note: hello there! these are a bunch of AU one-shots because apparently I can't stop imagining how these characters might've reunited. some gelphie, some fiyeraba, some happy (ish), some...less happy. enjoy!

let her know that the family she knew keeps her locket and keys

tell her everything is fine and she's missed like the winds miss the trees

—

"Fiyero."

He mumbles in his sleep, something she can't make out. These days they barely understand each other even when they're both awake. Glinda shoves at his shoulder and says his name again, and this time he blinks blearily up at her.

"What time—"

She interrupts him. "Are we better?"

"What?"

She sits up, twirls a lock of hair around her finger and stares at it. "Are we better people? Because of her?"

His eyes cloud over, dark. They don't talk about her. It's one of the unspoken rules of their relationship. Neither of them is ready to face the magnitude of the other's loss; both of them believe in their own unimpeachable claim on Elphaba's memory. Their only tenuous connection a girl they'd known for a few months, a few lifetimes ago.

When he moves to get out of bed she stops him with a hand across his chest. He glares at her. They're not particularly nice to each other lately. Lately she's been wondering if all of this was just a terrible mistake.

"I don't know what you mean," he says roughly.

She examines him. It's easy to remember why she wanted him once, his strong jaw, his broad shoulders, the openness of his face. It's harder to remember why she stays.

"I think about her all the time," she says. "Every time I cast a spell or talk to the Wizard or see a girl in a black dress."

He's silent, but listening. It's a start.

"And you — you spend your whole life looking for her." He opens his mouth, but she cuts him off before he can utter a protest. "Don't bother. I don't need to ask, and I don't want you to tell me. She's always here, it's like she never left at all, but what are we doing to make her sacrifice mean anything?"

"I do what I can," he grinds out.

That might be true. He's gone more nights than he's here. For all she knows he's out there rescuing Animals and fomenting rebellion — but she doesn't think so. Fiyero is more like her than he'll ever admit.

"It's not enough," she says, which is true, in any case. With every passing week the edicts become stricter, the punishments more severe.

He brushes past her. Glinda hears the tap running in the bathroom, and he comes back with drops of water clinging to the stark hollows of his cheekbones, the new stubble at his chin. Now he's fully awake. Now he's angry. Fiyero stands across from the bed, his voice impossibly soft for how it fills the room. "You were never the one I wanted."

She could laugh. How delusional does he think she is? She knows full well they both dream of the same woman. They've both awakened to the other whispering her name in the darkness.

So she doesn't even flinch. "Well, I'm the one you have."

When she stands up he grabs her wrist, and for just a second his gaze softens. For just a second she can believe that he's still the boy she fell in love with at Shiz, the boy who danced and joked, the boy who held her so close after Elphaba left.

But her resolve firms, and he pulls that veil of cool disinterest over his face again. I'm always happy, he'd told her, a muscle in his jaw twitching.

"I loved her first," she whispers, and tugs her arm from his grasp.

There's a bag in the closet. Just the essentials, something light enough for her to carry on her own. Only one change of clothes: Oh, Elphie, the things I do for you. She packed it weeks ago, and at the time she wouldn't have been able to say why.

Now she knows.

She throws the bag over her shoulder and looks at him. Her fiancé — that's what she wanted, that's what was supposed to make her happy — looks back, his arms crossed. This chasm between them.

"I'm going to find her," she says. "Are you coming or not?"

Fiyero's expression is unreadable. "And then what happens? When we find her?"

He doesn't say if. He also doesn't say, Who gets to keep her?

Glinda can envision a thousand different endings to this sordid tale, but she is no fortune-teller to make a prediction. And it'll hurt too much if it turns out she's wrong.

It'll hurt too much either way, she suspects, but it can't be worse than how she feels now.

"Then there will be choices to make," she says finally, confident that at least that much is true. And then, as though realizing it for the first time, she emphasizes: "Choices." When was the last time she actually made a choice?

He stares at her for a long, long time. Their breathing fills the room.

"Elphie flew," she says, finally. The memory of it is still fresh; she'd never seen anything like it. How strong she'd looked. How strange, and how beautiful. "She flew."

"Away from us."

Glinda shrugs. So what if she did? It's not like Elphie's ever known what's good for her. "And now it's time to get her back."

She'd packed a bag for him, too. They may not like each other very much, but they don't have anyone else. Now she tosses it to him and he catches it, surprise glinting in his eyes.

Glinda holds out her hand. "Come on."

He takes it. They move into the night.