Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Look, Fiyero.” Elphaba murmurs, hands stilling. There’re two apples balanced in her palms that are forgotten as she turns. Her nose, still tucked into the scarf pulled tight around her face, tickles at the movement. “A merchant.”

The scarecrow at her side turns in her same direction. His arms, sagging strangely with a brown paper bag, jostle Elphaba’s elbows.

Across the clearing, his carriage sat on the single dirt road that cut through the village, was the merchant in question. Eccentric and brightly coloured, with an Animal sat on the stern of the carriage chattering away to one of their neighbours.

It’s a surprising sight these days – seeing man and Animal together in business. Certainly, it had been close to a decade since she’s seen something like this so casually. So normally. As if it were how the world worked— rather, a return to how it should have worked, how it had worked.

Elphaba can’t pull her gaze away, despite her best efforts. Settles instead in trying to not look over-invested in the pair of them.

“So it is.” Fiyero says. “What a sight. Where do you think the fellows came from?”

A little glimmer of often-overlooked hope has her blurting out, “The Emerald city?” before she can stop herself.

The scarecrow gives her a look. Elphaba rolls her eyes back. To think people had thought her a pessimist.

“Look at him, he’s in nothing but greens. That stupid hat, too— where else would you see something as stupid as that? And— oh, are those glass vases? Look—” A row of them, sat in tightly-designed crates, all a filmy green-yellow-blue in the sunlight. “I knew it.”  

Only one place in all of Oz was able to produce glassware with such impossible proportions. The folded sheen of colour and its whirling shapes couldn’t be from anywhere else.

Which meant they were looking at a man and an Animal merchant from the Emerald city. Elphaba half wants to pinch herself. Three years gone from the world, and the changes she hadn’t seen. They were sat right in front of her now in such an uneventful reveal it’s almost unbelievable.

Fiyero gently grabs her wrist, tugging her away from her unconscious stray forwards.

“My dear,” He’s smiling, that cheeky, crooked thing. “In case you’ve forgotten— which, honestly, I’m baffled that you have —you’re the Wicked Witch of the West.”

Elphaba flusters. “Of course I— do you think I’ve become a sort of fool?”

“Well, cohabitation and contamination do sound similar, I suppose.”

Elphaba rolls her eyes again, the second in as many minutes. Fiyero never had shook the habit of professing his apparent brainlessness, no matter how many times she’d complained.

“Hush now.” She murmurs, her gaze straying back to the human merchant.

He was a plump fellow, all rosy cheeks and waving hands. Gone were the top hats of old Oz, instead replaced instead with a jaunty, feathery thing. A shift in fashion she couldn’t have known about on the outside, she assumes. Not that she ever cared overmuch for what foolishness people placed on their heads.

Well, usually.

There was a particular vibrancy to him that turns that ever-present ache in her chest to a painful clench. Like an old, faded painting from distant recollections – that ache of pink and gold. It’s torture to even admit it to herself, but it’s there.

Because the man and Animal were from Emerald city, and she remembers a dream that had been stolen so quickly from her. Remembers a silly, hopeful girl that had been stolen, too.

Once, it had been different. Once, in a fleeting lifetime gone past. Elphaba had been thinking of that distant dream longer than she had ever lived it.

She’s walking towards the man before she can even stop herself.

It didn’t have to be much. She just needed something. A reminder, a symbol, a placeholder for what that dream could have been. It’s as simple as a newspaper, sometimes.

Or a pointed black hat.

They’ve never argued for days before.

Elphaba would consider herself to be impressed at their joint stamina, if it weren’t so chest-achingly prescient. It was as if they had both taken a shovel, to dig up every buried truth they could find. It proved nothing but that they were the same people. Different circumstances, perhaps different faces, but still the same.

Every point was moot. Fiyero couldn’t understand. He simply hadn’t been there. Hadn’t stared into her eyes, hadn’t shoved the grimmerie into her chest, hadn’t begged her in a way she had promised herself she would never.

It was just one trip. Just one day. There were Animals and humans side-by-side, coming from that great and green city. She just needed to see it. That’s all she needed.

Fiyero disagrees.

“You’d be throwing it all away.” He says quietly, off the end of another not-quite shouting match. The third in as many days.

The sun was filtering low through the cabin windows. Night was falling soon, the buzz of dusk filling the air. It’s a better sound than their irate voices.

“Throwing it?” Elphaba tugs at her braids, just a little, as she combs her fingers through them. “Throwing what away, Fiyero? It’s one trip.”

“Didn’t one trip lead to—” A gesture, “This in the first place?”

And she couldn’t say anything to that. It swells something fierce in her chest.

Because her first willing visit to Emerald city had been her last in the end. All that green— it was always a curse, no matter the façade.

Something she thought she’d reckoned with. Three years was a long time to come to terms with wickedness and greenness and everything in between when you had nothing else to do but think.

In lieu of wordlessness, her eyes stray to the black cloak. It was sat where it was always sat, hung up on one peg by the door. Unmoved, gathering dust. It just… hurt to touch it. So, she didn’t. Fiyero knew better than to move it

It was the last thing she had of her. Apart from dreams, and hopes, and a promise— just a single, worn cloak that had been tied tight and tenderly around her neck.

That, and the Emerald city. Her Emerald city, now. Her city that had, in no uncertain terms, just pardoned her.

The single newspaper she had bought from the merchant is still shouting it. Still sat on the table, it’s first page face-up in black and white image, screaming The Wicked Witch of the West posthumously forgiven!

“I’ll disguise myself.” Elphaba blurts. It sounds a little desperate, even to her own ear. “The— even without the grimmerie, it’s not over-hard. I can study, find a way, and then no one will know.”

Fiyero sighs. It’s a curiously wispy sound. A side effect of being made of straw, she’d deduced.  

“That’s not what I’m saying. You know what I’m saying.”

Elphaba exhales harshly. Sits down at their small dining table, chair pulled out in a shriek. Sits, and stares down at her hands.

Had they lost some of their writing callouses? It seemed like they had. Odd to feel like that was another loss atop the mountainous pile of them. Writing had been such a constant in her life.  

Just like reading newspapers, she supposes wryly.

“I… I know. I know. But I can’t promise it.”

They hadn’t said her name in years. There was no point. It was there regardless. There was always a her between them.

That had been a hard thing to realise in those first months. That they shared room with a living ghost. That it was unreconcilable, despite their best efforts. Another thing she had lost, somehow, in it all.

“Look at the newspaper, Elphaba. You’re three years dead. She’s not—” Another wispy sigh. His rasping voice softens. “She’s not waiting for you. I’m sorry, but she’s not. You know that.”

“Oh, for— I know that. You don’t have to remind me,” She bites, and wonders why her voice sounds so devastated over that fact now, of all times. “But I need to see, Fiyero. I need to know that we— that she did good.”

“You know she has. We saw the merchant— we know she’s made good.”

“Just the one, and this,” Her finger jabs at the newspaper, “and— Oz, when has she ever been anything but talk?”

The scarecrow sags in defeat. Takes the seat across from her. The cabin had never seemed so small as it does now. So quiet. So far from everything she was, is, had used to be.

The only remainder of Elphaba Thropp truly was just a cloak hung up in a corner. A hat sat on a decrepit castle floor. And a newspaper.

It was unavoidable. Elphaba knows— she’ll go half mad if she doesn’t go back to the Emerald city for a final time. To confirm with her own eyes. To know this wasn’t delusion, wasn’t a lie, wasn’t some distant dream.

That there is an Animal merchant from the Emerald city. That there is a pardon to the Wicked Witch. That their promise was kept, even if Elphaba couldn’t be there to live on through it.

Fiyero’s studying her, expression guarded.

It’s easy here in the middle of nowhere. A humble life that was quiet, old, filled with half-dreams and wonderings. It was easy to construct something that was not real and feel almost content in it.

It was easy, and perhaps that’s why Elphaba wants to run back.

And maybe everything she had ever had was covered in claw marks, clung onto in quiet desperation, knowing what it felt to be so profoundly without. Maybe after so long, she had begun to resent the things torn from her. The things denied. The things she had denied herself.

It didn’t matter, either way.

“I’m coming with you.” He eventually sighs. Sounds, keenly, as if it was a defeat.

Elphaba nods. “I would have asked you to.”

They both know she’s lying. Fiyero’s kind enough not to point it out.

It all goes wrong. Because of course it does. When has anything, ever, in the history of Elphaba Thropp’s many years of living, ever gone right.

It was short-sighted to not think the scarecrow would raise up a fuss upon his simple appearance within the Emerald city. The moment he steps foot into the city border, they’re surrounded. In celebration, in awe, in whatever these people call it— Elphaba finds herself being paraded through the same streets she had walked only once before.

She finds herself dearly missing her broom. The sky didn’t pester anyone. The sky didn’t summon crowds of people that once— and still do —despise her. Clouds certainly never skipped Fiyero and herself deep into the city.

Which, of course, because of course it does, leads them from the main square, the Golgreen plaza, and right into the Emerald palace.

Right into Glinda the Good’s Emerald palace.

And, really, Elphaba’s not at all prepared to see her. She’d imagined – rather extensively – seeing perhaps a glimpse of her old friend. Of being a shadow on the wall during a council meeting, perhaps, just to see her doing good.

She would have been nothing but a smear of pink and blonde before Elphaba retreated. It would have been distant, bitter and parting, as Elphaba had always dreamed. It would have broken her heart in two, again, as they always seemed to do to each other.

It would not be sweating in a disguise and glamour-magick, shoulder-to-shoulder with Fiyero, in the middle of a grand welcoming.

But of course, nothing ever went right in her stupid, stupid life. So here she was, clanking in ill-fitting clothing, de-greenfied beneath a helmet, and watching the back of Fiyero’s scarecrow head as they lurch into the main chamber of the palace.

Inside is the same as she remembers it— though brighter, more open, not a single guardsman in sight. It’s strung with multi-colour banners of each county, creed and calling. Filled with an oozing sense of unity that, in some strange way, erases near all the palace’s green.

It’s transformative. It’s different. It’s all the evidence Elphaba really needs— and yet she can’t leave for the thronging crowds of people all around them.

“This is just great,” Fiyero mutters under his breath. Shifts uncomfortable as the people around eye him. “I manage to avoid this place for years and then they just chuck me back in here.”

“Any good memories?” Elphaba says, droll.

“One. No, two, maybe.” He shifts again. The crowds pick up in volume. “It was never quite this busy, though. There’s an awful lot of people here.”

An understatement. She can see people of every flavour, near all of Oz, stood in this room.

“We may have timed this wrong.”

Fiyero snorts. “Wrong’s a word for it.”

Then someone calls out.

There’s no announcer, no trumpeter, no grand entrance. The crowd simply shivers in wonder and delight, the ambassador in front of them straightens his back, and there, stepping primly down the staircase in a ridiculously large gown and glittering silver, was Glinda the Good.

And—

Glinda looked like a ghost.

Not in the bodily sense, no she was moving and animated, still smiling sweetly and sweeping elegantly. Still golden ringlets and dimples and brilliant pink.

But the closer she got, the more it was as if someone had scooped out all that was her— all that was her Galinda Upland— and replaced it with something fake and porcelain and not quite. As if she’d become nothing more than a doll, distant behind the eyes entirely.

Elphaba, quite suddenly, feels sick.

Glinda the Good sweeps from person to person with words they can’t hear. She’s a vision, and she’s not her, and those facts together blur and sting.

That her former best friend looked like this. That Oz, their Oz, the one that Elphaba had spoken to the ghost of her in an empty room, in an empty castle, so bereft it physically hurt, had finally been realised.

And Glinda was miserable. In all this happiness— she was miserable.

“Fiyero— Fiyero—"

“Don’t say my name so loud—”

“She’s— that’s— oh, look at her.” Elphaba pulls at his sleeve, urgent and only slightly trembling. “We have to do something.”

“Do something? We’re both dead to her, what on Oz would we even—?” Fiyero sputters, then startles at something beyond her, “Oh, that’s just great, now she’s coming towards us—”

The crowds were parting. There are murmurs picking up all around them.

Elphaba jerks around just as Glinda the Good stops in front of them.

It was awful. It was everything. Three years. Five years. So many years between them, an open chasm of distance that was growing, and growing.

The black cloak she had folded into her sidebag seems to burn against her hip.

“Scarecrow, oh it is a delight to see you once again.” Her voice is the same as it always was.

Elphaba’s chest clenches.

“I’m truly glad— we all thought you had left us, or Oz, or—" The smile Glinda gives them is empty, "Goodness, well you know how such gossip spreads.”

“Still here, yes, just— had to see the world a little.”

A tilt of her tiara-ed head, directed at Elphaba’s awkward loom. “And this is?”

Elphaba feels her heart stop, for just one timeless moment, before pounding in her chest. Polite, Glinda’s eyes dart over her. They were still ridiculously doe, ridiculously pretty, ridiculously her.

The scarecrow jerks his hand at her. “This? This! Yes, this, uh— this is a friend. Insisted on coming. First time in Emerald city, you see.”

“Of course, the palace is welcome to all. Gladdened to you meet you.” Glinda murmurs sweetly. She looked achingly regal, even empty as she seemed. Like a painting come to life. Elphaba is sweating profusely under her stupid disguise. “Now, to what do we owe the pleasure?”

“I heard the news.”

The look that passes over Glinda’s face is nothing short of incomprehensible.

Elphaba feels the sharp need— to lurch forward, to cup her perfect face in her hands, to force Glinda to look up into her own gaze. To find that something, that hurting thing, in her. Or maybe to simply touch the woman and know she was real. To try and find her Galinda under whoever Glinda the Good was.  

Instead of doing any of that, she grips her own hands tighter and recites three dozen curses.

Stupid stupid plan— stupid idea— stupid newspaper—

“Oh, yes, of course— Wonderlocious, isn’t it just? Oz has found it’s path to forgiveness, in such a short time—” Glinda glances away, “Such a thing, to embrace the past and know it’s mistakes. We must reconcile our differences, learn to understand each other. You don’t object, do you?”  

The words linger like the prettiest of threats. Elphaba almost finds herself impressed that someone could simultaneously sound so gentle and imply something entirely not so.

“Of course not. No, it’s a great thing— a good thing you’ve done.

“Good good, a fine man you are. So then, you must be here for the ball.”

“Sure—” Fiyero coughs loudly. Ever so subtly stamps on Elphaba’s foot. “Yes. Yes I am. It would be— nice —to catch up with old companions.”

“Ah, the friends of Dorothy,” Glinda bows her head, “Such good company. Well then, I shan’t keep you from them— it’s a pleasure, Scarecrow, truly.”

She’s sweeping away before Fiyero can sputter anything else out. It’s nothing but a moment until she’s swallowed back into the crowds of diplomats and politicians and adoring citizens of Oz.

Elphaba shakes her arm out. It was quite numb. And wet. She’d gripped her hands too hard.

Bother.

“This is terrible.” Fiyero says, as if it needed saying.

One terrible thing leads to another, as it so often does, and Elphaba finds herself standing in one of the many guest rooms of the Emerald palace. Pacing, tugging at her own fingers, and wondering just what they were supposed to do now.

“Leave,” Fiyero supplies helpfully from the bed. He’d collapsed into it and was thoroughly buried. “We should leave Elphaba. This isn’t— Oz, this is a disaster. We’re being terrible.”

“I know that.”

“Parading around in front of her without her ken— it’s an awful thing. We never should have come here. And a ball— Stars above.”

“I know.”

“Yes, you know, you know—” His head audibly thumps against the mattress. “And yet we’re still here because?”

It doesn’t shake from her mind. Glinda’s fake smile, her unmoving face, the way her eyes were distant in a way she hadn’t seen from the woman— not ever.

Something sick and churning was sat in her gut. It aches her with the intensity.

They’d made misery out of Glinda. The promise had made misery out of her. She had to release Glinda from her vow. It was only right. It was only fair.

“I’m going to— I’m going to talk to her. And make her renounce her promise to me.”

Fiyero jolts up. Elphaba vaguely tracks the movement from the corner of her eye, too busy staring out of the grand, green-stained window at the city.

The city of Animals and Gillikinese, and Munchkins and Quadlings— and even some of the Vinkus. A city that was vibrant and alive and real. A city she had so dearly dreamed of. That Glinda had made, and all for one desperate, farflung, final promise.

“Renounce? Renounce what? Are you— you’re going to reveal yourself to her? Elphaba—”

“I’ve made her miserable.” Elphaba murmurs.

“You’ve done no such thing. It’s been three years— she’s doing well enough for herself, just look at her. Why would you even think such a thing?”

“Because I made her promise, and— it’s my fault. I have to let her be happy, too. She’s done enough— I mean, Oz, just look at this place Fiyero.” She flails out a hand. In the green glass reflection, it’s not a contrast. “She’s done enough.”

“This is absolutely the worst thing you have ever thought up. Ever, Elphaba, and that is saying something considering your history.”

She whirls to face him. Shoves a finger towards his sprawled form, scowling. “Did you come with me just to complain about everything?”

“Yes.” He huffs, “Am I doing a good job?”

“Oh just— hush up, I’m—” Her hands fold and unfold from fists. There’s a distant urge to run out in the corridor and start screaming like a lunatic. I’m green! I’m green! like her nightmares used to resemble. “Look, I’m trying to think.”

“Well think harder, this plan has absolutely no brains to it. And I should know—” 

“—Not helping.”

“I’d rather think that’s a good thing.”

“Look— just— do you have a better idea?”

Straw arms are flung upwards. Fiyero looks as if he were trying to embrace the ceiling. “Yes! Leave!”

“Did you not see her? See how miserable she looked—?” Elphaba makes a short noise. Rakes her hands through her hair again. Thinks of golden curls and fake smiles, “I thought that— Oz, Fiyero, I have to do something.”

Fiyero sighs. Drops his arms like dead weight, scrubs his fabric face with his hands. Quiet settles but for a tick-tock of a grandfather clock in one corner.

“Well.” The scarecrow sniffs, “Your definition of miserable is fascinating— but I suppose I’ve never talked you out of anything before, have I? We might as well. But I will state for the record—”

“—I truly don’t think that’s necessary—”

“—That this is a terrible idea.”

Bad luck, Elphaba has found through extensive personal experience, adored company. So did misery, as it turns out. Desperation was an entire orchestra, ensemble and all.

And, because of fucking course, Elphaba finds herself reckoning with this fact once again, just one night later.

As the maid scurries out the door, she finds herself frozen in her hiding spot. A hurricane in her mind, pins in her fingers, and the distinct sense that something in her chest was about to snap.

Day off, the poor maid had said.

Had an accident last night, she’d elaborated.

Glinda the Good was taking a day for herself, the housekeeper corroborated. Fainting was ever a sign of stress and poor health. The poor dear was under a lot of such things.

She never takes a day off, it’s a surprise, the maid had whispered aside as she changed their sheets.

And then they left. And Elphaba couldn’t move her legs if she tried.

Glinda— her Galinda, however much that wasn’t nor was ever true —driving herself to sickness labouring for a posthumous pardon of her person.  

Bother.

“Elphaba, I can visibly see that brilliant mind churning. Maybe you should sit down?” Fiyero calls.

What was she supposed to do? This was worse than she thought. Sick, miserable, overworked— that’s her legacy to her best friend? Her first friend? Had Elphaba truly condemned her like a curse?

To her first, lasting love?

Bother bother bother.

“Where’s that stupid helmet?” She hears herself saying.

“On the desk— why?”

A twitch of her fingers glamours them both. Elphaba spares a single moment to appreciate the intuitive nature of her own magick— Oz knows it was rarely ever so behaving —before striding over, shoving the stupid helmet on, and blustering out of the door.

Fiyero-in-disguise bursts out after her.

“Elpha—” Fiyero hisses, tugging at her arm, “Elphaba!”

She sets her jaw and keeps striding forward. Shakes free of his malleable grip.

“No, Fiyero.”

“What are you doing?”

“Going to Glinda.”

“Didn’t they say it was her day off? I don’t think she’d take an audience and—“ Their twin steps furiously echo over the emerald floor. “Oh, what is even your plan here? Storm her chambers? Dramatically reveal yourself in a puff of red smoke? Oz, Elphaba, what?”

Elphaba speeds up, leaving the scarecrow to scrabble behind her. It’s like a gale at her back, fire under her feet – instinct and gut-churning desperation to change something. To help.

They’re climbing to Glinda’s apartments before she even knows it. Taking two stairs at a time, flight after flight, all the way to the wispy heights of the Emerald palace.

Down the corridor, unmanned and unguarded and then—

The door opens with nothing but a whisper, even under her agitated hand. Elphaba lurches backwards as it reveals the interior. Feels strangely possessed, as Glinda’s home of nearly a decade unfurls before her.

Inside was pink. Almost shockingly so, in such a contrast to the rest of the emerald palace. There were nick-nacks and crystal-bits and blankets, an array of silly things Glinda would coo at. It’s all Glinda. It’s nothing but Glinda.

There’s no sign of anyone else ever stepping into these rooms. The cool air and utter silence was eerie. Elphaba swallows hard as the door shuts gently behind them.

“Well?” Fiyero whispers. “Now what? Have any red smoke at hand, or are we going to sit down and have an adult conversation for once?” His hip-cock is bizarrely audible. “Are you even going to get out of that outfit?”

“I’m—” Hell and damnation, she hadn’t thought a single line of this through, “I suppose I should? Would you—”

There’s a clatter from somewhere in the apartments.

They both freeze.

A door opens to the side of the living space, and a smear of pink and blonde walks out. Stops. Turns and looks at them.

Elphaba feels like she’s been punched with the weight of a mountain.

Hair in rollers, deep bags under her eyes, skin sallower than even Elphaba could have imagined, Glinda stares back at them in abject shock.

Elphaba opens her mouth, and all words promptly flee her.

“Oh.” Glinda says faintly. Blinks between them. “Um?”

She shuffles a little. There’s an empty mug of coffee in her hand. A fat, overstuffed wad of documents under her arm.

Elphaba moves her stupid, useless mouth. Nothing comes out.

“Wh— uh, are you—?” Glinda squeaks. Clears her throat. Nods to herself, “Well, yes, I suppose that does makes sense.”

Glinda sweeps past them into the kitchen. There’s a black-cloth-something peaking out from underneath her dressing gown.

“Well, then. I understand you’re upset, but would you mind kidnapping me tomorrow? It’s my— oh, rather unwilling day off, you see. I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Elphaba turns to look at Fiyero. Fiyero turns to look at Elphaba.

“Kidnapping?” Fiyero manages to blurt.

“Well—” Blonde lashes flutter, “Oh, is this a killing? My mistake.”

“Killing?”

“And I haven’t even put my face on—” She waves the folder around, far too relaxed, in Elphaba’s opinion, for what she believes is an attempted murder, “No one will even recognise it’s me, really, that’s a terrible waste of your efforts. And then there’s— oh, well, if you wanted to, we have a ball in the week. Perhaps this,” She flaps a hand at them, “—is better timed for then?”  

“Wh— what?”

Glinda nods. Busies herself with flicking the kettle on. There’s a coffee stain on her sleeve, two empty mugs sat on the kitchen counter. No bowls or pans in the sink but a single spoon. Devoid of any semblance of actually living in the apartments.

Glinda is still chattering away. Elphaba wants to slap— something. Preferably herself.

“It’s sort of a remembrance ball, I suppose, and a fund raiser for the Animal speech therapy program. It’s the biggest event of the year,” She turns, raises an eyebrow, that one that means are you dim? “You are here about my pardoning of the Wicked Witch, are you not?”

It’s quite curious, how utterly insane Elphaba abruptly feels. Stood in her former best-friends, empty, depressing apartments, staring at said former best-friend as she muses on her own murder.

This was the worst idea she’s ever had.

“Yes, yes—” Glinda nods rapidly, a stray curl bouncing with the motion, “a terrible shame you disagree. I shan’t be reversing it, though— it’s enshrined.”

Elphaba sways forward. Stops herself in a stumble.

Enshrined. Enshrined.

“Though being killed over it—” A humourless snort leaves Glinda. “Well, goodness knows one’s due until it comes knocking.”

Finally, her body unfreezes itself. Something hot and hurting fills her chest and she’s able to make a single noise before—

“Glinda?” Calls the Tin Man.

Great. Absolutely great.

“Oh. Boq. Hello there. It seems I’m being kidnapped.” Glinda cocks her head past them, peering at the metal man in the doorway. “Or, well, maybe murdered? It’s hard to tell— these brigands here aren’t the talkative type.”

“Murd— and you’re just standing there?”

Glinda shrugs. Shrugs.

“I suppose I am, yes. Would you like coffee?”

“Glinda—”

“Please, Boq, I’ve not the time for this. Could you— would you be so kind and deal with this for me? I’ve got a lot to work through today, the ball you know, it’s a weighty thing.” Glinda tosses her hair like it was instinct, which comes across as bizarre considering her hair was in rollers, and picks up the kettle as it begins to whistle. “Do you really not want coffee?”

She pours the boiling water into a mug. The Tin Man is staring at her. Elphaba is staring at her. Fiyero has his face in his hands.

“Do you… want me to—?” The scarecrow mutters.

Stutteringly, Elphaba nods. Takes a jerking step toward Glinda. The woman glances upwards at her approach and—

Oh. Glinda had glasses. They were oddly charming, hung on a chain around her neck above her dressing gown. Halfmoon lenses, predictably pink.

Elphaba blinks down at them. Back up. When had Glinda gotten glasses? Had it been recent?

The odd grief that seizes in her chest is stuffed resolutely back down. She would not become distressed over glasses, of all things. It could be thought about later, after… whatever this was.

And she was still frozen, staring at the woman as she takes a delicate sip of coffee— now with cream and sugar.

“Oh hell—” Fiyero grunts. There’s the distinct sound of metal clanking. Then metal scuffling.

There was nothing for it.

Elphaba marches over to Glinda, who shuffles back with an offended frown. It’s such a ridiculous expression that Elphaba almost grabs her shoulders to shake her instead.

“Excuse me, could you not—?”

In one sweeping movement, she’s picked up and thrown over Elphaba’s metal-plated shoulder.

“Really? Oh, this is— Well.” Glinda huffs, then thunks her head down onto Elphaba’s back. “I suppose this may as well happen.”

As Elphaba marches out of the door, Glinda covers her face with her documents, groans loudly, and goes limp.

The carriage lurches over the paving stones, jostling their odd party. Elphaba drives it hard and avoids the very pointed stare Fiyero is giving her.

He wants answers, she’s sure. It’s understandable. A decent reaction, really. It’s just a little tricky.

Because Elphaba doesn’t have one. Not even one.

She didn’t think this plan through at all. It wasn’t even a plan. And now they had one extremely unconcerned Glinda the Good in the carriage-bed. Kidnapped.

They just… had to get out of Emerald city. Figure out the rest after. It would work out. Glinda was here. She could do anything when Glinda was with her. Even if Glinda wasn’t aware that they were together again.

She’d have to tell her soon. It was on the list of things to do. The list was getting bigger. But it was fine. They could deal with it.

Elphaba wonders if she really has gone insane.

Instead of expanding on that rather explanative thought, Elphaba keeps her eyes straight on the road, ignores Fiyero, ignores the Tin Man, and attempts to ignore the burning presence of Glinda behind her.

“Mhm, would you read this for me, Boq?” Said object-of-attempting-ignoring mutters, as she had been for nearly half their escape so far. A paper is shoved in the metal man’s direction, “Oh, and we’ll need to go over the quarterlies— yes, yes here it is.” More paper is shoved into his chest. “Read that too. Have you a pen?”

“Uh—”

Glinda readjusts her glasses, staring harshly at her own over-thick wad of documents. Brow furrowed; unlike any expression Glinda the Good would wear.

“I haven’t a clue what Sepper is thinking with this. Did you speak to him? Oh, do speak with him soon, won’t you? He’s a terrible fool, this whole proposal is nonsense—”

The three-page letter in her hand is swung in an arc into Fiyero’s covered chest. The carriage lurches again. Glinda shuffles her papers.

“I’ll have to— yes, of course. Is the ball too soon, do you think? Oh, no matter, we can’t postpone it so late. He’ll just have to— don’t crumple my documents, mister brigand sir, please— he’ll just have to make an idiot of himself. More’s the pity.”

More scribbling.

“Glinda,” The Tin Man says slowly, and Elphaba wonders just when they had become so chummy, “You… do realise we’ve been kidnapped? Yes?”

“Oh, yes, of course, it’s just—” A look is levelled over her half-moon reading glasses. “I’ve had worse. Kidnappings, that is. This is trifling, really— they could have at least put a little more effort in.” She shoves her nose back into her work, murmuring in a harried little tone, “Can you please read over that, Boq? I’ve made some adjustments I need you to proof.”

“Right,” Boq says slowly. “Um. Are you… okay? I mean, wasn’t this your day off?”

Glinda snorts. Snorts. “Please, day off? You’re charming Boq, truly— It was just a little bit of fainting, nothing to drum up such a tizzy.” She waves a hand over her bare face, “You see? Perfectiously fine.”

“Yes, I… suppose. But Glinda—”

“No buts, Boq. I don’t care for it.” She flutters the hand, “It’s as they say— there’s no rest for the wicked.”

“Wicked?” Elphaba blurts, stupidly.

And, bother, stupid stupid bother, of course Glinda would recognise her voice. The woman jolts in physical reaction, turns her head ever-so-slowly towards Elphaba.

It feels like the world stops for a moment. She can feel her heart beat hard against her ribcage, as big, brown, stupidly doe eyes land on her. Elphaba wonders how she ever lived without her gaze.

“Oh. Oh dear. Um.” Glinda bubbles. Then she shoves the palms of her hands into her eyes and begins to laugh. “That’s… Oh, good bloody Oz— I’m going barmy, this is just so—”

It sounds hysterical. Hitching, and high-pitched giggles that, concerningly, abruptly melt into what can only be described as sobbing.

“Barmy, I’ve gone utterly, utterly barmy. Oh, you sound just like my old— my old—” An exquisitely pained keen escapes her. “Well, what do you know, you brigand? Oz, how awful— I’ve finally lost my marbles—”

Boq’s hand hesitantly reaches out. Elphaba has the deranged urge to slap his away and replace it with her own.

“Glinda—?”

As suddenly as it started, Glinda stops. Shoves her hands away just to slap her cheeks a few times, breathing quickly and panicked. Then she shoves upwards, hustles to the front of the carriage, leaning in and handily shoving Elphaba’s helmet covered head to the side to reveal the two Horses Fiyero had managed to charm into taking them from the city.  

“Hello there, you two!” She calls. Voice still a little shaky. “Excuse me, good folk.”

The Horse shakes out his mane in surprise. “Oh dear, Miss Glinda, is that you?”

“Yes, oh! Bill, you wonder, it is me.” With visible effort, that fake smile is plastered back on. “Apologies for the state I’m in— it’s a terrible thing, you see, I seem to have found myself kidnapped. Would you mind, awfully, just stopping for a mo? I’d like to make my way back to the palace.”

“Of course, your Goodness.” He replies easily and comes trotting to a halt. “My apologies, I hadn’t even realised it was you! What a dreadful mix-up!”

They weren’t even halfway out of the Emerald City. Fiyero turns, loudly, and stares at Elphaba, loudly.

Glinda shoves Elphaba’s head over hard again as she leans back. Too hard. Hard enough that the helmet comes ajar, crashing to the floor with a ringing noise. Her de-greenified face bare for all of Emerald city to see.

Elphaba can’t seem to move.

Glinda doesn’t even notice.

She sweeps up her documents from their hands, brushes herself off with that perfectly fake smile, and hops from the carriage bed. Clicks her socked heels together, then grimaces slightly, then waves behind her without another look.

“I shan’t say this has been a pleasure, because it hasn’t been. And Boq, please, do read those documents. I shall see you— oh, in a few hours I suspect. Good day.”

And then she’s striding away.

Elphaba, thoroughly frozen with stupid fear, can’t even bring herself to call out again. It feels like half of Emerald city is staring at her.

“Well, then,” Fiyero says helpfully, similarly watching her go, “That went… a direction.”

“Oh hush.” She snaps back. Unable to tear her eyes away from Glinda’s tiny pink silhouette.

Move. She should move.

“You have once again proven yourself rather bad at being villainous.” Fiyero sighs. “I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“You’re not helping."

Boq clears his metal throat.

“I suppose we ought to let these two gentlemen get back to their day. Shall we steal another carriage?”

"Oz, are we just going to let her walk back to the palace?” Elphaba hisses, “In her dressing gown?”

“Oh, no—” Boq sputters. “It can’t be—”

“—She’s not even got shoes on.” Elphaba jabs a finger at her rapidly shrinking pink figure, “Those socks are ridiculous, truly, just look at them, we have to—”

“—You aren’t, um, oh, are you—?”

Fiyero strokes his disguised chin, “You know, why was she so peculiarly unperturbed—?”

“Excuse me!” Boq shouts. They both pause, peering at the Tin Man. He points at her, exasperated. “Elphaba Thropp, is that you?”

“Ah.” Elphaba Thropp says. “My helmet.”

Glinda looks just as disappointed to see them as the first time. Stood in an alleyway, she squints at Elphaba’s re-helmeted form.

“Really?” She bubbles. “I mean, I am just so busy— are you sure you can’t do this tomorrow? I can pen it in for you, even. Really, not a bother.”  

Elphaba, entirely unequipped to deal with this particular version of her old friend, just lifts her into a bridal carry and stomps back to new carriage. Glinda crosses her arms and harrumphs the entire way back.

The crowd barely turn at the sight of them, do not even recognise their goodly Goodness, and it somehow makes the hole in her chest grow. How could they not even see her, when she was right in front of them?

When she’s plopped back down, Glinda merely rolls her eyes.

“And where do you think you’re taking me?” The woman sniffs.

“Yes,” Fiyero says, overpronouncing every word, “Fellow brigand, where are we taking her?”

Boq sighs miserably.

The first place Elphaba had ever slept rough in had been in the Thropp gardens. At four years old, it had been the start of a trend that followed her through life. Often, she had found the wilds were kinder than brick-houses could ever be.

The first place the Wicked Witch had ever slept rough in was cresting over the hill in the dim light of dusk. It’s unchanged as it ever was, the cottage. White and yellow walls, a thatched roof, broken fencing and a jaunty sign that had never been taken down— a relic of a pre-wizard era.

The nostalgia that wells in her chest is a strange thing, Elphaba finds, as well as a welcome distraction. It was odd to think of this as a circular moment. The beginnings of the Wicked Witch could be as keenly attributed to that cottage and her sleepless, restless night of hounding thoughts, than any other thing.

There was something to the walls. Something about the silence. It was odder, still, to have Glinda see it all.

All the same, it suited their needs.

The carriage pulls up beside the abandoned lot smoothly. Elphaba thanks the Horses— Jack and Jonesy, before dismounting.

Exhaustion sets its teeth into her. Odd to think a single day on the run could exhaust her, considering her history. She wonders if the cot in the loft still had that thick blanket. If Glinda and her famously warm temperament would be alright with the autumn chill.

“Is this it?” Glinda bustles off the carriage, sparing a quick over the cottage. “Hmp.”

The words come tumbling out like old instinct. “You’re terribly unagreeable when you’re being kidnapped.”

Glinda jolts. Turns. Pins Elphaba with a searching, almost foreign look.

“Huh.” She says, then squints harshly. “Huh.”

“Huh?”

“Huh. Hmp. Well. No— but—” Glinda leans into Elphaba’s space, so far its uncomfortable. Her breath almost mists the helmet. “This is a terrible kidnapping, missus Brigand.”

“How rude.” Elphaba snorts.

A hair toss. Considering Glinda's hair was still in rollers, it's just as bizarre as the first. “I rather think the situation calls for it”

It does, Elphaba supposes. Goodness knows what else this stupid, impossible situation called for. A test on her mental faculities, most likely.

As Glinda scrutinises her, she takes a moment to back stare at the woman. Wonders— was this is the first time Glinda had been outside of the Emerald city since that day? Had she even been outside of the palace? Been outside of Glinda the Good? And why did she always look like that— like she was holding her breath?  

The weight in her chest is back, crushing against her ribcage. She wants to grab Glinda, wants to run, wants to just leave it all behind for her. Do it right, this time. Do it for her instead of dreaming, desperate promises.  

Elphaba stares, and stares. Even as Glinda spins, walks into the cottage. Even as the door shuts and the stone wall divides them.

What was she doing? Glinda had a life, a calling. Glinda had everything she had ever wanted, all those smiling dreams she’d murmured in their shared room during long nights at Shiz. And yet. And yet.

Elphaba wonders when she had gotten so selfish. So foolish.

“What now Elphaba?” Comes Fiyero’s voice.

“I’m going to— I need to tell her.” Elphaba murmurs. “Now, before— before this goes any further.”

A nod. A hand on her shoulder. All his comfort, so familiar. He disappears into the cottage.

Alone, Elphaba doesn’t hear until Boq is at her side. They stand shoulder to shoulder as the night-fauna comes buzzing to life.

“Can I ask?”

“Please don’t. I have no idea. It’s—” Elphaba sighs. Tugs at her fingers. “It’s nonsense."

A little laugh. It sounds like her old friend, again. "I gathered."

"Yes, well… it’s nice to see you again. Even— oh, you know.”

“Yeah. It's nice. And- I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

Quiet. Busy noise carries through the cottage’s walls.

“I think… she’s been waiting all this time for you to come back. It always seemed like she was…” Boq trails off. Clears his throat, “I don’t even think she knows she’s been waiting.”

“Has it been…?”

“Battles and wars, that’s how Glinda puts it.” When Elphaba meets his eyes, it’s to something she thinks she recognises. Almost a mirror image, so bizarre that it cuts. It makes her ache. “Just don’t break her heart again.”

Again.

And then he leaves, slipping into the cottage. And the world seems to just stop. Waiting, maybe.

There was nothing for it.

When she climbs the stairs into the loft, Glinda is sat primly atop the cot, legs folded at the ankle like she used to sit, head buried in her documents again. Her hair is let from their rollers, a waterfall of golden ringlets framing her exhausted face. It’s such a contradiction Elphaba wants to pinch herself.

It’s all the same. It’s different. It’s— something. Elphaba isn’t sure how to feel. What’s good and what’s bad. It’s all one enormous ache, striking a hole in the centre of her chest.

“Are you my guard for tonight?” Glinda murmurs. Flips a page, “Hm, I suppose it’s better than the chatty brigand.”

Another page flip. Elphaba takes a deep breath.

And— oh. Glinda was shivering.

There was nothing for it.

“Here,” Elphaba murmurs, opening her side bag to pull out the black cloak. She drapes it around Glinda’s slim shoulders. “You’re cold.”

Glinda freezes. Stares down at her fingers as they gently tie a knot into the fabric. A delicate noise that leaves her pale throat.

“This— this is—” Her head jerks up. “You— you can’t be—”

Shaking fingers reach out. Slide under the lip of the helmet, and gently— oh so gently —removes it from her face. And then Glinda can see her.

The glamor-magick drops unconsciously. Elphaba sees her own green fingers just as Glinda does— sudden, verdant, and proud. They finish the tie of the cloak, smooth it down narrow shoulders. Linger, leeching Glinda's warmth.

“Oh.” And Glinda's voice sounds a million miles away. “Oh.”

“Hello, my sweet.”

“Oh. I—I’ve lost my mind.”

Elphaba shakes her head. Vision blurred by tears; she watches her hands come up to cup Glinda’s face. Finally, finally, touching her for good.

And she was real. So devastatingly real against her hands. Warm and trembling and Galinda.

“Not in the slightest.”

Tears slip down her perfect, pink face. Elphaba catches as many as she can with gentle sweeps of her thumb.

Glinda’s hands jerk up and manacle around her wrists. Squeeze so tight it almost hurts. Elphaba grins, and grins, and wonders if she could just stop the world and live in this moment forever.

“You’re— you’re real. You’re here. You’re here. Oh— Oh, Elphie,” Then she pauses. Blinks, hard. “You kidnapped me.”

“Yes, well— I didn’t mean to.”

“You were in front of me during— and then you kidnapped me— you—” She chokes. Her face flitting from rage to misery to joy in an impressive feat of acrobatics, “You’re supposed to be dead.”

“I know, I know my sweet— It was the only way.” Elphaba leans forwards, presses kisses against her forehead, her cheeks, her hair. “It was the only way. I’m sorry, I’m sorry— my darling, my dearest, my love.”

“You died, and now you’re here and—" Glinda doesn’t seem to hear her. Her whole body is trembling, even draped in the black cloak as she was. “You kidnapped me?!”

It was all getting rather circular. Elphaba supposes she’s earnt it.

“I’m… um, sorry?”

“You— you awful, wretched— truly wicked— you kidnapped me! And you didn’t even—” Glinda bats her hands against her chest. “You terrible thing— awful— kidnapped? Kidnapped?!”  

“R-right. Yes." Elphaba purses her lips. Attempts to fight down the laughter bubbling up in her chest. Because Glinda was simply so her, and she's never felt so wrenchingly at home than this very moment. "I’m sorry, it sort of just—? I hadn’t planned it you see and— Oh Glinda, would you— can you stop hitting me for a second?”

Stuttering on her tears, Glinda’s face twists. Hands flutter. She looks and looks and seems to burn a hole into Elphaba’s very soul.

“Oh Elphie—” A wail, “Oh, my Elphie—”

And then Glinda lurches forward, yanks at her wrists, and slams her lips against Elphaba’s in a savage kiss.

All Elphaba can think is—

She really does taste like strawberries.  

Chapter Text

Glinda slaps Fiyero’s arm for the sixth time in as many seconds. It was a zealous kind of battering, slightly wet with her tears. Fiyero, on his part, takes every hit with a wincing my innards, and nought much more.

The subsequent conversation was going to be worse than the potential loss of straw, Elphaba thinks wryly, moving past the pair to sit next to Boq.

“Are none of you going to rescue me?” Fiyero bemoans, then jerks about, then covers his head with his now-straw-again arms. “Oh, hells, Glinda—!”

“You dastardly, awful, terrible—!”

“I’m sorry! I truly— ow!” His hat goes flying, “Ow!”

“Miserable, evil, trollop—!” Glinda grabs his sleeves and shoves his arms downwards, staring with that furrow in her brows, “You! You’re alive!”

“Y-yes—”

“And you let me— you—” Glinda whirls. Jabs a finger at Elphaba, “You both!”

In lieu of anything else, Elphaba raises her hands in surrender. It seems to placate the woman. She goes back to batting at Fiyero’s arms.

“I wasn’t expecting so much hitting,” Boq murmurs quietly. They both observe as Fiyero darts around the half-broken dining table, Glinda hot on his heels.

“The wrath of Glinda Upland,” Elphaba drawls. “A truly terrifying thing.”

“Wrath reserved for Fiyero only.”

“Oh, please,” A snort escapes her. “I had my fair share upstairs.”

“Among other things.”

“Come now, don’t be crass.”

Boq simply jabs a metal finger towards Fiyero’s half bent form, and Glinda’s furious attempts to climb atop his back and hit him.  

And— there was certainly a bruised quality to her lips. Just as her dressing gown was uncommonly ruffled, and hair uncommonly messy.

“Well.” Elphaba says, then clamps her jaw shut. “Hm.”

The metal man chuckles. Elphaba wills the heat from her face.

The attempted slapping-to-death of one Fiyero Tigelaar ceases when Glinda doubles over, knuckling her hips and panting fiercely. They both fall into the rickety, broken chairs scattered about the kitchen.

Glinda, still struggling to catch her breath, takes to glaring in turns. Cheeks puffed out, flushed a lovely pink, all around petulant. A hair’s breadth away from stomping her feet, Elphaba thinks wryly.  

It’s an uncommonly familiar sight. Almost as if they were sat a decade past, back in the old and vaunted halls of Shiz. Back when things were right, and soft, and gently wanting. When things were easy, though they never felt so then.

It’s hard not to bask in the feeling, for just a moment.

“You died.” Glinda mutters with her nose scrunched, brows furrowed.

“I got better.” Fiyero parrots back.

A scathing glare is shot at Elphaba. Again. “That seems to be happening a lot these days.”

“So, not to interrupt this enlightening conversation—" Boq interjects. “But, well, what now?”

“A grand question.” Fiyero claps his hands together. It’s a bizarrely Galinda action. “Any ideas? Three brainboxes can surely make something out of this.”

“Four.”

“Arguable.”

Elphaba groans. “We aren’t having this discussion again.”

“You could apologise again.” Glinda murmurs down at the floor. “That would be a fantastic start.”

And it was true that Glinda was prone to self-aggrandization. That was perhaps one of the very first things Elphaba had ever learnt about the woman. She needed words— many of them —and constantly.

But this felt different. Quieter. Maybe a little more desperate than usual.

“There’s only so many times we will.” Elphaba responds, searching her face for something not quite able to be put into words. “It truly was the only choice we could make.”

“That’s just it, isn’t it. We. We made that choice. Was I so unworthy that you couldn’t— just— why didn’t you just tell me?”

And— she could tell her, now, of the plan. Could tell her of the days after Kiamo Ko. Of the desperate sprint in the darkness, starving in the small corners of the world, searching for somewhere, someplace, anywhere where they could breathe for just a moment. Knowing that one slip, one mistake would send it all crashing down.

Of desperation becoming a companion, and of mourning something that never was with time she didn’t have. That she had done it as much for herself as she had done it for Glinda.

But it felt cruel to say so. Even trying to be gentle, she still had a cursed, sharp tongue. Hadn’t a simple promise done this much to Glinda already?

“You know the reason why.” Elphaba settles on.

“I know, do I? I know why you let me mourn you and Fiyero for three bloody years, Elphaba?” Glinda’s face shifts. It’s uncommonly uncomfortable. “I’m still… I’m still mourning you.”

“Still?”

“Yes, still. What did you expect, Elphie? That it would be easy? That everything would— just—” A keening noise, like before, like her awful fit that had hurt Elphaba’s chest something fierce, “Oz, I gave you both graves.”

It’s said like a slap and feels exactly like one.

A grave. She had a grave.

It’s disturbing to realise; her name, Elphaba Thropp, was engraved on a single slab of stone. The dates of her birth, the dates of her death, and an empty ditch meant for her body.

To think in all her time dancing the line, fleeing the law, she’d never once thought about what she’d leave behind in memory. There was simply no one else left in the world who would care about it. The name of Elphaba Thropp had all but been forgotten in the shadow of the Wicked Witch.

But Glinda had given her something anyway. It was a grave made for the sake of a single person.

It hurts to know. It aches to know.

“Oh, but what did I know? You were just galivanting off to— to Oz-knows-where while I had to— had to—” Glinda hands are shaking. She looked like a glass vase, about to shatter into a million, glittering shards. “Excuse me.”

And then she’s out of the door. It slams shut in her wake, curiously final.

There was a grave with her name atop it. Elphaba had been well and truly dead to her. Had Glinda given them herself and Fiyero a funeral? Had Glinda planted flowers?

Did Glinda look at her, now, and see that cold stone?

Elphaba takes a shuddering breath. Her eyes were filled with tears. When had that happened? She wipes them away with the heel of her hand.

“Shit.”

“I should—” Fiyero starts.

“No. No—” In a clatter, she’s standing. Something had to change— goodness, she had to make this right. “I’ll go. Wait for us, please.”

“Always.”  

Outside, Elphaba finds her hunched over the fencing.

Elphaba can’t help but stare. Greedy in it, like she had always been when looking at Galinda. Maybe, even back then, she had known she didn’t have enough time. That she had to memorise her every detail for when she would be without her.

Glinda had always been an enormous presence. Had always demanded her attention. Now it was odd to realise how small she really is; stark against the dusk-touched, fields of poppies that border the Emerald city.

Without the crown, without the decadent gowns, Glinda looked tiny. Alone. A singular flash of gold in a sea of darkened blue.

“What?” Glinda eventually sighs. “Why are you staring at my back, Elphaba? It’s not very entertaining, you know. People generally prefer the front.”

Elphaba joins her by the fencing. Watches, as Glinda curls in on herself even more, gripping the rotten wood.

“I’m sorry. We didn’t…”

“Mhm.” Glinda grunts. Tightens her hands around the fencing. It splinters a little under the tight grip.

Elphaba worries for it embedding into her skin, and says nothing. Swallows harshly. There were so many things she should say. Years of words, built up with no assumption to be released. Now they were stood together, it all sticks in her throat like a burning lump.

All this because of a stupid, idiot plan. Elphaba wants to kick herself.

“I… when— where?” She manages.

“The poppy fields,” Glinda says quietly. Eyes stuck stubbornly on the darkening horizon. “The Thropp estate didn’t seem appropriate.”

Too many ghosts in that dusty place. Of course, Glinda would know. Of course she’d care. Who else ever had?

“No, that’s…” Words stumbling over her stupid tongue, “You’re right. Thank you.”

“Don’t—” A short sound leaves her, “Don’t thank me for your grave. That’s bizarre, it’s awful. No.”

“I never imagined I would be given one.” Glinda’s face twists. “Can’t I be grateful?”

“You can be when you’re—” A cough. “Dear me, this entire thing is— goodness.” A shake of her head, “It’s all backwards, isn’t it?”

“It is. Oz knows we never did anything conventionally.”

Glinda nods.

In lieu of anything else, Elphaba gently unfurls Glinda’s white knuckled grip from the fencing. Takes those hands into hers, traces over every finger. Feels the delicate, soft skin of her palms, the knobbles of her knuckles. No splinters, thank goodness.

Elphaba pulls her thumb along each digit, brushing over Glinda’s uneven cuticles— she was biting them again, old anxious habit. They’re torn and roughened, and there were callouses on her middle finger. It’s strange, how much it makes her want to cry. Glinda had writing callouses.

After a beat, Glinda pulls her hands away. They tremble awfully.

Elphaba has no idea what to do.

“I have to return to the palace. They’ll be looking for me.” A nod. She’s still not looking at Elphaba. Not even a glance. “You’ll…”

“—I’ll come with you.” Elphaba blurts, before courage flees her. “For as long as I’m able.”

Glinda’s breath catches. Throat bobs as she swallows. Then, “What of Fiyero?”

A blink. “Well, what of him?”

“Well— is he not—” Glinda waves a hand at her. It’s affectedly casual. She can still spy the tremor that carries in her fingers. “You know?”

Ah. A fair point. A wonder Glinda hadn’t brought up her former fiancé earlier.

It would be unfair to Fiyero. Deeply so. The entire situation already was – they shouldn’t even be here. But to take him from their home and have him return to the palace?

Elphaba stares back at the cottage, wondering on the low voices she can hear emanating from inside. He never said as much, never let on but for the rare night, how much his time there had twisted. There was just so much bad held within those green walls. Five years was such a long time.

But now they were here, she couldn’t leave Glinda. She couldn’t. It would be like carving out her own heart. They would have to work out something in the meantime. They had time. All they had was time, anymore.

“I’m sure he’ll be agreeable.” Elphaba decides on and hopes she’s right.

“Okay.” Glinda breathes. Jerks her head to the side, hiding her face entirely. “Okay. Yes, right— good. Thank you.”

Elphaba nods back and knows Glinda is hiding tears.  

It’s an hour to midnight by the time they return.

Jack and Jonesy pull them right into the stables they’d burgled just hours ago, chattering between themselves and Glinda. Dark emerald and flickering lanterns greet them, a shrill shout echoing from a stable boy of their return.

The entire trip back, re-glamoured, re-helmeted, Elphaba simply couldn’t look away from Glinda. It was morbidly fascinating; in the way her spine had slowly straightened the closer they got to the palace. The way her face had smoothed, poise changed, words becoming more enunciated and pitched.

It was watching Glinda the Good appear, in all her chosen characteristics. It was ever so bizarrely fascinating, the idea of becoming someone other than who you were. Elphaba had forgotten how much it had captivated her.  

By the time Jack and Jonsey settle into the stable proper, Glinda the Good was fully before them. Smile in place, waving to the people that rush to crowd around them.

It’s an uncomfortable clamour. Too many faces, and voices. Fiyero lays a settling hand on her shoulders as they tense.

“Hello there Taylyn.” Glinda titters to one of the women. Dismounts with an obscene amount of grace, “My deepest apologies for my disappearance, such a fuss! I had errands to run, you know how they creep up on you— It simply slipped my mind to inform you all, I’m ever so sorry.”

As they exchange pleasantries, Elphaba jumps from the carriage. Winces at the clank of her awful disguise. The rest of their bemusing party follows, and it’s a wonder— the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, so much like Glinda the Good in who they were and weren’t.

Maybe she had been much the same, back then. No longer Elphaba Thropp, just the Wicked Witch. Just an effigy, a bad painting.

It’s a dizzying thought.

“And who’s this?” One of the staff calls, and points at her.

Elphaba jolts. Steels herself through pure instinct, yet— There was no suspicion, no aggression. Just a genuine curiosity that baffles her. How odd, to not be seen.

It’s entirely disconcerting.

“Ah!” Glinda claps her hands together. “This is the Scarecrow, you know, of Dorothy’s gallant companions. Such a lovely chap, we ran into each other, you see. And this is his bodyguard— Fabala.”

“Lovely,” Fabala mutters, and stomps onto Fiyero’s foot when he begins to snicker.

“A pleasure to meet you, Fabala.”

Oh, how she loathed Glinda sometimes.

“My Lady,” Another woman ventures. “Since your absence Baeker has been… zealous, in his requests to see you.”

“Ah, yes! Terrible of me— we were set for tea, weren’t we? Is he asking of me now? Is he still awake? Such a night owl, that one,” The woman— handmaiden? It was difficult to discern —nods rapidly. Glinda continues in utterly steamrolling the conversation, “Would you be ever so darling and escort my friends to their rooms? I must attend to mister Baeker before— oh, you know how he is.”

“Yes, your Goodness, of course. Right away.”

“Wait—” Fabala splutters, “You’re already leaving—?”

Glinda waves a hand, already walking away. “You already know each other, do you not, friends of Dorothy? Between the three of you I’m sure there’s lots to chatter about. I’ll be back in nothing but a clock-tick, a jiffy, really— don’t wait up!”

They watch her as she sweeps up the stairs with a positive swarm of attendants around her. It was becoming more and more common to see Glinda’s back. Elphaba tries not to think too hard about it. It was cause for a headache, she’s certain.

“This is because of the kidnapping thing, isn’t it?” Fiyero mutters once she’s disappeared up the stairs.

“It’s because of the kidnapping thing.” Elphaba mutters back.

“Well, come now, Fabala.”

“Don’t— oh stop laughing. I will turn you into a toad.”

Elphaba had always found herself to be a bit of a night-dweller. There was something soothing about the dark, and among her peculiar, off-putting traits— beyond sharpened teeth, long nails, green skin —was an over-acute ability to see in the dark. The Wicked Witch, therefore, had travelled by night so often it was second nature.

The best times to ponder were in the dark, too, Elphaba finds. When everything is quiet and still, the world looking away in the darkness. There were many times, in bed, atop her broom, stowed away in a dark corner, where her best ideas had come from the still-dark.

After the past three years— past seven, really —Elphaba had yet to shake the habit of sleeping late, waking later. Fiyero had long gotten used to it and had retired to bed as soon as they swept into their rooms. Elphaba couldn’t bring herself to. Not yet, anyway.

There was too much to think about. Too much that had happened. She just needed a moment to unwind, depress, let her head have space to tick. Which found her as she was, sat in Glinda’s depressing kitchen an hour past midnight, leafing through the grimmerie she’d found unceremoniously shoved in a bookshelf.

Odd, that Glinda had tossed it somewhere. Odder, still, to find little scrap pieces of paper between the pages, full of Glinda’s scribbled handwriting.

The minutes turn to an hour as she reads through Glinda’s notes, remembering her own notebook of scrawling ideas. A wonder what Glinda’s magick looked like these days. She had had such potential. It was good to see her use the book like Elphaba had intended for her.

Everything she had ever wanted. The grimmerie was always included in that long, pink list of Glinda’s. Oddest of all, to think those words were hollow now.

Stupid promises. Elphaba turns another page with a little more aggression than warranted. Then pauses.   

There was a missing page. It almost seemed torn out and wasn’t that peculiar, that someone had been able to deface the legendary grimmerie in such way.

Flicking to the next page, then back again, Elphaba puzzles down at it. Had Glinda torn something out? What would be the point? In honesty, she hadn’t even realised it was even possible.

“Did you have an argument?” Elphaba murmurs down at it. Speaking to the grimmerie was a habit she just couldn’t shake either. It was alive afterall. “What did she tear out?”

Another flick through.

“Where’s the…. The levitation spell— was it that? Is that what she’s torn out of you? Why?”

The grimmerie, apparently fed up with her— and didn’t that happen ever so much, arguing with a book —snaps shut. It almost catches her fingers in the violent motion.

Right, then. Tantruming it was. Elphaba sighs down at it.

“You’d think you were upset with me.”

When the latch trembles in response, Elphaba rolls her eyes.

“Such drama. You’ve picked up some horrendible habits from Glinda, haven’t you?”

Another tremble. It moves a centimetre across the kitchen island.

“Oh, come on—”

Before she can continue to argue with paper, Fiyero slips through the door.

“Oh Fifi, you’re awake? Well, just in time.” She jabs her finger at the legendary grimmerie. “Help me win an argument against this book.”

“The—? Oh, I shan’t even ask.” Fiyero mutters, hand rubbing against his forehead. “I don’t have the energy for another argument anyway.”

“Is everything alright?”

“Glinda has lost her mind.”

A snort. She slides the grimmerie into the centre of the island, turns to face the scarecrow fully. “And how do you figure that?”

“Since the woman barged into our bloody place and kicked me out. I was asleep I’ll have you know. But, oh, renovations—” Fiyero slumps into the seat beside her. “Go and deal with that terror of a woman, would you?”

“Me?”

Fiyero gives her a look. One that says, in no uncertain terms, that this had been her idea in the first place. Which it had. But, still. It was the principal of the thing.

Elphaba cocks an eyebrow.

“Elphaba. I have a headache. It’s a terrible condition to have when one has no brains.”

“I’m electing to ignore that,” Elphaba snorts, then stands up. “—for my own sanity. But fine, I’ll go. Where is she?”

One limp hand jerks up, points left. As she steps out into the darkened corridor, it becomes obvious where the woman was. At the end of the hall, bathed in warm lights, comes the trilling hum of one Glinda Upland. One Glinda Upland that Elphaba has barely seen hide nor hair of since their split earlier.

That she didn’t immediately retire to her apartments was strange. That she had kicked Fiyero out of their rooms, only to relocate to one down the hall, was stranger.

With a steeling breath, Elphaba darts down the corridor and enters.

It really does seem as if Glinda has lost her mind.

“Glinda?”

A wardrobe goes sailing past, lifted by magic. There’s a half open grimoire in one corner, and the wave of one pink wand from somewhere in the middle of the room. Everything held that peculiar, light-shone tremble of magick.

“Hm?” Comes Glinda’s voice. It’s muffled by a pile of— something. “Hello, my dear, do you need something?”

“Is… everything alright?”

“I’m making it alright,” Glinda flaps the wand at her, “Don’t worry your pretty green head. No no, it’s all under control.”

Right, then. She really had lost her sanity.

“It’s two hours after midnight.” Elphaba says slowly.

“Hmm?” Glinda pops her head up over the pile of whatever-it-was. “Yes?”

“I haven’t seen you since we got back. It’s late. Aren’t you tired?”

Glinda laughs. It’s rather irritating that it was her default way of brushing past something. Elphaba should know, Galinda had laughed in her face so often she’d almost throttled her once. Back when they had loathed each other, of course.

That Glinda was doing it now puzzled.

“Oh, pish. I barely sleep as it is—” Glinda titters again. “Aren’t dreams so frustrating? Can’t control them no matter what spell I try. No matter—” A wag of her finger. “No, Elphie, the real issue is that you have nowhere to sleep. What a horrid hostess I’m being.”

There were too many things happening all at once. They had just gotten back to the palace. There were a thousand things they should be doing, should be saying. And Glinda was renovating a room. For her.

This whole ordeal was a symptom, Elphaba decides, of truly the stupidest plan she had ever thought up.

“Glinda, we’ve already got a room—”

“An awful room. So far away! It’s terrible of me, if I had known it was you and Fiyero I wouldn’t have allowed them to set you out there. So!” She claps her hands together, “I’m preparing these rooms— you know, I spent my first night in the palace here.”

That was a horrid notion, Elphaba thinks with a wince. Sleeping where Glinda had the day the whole world had fallen down.

Glinda doesn’t seem to notice. “Unfair to ask the staff at such an hour afterall— Oh, do you still sleep with one pillow? I don’t think we have silk pillowcases, you know, for your hair, but I can check.”

“Glinda— Glinda, just calm down.”

“I’m perfectly calm.” Comes her voice, ratcheted a little too high to be genuine. Or all that convincing. “See, look?”

“You’re all but constructing a bed.”

“Well—” She sniffs. “Do you not want to be comfortable?”

“We’ve already got a room, and I lived on the run for five years.”

She rolls her eyes. “Yes, and now you don’t have to— and now I can do something about that. Are you being obtuse for a reason?”

Was she, she manages to not say.

It was clear this was… something else. It was always something else with Glinda. They’d have to talk about it at some point.

Just not two hours past midnight, after just getting each other back. No.

“Glinda. It’s fine, we can talk about this in the morning. Go to bed.”

The woman stutters to a stop. Peers back at Elphaba, looking unrecognisable for the briefest moment. Then it all shutters, and Elphaba can’t recognise her at all.

There’s a sudden urge to grab the woman by the shoulders and yell, come back, come back to me, stop hiding. Because— how awful. How awfully, devastatingly ironic to stand in front of Glinda and still feel like she’s running.

“Fine.” Glinda says. It’s quiet. It’s not clear if she’s upset, angry, or something else entirely. “Goodnight, Elphie. Give my well-wishes to Fiyero.”

And then she’s sweeping out of the room.

Elphaba stands amidst the mess, floored, and wonders.

The rooms are prepared the next day, anyway. Glinda is nowhere to be found, busy as always one of the staff says, but for a note in her handwriting.

Stay as long as you like, a heart looping beside.

Fiyero gives her a look that says more than Elphaba wants it to. Elphaba can’t bring herself to respond.

Days were dull when there was nothing to do but wait. There was no garden to tend— though that was a labour, not love, because despite having literal green thumbs she had no affinity for vegetation. The grimmerie had yet to stop tantruming.

And there were other books to read, of course, but none that could adequately distract her from the fact she was in the Emerald city, inside of Glinda’s apartments, waiting like something loyal for her to finally sit down and talk. It was ironic, really. She tries not to think overhard about it.

The up-and-coming ball was the newest thing keeping them apart. She’d barely glimpsed Glinda at all during the past few days. An evening, perhaps, of small talk before she collapsed into bed was the extent of it.

Elphaba found herself bored. And a little lost. She hadn’t meant to find it. Truly.

Always, always there had been something to do— to think of, to find, to fight. Now there’s nothing. A twilight of sorts. Purgatory, really. It’s not like living in the cabin at the edge of nowhere, not exactly. Here with Glinda, it feels more like holding her breath. Like an anvil waiting to drop. Like the split second of falling before fear begins to grip.

It’s also impossibly frustrating. Nothing was fixed, and here she was, doing nothing. And maybe that was to explain why she had wandered into Glinda’s very private bedroom.

Or maybe it was just morbid curiosity, a wish to see something alive in these depressing apartments. Whatever it is, the second she caught a glimpse through the opened door of black against pink, it had drawn her in.

And it was the hat.

The hat was tucked into Glinda’s bed.

Tucked between a mountain of pillows, worn and creased and exactly how Elphaba remembers it. A depression around the width of it, as if someone had been repeatedly hugging the thing. It smelt a little peaky.

“Why did you keep it?” She murmurs to the empty room.

She turns the hat over in her hands. Spies the tear that she’d painstakingly sewed up— a close shave with an arrow. It felt the same. It’s a little reassuring to know.

Elphaba crosses over the room to Glinda’s obscenely large, three panelled mirrors. Stares at herself in the reflection.

Thin, green, older than she can remember herself looking. But… lighter. It was as though the feeling of ghostly-ness had finally gone from that reflection. For once, Elphaba can believe that she was alive.

The pointed black hat sits on her head as it always does. A crown of her own, bizarre and ugly and perfect. She smooths her hands along it’s familiar brim. Readjusts it.

It had always felt sacred. How it had meant to place it atop her head, every day in a quiet ritual.

She’d missed it. Or, rather, perhaps missed the hands that had given her it. It was all muddled into one. The hat was just as much Elphaba Thropp as it had been the Wicked Witch.

Glinda had kept it. Slept with it. Cherished it just as Elphaba had.

What it meant— it was almost a little too much to bear. Was it the same as a grave? The same as a pardon? The same as a messy, frantic kiss?

Elphaba watches her own reflection flush and swears quietly. Feels foolish. What was she even doing?

They needed to talk about it. About anything, really. Least of all her place in this new, dream-like world of Glinda the Good’s. One she had barrelled her way into and now stood within at the fringes, wondering.

Because she knows— it would be torture to hide forever. The cabin, as much a comfort it had been, wasn’t her. Wasn’t Elphaba Thropp. And neither was squirreling away in the apartments of Glinda the Good, waiting for something to drop.

She has to do something. They have to talk. And if Glinda refused to, then Elphaba would just have to make her. One couldn’t run away forever. Elphaba knew that all too well, really.

The clock ticks midnight, then an hour, then two hours after. Moonlight cuts harshly through the balcony doors, a full moon. Elphaba waits in Glinda’s apartments, playing with the pointed black hat atop her head.

It was the day of the ball, or sometime after it. Elphaba can’t tell. It didn’t matter, anyway. The ball was Glinda’s project, a sort-of celebration in your honour, Elphie, it’s important to me, she had said. To think Glinda had pardoned her, thrown a ball for her, championed her cause through it, for her.

It was maddening to think about. So Elphaba had decided. Resolutely. Once the ball was up and done, they’d finally, finally talk. And if it was the very minute the ball was done, well, that was her business.

When Glinda returns to her apartments, it’s with a peculiar quietness. Elphaba can hear her swing the door shut, sigh for a long moment as if her lungs were squeezing out every last breath. Then quiet, again, before—

“Hello?” Glinda calls. She must have found the note. A clatter sounds after, then a quiet swear. “Oh for— this better not be another kidnapping. Elphaba?”

The calls of her name get closer, and closer, and then Glinda is in the doorway of her bedroom. All golden ringlets and creamy skin and powder-blue. Elphaba gives her a little wave from her seat on the chaise.

“Elph— uh?” A blink. Another. There’s a heaviness under her eyes, just about hidden with makeup. The ball must have been draining. It makes that chest ache come back. “Why are you in— why are you wearing that?”

“It’s mine.” Elphaba shrugs a shoulder. “Can’t I wear my hat?”

“Well—” Glinda visibly flounders, “It was mine first.”

“Right. Why was our hat in your bed, then?”

A pause. Elphaba fights off a smirk.

“I don’t appreciate these accusations.” Glinda grumbles, and goes a charming pink. “And it’s my hat. You were loaning it. An extended period of borrowing, even.”

When she gets nothing but a pointed eyebrow raise, the woman huffs. Begins to heel off her shoes. Aggressively. Somehow.

“Oh, shut up. You were dead as a ditch— I refuse be embarrassed over your undead judgement.”

Point taken. Elphaba rises, crosses over the room, leaning against the wall to watch Glinda take off the Good.  

Thinks of that green reflection looking back at her in obscenely indulgent, three-panelled mirrors. Of the hat, of the exhaustion weighing Glinda down.

It seemed natural to start with a dance. Everything had started with a dance. Maybe they could start again with one.  

“Well then.” Elphaba reaches out her hand, “Care to take a spin with this mean, green corpse?”

The woman freezes. Spins around to peer at Elphaba, hands paused in untying the hidden laces of her ballgown.

“A spin? You mean— oh, you can’t be serious.” Glinda sputters. “You can’t be— really, Elphie?”

A cock of her head. “We used to dance all the time. You don’t want to?”

“N-No— it’s just— oh, I haven’t danced in years.”

Wasn’t that a horrid thought. There had been a thousand times back during the days of Shiz— of Glinda’s hand clutching hers, all but man-handling her onto a busy dancefloor.

She can still remember the gleam in her dark eyes. The way everything felt right the moment they danced together. Everything else fell away. No looks, no judgement, even green skin had felt vanished under Glinda’s blinding smile.

She wanted to give that to Glinda, now. Just for a moment.

They didn’t even really have to talk. She just needed to fix the way Glinda seemed weighed down by the weight of the entire world. All in service to a ball for one Wicked Witch.

“You haven’t?”

Glinda blusters. Flushes pink again, and it’s an embarrassed tint that Elphaba wants to physically wipe from her cheeks.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that. I’ve been overly busy— and do you know how people act when you start picking dance partners? It’s picking favourites, Elphie. Horrendible, simply awful manners.” She sweeps across the room, fussing with her jewellery. The crown is placed on its rest, gleaming in the low light. Then her glittering earrings. “I shan’t elaborate, just know— awful. They all act like children over my attention.”

“Glinda.” Elphaba sighs. “Glinda, just dance with me.”

“Have you been listening?”

“I have. Lucky for you, I’m not them.”

“You’ll be—“

A huff. “Glinda.”

“Oh, bother. Fine, fine, you mean thing. Just let me get changed.”

With a sharp tug, her petticoats sheaf from her. It leaves Glinda in a sheer underdress, lined with lace. White, and simple.

Elphaba’s grabbing her hand before she realises it.

“Hold on, that’s— wait, let me—” And then Elphaba’s tugging them over, picking up the black cloak and draping it over Glinda’s shoulders. “There. There, now you’re a vision.”

“I’m in my undergarments.” Glinda intones. “Hardly a vision of anything.”

Elphaba smiles. “You never need to dress up for me, my sweet.”

Glinda goes a brilliant pink. It’s addictive, truly.

Hand in hand, Elphaba tugs her out onto the balcony. It’s cold against her bare feet, no doubt cold against Glinda’s stockinged ones. It doesn’t entirely seem to matter. The warmth of the other woman was enough.

They settle face to face. Elphaba grins at the woman.

“Shall I—?”

“Yes, of— I mean, I’ve never learnt how to lead. I’m an Upland, Elphie.”

“So, I’ve heard.”

“Oh just shut up.” Glinda grumbles, before grabbing her hand in a tight grip.

The dance is awkward. Her hand is too tight around Glinda’s waist, Glinda’s too tight around her other. Their steps both too slow and too fast at once, and the balcony only gives them room for a double before twirling around on the cold floor. Without any music but for Elphaba’s humming, it’s a stuttering thing.

Throughout it all, Glinda leans further and further into her. Her hand, gripped tight to Elphaba’s shoulder, eventually slides to hook around her neck. A warm, grounding weight just below her nape. For that alone, Elphaba endures.

They give up on the fourth minute, falling silent and still. The faint nighttime hum of the city below fills the noise. Though even with all the bustle beneath them, it’s close, quiet, like the world had suddenly shrunk to just them.

In the silver light, Glinda is pale and pristine. Not golden, not shining, just carved in harsh lines from moonlight. Her chest aches with the sincerity of her.

This was her Galinda. Her silly, mad, darling roommate.

“That was terrible,” Glinda murmurs after a long moment. She carefully untwines their clasped hands and joins her other around Elphaba’s nape. “I told you so, didn’t I?”

“Dancing is subjective.”

A quiet laugh. “Since when?”

Elphaba presses a smile like a kiss against Glinda’s temple. “Hush now.”

They sway together to a silent, unheard song.

Elphaba counts every breath Glinda takes as they do. Every beat of her heart. Takes the woman in greedily, selfishly, and tries to imprint it all to memory. Three years was too long. Why had she ever stayed away?

“Elphie?” Glinda whispers into her chest.

“My sweet?”

“Let’s tell each other something we’ve never told anyone before. I’ll go first.”

Elphaba laughs, quiet as she can. Sweeps her hand down the path of Glinda’s spine, resting against the middle of her back. She’s warm, always so welcomingly warm. It was a wonder she didn’t simply melt into the woman.

They sway together for a long moment before Glinda speaks. It feels fragile.

“I… I really do wish we could have danced. Out there, together. Like we used to.” Glinda murmurs into her chest. “I feel like I’m hiding you. Hiding you away like some— some selfish secret, and I never— I promised you—”  

“Glinda, my sweet, breathe.”

“B-but—” Her hands curl tight. “It’s all rotten, I’m rotten— smuggling you up and away when— I just, I don’t want to hide you. I promised. It shouldn’t be like this.”

And wasn’t that something she had heard, over and over and over. It had started to lose meaning, really. What things should and shouldn’t be, it all blurred into one bitter ache of longing.

After so long, after so much, maybe it really was better to stop wishing on the what-could-be. Maybe what she had here in her arms could be enough, for now. For just a little while. Just for one night.

“I don’t begrudge it so much. Not anymore.”

“Why not?”

“I get you all to myself like this.” Elphaba rests her cheek against the woman’s temple. Sways them again, gentle and rocking. Hears the start of that song, a waltz. “Out there I would be dancing with Glinda the Good.”

Her nose scrunches. “I am Glinda the Good.”

“You’re my Galinda, here.”

“Oh.” Comes a whisper.

“Oh?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.” Glinda murmurs. “Now you. Tell me something.”

Sometimes she thinks of her life in halves— before Glinda, after Glinda. Every memory of the woman was spun gold, even the ones that cut like glass.

Sometimes she thinks of that day, stood at the height of the Emerald palace, and wonders what could have been.

Sometimes, she thinks in one lifetime, maybe just Galinda would have been enough for her. That promises and dreams wouldn’t have become such curses.

“I take it back.” Elphaba murmurs. Feels the woman’s heartbeat beneath her as it picks up.

“Take what back?”

“The promise. You don’t have to— you don’t have to. Anymore. Glinda the Good, Oz, all of it— I’ve made a misery out of you, and I’m sorry.”

“No, no— Elphie that’s nonsense. Look at me. Elphaba.” Delicate hands slide down, settle either side of her collarbones. Elphaba manages to return her gaze, manages not to break at the look Glinda is giving her. “That promise was all I had. Do you understand? It was all I— it was everything to me.”

That couldn’t be right. It simply couldn’t. A promise was just words in the end. It wasn’t a pointed black hat, it wasn’t a cloak tied tenderly around her neck.

Those had felt like a privilege. Something small and sacred, just for them. Two people in the world only knowing what it meant. For a brief, mad moments, tying that cape around her neck, smoothing the hat that rested atop her head, Elphaba had understood her father’s dogged religiosity.

“Don’t ever take it back. Don’t, Elphie.” A forced laugh escapes Glinda. “It would be awfully rude.”

Again. Again. Forced laughs, fake smiles, hiding behind her eyes. Elphaba wants to grab her, shake her, demand her to stop it.

They’d earned better than this.

“I just—” Elphaba grunts, silently curses her own cursed tongue, “Tell me how I make this right.”

“Right?” A stuttered breath leaves her. Elphaba can feel it, with how close they’re pressed. “Right? Oh, my Elphie, that’s— there’s nothing to right. You did everything as you should of.”

They stop swaying. Stand, wrapped in each other, as the moon illuminates the dark. Her heart is in her throat.

“B-but I—?”

“Elphaba. This is my choice. I’m choosing to do this. None of it— none of this is your fault. I can’t believe you even thought that, Goodness. This is just— I’m just… being selfish. Spun this whole thing on myself— oh, you know how I am.” A wet laugh. “Can’t help but make a scene, can I?”

“Stop doing that.” Elphaba murmurs, grips at her tighter.

“Doing what?” She whispers, lashes fluttering.

“I’m not your crowds. I’m not— I know you, Galinda. Come back to me.”

Leaning down, Elphaba rests her forehead against hers. Wonders if her magick could just stop the world. For a day, a week, just long enough. Just enough.

“Come back to me. Please.”

“That’s not fair.” Voice wobbling, Glinda takes a shaky breath, “You left first.”

And then she breaks, sobbing into Elphaba’s chest with terrible, wrenching cries.

Elphaba holds her, and wonders, and aches.

Elphaba finds herself sat around the kitchen island once again, mug of tea in hand. Odd, really, considering Glinda currently survived off a diet of coffee and delusion. Where and when she’d gotten her favoured morning tea, Elphaba rather doesn’t want to know.

The sun was cresting through the balcony windows, drawing long lines across the airy space of Glinda’s apartments. Fiyero had risen before her, pressed a scratchy kiss to her forehead, and mumbled something about a private breakfast.

An hour later, she’d managed to haul herself out of bed. It was only slightly alarming how easy this routine was.

Sitting at the island, Fiyero is flipping through a broadsheet. He hums a morning, slides a piece of toast over, then smiles over the lip of the paper.

It takes her exactly two bites of toast before he bursts.

“She’s lost her mind again.”

“Again.” Elphaba heaves a sigh. Takes a bracing sip of tea. It was the expensive brand. “Well then, enlighten me.”

“She’s decided to turn the room into a fabric warehouse.”

“Clothes?”

“Many.”

“Huh.” Leaning forward, she rests her chin atop one hand. It couldn’t exactly be coincidence, one thing to another. “This might be my fault, this time.”

“Oh?”

It’s an old memory, one she hasn’t thought of in years. It hadn’t ever really struck her, back during the old days of Shiz, just how a proper Gilikinese girl was raised. How much the proper way of doing things was metaphorically beat into her roommate.

And for how many times Glinda Upland had pronounced herself as of those upper Uplands— well, it should have been rather telling. One got peculiarly wrapped up in frivolous nothings when raised upper.  

That had been a habit before they were friends. Before Glinda would spin herself into spirals in front of Elphaba, instead of at their room. So it made sense, then, really, after last night.

“Well, remember Shiz? Whenever Glinda starts getting— frazzled — about being a proper hostess it’s always because—”

“—She’s having an emotional crisis. Oh.” It dawns on him, and his face lights up. “Oh, my dear, I know you were to have a chat with her last night, but my. What did you do?”

“Have some decorum, Fiyero.” Elphaba grins. “A lady never kisses and tells.”

“Aha! So this does have something to do with your little reunion kiss. Boq owes me drink.”

Elphaba hitches. Blinks back at the scarecrow. “Wait— what?”

“Don’t act coy.”

Well, then. “Did you both conveniently fail to inform me of your little bet?”

“You were rather occupied at the time. Mouth-wise.”

“What do you want?” Elphaba deadpans. Sets her tea down, if only to distract herself from the heat flushing her face.

“She’s a single step away from enslaving the entire Ozian textiles industry— Go, go! Save us from her.”

“Hush now.” Elphaba grumbles, and rises from her seat anyway.

Down the hall and in the guest room, a rather familiar sight greets her. More black and fabric, perhaps, but still the same magic, still the same frazzled woman within the madness.

Elphaba sighs. No one had ever said that Glinda Upland was a simple woman. They must need to talk. Again.

“Glinda.”

“Elphaba,” She parrots back. A dress goes merrily sailing over one shoulder. “Good morning. Have the boys turned you against me?”

“This is just obscene. Even for you.”

“I thought you liked me dressing you up?” Glinda whines. A shawl goes over the same shoulder, landing with the dress in a sad pile of cloth.

“Is there an enslaved troop of seamstresses in here? Cowering in fear amidst every piece of fabric in Oz, perhaps?”

“Nonsense! I’m a conscientious purchaser! And this is all for you, Elphie. I’m rather more self-sufficient about my clothing these days. Sewing is a wonderous hobby.” A pantsuit, this time. The pile of cloth was more becoming a sad puddle. “Oh, and I’ve bought you a townhouse, by-the-by.”

And that was—

Well.

“What?” Elphaba splutters.

“Well, it’s untoward to leave you here in the palace, poor Fiyero must despise this place, doesn’t he? And you, too, what an awful place to live. So,” Glinda tosses a black-and-white dress over her other shoulder. Elphaba briefly wonders where the clothes were even coming from. “I should think you’d want a house.”

Obscene wasn’t the right word. There was no word in her entire lexicon that was strong enough. They would have to invent a new one to encapsulate the sheer, utter ridiculousness of one Glinda Upland.

“You… bought me a townhouse.” Elphaba says slowly. “Since last night? Have you even slept?”  

A careless shrug, and Glinda’s flouncing over to the racks of suits. “I’ve bought you both a townhouse. It’s a charming three-story over in Gillgreen Square. You know, the one you adored with those fabulocious gardens?”

The one Elphaba had adored seven years ago.

Their one short day in the city of Oz, with so much that had happened, it had been such an insignificant statement. Elphaba could barely remember saying so. And yet Glinda had remembered.

Was she sweating? Her palms felt rather wet.

“It should keep you both nicely, I should think. There’s a grand kitchen, two guest bedrooms, a loft— a library would do nicely there, I suspect —oh, and a new market opened up down the street. It’s enchanting, you’ll simply adore it.”

Elphaba barely hears a word.

A house. A house in the Emerald city. A bloody house?

“How did you even— Oz, why? Glinda. This is too much, we have money—”

“You’re both dead, so in possession of none.” Glinda sniffs. It’s almost haughty. Elphaba wants to grab the woman and shake the nonsense out of her head. “And the Uplands are well-to-do, as you well know. I barely even flinched at the purchase. It’s nothing, Elphie.”

No, it was ridiculous. It was outlandish. It was so achingly Galinda that Elphaba feels the sudden urge to sit down.

It wasn’t just a house, some stupid, impulsive purchase. They’d talked about this in those distant days. It had been one of those silly plans. And Glinda— wonderful, ridiculous, outlandish Glinda —was just giving it to her.

Elphaba wants to kiss her again, so badly it almost hurts.

“Should—” A shake of her head. “I think we need talk.”

“About?” Glinda hums distractedly, smoothing her hands down the silken fabric. “There’s an awful lot to natter about, wouldn’t you say? Truly— three years, such a time, and— oh, do you prefer ruffles these days? They look darling on you, my dear.”

“…Yes, I suppose?” Glinda bustles past her. Elphaba wonders if she was a hummingbird in a past life. “Wait, no I meant— about us. The… this situation.”

“Could you be a little clearer? There’s many a situation. Oh!” Glinda claps her hands together. “Boots. Heeled, that’s what you need.”

And then she’s flouncing off to the other side of the room, submerged to the elbow in boxes of shoes. Glinda’s head was wrapped up in black silk and satin, it seemed.

And—

There really was nothing for it.

The woman before her had never left her thoughts. Not for seven long years. Not even amidst the whirlwind of Fiyero, the world falling down, the death of the Wicked Witch.

Elphaba knows why. Has known since that very first dance together. Since a single, pale-pink tulip was slid into her hair, as if Elphaba was truly something so deserving.

“Glinda.” Elphaba calls. Voice only the tiniest bit wobbly. “Glinda I’m in love with you.”

“That’s lovely, dear.” There’s a loud thud as a pair of boots goes sailing over Glinda’s shoulder. “Oh, must we use pleather? It’s dreadful, I have no idea what Palin was thinking with this, it’ll irritate your—”  

It’s an odd, rare delight to see Glinda’s face drain of colour, then bloom into a spectacular shade of red.

“Hold—” She chokes out, gaping at Elphaba, “Wh— p-pardon? What did you—” Her voice pitches hysterical. “Pardon?”

Goodness, it was hard to not laugh at her sometimes. “You heard me.”

“I did?” She says faintly. “Did I? Oh. Well, so I did. Certainly— um. Can you pinch me?”

“Really?”

Glinda is nodding now. It’s rather frantic. “Just once.”

“Now you’re making fun of me.”

“Elphaba Thropp. Pinch me, or so help me Oz—”

Elphaba sighs. Walks over, weaving about the piles of black clothing, to lean into her space. Revels in the squeak Glinda lets out as she does. Reaches out a hand, mindful of her sharp nails, and delicately pinches her soft upperarm.

It leaves a faint red mark that they both peer down at for a long moment. Then Glinda jolts again. Shakes her head. Flutters her hands.

Elphaba briefly worries for her health and cocks an eyebrow at the woman. “Satisfied?”

“Uh— well, I uh—”

Oh, but Elphaba had so missed Glinda. This Glinda, her Galinda, this frantic, lovely, whirlwind of a woman all wrapped up pretty in pink.

She can’t help it. Elphaba grins. “Would it help if I kissed you again?”

“Well, I’d be agreeable to it, yes—” She says in a rush, “But, oh this isn’t a dream? You— oh, Elphie, would you… Can you just say it again?”

“Glinda.” Elphaba hums. A laugh refuses to scrub from her voice, despite her most genuine efforts. “I’m in love with you. Dare I say you’re the love of my life.”

“Right.” Glinda says, even more faint than before. “Well then. Isn’t that— um.”

“My sweet?”

“I may have to lie down.”

True to form, Glinda collapses onto the couch besides them. And still, somehow, manages to arrange herself in her most dramatic pose despite. Elphaba finds herself laughing gently, tugged down with her until they’re a mess of limbs laid lengthways on the chaise.

It’s simply instinct to cup her face. To drag her thumb across one cheekbone, to stare into her eyes and get lost.

To think she would never see her again. Never touch her again. Never know the taste of her lips, or the feel of Glinda’s breath against her own. To think she thought memories could ever be enough.

“I—” Glinda swallows harshly. Splays her hands across Elphaba’s collarbones. “I love you. Too. By-the-by. I— well, you should know by now, I have been so dreadfully obvious about it. Uncharmingly so, yes, horrendible. Oh, I do apologise for it. Love is such a terror on my composure.”

“Are you apologising for reciprocating my feelings?”

“Yes? No?” A scrunch of her nose, “Oh bother. Which answer was the least humiliating?”

Elphaba snorts. “We must work on your self-esteem, my love.”

And Glinda all but shrieks. Turns her hands into fists to gently push against Elphaba. “Me? Oh, no— you are not allowed to say that to me! Remember when— oh, remember all of Shiz? And I have to work on—? Awful, Elphie. Terrible of you to say.”

“Oh dear. Are you offended?”

“Don’t be clever. It’s not at all endearing.” Glinda harrumphs.

Elphaba hums. Smiles so broadly her eyes crinkle. It hurts her cheeks. She revels in it. How long had it been since she smiled so much it hurt?

“It’s not.” Glinda repeats, for no reason that to convince herself, it seems.

Elphaba leans forward, so far their noses are touching and she can feel Glinda’s breath against her lips. It makes her point perfectly. And if Glinda goes that flattering, addictive pink again, well that’s Elphaba’s business.

“Y-you—” Glinda’s doe eyes are wide, blown so dark they’re black. “I’m supposed to be getting you— Clothes. Clothes. Elphie?”

Her gaze drags down. Settles on pink, pouting lips.

“Clothes. Yes.” Elphaba murmurs. “You said something about ruffles?”

“Ruffles. Yes, ruffles— they’d be— lovely. On you. In black. Maybe, um, another colour too.” Glinda’s hands curl around shoulders. They’re blazing hot against her skin. It’s as if there’s no air at all in the room. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You bought me a townhouse.”

“I… did? Do you not want—? I mean, I just assumed. That you would both want to leave. But, you know, the city is for you. I wouldn’t want you to go far. It just— seemed like the logical decision.”

The city is for you. It circles in her mind like a mantra. Their dream. Their future. It was right in front of her. Staring with wide eyes, golden curls, so perfectly pink.

“You bought me a house in the Emerald city.”

A scrunch of her nose. “Are we just repeating things now?”

“I’m in love with you.”

“O-oh. Yes. I—Is a house really so…? I mean, it’s the least I can do.”

“The least—?” Elphaba blinks away the tears stubbornly pricking her eyes. Feels her heartbeat like a mad thing beneath her ribcage. “Oh, you sweet, silly thing. May I kiss you?”

“Oh. Oh?” Glinda squeaks. “Please, yes— please.”

It feels like coming home.

Elphaba kisses her softly. Savours every second, every tiny, whimpering huff that leaves Glinda’s mouth, and the tightening curl of her hands against her chest, the heat of them pressed together on the chaise.

It’s not at all like their first. Not that desperate thing, not hurting. It’s just simple, and wanting, like her entire life, she’s been holding her breath until this very moment.

It’s agony when Glinda jerks away.

“Elphie—” Voice frantic, she jerks forward again. Doe eyes shining with tears. “Elphie, please— say to me that— I can’t stand not knowing—”

“I’m not leaving.” Elphaba murmurs. Presses kisses to her cheeks, her nose, her forehead. “I’m not leaving you again.”  

A stuttered breath. Elphaba can almost feel Glinda’s pulse jump. “…Because of the house?”

“Because of you, silly thing.”

“Oh, Elphie. My Elphie—” Glinda wails, then kisses her again, and again, and again.

“She’s bought us a house.” Elphaba announces, three hours past lunch.

“Why am I not surprised?”  Fiyero sighs, dramatically reclining in his seat out on the balcony. “Well, then. When are we moving in?”

Her brow furrows. Elphaba stares at the back of his straw head. “What?”

“I know you brought all your valuables, but we ought to visit the cabin anyway. I’d like to bring my hat collection over. There is a guest bedroom, isn’t there? Well, a Fiyero bedroom now, I suppose.”

“Fiyero— wait. No,” Elphaba circles around, comes to stand before him, shading the man from the sun. “You’re… okay with this?”

The scarecrow levels a look at her. A smile curls up at the corner of his lips, not so much mirthful. Simply… there. Knowing, and easy.

“Elphaba, my dear, this was inevitable the moment we saw the pardon. Frankly, I’d be offended if it didn’t turn out like this.”

“It can’t be that easy.”

“Love always is.” He winks. “And you forget! I almost married our dear Glinda once. I can survive.”

But us, Elphaba almost blurts. But then, it didn’t seem right to say. The moment they had stopped running, the moment everything had cooled into the gentle warmth between them now, they’d sat with Glinda between them.

It was an unspoken, amidst so many of them. So perhaps that was this another. Either way—

“Thank you.”

The sun was rudely slicing through the curtains. Elphaba groans at the light and rolls over. Face down was appropriate. Face down was away from the sun.

The bed was perfectly warm, and soft and—

Elphaba rolls into a body. A nice, warm, soft body.

“Mmf.”

“Good morning, my lovely.” Glinda whispers.

Gentle hands slide upwards and begin to scratch at her scalp. Elphaba nuzzles deeper into the bed and Glinda’s warmth. It was dawn, then. The blasted woman woke up with the sun. Which meant Elphaba now awoke with the sun.

The things she had to sacrifice.

“Morning,” Elphaba rasps, sleep still clinging, “Did you sleep?”

“Wonderfully.” Glinda giggles. Hand moving down to trace the shell of one pointed, green ear. Elphaba murrs at the sensation. “Don’t you look comfortable.”

“This bed is obscene.”

“Oh?”

“Too comfortable.”

“My apologies,” Glinda purrs. “Next time I’ll find us a worse bed.”

And that didn’t sound right— the idea of a next time. Elphaba was happy with this time, their townhouse by the gardens, her time squirreled away in the Emerald archives, Glinda forging ahead with Oz at her beck and call.

“Come here.” She grumbles. Her hands snake around Glinda’s elegant waist. It felt like her silken nightgown.

Really— Next time? What an awful thought.

“Oh, my dear I would, but I have to get back to the palace,” Bother bother bother, that would mean Glinda leaving the bed, “And you have a date with the librarian about those books. Do you not—?”

One tug of her hands, and Glinda’s sprawled out over her. Soft and warm and silky, legs astride one of her own. Elphaba murmurs happily, tucks her face into the crook of one shoulder.

“Elphie!” Glinda shrieks. Half-heartedly bats at her shoulder.

“They can survive without you.”

“Do you even know them—” A shake of her head. Curls cascade over her face, tickling soft. “Oh, Elphaba, unhand me. Unhand me! This instant, Elphie!”

“No.”

“Yes, you mean, green thing.”

Elphaba tightens her arms against Glinda’s wriggling. Wraps a leg around her waist for good measure.

“Take a sick day.”

“Impossible. And I’ll have you know that Glinda the Good doesn’t get sick.”

A sigh. Leaning back, Elphaba takes in Glinda’s scrunched face. Looks greedily, as always, even if she was allowed to now.

Glinda is bare, and beautiful, and radiant in the golden sunlight. It’s such a thing, to look into her eyes and see that her dark undereye was gone. That her gleam was back. That she was here, and genuine, and hers again.

Maybe only for the day, maybe only for a while longer, but it was enough.

“Do I have to kidnap you again?” Elphaba says, and fails to scrub the breathlessness from her voice.

Glinda snorts, “Please— please do not. Not again.”

“Bother. You ruin all my fun,” Elphaba hums, and tugs Glinda into a kiss, just to feel her giggles pressed against her mouth.