Work Text:
LIGHT RETURNING
“Is the party over yet?”
To hear the word party slip past Fiyero Tigelaar’s lips with such sullenness was an uncanny thing for Elphaba to hear.
She’d found him sulking alone on a staircase on the outskirts of campus, bitter as the midwinter winds that whistled around them. Though voices from the party they’d abandoned could still be heard in the distance, Elphaba and Fiyero were far removed from the warming lamps and jolly pine decor of Shiz University’s courtyard.
As nipping as Fiyero’s remark was, Elphaba was happy that he’d spoken first. In fact, she was happy he spoke to her at all. She’d been surprised when Fiyero left the gathering, but not as surprised as when she instinctively followed him out. Not that she had any plan of what to say. What to do.
“For me at least,” Elphaba answered evenly, standing to the side of Fiyero on the step he was sitting on. “And it seems for you as well?”
A pause ensued as Elphaba patiently waited for Fiyero’s reply. It didn’t come.
“Fiyero—”
“Why are you even talking to me?” Fiyero muttered. “You haven’t for weeks”
Elphaba sighed. He was right. While she wouldn’t say that things had been icy between them…they’d been quiet. Things had been very quiet after…that day.
“You broke up with Galinda,” Elphaba said. “I was mad at you for that.”
“And now?”
“Well frankly it’s hard to stay mad at someone so pitiable.”
Her blunt remark would have insulted Fiyero on any other day, but he merely responded with a sad scoff.
“Good point,” he agreed. “At any rate…Galinda seemed to forgive me faster than you did.”
“And why is it so important?” Elphaba asked. “That I forgive you?”
When Fiyero neglected to answer, Elphaba sighed and moved to sit beside him on the stairs.
“I’m here now. Aren’t I? Extending an olive branch,” she said. “And not the kind Galinda made us dance with tonight…”
Despite himself, Fiyero cracked a faint smile.
“Yeah,” Fiyero agreed. “I’m not sure where Galinda got the idea to do a Wintertide party but she definitely had some interesting ideas.”
“I fear I may be partially to blame. She was dying to host something but I told her Lurlinemas was out. Nessa stiffens up at the faintest whiff of paganism.”
“Is that why Nessa was so tense over by the punch bowl?”
“Lacasa nectar,” Elphaba smiled wryly. “Galinda had to sneak in some Lurlinemas traditions. Princess Ozma’s punch, as she calls it.”
“Well it is ‘nicer to drink than soda-water’,” Fiyero jokingly quoted Galinda.
“‘And lemonade’!” Elphaba tacked on with a small laugh. “So once Lurlinemas was out she pivoted to all of…that,” she said with a vague gesture behind them. “And all of this.”
Elphaba pointed to the halo of pine and golden berries that Galinda had fastened into her long, loose hair for the occasion.
“Ridiculous, isn’t it?”
“Yeah…” Fiyero said, eying the crown. “Ridiculous…”
“So are you going to come back to the party or not?” Elphaba asked.
“No,” Fiyero muttered. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Then neither am I.”
“Don’t let me keep you.”
“Please. I love an excuse to leave a gathering,” Elphaba smirked.
“Well this is a first for me.”
“Yes, that is well documented,” Elphaba rolled her eyes. “Your leaving early must be part of your ‘transformatoriam’.”
Fiyero frowned.
“My what?”
“Galinda says you’ve changed. She said that you’d gotten quieter, moodier just before you two broke up. That you’d been thinking. Oh, say it isn’t so, Fiyero!” Elphaba teased good-naturedly.
Fiyero, who was usually eager to tease back, merely offered a glum shrug in return. Elphaba felt her face fall, dismayed by the state of him. It was as if Fiyero had…dimmed. He was muted and bleak. Worst of all…the light behind his eyes was simply…missing. It had been for some time.
Elphaba missed that most of all.
“You’re not yourself, Fiyero,” Elphaba said gently. “One day you were breezing along without a care in the world and the next you just…changed. What changed?”
Curiosity, frustration, and concern all blended within Elphaba’s chest as she tried to figure Fiyero out. She wasn’t sure which emotion to lead with. However, when Fiyero finally turned his head to meet her eyes, it was curiosity that took hold first. She frowned with intrigue, unable to shake the feeling that all of Fiyero’s mysteries would be revealed to her…if she could only search his eyes long enough.
She wasn’t allowed that chance.
Stiffly rising to his feet, Fiyero abruptly descended the rest of the staircase and turned his back to her.
“You should get back. Galinda will be looking for you.”
Elphaba stood, her frustration now flaring to the lead.
“I’ve already said that I don’t want to go back,” Elphaba repeated tensely. “Everyone is just getting drunker, Nessa is cranky, and I’ll never get the smell of pine off of me. Besides—"
“Besides what?” Fiyero asked, turning to face her.
“Well? What would you have me do?” Elphaba challenged. “Leave you out in the cold to mope around?”
“Hey, I am not moping,” Fiyero said petulantly. “I am a prince. Princes don’t mope.”
“Well this prince is moping!”
With a huff Elphaba descended to join Fiyero on the ground.
“What is this really about?” she prodded. “Is it about what Avaric said? He is such an ass.”
“You just can’t let him get to you,” Fiyero muttered dismissively.
“Then why are you letting him get to you?”
Fiyero’s jaw clenched but, again, he said nothing! Fiyero, though Elphaba would never tell him so, had previously proven himself a worthy sparring partner. But now? His silence stung her. Had their chilly couple of weeks really caused that deep a divide between them?
Though now Elphaba had to wonder…how close had they ever really been? Perhaps she’d misjudged Fiyero’s friendship from the beginning. Perhaps she’d misjudged everything.
“Okay, well…” Elphaba muttered, turning back towards the steps to leave. “If you don’t want me here then—”
“No! Elphaba, I do.”
Elphaba stopped in her tracks as Fiyero’s hand reached forward to seize her own. Her gaze drifted towards their now linked hands and back to Fiyero’s eyes, and as she did…it all came surging back.
That day.
The Cub, the poppy field, the scratch on his face. The way she’d taken his hand…much like he’d just taken hers.
The way he had looked at her.
Much like he was looking at her now.
A wintery gust rippled past them and Elphaba, shivering back into herself, quickly released Fiyero’s hand.
“Sorry, I—” she apologized breathily, flexing her stiffening fingers. “My…fingers are ice.”
“Are they?”
Fiyero, obliviously undeterred, reached forward to rub Elphaba’s hands, warming them in his own.
“Oz, you weren’t kidding, Thropp,” he said in lighthearted jest. “I’m not so sure you’re going to make it.”
“Is that so?”
“Let’s see.”
Without a thought, Fiyero brought Elphaba’s hand to his face and pressed the back of her fingers against his cheek.
“Yeah. It’s as I thought. You’re a goner, Thropp. And…”
Fiyero trailed off as he finally registered the silent surprise across Elphaba’s face. Her fingers remained on this face, frozen in more ways than one, delicately held in place by Fiyero’s grasp. Cold vapor mingled as their breathing grew shallower, tenser. Unable to help himself, Fiyero’s eyes drifted towards the sweet part between Elphaba’s lips.
“And apparently so am I…” Fiyero breathed.
Elphaba wasn’t sure what to say, but before she had time to think of anything, Fiyero removed his hand and pulled back to create that same familiar, safe distance between them.
“Sorry,” he said hoarsely. “Sorry, I…didn’t mean to do that…”
Elphaba pursed her lips back together, the burn of embarrassment heating her neck. There he went again. Pulling away after confusing her with his…closeness.
“Of course,” Elphaba said tightly. “Of course you didn’t.”
With that she turned on her heel and began stalking towards the steps to leave.
“Where are you going?” Fiyero called after her.
“Back to the party!” Elphaba said, turning back. “I might as well, right? Seeing as I keep getting the cold shoulder from you here, why shouldn’t I go back and enjoy my first bonafide Wintertide celebration?”
“Bonafide—” Fiyero scoffed. “Are you kidding? You know—Vinkuns are the only people left in Oz who still actually celebrate Wintertide! And I can tell you none of that was close to what it’s actually like.”
“Well go on then,” Elphaba prompted. “You clearly want to get it off your chest!”
“It’s all just a mockery of Winkies—no different than usual,” Fiyero continued heatedly. “We don’t dance with pine branches. We don’t drink princess punch. We certainly don’t put on masks and have orgies in the grasslands like Avaric said!”
“So you are mad about Avaric,” Elphaba said. “You could have just said so—”
“And we don’t wear halos of golden berries no matter how pretty it looks on you!”
Elphaba, momentarily flustered, emitted a sound between a choke and scoff. Swallowing to recover, she barreled forward to ignore his comment.
“So that’s really why you’re so worked up?” she said. “Some poorly mimicked traditions?”
“No—”
“Because screw traditions!” Elphaba declared. “Oz—this time of year. I swear! You want to know what I think about traditions, Fiyero?”
“I’m sure you’ll tell me anyway.”
“I think they’re dumb. Sure some of them are harmless. Maybe even fun! But overall traditions just create yet another excuse to exclude people. Another excuse to keep things working the same way it always has. Oh, but it’s tradition!” Elphaba cried sarcastically. “It’s tradition! But why, Fiyero? Why do we uphold traditions year after thankless year?”
“Elphaba,” Fiyero interjected.
“Is it for familiarity? Sentimentality?”
“Elphaba.”
“Or are people really that afraid of change?!”
“Elphaba—”
“What?!” Elphaba snapped. “What? What, Fiyero?!”
“I meant it, you know.”
“Meant what?”
“I meant that you look really pretty tonight,” Fiyero said softly. He took a breath. “You look beautiful.”
Elphaba straightened her spine, her rant fizzling under his sudden intensity.
“Don’t,” she muttered softly, shaking her head at him. “Don’t. Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Don’t—” Elphaba gestured ambiguously. “Confuse me like that. I’m—I’m not Galinda, Fiyero. I don’t know any of the right…ploys. I can’t tell what your intentions are!”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that you stopped talking to me too,” Elphaba accused. “It wasn’t just me. After that day…after the Lion Cub you—”
Fiyero looked away from her.
“There!” Elphaba pointed out. “There, you see? After that day you broke things off with Galinda and just…stopped talking to people. You stopped talking to me,” she said. “And…”
“And what?” Fiyero asked, chancing a glance back towards her.
“And…” Elphaba gestured helplessly. “And that hurt, Fiyero. It hurt me. I kept thinking…that I had done something wrong.”
Fiyero shook his head.
“No, you did nothing wrong.”
“Then why?”
“I—” Fiyero made a frustrated sound and shook his head. “I don’t—”
He walked past her to sit on the steps once more, resting his elbows on his knees.
“Fiyero?” Elphaba asked, turning to look at him.
“I don’t know, Elphaba. Okay? And I’m sorry. I don’t know—I don’t…” Fiyero put his head in his hands. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I have no idea…what I’m doing.”
Elphaba stared after him and, after a long fought battle, her concern for Fiyero finally reigned victorious. She slowly crossed to sit beside him on the step, calmly reached into her bag, and procured a small loaf of poundcake meant for one. She unwrapped it from the plastic, broke it in half with care, and held one half out to Fiyero.
“Here.”
Fiyero lifted his head, frowning in confusion.
“What’s this?”
“It’s…my tradition,” Elphaba admitted with some reluctance. Fiyero gave her a questioning look and she emitted an embarrassed sigh. “During this time of year Father always gave our cook time off for the religious holiday which left me responsible for preparing dinner. Afterwards he and Nessa always went to midnight service and left me behind to clean up.”
“Doesn’t sound very fun.”
“Right. But it still beat going to the midnight service,” Elphaba snorted. “So, every year after they left I would just…make myself some ginger pound cake and enjoy a little…peace. I so rarely got time alone in the house and it became my own little…secret ritual.”
“So you were holding out on me,” Fiyero said. “For someone who hates traditions so much…I wouldn't have expected you to create one for yourself.”
“I suppose it’s not traditions themselves I hate. I hate…doing things a certain way simply because that’s how they’ve always been done. Or…how things are expected to be done.”
“Yeah…” Fiyero murmured. “I can understand that.”
Elphaba nodded gently. “I thought you might be able to.”
Fiyero looked at her and then back at the poundcake.
“Well I have to say it. This is the gloomiest tradition I’ve ever heard of,” Fiyero teased. “Making cake for yourself and then eating it alone.”
“Then I’m in good company,” Elphaba shrugged. “Because you’re as unhappy as I’ve ever seen you, Fiyero. And that is saying something.”
Fiyero felt a half-hearted swell of defensiveness and the urge to deny her claim…an urge that was soon soothed by Elphaba’s earnest expression.
“Why did you follow me out here, Elphaba?” Fiyero asked seriously. “Really. If I’m as sad as you say I am?”
“Because…you don’t have to be happy for me to care about you, Fiyero,” Elphaba said. “You don’t have to pretend.”
Fiyero said nothing but Elphaba watched as his features softened.
“Oh, Fiyero,” Elphaba sighed, her shoulders slackening in sympathy. “You do know that…right?”
Fiyero was quiet, offering only a single, small shrug. Elphaba watched him swallow as if there was a new tightness in his throat.
“You know…there’s something about this time of year,” Elphaba began musingly. “Have you ever noticed? There is so much emphasis on celebrating, gathering, togetherness. And it doesn’t matter if people celebrate Lurlinemas or Wintertide, or nothing. It’s like everyone starts to participate in some sick pageant where they’re trying to…I don’t know. Out happy each other.”
As Elphaba spoke, hers and Fiyero’s knees deftly brushed against each other. They both expected for the other to pull theirs away…but neither did.
“So…” Elphaba continued. “We throw parties and decorate and visit loved ones and everyone labels it the best time of the year. And…it’s hard not to feel crazy if you disagree. In fact this time of year has a way of making it so that the lonely…just get lonelier.”
Fiyero thought about this.
“Do you ever get homesick, Elphaba?” he asked.
“Not particularly,” Elphaba answered honestly. “Yourself?”
“I don’t know,” Fiyero said, equally as honest. “Sometimes I think I do…but other times not so much.”
“Well whichever it is…I am sorry that the party back there didn’t represent your home very well.”
“Ah, it’s fine. I was never really all that into Wintertide anyway…” Fiyero chuckled before trailing off into thought. “Although…there was always one part of it I liked.”
“Oh?” Elphaba asked, interest piqued. “What is it?”
“The Dark Night torch.”
Elphaba waited for him to continue.
“Well you know how Wintertide is the longest and darkest night of the year?” Fiyero asked. Elphaba nodded. “It’s customary for two people to pair off and light a torch together in the middle of the night. If another pair spots a torch in the distance, then they light a torch. And so on and so on and so on…” Fiyero explained. “The idea was to send a signal to the hunters in the grasslands. To let them know that the darkest night was ending…and that the light would be returning soon.”
“That’s lovely,” Elphaba said. She meant it.
“Yeah, well…nowadays it’s all symbolic. The first torch is usually lit at the castle. I’ve never lit it, though.”
“Why not?”
Fiyero paused to consider his response.
“I guess it was just never…” Fiyero began vaguely. “Right.”
“I see…” Elphaba said slowly. Down the cobblestone path before them, she eyed an unlit gas streetlamp. “Well…why not tonight, then?”
Standing off the step, Elphaba began walking purposefully towards the streetlamp.
“What are you doing?” Fiyero asked, rising to follow her.
“I mean it’s no torch but it’s close enough, right?” Elphaba explained, pointing it out. “They must have missed that one tonight.”
“But we don’t have the…stick…lighty thing.”
“Ah, yes. The technical term,” Elphaba rolled her eyes. “Come on now. It’s the least I can offer after the Shiz student body bastardized your entire culture tonight.”
Elphaba stopped at the streetlamp and, when she didn’t hear Fiyero’s footsteps, looked behind her to see him hanging back. He wore a strange expression.
“What are you so afraid of, Fiyero?” Elphaba asked.
She said it half in jest and half with all the sincerity in the world. Her question seemed to do the trick, however, because Fiyero took a breath and crossed to join Elphaba at her side.
“Alright. Let’s do it,” Fiyero nodded. “How?”
“I have an idea,” Elphaba said, presenting her hands to Fiyero. “Put your hands beneath mine.”
Fiyero eyed them a moment before gently placing his hands beneath Elphaba’s open palms. He watched, then, as Elphaba inhaled deeply and produced a smoldering flame directly above her hands.
“Whoa—!”
Wildly off guard, Fiyero removed his hands and leapt backwards. The flame dissolved in a small puff of smoke as Elphaba opened her eyes with an amused cackle.
“What? You’re not afraid of a little fire, are you?” she goaded.
“I’m not not afraid of fire!” Fiyero protested. “Especially not that close to me!”
“It’s very controlled, I promise,” Elphaba assured him. “Don’t you trust me?”
“That’s a loaded question…”
Elphaba raised her eyebrows, her hands still outstretched towards him. Shaking his head, unable to believe he was doing this, Fiyero crossed back towards her and returned his hands beneath hers.
“Okay,” Fiyero decided. “I trust you.”
“Thank you,” Elphaba nodded. “I mean that.”
More prepared this time, Fiyero watched in anticipation as Elphaba closed her eyes and reconjured the flame between them. It hovered above their fingers and grew steadily until it was about the size of an apple. As promised, it did not harm them. Instead it warmed Elphaba and Fiyero’s hands as if they were holding a mug of tea. Slowly, Elphaba raised her eyes to find that Fiyero was already looking at her, admiring how the flickering flame brought out the warmth in her eyes. The golden glint of the halo in her hair. Her vibrant emerald.
“Fiyero…” Elphaba said without thinking.
The word slipped out with no others to follow. Even Elphaba didn’t know her intention behind it. She only knew that Fiyero was looking at her with an intensity that made her burn in a way that the flame they were holding could not.
“What happens next?”
“What?” Elphaba asked dumbly.
“With the lantern.”
“Oh—yes,” Elphaba nodded. “Just…follow my movements.”
With a fluid gesture, Elphaba lifted her hands with Fiyero’s beneath them. The orb of fire lifted off their hands and drifted lazily upwards like a balloon until it took perch in the streetlamp to begin sharing its light. Elphaba and Fiyero dropped their hands and stood back, heads craned upwards to admire their lantern which now stood indistinguishable from the other lighted lamps.
But they knew.
“Happy Wintertide, Fiyero,” Elphaba murmured, still looking at the lamp.
“Happy Wintertide…”
The initial brush may have been accidental, but the lingering was not. They both knew it. Fiyero’s knuckle brushed against Elphaba’s and they both took a cold breath in. Though their flame was high above them now, too far to feel its warmth, a heat lingered between them. Then, without looking, without speaking, the tips of Elphaba and Fiyero’s fingers met and twisted together into a rather delicate tangle.
“Why did you never do this tradition before?” Elphaba asked again, this time in a whisper.
“Because…” Fiyero replied weakly, his thumb brushing back and forth against Elphaba’s hand. “Because the tradition is…”
They slowly turned their heads to look at each other, hands still linked, and Fiyero met Elphaba’s eyes with affectionate resignation.
“The tradition is to light the torch with someone you love.”
Elphaba blinked, her heart aggressively pulsing adrenaline throughout her body. Fiyero turned towards her, apparently emboldened, and his hands took her waist.
“And I had never felt that way,” Fiyero continued breathlessly, eyes drifting to Elphaba’s lips. “Not…not until…”
“Fiyero…”
Before either of them had time to react, Elphaba and Fiyero leaned forward to meet in a sudden but tender kiss.
Eyes slipping closed, Elphaba’s hands found Fiyero’s shoulders to hang onto as his arms encircled her waist. A strange but calm feeling washed over them both as if their kiss was both impulsive and yet long overdue. Their lips soon parted but their faces stayed close, the tips of their icy noses brushing against each other as their circumstances sunk in.
“You just kissed me,” Elphaba breathed.
“I did,” Fiyero said, arms still locked around her frame.
“Did you mean to do that?”
Fiyero’s face broke into a grin, amused by her flustered query.
“Yeah, I did…” he answered. “And you kissed me back.”
“I did.”
“Did you mean to do that?”
Elphaba was quiet for a moment before nodding slightly.
“Yes. I did.”
Their gaze lingered for a moment before they kissed again, this time with decidedly more fervor. They grasped at each other almost clumsily, as if their pent-up passion was all trying to escape at once. Fiyero’s hands stroked Elphaba’s face once before his fingers dove into her haloed hair. Elphaba, in turn, gripped the lapels of his coat and kissed Fiyero insistently—insistently.
“This is crazy,” Elphaba muttered between kisses. “This is crazy…”
With a sudden jerking motion, Elphaba stepped backwards and broke their kiss with a gasp.
“What’s wrong?” Fiyero asked dazedly. “What’d I do?”
“This is crazy!” Elphaba repeated in earnest, eyes wild with confusion. “Fiyero, this is crazy!”
“No it’s not,” Fiyero said. “It’s not crazy.”
“Do you even realize what you just did?” Elphaba said with a wild laugh. “Fiyero you just kissed me.”
“Yeah! Like I said, I did it on purpose!”
“But it’s me, Fiyero. It’s me and it’s you and—”
“And what?!”
Elphaba wrung her hands together.
“You’re not thinking clearly. You’re not thinking at all,” she insisted. “You’re just having a bad night. As I said, you’ve been off lately and—”
“Off? I’ve been off?!” Fiyero glared. “Do you want to know why I’ve been different, Elphaba?! You want to know why I’ve changed?!”
“Why—”
“I’ve changed because of you!”
Elphaba blinked. “What?”
“You, Elphaba. You,” Fiyero insisted, gesturing to her. “You are why I broke up with Galinda. You are why I left the party. You are why—”
“So you’re saying I’m to blame?!”
“Yes!” Fiyero exclaimed. “For all of it! It’s like you cracked my brain open. It’s like you pried open my eyes! You’re the reason I’ve been thinking, Elphaba. You’re…you’re who I’ve been thinking about!” he professed. “I can’t—I can’t…I cannot stop thinking about you, Elphaba. I just…I can’t.”
Elphaba was speechless for a moment. She stood paralyzed, staring at Fiyero, before weakly whispering: “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Fiyero repeated, confused. “What are you sorry for?”
“I don’t know,” Elphaba answered. “I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry for that, I suppose. That I don’t know what to say. What to think.”
“So you’re saying that now I’m thinking too much and you can’t think at all?” Fiyero asked. Elphaba shrugged. “How ironic.”
Elphaba managed a feeble smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Fiyero stepped forward and took her cold hands in his.
“Is it crazy, Elphaba?” Fiyero asked seriously, rubbing her fingers. “Is it really so crazy? You and I?”
“Yes. It is,” Elphaba answered hoarsely. “It’s rather impossible to picture, in fact. For you to care for me in that way.”
“But not hard to picture it the other way around?” Fiyero asked hopefully.
“Don’t,” Elphaba hissed, removing her hands from his. “Don’t do that. Don’t make me fess up to feelings that are already perfectly obvious!”
“They’re not as obvious as you might think!”
“Don’t,” Elphaba repeated, voice cracking this time. She shook her head and crossed her hands over her heart as if to plead with him. “Don’t make me say it, Fiyero. Don’t toy with me.”
“Hey—”
“Have I not already been subjected to enough humiliation for one lifetime?!”
She turned her back to him, but not before Fiyero caught sight of anxious tears jumping to her eyes. Too proud to show her face, Elphaba quickly swiped her cheeks clean and took a few shaky breaths.
“Don’t make me say it, Fiyero. Don’t make me risk saying something…that I cannot ever take back.”
“Elphaba…look at me.”
Frozen vapor released between Elphaba’s lips as she exhaled greatly, gathering her courage to face him. When at last she did, Elphaba, to her surprise, felt her body go off script. Betraying her safeguarding senses, Elphaba flung herself into Fiyero’s arms for a needy hug. Surprised though he was, Fiyero embraced her readily and tucked her close against him. When she shivered he held her tighter, rubbing her back up and down to warm her. To soothe her.
“I’ll say it, then,” Fiyero spoke up softly, and Elphaba could feel his heart accelerate from where her head lay on his chest. “Oz, I’m scared to shreds…but I’ll say it first. Elphaba, I’m—”
“Don’t say it if it’s not true,” Elphaba warned in a hurried whisper, her fingers clutching him tighter. “Don’t tell me anything that you don’t mean.”
“I won’t. I promise you I won’t,” Fiyero murmured. “Do you trust me?”
“That’s a loaded question.”
Even so, after a moment Elphaba lifted her head off of Fiyero’s chest to properly meet his eyes. Fiyero delicately brushed her hair aside before caressing the sides of her face.
“Elphaba…” he breathed. “I have been such a coward. Because you’re right…I have been avoiding you. I thought I could brave this party but when I saw you…”
Fiyero shook his head, gently stroking Elphaba’s face with his thumbs.
“I was scared to face you after that day with the Cub because…because I know I can’t hide from you. I know I can’t trick you. And I knew that if you looked at me for long enough that you’d see…” Fiyero poured his gaze into hers. “You’d see that I’m falling in love with you. And I am, Elphaba. I am falling so…so in love with you.”
Elphaba placed her trembling hand over Fiyero’s.
“And you’re not just saying this because we kissed, right?” Elphaba checked anxiously. “You’re not just getting caught up…in the heat of the moment?”
“How could it be the heat of the moment?” Fiyero said simply. “It’s freezing out here.”
She tried not to…but Elphaba smiled at that. Weakly, but still. She smiled.
“And you don’t need to say anything back,” Fiyero assured her, encouraged by her smile. “As far as I’m concerned…this is already the best Wintertide I’ve ever had.”
“Is that so?”
“Oh, absolutely. I lit my first Dark Night torch, got some free cake, had the best first kiss of my life,” Fiyero listed charmingly, earning a flustered laugh from Elphaba. “And I finally told the woman of my dreams how I felt about her. Oz, Elphaba. I have never felt so…free.”
Elphaba took a good look at him. He looked freer too. Unburdened. There was energy in his features again, a giddiness in his tone. But best of all…
The light had returned.
The light had returned to his eyes.
“I love you too,” Elphaba said before she could overthink what she knew in her heart to be true. Her declaration was impulsive but the sentiment was anything but. “Oz help me, Fiyero…but I am falling in love with you too.”
And Elphaba watched as Fiyero’s eyes, deeply expressive once more, lit up with surprise, then joy, then…mischief.
“What?” Elphaba narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “What’s that look? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Are you saying that you’ve been…” Fiyero reached over to straighten the coniferous crown upon her head. “Pining for me?”
“Oh sweet Oz,” Elphaba complained loudly, backing away from him. “I tell you that I love you and you respond with a pun?!”
“Oh come on!” Fiyero called after her, grinning. “I’ve been pining for you too! It was mutual!”
Elphaba, trying and failing not to laugh, tore off her halo of berries.
“There!” Elphaba said, chucking it towards Fiyero who caught it in both hands. “Take it, you horror!”
Fiyero grinned at the halo in his hands before returning his gaze to Elphaba.
“You know…” Fiyero began, approaching Elphaba to close the gap between them. “Suddenly I’m glad that tonight is the longest night of the year….”
“And why is that?” Elphaba asked.
“Because I never want this night to end.”
Carelessly tossing the halo behind his shoulder, Fiyero used his now free hands to pull Elphaba against him and kiss her again, a kiss that she more than welcomed. The torch they lighted flickered approvingly above their heads and as they fell deeper into one another, Elphaba couldn’t help but muse over how odd a match she and Fiyero were.
How strange.
How…untraditional.
And it was funny, they both thought, that their hearts had come together on the darkest night of the year…because neither Elphaba nor Fiyero could remember a time when they’d ever shone so bright.