Chapter Text
“So you see, Elphaba, I desperately tried to convincify him that it was a bad idea. I knew that it could hurt you. You were truly an innocent in this. But my hands were tied. He was quite determined, you see.”
Panic felt like a noose tightening around her neck.
“Why…why me? Why did he pick me?” The words were so strained that she could hardly identify them as coming from her.
Fiyero had agreed to a bet where he would make her popular. Or perhaps make her more popular than Sarima. Truth be told, she wasn’t clear on the why of what he had done, but it felt like she was rapidly understanding the what. Like the final piece of a puzzle sliding into place, she finally understood.
It had been a game.
A game she had been an unwitting pawn in but a game all the same.
“Did he…what he stand to lose?”
Avaric, whose face had been filled with unconcealed glee, arranged itself into a blank canvas, “Whatever do you mean, Elphaba?”
“I know Fiyero, he wouldn’t just agree to this. What did he have to lose?”
“Perhaps you don’t know his Highness at all. Have you considered that? I tried to warn you, didn’t I? At the OzDust. I tried.”
The mock concern in his voice grated at her but she found herself remembering. Remembering all of the moments where Fiyero had hesitated, moments where he had introduced her to new people around campus pointedly, making sure to carefully share their backstories or broadcast an interest she shared with them. She remembered his insistence at public lunches.
Had his mask lowering simply been a new one taking its place? Maybe she didn’t know him. Maybe she only knew what he allowed her to see.
Raw hurt saturated every inch of her. A bet.
It had all been for a bet.
As she had for the last two weeks, Elphaba awoke with pain in her heart. It was almost cruel, she supposed, that the fingers of grief had dug themselves so deeply into her heart. Eyes stinging with unshed tears, she took a deep breath, fighting against the fist of hurt that had replaced her lungs.
Each night, she dreamt of him. Echoes of his laughter plagued her thoughts, she could feel the press of his fingers against her jaw as he tilted her face towards his for a kiss, she could taste the salt of his skin.
She felt haunted.
Each clock tick felt as if it lasted an eternity, no respite in sight, despite her determination to pretend that she was unaffected. To claw her way back to a stasis of some sort.
After she had wept out the sting of embarrassment, the train ride to Munchkinland had been filled with silent reflection, rumination, and regret. She had painstakingly poured over every moment she could remember with Fiyero, every glance, every touch- searching for evidence of his betrayal and duplicity. While her heart ached and quietly whispered that it wasn’t a lie- couldn’t be a lie, her mind knew the truth.
It had been.
The truth of it began to grow in her soul, a gnarled and twisted vine of thorns that pierced the softest parts of her. Each moment had been a lie.
Hadn’t it he been careful to not reciprocate her declaration of love? Hadn’t he been swift to build distance between them once an official letter arrived from the Vinkus? Hadn’t she known, in her heart, that he would never be with someone like her?
When the train had finally lurched to a stop, she almost couldn’t bring herself to get off. There was no welcoming party, no Dulcibear waiting patiently for her to deboard and engulf her into strong arms, no father to frown disapprovingly at her early return from Shiz.
There was only her. Her fingers gripping the handle of her suitcase so tightly that she worried it would split as the Munchkinlanders looked on warily. Many of them gave her small frowns of disapproval, overly familiar with her perceived unruliness as a child, and almost immediately hushed whispers began. Trudging forward, she could hear snippets of their wagging tongues- could hear the speculation about her return with enthusiasm that was almost barbed. No one offered her a ride to the Governor’s Mansion. No one offered her a kind smile. Instead, they watched with bated breath to see what she would do.
With few other options, she’d begun the trek home on foot.
It had taken her nearly an hour to reach the home where she’d grown up. The home she’d been born in. The home that she had eagerly left only a few months prior. Her feet ached and the muscles of her back were rigid with stress, but when she’d walked up to it, bone-deep weariness overcame her.
More than anything, she wanted to sneak into the house, curl into her blankets, and hide until the hurt didn’t feel so suffocating. She wanted to feel safe.
But she knew that wasn’t her lot in life. There would be no respite for her in Oz. Nowhere that she could hide. Nowhere that would shelter her from the sanctimonious gossip, disdainful states, or upturned noses. No one to provide her safe haven.
So instead, she had taken a deep breath, lungs burning with the fear of facing her father once more, and knocked on the front door.
--
“I just hid everything, Feld. I couldn’t-couldn’t…” his hiccup was so severe that Feldspur took a quick step back.
“Fiyero, you must stop this at once. Go home and sleep it off.”
“She left me,” Fiyero slurred, leaning against his Horse friend heavily, his forehead damp with perspiration and alcohol, “She left me, Feld. And now my blankets smell like her and she's just not...she's not in them.”
“Miss Elphaba suffers no fools, Fiyero, and that is how you are acting right now. I thought you had long given up this nonsense. What you are doing won’t bring her back nor will it erase the pain that you feel.”
Had Fiyero been sober he would have cringed back against his friend’s harsh reprimand but, unfortunately, he was not. He hadn’t been for a solid two weeks. Classes were long forgotten, his grades plummeting as he’d chosen to drown his sorrows in taverns rather than attend to the curriculum. Everywhere he’d gone, whispers had followed. Public opinion was split. Many of the students on campus were openly snubbing him, beyond shocked by the cruelty of what was rumored about him. A bet with Avaric Tenmeadows to deflower the green girl. A bet to make her fall in love and then dump her at the Festivusal. A bet to use Elphaba for his grades. Nary a word of it was true, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that Fiyero had found himself trapped in a prison of his own creation.
“I messed up. I hurt Fae.” The words had become his mantra- one that he could repeat easily while navigating his near constant drunken stupor. Feldspur had heard near constant variations of them since Elphaba had left Shiz, often twinned with self-deprecation and pity, but lately with desperation and desolation.
“Yes, Your Highness. You did. Now, what are you planning to do about it? Continue to sulk in this most resplendent fashion? Or do something?”
“I love her,” Fiyero confided, seemingly deaf to his friend’s insinuation. His hands brushed Feldspur’s mane before he roughly patted him, “I love her so much. So much Feld. All of my love. ‘Sall ruined because of my own Oz-damned stupidly-stupidlidly-stupidity. Talking is hard.”
With an annoyed snort, Feldspur tossed his mane, “I would imagine talking is hard when one has consumed as much alcohol as you have. It’s a wonder you haven’t passed out. Come now, let’s get you back to your suite before I have to drag you through the forest by your suspenders.”
With a boisterous laugh that didn’t reach his eyes, Fiyero nodded, “Now THAT would be funny. What do you think Fae would do? What would Fae say? I miss Fae. I need her, Feld. I can't sleep in there without her. Please don't make me.”
Staring at his friend, Feldspur took in the changes that had occurred over the last two weeks. Fiyero had looked gaunt, the bags under his eyes dark purple like bruises, and his pallor grey. Where a smile had once permanently been housed, a wretched expression of grief now stood in residence. Every moment away from Elphaba was leading his friend further away from the man that he knew he could be. He was instead allowing life’s ills to defeat him.
Expression grim, Feldspur tossed his mane and instructed Fiyero to climb aboard his back so that he could escort him home. Though he knew the journey back to Shiz’s campus would be slow and likely filled with several stops (especially as he wasn’t entirely sure that Fiyero was sober enough to stay safely in the saddle), he also knew he needed to do something.
This had to end before his friend spectacularly self-destructed.
--
The scent of petrichor was so thick in the air that Elphaba felt as though the air was trying to suffocate her.
Three weeks had passed.
Three weeks since she’d him last. His cerulean eyes filled with regret and misery and blonde hair mussed from his hands running through it with regret.
Three weeks of letters from Galinda, pink scented pages of her neat script begging for forgiveness and for her friend to return. She had started shoving them in her desk drawer, unable to open them, unable to face the tear-stained pages that detailed how sorry her blonde roommate was to have played a hand in her heartache.
Three weeks of snide, undisguised sneers from her Father who was both pleased she had returned home and was under his critical eye once more and irritated by her presence.
There had even been a letter from Nessa. She’d almost chosen not to open it, terrified that it would be filled with smug boasts of her predictions fulfilled. Instead, though, it had been an apology. Not eloquent or overly sincere, but an attempt at commiseration and appeasement.
Three weeks that had begun to creep into four and finally, finally Elphaba was beginning to accept that this was her life.
Each day would be the same. She would wake up, attend to matters at the Governor’s Mansion, service her family, and retire to her room where she would quietly dream of what her life could have been. What she had started to dare to dream of. She would have nightmares about how every facet of her life had deteriorated. Her dreams of using her curse to do good? Gone. Her desperate hope to meet the Wizard? Fulfilled and dashed. A friend? A boyfriend? Those, perhaps, hurt the worst to consider.
At the end of each clock turn, she reminded herself that time would heal all. She had been a game but now she could decide what happened next.
And, for once, Elphaba decided, she would not be a pawn to anyone. She would choose. And what she chose would be to forgive Nessa. To forgive her sister for all of her shortcomings and live her life in service of Munchkinland. She would stay behind the scenes, quieting the voices of indignation and fury at the misfortunes of the world and remind herself that people like her? They didn’t make good.
In her mind, the quiet voice that she had always tried to silence seemed to preen victoriously, insidiously reminding her that she had reached too high. She had forgotten herself.
Well, she never would again, she thought fiercely.
Grabbing her Father’s recently washed bed linen from the laundry basket, she clipped it carefully on the laundry line, hands shaking as she quietly contemplated her future.
Yes, she thought, this would be enough. It had to be. She had spent too many clock revolutions deluding herself into thinking that she was worthy. That she was special. When the reality was, her skin was an outward manifestorial of what her Father had seen from the beginning. Something wrong. Something wicked. Something that should be hidden away.
Jaw trembling as she observed the wind rushing through the tulip fields, she tried to forget the truth that had hurt her the most since she returned home. Though she had tried hard to ignore the surge of hope she felt as she sorted the mail, not a single letter or note of apology had arrived from Fiyero.
--
Ice cold water woke him from the drunken slumber late afternoon found him in. Bleary eyes took in Feldspur, bucket of water between his teeth, standing indignantly with his sister. Both of them looked affronted by the state of him- hair bedgraggled, skin stinking of alcohol and shame, and eyes dull with depression. For just a moment, Fiyero felt shame grip him. Elphaba would be so upset to see him this way. To see how lost he had become without her.
Easing himself into an upright position, Galinda cleared her throat delicately,“Fiyero, dearest, Feldspur and I have been waiting quite patiently.”
She ignored the Horse's irritated throat clearing behind her and raised her eyebrow before amending tilting her head in acknowledgement, “Waited semi-patiently, for you to figure out how to solve your own problems but it is becoming quite clear that you will not.”
Somberly, he remembered the hurt on her face and the pain laced into her voice as she said, “I never want to see any of you again. I didn’t deserve this. I’ve never done anything to any of you.”
He remembered how badly he’d failed someone that he loved. His head ached while he took in his surroundings. Hay stuck to every inch of his person and the air smelled heavily like manure. He must have fallen asleep in Feldspur’s stable again.
“There’s nothing to do, Galinda. I hurt Fae. Haven’t you heard? Savage Winky prince, deluding the green girl into believe he could like her. Taking her virginity. Lying to her. Making a mockery of her. It’s all anyone is discussing or have I perhaps graduated to old news?”
Indignation colored Galinda’s cheeks, “Why in Oz would you say that, Fiyero? How could you call our homeland that? You know as well as I do-“
“Because it’s true, isn’t it? I’m a shallow representative for our people. I hurt someone who didn’t deserve it for my own amusement. Because I am shallow and easily amused and-“
“You committed a great blunder, Fiyero, but the worst way that you are failing is that you have done absolutely nothing to fix it,” cheeks flushed with uncharacteristic anger, Galinda’s eyes flashed as tightened the grip on her purse.
“You hurt my best friend. You broke her heart. In front of everyone, no less. And now, instead of going to get her and begging her forgiveness, you’ve descended into slovenly behavior that is disgustifying to watch.”
“Then don’t watch.”
“What?” The words held a tremor that Fiyero wasn’t sure he had ever heard from Galinda before. A dangerous vibration of anger that he couldn’t quite heed.
“I said,” he leaned forward, “Don’t watch. If watching me disgusts you, then don’t watch.”
The slap, he decided, was well-earned.
Feldspur stomped his hoof, impatient to attack the issue at hand, “That is enough, Fiyero.”
“We have watched you drink yourself into a stupor and feel…feel…” Galinda’s eyes welled with tears before she dabbed at them with a handkerchief, “sorry for yourself. When you are the one who messed everything up. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and fix it.”
“And how do you suggest that? Have you invented something to make the Time Dragon reverse time? Are you now suddenly a gifted witch?”
Galinda sniffed, “No, but if I was a witch, I’d be a very good one.”
“Apologize, you absolute idiot,” Feldspur asserted with a snort, “Grovel. Beg for her forgiveness. Be honest with her for Oz sake.”
I never want to see any of you again. I didn’t deserve this. I’ve never done anything to any of you.
The words had haunted him in the clock ticks since she’d fled from Shiz.
From him.
“You want me to bring her home.”
Exasperation hung heavy in the air as Galinda arched her brow and shot an irritated look at Feldspur.
“Was he perhaps dropped as a child?”
“You would likely know better than me. Did he take any hard falls?”
Fiyero tried to ignore them as he turned over the possibility in his mind. He could go and get her. He could apologize to her. Bring her back where she belonged. Here, at Shiz. Here, with him.
“I could bring her home.”
Stressed smile stretching across her lips, Galinda nodded, “We were waiting for you to figure out that it was the right thing to do. For quite a few clock ticks, Fi. More than it should have taken, really.”
“You could have told me,” Fiyero responded tiredly, his hand rubbing over his face to clear his bleary eyes. Irritation boiled in his gut when he reflected on how absolutely clear it was that chasing after Elphaba was the right course of action. He’d wasted so much time. Time he could have been using to apologize to her and win her over.
“Fiyero, my friend, we didn’t think you were this brainless,” Feldspur snorted derisively.
“Well, I obviously am,” Fiyero winced as leaned against the wall of the stable and removed the hay from his collar.
Galinda reached over and removed several pieces from his hair with a wrinkled nose and scoff, “Now, Fi, I fully expect you to bring Elphaba back but first you’ll need a shower. And a shave. And a haircut. And for the love of Oz, please change your jodphurs. They were horrendibly out of season two years ago when you first bought them and they’re pathetically so now.”
--
After two clock revolutions, Fiyero stood in his suite, bag packed and slung over his shoulder as he gazed around the room. In truth, he hadn’t been able to face it. Elphaba’s hair oil was nestled on the nightstand next to her side of the bed. The black satin robe Galinda had gifted her, hanging on the corner of his bed, just as she had left it. The sheets still smelled like her- the tang of her apple shampoo lingering on her pillowcase and bringing the sting of tears to his eyes.
It had been four weeks since he’d seen her. Four weeks of wasted time and vacuous self-pity. Four weeks of clock ticks where she had no doubt been torturing herself and wondering what she had done wrong- when it had been him who had failed her. He never should have let a moment go by where she didn’t know that.
The trash next to his desk was filled with crumbled paper. Letter after letter that he’d started but threw away because all of his words had fallen woefully short. He didn’t want the first time he confessed his love to be scrawled among his apology. He wanted for her to see him, feel his sincerity, know that he would atone for his mistakes if she would let him. He wanted her to know that he understood the pain he’d caused her and the he would spend the rest of his life making up for it.
Because that was what Fae was for him.
She wasn’t simply the green girl who stood against the way Animals were treated, brashly shouting against injustice with little care for herself. She wasn’t just the girl who stood with her principals and refused to appease people she had idolized because it wasn’t the right thing to do.
She was his future. His home. She was the rest of his life. She was soft, unflinchingly loyal, determined, unpredictable, passionate, gentle, and vulnerable. She was everything that he admired and loved. She was the one who saw him beyond every failure. He knew he would never be worthy but he had to try.
Clutching the train ticket in his hand, he closed the door to the suite and promised himself that the next time he entered this room again, Elphaba’s hand would be in his.