub. She pulled the plug and let the water drain out. Fiyero quickly stripped off his own clothes and started to refill the bathtub once it was empty.

"What do think they'll know?" He asked as he checked the water temperature.

"Honestly, I don't think they will, but they are the oldest Munchkins that I fully trust to keep my confidence," she admitted as she pulled her hair up into a towel.

"Point well taken," Fiyero nodded as he climbed into the bathtub. The warm water felt very good, but he knew he couldn't linger, despite wanting to.

"I'm not sure what to do with the Clock's request," she said as she started to get dressed.

"It asked you to leave it in the cave. It must know something we don't. It's safer there anyway. Though it never did give you a solid answer as to why Mombey just didn't destroy it," he pointed out.

"True. Perhaps there are some things it doesn't know. Though it knew Mr. Boss was gone," she frowned.

"More riddles and no time to figure them out today," Fiyero shook his head.

To Be Continued…