Warning: Severe fluff ahead (blame Larson; he wrote the song)—brush teeth after reading.

Disclaimer: Wicked and all its accompanying everythings are the creation and property of Gregory Maguire.

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So she was green. It didn’t matter. It had, months ago, but after much talk with Fiyero, Elphaba had come to terms with the possibility, and now that the baby was finally born all she saw in her daughter was something amazing. Still a bit slimy and bloody, with a distinctly battered appearance bearing testimony to her recent experience, the baby was, like all newborns, objectively ugly and Elphaba knew it. Still, there was something lovely about her.

Fiyero seemed to feel the same way as he put out a hand to touch the baby’s face and said in a tone bordering on awestruck, “I can’t believe she’s really here.” Only hours ago he’d known her just as an ambiguous shape; now she was lying quietly and curiously in Elphaba’s arms. He’d thought many times over the last few months of how amazing it all was, but this really brought it home. “She’s a person,” he murmured to Elphaba. “Real little person, now.”

Elphaba squeezed his hand—lovely, solid, human hand!—and said, “I can see that much, Fiyero.”

He grinned, a bit embarrassed. “Hey, it’s our first baby; we can be kind of stupid this time around.”

“No, you can be stupid. I’ll stay as I am, thanks. We’re certainly going to screw up, and we need some intelligence around.”

“Not from what your face is saying to me.”

“Which is?”

“You’ve just turned into mushy candy.”

That did it. “I have not, Fiyero Tigelaar. I did not melt when that idiot girl threw a bucket of water at me, and I will not melt just because we have a baby now. I am the practical one in our relationship and I intend to stay that way.”

Although how much had she succeeded at staying one way, she wondered. She had changed...a lot.

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This had certainly been an interesting year for her, she thought later. From alleged Witch and Animal rights activist to Fiyero’s lover to Glinda’s enemy and back to Glinda’s friend before supposedly dying; from Ozian emigrant to Fiyero’s wife to Animal rights activist (a cause that would, unfortunately, always be needed) and now to mother. How would she categorize this? How did one categorize a year anyway?

Apply some sort of theme to it, perhaps. A way to measure it. How, then, to measure this one? All the events, all the roles…it had been so eclectic, and just thinking about it all made her even more tired.

The answer came to her just as she was drifting off: love. Her friend, her husband, her daughter. It wasn’t the best way for all of her colorful life, and certainly not something she could hope to be constant, but it would be nice to have a few seasons of love.

THE END