Archive of Our Own ^beta

Oz is beautiful.

From the balcony of the palace, Glinda can see the Emerald City before her. The cityscape is made up of tall, shadowy shapes, gleaming white-green in the moonlight and, in places, yellow-lit by civilians’ lights, shining in their little rectangular windows.

All those people down there, all those Ozians living in fear of the “Wicked Witch,” turning their lights on and off, checking the sky the last thing before they go to sleep and the first thing before they wake up. She understands what she has to do to keep the love of the people of Oz, but she doesn’t truly understand how they feel.

Glinda peers down, down, down at the road below the towering palace, where the yellow brick road sparkles gently in the uneven lights of an Emerald City night.

Perhaps more accurately, she doesn’t truly understand how they can so blindly, so abjectly fear Elphaba. She is still Elphaba to Glinda. They’re both too grown up now for Elphie, but sometimes, quietly, Glinda will mouth the nickname, feel the shape of it on her lips, and remember the days when they were young enough, dumb enough, brave enough use it. Otherwise, Glinda thinks of her as Elphaba. No matter what she calls Elphaba when she makes speeches—for she has always intuitively grasped the nature of earning the love of a crowd—Elphaba remains the good-hearted, hard-headed, awkward roommate of her teenage years.

When she says “the Wicked Witch of the West,” bitterness blooms at the back of her throat, painfully tight.

Glinda watches the silhouette of a young boy moving about his room, the light inside his room glowing golden. He sticks his head out of the window and scans the sky before closing his window and latching it shut. He draws his striped green curtains closed over it, and then his light goes out.

She steps away from the balcony railing, away from her city and her people, retreating into the space of her home. In her home, this floor of the palace, she can shed the Glinda everyone out there knows. She can allow herself to think of things hardly dares to when faced with the harsh light of day: of helping the animals’ cause, of telling Feiro, Listen to me, you don’t know how I feel about Elphaba. You think I would have her arrested? You don’t know what I’d do. I need you to find her for me. I need to talk to her. I need to see her. I need to—I need—

All those Ozians. They are so desperately far from understanding the true state of things. Their perception and their reality are so separated that the gap is unclosable, and still Glinda tries to close it, tries to take both sides of their world and close the circuit with her own body.

It’s after she’s closed the balcony doors that she hears the crash.

It’s muffled through the green glass between her and the rest of the world, so she doesn’t quite register it at first—it’s too muted to make an immediate imposition on her thoughts. It’s a thump and a scrape, something solid but soft hitting the emerald stone, then something scratchy dragging across it. It is, for a moment, none of Glinda’s business, and Glinda’s night is, for one last second, just another night in her lonely floor of the palace.

And then Glinda turns around.

And it’s Elphaba.

She’s just a dark shape beyond the green glass, a simple black dress, the familiar dark green skin and raven hair, lying in a jumbled heap of limbs with the handle of a broom sticking out from underneath her.

Glinda stands there frozen, her breath caught in her throat. Strangely, her first thought is not why Elphaba is here, or what she should do about it, or even that she’s missed Elphaba for so long and now she’s here. Her first thought is oh no, she’s is going to see me.

She has always been, somewhere in the back of her mind, ashamed of herself. Of everything she’s done in the name of the citizens’ trust, to be generous, or power, to be ungenerous. She’s always been even more ashamed of the things she’s said and done about Elphaba in pursuit of that same goal. As much as Glinda has missed her, she has never once truly imagined coming face to face with this girl again, partly because she’s never wanted to imagine that Elphaba could be captured, but also partly because she has never imagined herself capable of looking Elphaba in the eye. If there’s one person who’d be most disgusted of who Glinda has become, it’s Elphaba. Elphaba, the one who had enough principle to break rather than bend.

The heap of limbs shifts sluggishly.

Oh. Oh, what is Glinda doing still standing here?

Quickly, Glinda hurries over to the doors again, snapping off the balcony lights before anyone can catch sight of Elphaba. If even one person sees her, it’s over. She doesn’t want to think about what they’ll do to her if they get their hands on her—she wouldn’t be surprised if the city started roaring for a public execution.

The glass doors seem to resist her, cold and heavy against her palms, as Glinda pushes them open and hurries to Elphaba’s side. She seems barely conscious, her chest rising and falling erratically and her eyes open the barest sliver and her limbs tangled up at odd angles. It’s immediately obvious Glinda will have to carry her; Elphaba is in no condition to walk. Slipping one arm around her shoulders and the other under the bend of her knees, Glinda lifts Elphaba’s drooping body up and jostles her lightly, so her head falls onto Glinda’s shoulder and her shoulders press securely against her arm. Elphaba emits a small sound and Glinda freezes, afraid for a moment she’s hurting Elphaba, but when Elphaba doesn’t make another noise, she moves on. Even skin and bones as she is, Elphaba is a solid weight, and Glinda has to stagger her unevenly into her room in jerky, slow steps, laying Elphaba down on the couch because it’s the nearest available surface.

Here, under the light, she can see Elphaba more clearly. There are dark green bags under her eyes, so sleepless they look almost like bruises, and her eyelids flutter, like she’s trying to open her eyes but can’t quite manage it. Her skin is unhealthily dry, probably from all the flying she does, and in some places on her palms it has begun to crack, smearing the skin with blood. She’s stick-thin, her already slim dress hanging loose on her frame, and Glinda can see the bones of her wrist jutting out, the stark shelf of her collarbone. Her skirt is ripped and tattered, and she wears no tights underneath, nothing but black socks that come halfway up her ankle, her thighs bare and covered in goosebumps. Glinda closes her eyes quickly, feeling oddly guilty, and unfolds the pink blanket she keeps on the back of the couch to lay over Elphaba’s body, tucking it neatly under her pointed chin.

The urge to stroke the soft skin there, the skin of her throat and under her chin, rises in Glinda. She snatches her hands back, afraid she’ll give in. She feels drunk, almost, not in her right mind, not sure if she has full control over herself. Elphaba always made her like that. She’d forgotten how it felt.

Slowly, half afraid her hand will betray her, she pushes Elphaba’s black hair, greasy and lank, out of her eyes. “Elphaba,” she whispers.

Elphaba’s lashes flutter some more, and a heavier breath escapes her cracked lips, as if she’s trying to make a sound.

“Shhh. It’s me, it’s… it’s Glinda.” She’s suddenly not sure that’s going to be at all reassuring to Elphaba. “You’re safe. You’re safe, okay? Just sleep. I promise I won’t—” Won’t what? Tell anyone she’s here? Arrest her herself? Hurt her? Take her broom away? Imprison her? Everything that could finish that sentence feels to Glinda like she’s only reminding Elphaba what she could do. “I promise you’re safe.”

Elphaba’s eyes stop fluttering. Her breath becomes less urgent, more even, and her head tips slightly to one side. Glinda hadn’t realized, but Elphaba was still fighting, right up until this moment. Whether she decided to stop because she trusts Glinda or because she doesn’t have a choice in the condition she’s in, Glinda has no way of knowing. It hurts to admit it, but it’s probably the latter.

Glinda strokes Elphaba’s hair a little bit, then pulls her hand back. God, her hands cannot behave themselves. Or maybe it’s her heart that can’t behave itself; it thuds in her chest so hard that it pulses in her fingertips, making her hands shaky and cold. She keeps thinking, Elphaba, Elphaba, Elphie is here, she’s here, she’s right here. She stands up and steps back, just to be safe, and locks the door to this wing: her personal corner of the palace, where she has a small living area, an immense bedroom and bathroom, a small kitchen, all separate from the rooms where she receives guests, separate from the council rooms and library and other more public spaces.

She turns off the lights and fumbles her way to the couch opposite of Elphaba, on the other side of the low coffee table, pulling the blanket haphazardly over herself in the darkness. She’s not dressed for bed, but she can’t bring herself to leave Elphaba alone here while she fetches her nightgown from her wardrobe, so she doesn’t. She just turns on her side and tucks her hands under her cheek. The shape of Elphaba’s body becomes faintly visible as Glinda’s eyes adjust, and she falls asleep thinking that for the first night in a long, long time, she knows Elphaba is safe.

— — —

“Glinda.”

Glinda rolls over and tucks her head deeper into the shelter of her arms, obscuring the light and the noise of the morning. Her body is unusually uncomfortable, bent up in a way she never sleeps, her head at an angle so that her neck aches when she moves it.

Why did she sleep like this?

“Glinda.”

Glinda sits bolt upright, nearly leaping out of bed. Or, rather, the couch, she realizes. She’s still getting her bearings. Last night comes to her, all in a flash, at the sound of Elphaba’s voice. She hasn’t heard that voice in forever—and certainly not speaking her name. It sounds just like she remembers it to: both soft and firm, something distinctly unyielding running through it.

“Elphaba.”

Elphaba’s eyes are open, and she’s watching Glinda with an attention that belies a higher capacity for attention than she seemed to have last night. Her green skin and the pink blanket clash horribly, but the sight gives Glinda uncomplicated joy and relief. Elphaba is unharmed, undiscovered, and awake, the blanket still pulled up to her shoulders, her dark hair splayed across the embroidered pillow. The sleep seems to have done her some good.

Glinda gets quickly out of bed and hurries to Elphaba’s side, stopping herself from reaching out only because Elphaba’s wary expression doesn’t soften as she gets closer.

“What’s going on,” Elphaba demands. She lifts her chin. Even though she’s lying down, wrapped up in a fluffy pink blanket, and Glinda’s standing fully dressed—though, granted, in slightly wrinkled clothes from the day before—Elphaba still manages to sound and look imperious. She says what’s going on the way one might say, explain yourself.

Here she is in person. Elphaba Thropp.

Sunlight has started to trickle in through the windows, all tinted slightly green, warming the shade of Elphaba’s skin. It makes all the pink in Glinda’s rooms a little grey-ish until she turns on the white lights from inside, so Glinda has always regarded the green windows of the Emerald Palace to be one of her least favorite features of living here, but Elphaba looks absolutely breathtaking in this lighting, even in her clearly worn-down state. Her black hair looks blacker, her skin more vibrant, the definition of her features sharper.

For a moment, Glinda can’t speak. She can see the baby hairs at Elphaba’s hairline. She can see the roughness of the skin over the bridge of her nose from the dry winds.

And she has to speak as if everything is normal, as if she is normal.

“You crashed—” Her voice wavers. She clears her throat and starts again. “Last night you landed on my—” For the life of her, she can’t remember the word, so she gestures towards the glass doors. “I brought you in and… I think you slept.”

“I certainly slept,” Elphaba confirms dryly.

“Balcony,” Glinda says stupidly, “You landed on my balcony.”

Elphaba shifts up onto her elbow, her expression twisting into a grimace, and looks through the glass doors to the balcony, empty but for a flowerpot in each corner. The banister twinkles in the sunrise. “Didn’t mean to do that,” she mutters.

“No, I guess not, huh.” Glinda makes a brave attempt at a smile, twisting her hands together behind her back. She wants to reach out and help Elphaba up, but she’s not sure if Elphaba would be insulted by the gesture. “But you’re safe. I’m not going to call anyone and no one ever comes in through those doors.” She tips her head towards the door to the living room, solid wood doors she’s had painted pink, the lock still firmly in place.

Elphaba gazes at her evenly. “Okay, Glinda.” Her voice is grudging, pointed. The way she says Glinda’s name makes Glinda sick with helplessness.

What has Glinda done to them? God.

Glinda looks quickly away, afraid her emotions are written all over her face. She’s better than anyone she knows at disguising her true feelings, but Elphaba has a way of stripping that all away, leaving Glinda defenseless, bare.

She can’t change the past, she reminds herself. The question she should be asking is this: what will she do to them now? Can she fix anything?

She hopes so. She hopes more than she has hoped for anything before.

“How—how are you doing?” Great start. Brilliant start. Glinda already saw the state Elphaba was in last night, how does she think Elphaba’s doing?

Elphaba eases herself back down, off her elbow, with another grimace. When she’s back lying down, she lets out a heavy breath, as if she has just completed a monumental task. “I’m not exactly soaring through the skies, am I?”

Glinda swallows. She again has to clasp her hands behind her so she doesn’t reach for Elphaba. To do what, she’s not sure. To bring the blanket back up to her chin, or to tuck the loose hair back again, or to brush the grime streaked up the side of her face away, or a million other things. Breathe, she reminds herself. Don’t touch her like that. She needs someone who can help, not whatever the hell you are.

“Is there something—something you need?” she asks.

Elphaba gives her an unimpressed look, her mouth thinning to a tight line. “Something I need? Are you offering me toast?”

That stings, just as it’s meant to.

Glinda opens her mouth to say—she’s not sure what. I’d do anything for you, just name it?—but a knock sounds through the room, a sharp rap at her wooden door, and they both freeze. Elphaba’s eyes widen sharply, and she heaves herself up on her elbow again, her grimace becoming more severe with the urgency and force of her movements as she struggles to get up.

“Stop,” Glinda hisses. She puts a hand on Elphaba’s chest without thinking, the fabric of her dress thin to the touch, clearly old and over-worn. They stare at each other. The tip of Glinda’s forefinger is pressed against Elphaba’s bare skin, right below her collarbone, and it’s worryingly cool to the touch for somewhere so close to the heart.

“Glinda,” Elphaba mutters, panic stealing its way into her voice. “Glinda—”

“Shhh.” Glinda gently pushes her, reaching with her other arm to support Elphaba’s weight as she guides her back down. “Just stay here, okay? Please don’t go anywhere.”

“Glinda?” a deep male voice sounds at the other side of the door, followed by another rap knuckles against wood.

“Just a minute!”

Glinda dashes to the bathroom, smoothing out her dress and running her fingers through her hair. She doesn’t look nearly as put together as she usually does, and depending who’s on the other side of that door, it’s likely they’ll be able to guess something unusual has happened. Her blush has rubbed off overnight and one side of her eyelashes curl upwards, while the other sticks out straight. Her curls jut out at odd angles.

Quickly, she sweeps a brush through her hair and straightens the bow on the back of her dress, then sticks her characteristic tiara neatly on top. She sweeps a little color over her lips, and dashes back to the door, pulling on her pink heels on her way, nearly tripping.

She opens the door slowly, calming her breath, and stands in the doorway, blocking any view inside the room. “Good morning!”

“Morning, Lady Glinda, my name is Challan.” It’s a palace guard she vaguely recongizes. The mustache and brown curls are slightly familiar, as is the way he holds his square chin, as if he believes being the palace guard is the most important position one can have and nothing can be quite so serious as what he has going on in his head. “The Wicked Witch of the West was spotted last night in the skies around the city, so security has been increased, I am to guard your door and accompany you if you venture outside of the palace.”

Glinda widens her eyes and opens her mouth wordlessly. “She’s—what do you mean? In the Emerald City? You don’t mean—”

“Oh, but I do.” Challan nods sagely, placing a hand on the weapon at his hip. “She was spotted flying less than a mile away from the palace, as a matter of fact.”

“Oh, Bildor.” Glinda presses a hand to her mouth and makes herself breathe unevenly. “Oh, not here.”

“Yes, here.”

“Oh, but how, how could she get so close to the palace when the city is crawling with security?” She shakes her head, as if she can’t believe it. “And how can they assign me a personal guard in these times—the citizens need to be kept safe! God, help us. The city!”

“I think the Captain would appreciate it if we kept a close watch on you, my lady,” Challan dips his head respectfully. “You’re very important to the people.”

“Yes, yes of course.” Glinda tries to appear so distraught as to be unable to truly follow the conversation. “Please—would you tell the residents of the city that everything is going to be okay and—when was the last sighting?”

“I believe around seven last night, about a mile from here, my lady.”

“Yes, could you say this: Glinda the Good Witch says that everything is going to be okay, and she hasn’t been seen anywhere near here for over twelve hours. Tell them security on the streets will increase double for the next week, and if no one sees her in that time, we will relax our measures again.”

Challan, who has been watching her intently, committing this to memory, bows. “Very good, my lady.”

“Thank you, Challan.”

They look at each other for a minute. Challan seems to be expecting her to leave the room, expecting to accompany her out, but Elphaba’s still lying there, weak and alone on Glinda’s couch, and Glinda wouldn’t leave her for the world.

Glinda clears her throat. “I think I have a lot of letter writing to do, with this incredibly distressing information,” she tells him, affecting a rueful laugh. “Would you deliver that message for me? I’m sure Fiyero will be more than willing to convey it to the people.”

“Yes, my lady.”

They look at each other some more.

“Could you do that now?”

Challan raises his eyebrows. “With all due respect, what of your guard?”

“I’ll be okay for a the quarter of an hour you’ll be gone.” Glinda smiles her best, bravest smile. “I’m not entirely helpless myself, you know.”

“Of course not, my lady. Yes, I shall be back immediately.” Challan turns sharply, the tassels of his bright coat swaying, and strides off at a clipped pace, his steps as precisely the same as if he measured them out before hand.

“Thank you for keeping me safe,” Glinda calls after him. Challan raises his hand to his forehead in salute.

For the count of five, Glinda stands there in the doorway, looking out into the empty hallway, breathing. Shedding her performance and trying to find the real part of her again. The harder she has to act, the harder it is to find her genuine self. It’s like it’s a muscle that needs to be exercised, and she loses her touch again, and again, and again.

The buzz of the palace is beginning to wake up with the sun: the clip of shoes on the stones, the clatter of plates and utensils for breakfast, the chatter of people spilling out of their rooms and greeting each other good morning. None of them know that on the top floor of the very palace they’re in, the Wicked Witch of the West, the woman they’re all hysterically afraid of, is lying on her couch, wrapped up in a pink blanket.

What’s she going to say to Elphaba?

There’s no chance that Elphaba didn’t hear the entirety of the conversation Glinda’s just had, the horror and fear Glinda worked into her voice when speaking of her. In place of the relief of Bildor leaving, she feels a welling up of disgust for herself, of shame. This is how she talks about the girl she loves—like she’s a monster the people of Oz need to be protected from. She wants to bang her head against the door.

Instead, she steps back into her rooms, avoiding Elphaba’s eyes, unwilling yet to see the look on her face.

“I want you to shout,” she says, still staring at the wall. “Start quiet and get louder—I want to see how much you can hear through these doors.”

Then she steps out and shuts the door again, without having to look once at Elphaba.

“You coward,” she whispers to herself. “You fucking coward.” She drops her head against the door and listens. And listens. And listens.

She doesn’t hear a thing.

After nearly a minute, she gives the door one sharp knock to let Elphaba know she’s coming back in. And then, of course, she has no choice but to step back in and face the music.

Elphaba’s still lying on the couch, eyes immediately fixed on Glinda as soon as she steps through the door and closes it behind her. Glinda can’t read her expression, but that’s nothing new.

“How loud were you shouting?”

Elphaba raises her eyebrows and shouts, “AH!” So loud, Glinda startles, even though she’d thought she was prepared, having asked Elphaba to shout.

“Goodness. Well, that’s good.”

Glinda doesn’t know what else to say. How do you talk to someone who you just effectively called an extremely dangerous monster? How do you tell them, I want to help you in any way I can?

She could… avoid it some more.

The green light streaming through the window has grown stronger, casting the room in a proper grayscale, so Glinda goes around the room, pulling down the shades and flicking on the white lights. It makes the pink a genuine pink again. Some nervous part of her really does care what Elphaba thinks of her living space, although of course Elphaba isn’t going to judge her for it; she’s never been the type to care about those kinds of things. And yet, she still finds herself looking around and wondering if the embroidered pillows stacked at the end of the couch are too frivolous, if the pink kitchen cabinets are too tacky, if the chandelier that dangles above their heads is too showy. Everything from the coasters on the coffee table to the marble of the kitchen island to the flower-patterened wallpaper to the tile of the bathroom is a pearly pink, monochrome. Elphaba would probably tear all of this down and leave the walls white. Or, perhaps, she’d paint a few things over in black: the pink ceiling, the pink couches, the pink shades. She’d sweep up all of Glinda’s little knicknacks into bags and boxes for storage, rather than letting them litter the edges of tables and line the shelves. All her seashells and sparkling brooches, small glass animals and round porcelain dolls. They seem empty now, of meaning and sentiment. What are a couple silly toys in the face of Elphaba’s life of mortal danger, of risking widespread hate and giving up a place to sleep at night to help a vulnerable population?

And here Glinda is in her pretty pink palace, fear mongering day in and day out so that they don’t come for her head, too.

When all the shades have been pulled down and all the lights turned on, Glinda has nothing else to do but turn around and look at Elphaba, and learn, somehow, to talk to her.

Elphaba is watching her when she turns, her gaze appraising. Her head is propped up on the embroidered pillows, but she hasn’t moved onto her elbow again, so her neck looks to be at an uncomfortable angle. The fall likely gave her a few bruised ribs, judging by the way she’s been moving.

“Do you want to sit up?” Glinda sits at the edge of the coffee table nearest to Elphaba, clasping her hands in her lap. She doesn’t know what else to do with them. She’s not sure if Elphaba wants to be touched at all, especially by her.

Elphaba studies her for a moment longer, her dark eyes narrowed, her expression unchanging. Glinda itches under her gaze, wondering what Elphaba’s looking for. She’d put on her most trustworthy face, but Elphaba has seen her do that a million times, often in situations where she is undoubtedly not trustworthy, so if anything doing so would be counterproductive. She clasps her hands so tight, her fingers are probably turning white.

“Why are you so nervous?” Elphaba asks eventually, point-blank.

Glinda squeezes her hands even tighter. “I—I just want to help.”

“Okay,” says Elphaba, “You’re helping right now. Good job.”

Glinda’s breath catches. “Am I?”

“Yes,” Elphaba assures her dryly, “I haven’t been arrested yet, so unless you’re playing a game with me—”

“I’m not—!”

“I know you’re not.” Elphaba’s voice gets even drier. “There would be no point.”

Glinda stops squeezing her hands together and instead clutches the edge of the coffee table so hard the wood bites into her palms. “So you’re going to let me help you?” It comes out sounding more eager than she means it to, almost breathless. All she means is, can she feed Elphaba, and dress her injuries, and help her sit and move when she wants to, because Elphaba’s clearly hurt and Glinda wants so desperately to help, but it sounds like she thinks of Elphaba as this enchanting new dress up/rescue game she’s just learned how to play.

God. She can’t do anything right.

“Let you help me?” Elphaba echoes, eyebrows raised, “I think it’s safe to say it would be my pleasure.”

Alright. Okay. Wonderful. Glinda tries not to let her emotions leak into her expression, but yet again, she feels defenseless, all pretense washed clean off her in Elphaba’s presence. When they were roommates at Shiz, Glinda had all but stopped breathing when Elphaba came near, her heart beating so violently in her chest, she thought it might be visible, pounding against her skin. When she looked at Elphaba, she felt so terrifyingly powerless, she felt that Elphaba could ask her to do anything and she’d do it, as if in a trance. She’d get dressed in the morning wondering if Elphaba was watching her bare back, and she’d have to turn around and twist her hands in her bedsheets to stop herself from looking as Elphaba got dressed. She finds it impossible to imagine Elphaba hadn’t noticed the way Glinda watched her, even though she’s never mentioned anything of it then or ever since.

“I’ll fix you something to eat.” Glinda hesitates. “Do you want to—I can help you sit up. If it’s okay for me to… to touch you.”

Touch you isn’t exactly what she means. She knows Elphaba doesn’t want to be helped up; her pride is too strong. Glinda is perhaps asking whether Elphaba would allow her to help anyway, but there’s no truly kind way to phrase that question.

“I can—” Elphaba begins.

“But so can I,” Glinda interjects quickly, as Elphaba once again begins the wincing, tentative process of pushing herself up. Glinda’s hands fly out, reaching, without a thought. She pauses right before she touches Elphaba, then draws her hands back to her chest.

Elphaba’s brow is creased in pain. “Alright,” she whispers, sounding like she’s in so much agony, she can’t muster anything louder.

Glinda trembles. “Alright,” she echoes.

Carefully, she slides her arm behind Elphaba’s slim shoulders. Elphaba feels like a skeleton against her, skin and bones. Glinda can feel the tension leave it, Elphaba’s body going limp with relief. The side of her face presses into Glinda’s shoulder, and when Glinda moves, gently lifting Elphaba up and turning her to rest against the back fo the couch, she hears the pained hitch in Elphaba’s breathing.

“It’s okay, you’re okay,” she murmurs automatically.

Elphaba releases a breath of a laugh against Glinda’s cheek. Glinda closes her eyes and composes herself, then moves back, gently slipping her arm free from between Elphaba and the couch.

“Okay?” Glinda asks.

Elphaba’s watching her with something akin to amusement, the very corner of her mouth tipped upwards. “I’m not fatally wounded.”

Glinda can’t take her eyes off of the slight smile. “Hmph.” She doesn’t think she’s capable of saying anything else. “I’ll fix you something to eat.”

— — —

“Thank you.” Elphaba’s voice is dark and smooth, like velvet. She stirs honey into the oatmeal with her spoon, watching the seam rise. It smells faintly of warm milk and brown sugar, although there are definitely traces of smoke in there. Glinda left it on the stove for a little too long.

“I don’t really cook,” Glinda feels the need to explain. “I’ve never done much cooking.”

Elphaba looks up from the oatmeal. The trace of wariness in her gaze hasn’t disappeared; she still watches Glinda’s movements as if searching for a false step. “I don’t know if this is necessarily cooking.”

Glinda flushes. “You heat it up.”

Elphaba hums and begins to eat slowly, her ribs still clearly hurting. The traces of dirt and dust on her face stand out even more now that she’s beginning to look more awake, more functional. Elphaba, though not exactly the most fashionable of the students at Shiz, had been at least put together. She had her things in order, her hair braided, her dress free of lint. Now, she looks as if she hasn’t had time to so much as run a brush through her hair in weeks.

“Sorry if it’s not that good.” Glinda edges towards the kitchen. “I can get more brown sugar, or honey if you want. Or I can make it again.”

“A warm meal is a warm meal,” Elphaba says indifferently, spooning more into her mouth. It’s still steaming vigorously, suggesting it may be too hot to eat just yet, but Elphaba doesn’t seem to notice or care. “Thank you.”

Glinda plays those words over and over again in her head. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. She goes back to the kitchen, which is separated from the living area with no more than a long marble counter, and serves herself some oatmeal as well. She doesn’t know where to sit—certainly not on the couch that Elphaba’s stretched out on, that seems too presumptuous, but not across on the other couch, because it feels too far away. She settles on the coffee table between the two couches, her knees poking up out of her poofy pink dress because the table is so low to the floor.

She eats quietly, the silence only broken by the clinking of their spoons, until she can’t bear it anymore. “I actually have never cooked before,” she admits. The oatmeal does taste the slightest bit like smoke. “They serve me all my meals here, if I ask them to, in the dining room, and there was the cafeteria at Shiz. And when I was a child I was cooked for, of course.”

“Of course.” Elphaba sounds bitter.

“What, weren’t you?” Glinda often had her meals cooked by a chef, but on special days, her parents would cook for her, for birthdays, or welcomes home, or goodbyes. Her father was the better cook, but it didn’t much matter, it was about the sentiment behind the gesture, the way they’d smile and watch her take her first bites.

Elphaba shakes her head. “I cooked for myself. Or sometimes for all of them. Nessa couldn’t, you know, so I was the only pair of helping hands around.”

Glinda imagines young Elphaba, scurrying around the kitchen, trying to throw together dinner for the whole family. She’s always known Elphaba was never very well-loved by her family, but being fed is such a basic service that she’d thought… she’s not sure what she thought. It’s clear Elphaba was never treated like a part of the family, not really. Glinda remembers the Shiz days, when Elphaba would dart around after Nessa, pushing her chair and fetching her food, as if she considered herself more an employed caretaker than a sister.

I’m sorry they never realized how much you’re worth, she wants to tell Elphaba. She wants to keep Elphaba here and tend to her like she’s spent her life tending to other people. She says, “I’m sorry if the oatmeal’s no good, then.”

Elphaba looks at Glinda but doesn’t respond. She seems to be thinking, assessing, again with guarded, careful look that makes Glinda ache. Should Glinda not be talking? Maybe all Elphaba wants to do is get better and get out, and she’s only responded to Glinda out of a sense of obligation in exchange for Glinda’s aid. Or maybe out of a sense of caution or fear, even, of making Glinda upset and driving her to expose her.

Glinda goes back to eating silently. The oatmeal is horrible, the texture both wet and dry in turns, spots of it super-sweet where the brown sugar dissolved and others terribly bland where the brown sugar didn’t reach. She can’t even taste the honey. And it burns her tongue twice.

“It’s no good, I’m making something better for you,” Glinda says, and then remembers her conviction to stay quiet. She stands up quickly, ready to make her way over to the kitchen, when Elphaba’s voice stops her.

“Why are you doing this?”

Glinda pauses, her back to Elphaba, her half-eaten bowl of oatmeal steaming on the kitchen counter. There’s nothing else but a box of dehydrated oats on it. She watches the tendrils of steam slowly rise into the air, thinner now than they were when she served it out. How is she supposed to answer that question?

It’s the right thing to do.

You don’t deserve to be arrested or harmed or imprisoned.

I don’t want you arrested or harmed or imprisoned.

I want you to be safe, I want you to be okay, I want you to be clean and well-fed and happy, I want—

I’ve spent a long time worrying about you and here you are. I’ve spent a long time wishing I could help you and here you are. I’ve spent a long time missing you and here you are. I’ve spent a long time loving you and here you are, right here on my couch, wrapped up in my blanket and eating my oatmeal from my bowl with my spoon, here you are.

Glinda turns. Elphaba has turned her head to look at her, over the back of the couch, her expression even and inexpressive. Her messy, unbrushed hair frames her face unevenly, and she’s narrowing her eyes slightly again.

“Oh, Elphie,” she says helplessly, “how could I possibly do anything else?”

Elphaba studies her for a moment longer, her gaze unblinking, and then, just slightly, she smiles. “Okay,” she says, “If you want to make oatmeal, put the lid on this time.”

— — —

The days become less and less anxiety-ridden as they pass.

After the first day with no hiccups, Glinda lets out a long-held breath of release and they eat dinner together quietly, Elphaba still on the couch. She helps Elphaba to the bathroom, then back to the couch, and fusses with the blankets until Elphaba rolls her eyes and tells her to stop.

“Don’t you have a bed?” Elphaba asks flatly when Glinda settles down on the opposite couch again, kicking at the blanket until it covers her feet. It’s too thin, but it’ll have to do. The green moonlight once more catches on Elphaba’s sharp-edged form, outlining her in silver.

Glinda swallows. “Yes,” she says.

Elphaba waits for more, but Glinda isn’t exactly sure what to say. That she wants to keep an eye on Elphaba sounds like she doesn’t trust her, but that’s not quite it. It’s not that she’s afraid Elphaba’s going to fly out in the middle of the night and wreak havoc on the city, no, nothing like that. But she’s afraid she’ll wake up and Elphaba will be gone all the same.

“Well?” Elphaba prompts after a long silence.

“Go to sleep,” Glinda whispers. “I’ll make breakfast for you in the morning.”

The second day, Elphaba doesn’t ask again about the bed. Glinda makes breakfast, brings back lunch from the palace kitchens, and tucks bread rolls in the pockets of her skirts for dinner, terrified someone will catch her, as if stealing bread rolls is a capital punishment. She puts them with butter and apologizes, promising she’ll fetch more ingredients for food the next chance she gets.

“There’s no need for apologies,” Elphaba dismisses her, accepting the bread. “I guess you don’t cook for yourself very much, so I wouldn’t expect you to have much lying about.”

Glinda flushes. “No,” she admits. She’s not sure if Elphaba said this to make her ashamed of her privilege, but she is. Of course, Elphaba must be cooking for herself all the time, with meager sticks in the fire and whatever scraps rebel animals can afford to feed her.

“Well then, thank you for this.” Elphaba raises the plate, and gives Glinda a half-smile.

Glinda swallows, nods. She thinks that’s the closest she’s gotten to a smile yet.

The third day, she helps Elphaba once around the room, because Elphaba says she wants to move. She can feel the nervous energy on Elphaba’s skin. She steals a basket full of things from the kitchens: vegetables, rice, yams, mushrooms, bags of fresh pasta, spices, flavored salts, ripe fruit. From the couch, Elphaba tells her what to do.

“Take it off the heat, take it off the heat—”

“I am, I am—I have!”

“Good. Good don’t burn the kitchen down.”

“I won’t.”

“You nearly did.”

Glinda, smiling helplessly, looks over at Elphaba, and Elphaba is grinning.

Glinda nearly drops the pan of tomato sauce she’s been making from scratch all over the floor. She grips it in both hands, tightly, like a sword, her heartbeat stuck in her throat.

Elphaba is grinning at her, her eyes bright. Her skin is a warm green in the sunlight, and it looks soft and smooth from this distance, though up close it remains dry and beaten, despite Glinda’s offerings of lotions. Elphaba always waves them away, saying I couldn’t put them on anyway, gesturing to her ribs.

Glinda imagines, every time, offering to do it herself, but she never lets herself say the words. She can’t imagine putting her hands on Elphaba’s skin and not doing or saying something stupid and brainless that will ruin everything. This tentative friendship, if you can call it that, that grows between them right now is too fragile to touch.

“I—I’ll put this on the pasta,” Glinda says, and turns quickly away.

And on and on they go. Glinda helps Elphaba to the bathroom, to the sink, to walk around the room. She cooks to the best of her ability, following Elphaba’s instructions to the letter. One day, she brings Elphaba to the window so they can watch the sunset, and Elphaba leans against the windowsill, an unreadable expression on her face.

“The Emerald City,” she murmurs.

“The Emerald City.”

Elphaba turns her head slightly, the colors of the sunset cast across the side of her face, and looks at Glinda with that same unreadable expression. It’s not a good one. Not a look of contempt, but a look of distance. One that acknowledges an uncrossable chasm between them. “And you’re the queen of it all.”

“They don’t have a—”

“But you are. You know you are.” Elphaba turns away from the window. “Take me back to the couch.”

Glinda does.

“I’m only queen as long as they want me,” Glinda whispers, when Elphaba’s safely back on the couch. She pulls her arms back, though she wishes she could keep them curled around Elphaba’s thin frame forever. “Only as long as I make myself what they want.”

Elphaba gazes at her with her sharp eyes. Her long black hair slides over the pillow, hanging in gentle waves over the edge of the couch. “Nobody blames you, Glinda.”

The low velvet of her voice wrapped around the shape of Glinda’s name. God, help, Glinda thinks. She’s chronically in love. It’s unfixable. “Nobody?” she repeats doubtfully.

Elphaba understands her question, and holds Glinda’s gaze as she speaks. “I don’t.”

— — —

Fiyero tries to talk to Glinda about a week later, knocking on her door and trying to come in. Usually, she lets him in right away, and they’ll talk late into the night, often about Elphaba. Not because there’s anything interesting to be said, but more because Glinda never stops thinking about her and she suspects Fiyero doesn’t either. They both get to pretend they’re only talking about Elphaba because the other has brought her up, but the truth is, of course, that she’s as irresistible as she’s always been.

“Glinda,” he says from the other side of the door, “What’s going on?”

Elphaba’s head whips around and she stares at the door, her lips parted, her eyes wide. He sounds much like he did in school, Glinda knows, though maybe a bit rougher, more worn down. Fiyero? She mouths.

Glinda nods.

“I’m doing a spring cleaning,” Glinda calls back, “You can’t come in, it’s a mess. I’ll go with you to tea in just a minute!”

She changes out of her pink dress into a blue one. She curls her eyelashes and does her hair up properly this time, determined to look less frazzled than she feels. She knows that people aren’t going to guess that she’s frazzled because she’s housing the number one most “dangerous” person in the kingdom of Oz in her living room, but she feels like they will. She already knows that when she walks through the halls of the palace, she’s going to worry that somehow, they all know, they can all smell it on her, as if she’s drenched herself in Elphaba’s perfume. Not that Elphaba wears perfume, or that anyone around here would know what it smelled like if she did, or that Glinda’s been pressed up close to Elphaba for long enough that the perfume would rub off on her. If anything, Elphaba smells like cold wind, stale sweat, and dirt.

“Don’t tell him,” Elphaba says as Glinda makes her way towards the door, fixing her necklace around her neck. There’s a thread of emotion in Elphaba’s voice. Glinda can hear it clear and strong, but she can’t quite identify what it is.

Glinda swallows hard. “I’m not the idiot you think I am,” she says, rather unwarranted in her rudeness, and steps out the door.

She fixes her smile right before she turns to Fiyero, the kind of smile that makes her eyes squint. There’s something about an eye-squinting smile that always convinces people she’s more genuine, as if she can move her mouth at will but couldn’t possibly move the rest of her face at will, too.

She doesn’t think about Elphaba’s expression when she heard Fiyero’s voice. She doesn’t think about the dark, hollow feeling she gets in her chest when she looks at him, his shiny slicked-back hair and his charming smile. Does he know? she wonders. Has he ever known?

Elphaba Thropp loves Fiyero Tigelaar, Fiyero Tigelaar loves Elphaba Thropp. Neither of them seem to know it. They’re less than twenty feet apart from each other right now, in one of the most private places one could possibly be in this crazy city. They don’t know that either.

And Glinda might parade around pretending to be good, but she’s long ago given up pretending to herself. She knows herself for what she is: vain and self-interested, motivated only to do good when she thinks it will make her feel better about herself. So she doesn’t go back inside and tell Elphaba that she knows Fiyero is in love with her, that he would never expose or arrest her, and send them on their happily ever after. It would be the right thing to do, but it wouldn’t make her feel any good.

So she doesn’t say anything.

She has tea with Fiyero, who’s extremely distressed about Elphaba’s safety, and she thinks about alleviating his worry, but she doesn’t. He tells her about the sighting, and worries that she might’ve landed somewhere and gotten hurt, and Glinda doesn’t say that yes, she has. He asks her how she’s doing, and she says, she’s doing fine.

“You’re very concerned about this,” she says, trying to sound like she’s annoyed about it. “I’m sure she’s fine, wherever she is. Besides, if we find her and arrest her, no one’s going to hurt her. The people just want to know they’re safe.”

Fiyero’s eyes bore into her. “She shouldn’t be arrested, Glinda. Open your eyes! People are just so willing to believe anything terrible about her because they’re scared, half the things she’s accused of she hasn’t done.”

Glinda gazes at him over her teacup and sniffs. “How do you know that? Did you ask her yourself?”

“She wouldn’t do those things—”

“And how do you know? You haven’t seen her since our years in school!” Glinda watches closely, watches the way Fiyero’s eyes spark and his jaw sets, searching for a sign of deception, of secrecy. Does he look away? Does his expression flicker? Is there an edge of fear? “People change, you know.”

“Elphaba wouldn’t.”

“You don’t know what she’d do.” She’s pushing harder than she needs to, but she can’t help it. She can’t feel satisfied until she’s absolutely sure.

Fiyero stares at her, his tea left cooling on his saucer, his hand twisted up in his napkin. They’re alone in this little nook they like to take tea in together sometimes, away from the hustle and bustle of the palace, lit by the green-tinted lighting of the many windows. Here, sitting at a circular table for two, they’re usually more open with each other. Glinda’s more charitable to Elphaba when they’re alone here, when she doesn’t need to keep up the charade of fear she projects to the rest of the nation. She studies him a few seconds longer. He’s angry, but he’s not hiding anything, she’s certain of it. Relief floods her. She’s right, they haven’t seen each other since their school years.

“Maybe you’re right,” she says, letting her voice go limp and tired. She sets her cup down and sits back, dropping her shoulders and her gaze. “I don’t know, maybe she hasn’t changed.”

“She hasn’t.” Fiyero nods sharply, as if getting Glinda to drop it is the same thing as winning the argument. She loves him, of course, but the way he loves and defends Elphaba so openly makes her heart freeze over, heavy inside her chest. He thinks he loves Elphaba more than she does—of course he thinks so. It wouldn’t even occur to him that Glinda might have complexities, that she might be able to misdirect even him, that Glinda could have enough emotional integrity to love Elphaba in spite of everything.

I’m in love with her, she wants to scream, I’m in love with her I’m in love with her I’m in love with her! I’m not so much of an idiot that I don’t know beauty when it touches me.

Instead, she stands up. “Maybe,” she says, in a voice that indicates the conversation is over. “I need to go address the citizens of the city.”

— — —

Elphaba isn’t on the couch when she gets back.

Glinda looks for her the second she sets foot back in her rooms, and for a fleeting moment, she thinks the lumpy pile of blankets on the couch is Elphaba, curled up and maybe asleep.

When she realizes it isn’t Elphaba, she falls back against the door, not breathing. Her eyes skim the room: the shadows behind the kitchen island, the opposite couch, the armchair in the corner, under the table. Did she leave? She didn’t seem in any condition to leave.

“Elphaba?” Glinda calls, pushing herself off the door. Her knees feel shaky. Did they find her and take her away? Who would’ve come into her rooms, and why? It wouldn’t make any sense, but what if they did? “Elphaba?”

She’s not under the desk in the small workroom Glinda uses to write letters, she’s not in Glinda’s bedroom closet full of tulle skirts and sequins. None of the places Glinda’s checking make any sense, but they’re the only places she can think to check that a human body could fit in, and she doesn’t want to think just yet about the possibility of Elphaba not being somewhere here.

“Elphaba?” she calls again, checking under her bed. It’s a massive bed, draped with a thick pink comforter that reaches the floor, so it’s hard make out anything underneath it, but she can’t see any shadowy elbows or knees.

“Elphie?”

That’s when she hears it: a faint groan coming through the door. It sounds pained, far away, half-conscious.

Glinda jumps up, hurrying towards the door, nearly twisting an ankle when she lands wrong on her high heels. “Elphie.” It can’t be anyone else.

She hesitates at the bathroom door, unsure what she’s going to find and whether Elphaba would want her to come in. She rests her palm and forehead on the wood and breathes, imagining Elphaba struggling to use the toilet with her bruised ribs. Glinda shouldn’t just walk in.

“Can I come in?” she calls.

Another groan sounds, agonizingly similar to that of an injured animal. It doesn’t sound like Elphaba can exactly form words. Glinda bites the inside of her cheek and tastes blood. She swallows, but the iron on her tongue doesn’t fade. She imagines Elphaba curled up, clutching her ribs.

“I’m coming in.”

Elphaba is on the floor, her black hair splayed out across the white tile of Glinda’s bathroom floor, her chest rising and falling erratically again. She’s slightly curled, her arms wrapped loosely around her middle, in a way that suggests she’d be holding herself in a tighter ball if she had the strength to, but can’t manage it. Her shoes are off, and her black-socked feet and bare calves look cold and stark. She isn’t any greener than she usually is, but it’s somehow more striking, how green she is. How alone.

“Elphaba,” Glinda breathes.

Elphaba whimpers, her eyelashes fluttering.

Glinda’s on her knees beside her in an instant, her hands outstretched but not quite touching Elphaba’s skin, shaking in the air. “What do I do,” she whispers, “What do you need?”

The other questions—how and why and when—can wait.

Elphaba’s chest hitches, then she says, as if choking out the word on saved-up breath, “I fell.”

“Right,” Glinda says, mentally waving away this information and pushing forward, “What do I do?”

Elphaba just groans, curling a little bit tighter. “Bandage me?”

“I can do that,” Glinda says, unsure whether she’s talking to herself or to Elphaba. “Can I move you?”

Elphaba gives a tiny, sharp nod of her chin.

Glinda sucks in her breath and squeezes her hands in her dress for a moment, drying the cold sweat from her palms.

Glinda picks Elphaba up, this time even more gingerly than the first. She’s unsure where exactly Elphaba is hurt, but the placement of her hands imply that it’s probably the ribs again, so she delicately avoids shifting the angle of Elphaba’s torso as much as she can. On Glinda’s comforter, she once again looks so alone, so frail against the vastness of Glinda’s bed dwarfing Elphaba’s thin frame.

Squeezing Elphaba’s shoulder, she says, “I’ll be right back, okay? Don’t go anywhere.”

In the bathroom, she closes her eyes, washes her hands clean, and finds the bandages in the closet. She finds a small towel, runs it through water, and squeezes it halfway dry. Elphaba emerges in her mind again: her wary gaze, the even line of her mouth, the coolness she conducts herself with.

After setting down her supplies, she tugs at the hem of Elphaba’s dress, swallowing. “Can I take this off?”

Another tiny nod. Elphaba raises her eyebrow the slightest bit. “Get over yourself,” she bites out, though it sounds like it takes her an immense effort to speak.

Glinda releases a huff of breath. She would’ve expected her hands to shake, but they’ve suddenly gone steady, easing the fabric slowly up Elphaba’s body so as not to make her shift too much at once, pushing it up around Elphaba’s underarms for better access to her ribs.

“Oh God,” Glinda whispers. Her hands freeze there. She stares down at Elphaba, a painful lump in her throat.

Elphaba does not have bruised ribs. Or, she does, but that seems incidental to what else is there: a long, slashing cut across her abdomen, crusted with dried blood but clearly beginning to get infected, a messy line from the ridge of her second rib, down past her navel and to her hip. It glints wetly, the split skin unhealed.

“I can’t just bandage this.” Glinda pulls her hands back.

Elphaba lifts her head slightly, brow knitting. “Then why’d you ask?” she says acidly.

Glinda opens her mouth and stops. “You don’t trust me, do you?”

“Should I?”

As much as she wants to, Glinda feels she can’t speak. She can’t get past the growing lump in her throat. She whirls around and hurries back into the bathroom, closing the door behind her harder than she means to. There, she reminds herself to breathe, to breathe, to breathe. In, out. Sadness and hurt are just emotions, not material realities. They don’t have to mess with her if she doesn’t let them.

She marches over to the bathtub and begins to run the warm water, then slips off her dress, so that she’s in the simple pink slip she wears as an underlayer. She sits by the water and watches it rise, taking off her heels and so that when she bounces her knee, it doesn’t make that repetitive tap tap tap sound. One more thing might just drive her mad right now.

Show her who you are, she tells herself, show her she can trust you.

How? How, when she has the whole city’s eyes on her? How, when everything she could possibly do for Elphaba isn’t anywhere near to what she wishes she could do for her?

When they were in school, Glinda used to pick fights with the friends she had who would make fun of Elphaba until they stopped, and Elphaba was never the wiser. She used to put Elphaba’s hairbrush on her nightstand so she’d remember to brush her hair. They had small problems back then, problems that could be fixed in the work of five minutes, problems that required no talking, let alone touching.

The immediate problem, though, is clear when Glinda shuts off the water and goes back into her bedroom to pick up Elphaba: she didn’t think about what it would look like, her marching out of the room like that.

Elphaba, impossibly, is halfway out the window by the time Glinda gets to her and gracelessly pulls her down into her arms, a toppling, painful tangle of limbs. Elphaba hisses, body curling in again.

“I’m not calling anyone, I didn’t call anyone,” Glinda whispers, pulling Elphaba to her chest and barricading her in with her arms. She doesn’t want to think about what that fall could’ve looked like for Elphaba. The broom hovers just outside the windowsill, but there was no way Elphaba would’ve stayed atop it in this condition. “I was just running a bath, I didn’t call anyone. Believe me. I didn’t call anyone.”

She keeps murmuring these things, moving slowly back and forth, Elphaba in her arms, until the tension melts from Elphaba. Elphaba drops her forehead onto Glinda’s shoulder and sighs.

“A bath?” she says in that dry, velvet voice of hers, all skepticism and amusement.

“Can I take you there?” Glinda adjusts her arms around Elphaba. “Your wound is on its way to getting badly infected.”

“Not a wound. Shallow.” But Elphaba leans into Glinda’s arms and allows herself to be brought to the bathroom with no fight, again watching Glinda’s face with sharp eyes.

Glinda swallows hard, unsure what’s written across her face. How badly she wants to keep Elphaba here forever, giving her food and water and shelter and not letting a single person harm her ever again. As if it could ever be that simple. Elphaba could never be content in a life without purpose.

“We have to clean it before we bandage it,” Glinda murmurs into Elphaba’s hair. “That’s all I meant.”

“Just get on with it,” Elphaba mutters in Glinda’s ear.

Glinda doesn’t know what she’s done wrong. They’d been doing so well before, with their daily routine of cooking and glancing at each other and sometimes having two-minute conversations. She’s swallowed her questions, she’s followed instructions, she’s carefully kept everyone she talked to in the dark about the “Wicked Witch of the West” staying in her rooms and has acted the part rather convincingly, if she might say so herself.

And for some reason, Elphaba seems cross with her.

She doesn’t ask, though, she just says, “Okay, are you ready for me to put you into the water? It’ll probably sting.”

“Mm-hm.”

Carefully, she lowers Elphaba, keeping her dress scrunched up at Elphaba’s underarms, so that the water laps gently at the blood, coming away in pinkish swirls, as if they’ve squirted colored dye into the water. Elphaba hisses, clutching at her shoulder, but doesn’t give Glinda any indication that she should stop.

When Elphaba is finally sitting on the floor of the bathtub, her legs half-stretched out in front of her, and her back pressed up against the wall, Glinda hands her a washcloth and places the soap on the soap dish built into the wall.

Elphaba hesitates as she reaches out slowly to take the wash cloth.

“What is it?”

Elphaba drops back her head a little, as if in annoyance. “I’m going to regret this,” she mutters, still breathless.

Glinda sighs. “What?”

“Could you…” Elphaba looks uncomfortable. Up against the white porcelain of the bathtub, she looks emerald, her black hair stunning and stark, the tips of it wet and plastered against the side of the bathtub and swaying gently in the water. The windows let in a filtering of green light, but it looks different against the whites of the bath than it does in the living room. When she looks up at Glinda, her eyes are deeper brown, warmly alive. She’s making a face as if the words she’s saying taste bad on her tongue. “Could you do it for me?”

“Oh.” Glinda closes her fingers around the washcloth again. “Of course.”

Slipping off her shoes, Glinda hitches up her skirt and swings her legs around, feet firmly on the floor of the tub so she can put her elbow on her knee and her weight on her elbow. She dips the washcloth into the water, running the fabric gently over the cut, washing away the crusted blood slowly, trying not to apply too much pressure. “Tell me if it hurts.”

“Mm-hm.” Elphaba sort of stares up, past Glinda’s shoulder, as Glinda works, close enough to hear the tiny hitches in Elphaba’s breath every time she brushes the cloth against her skin, close enough to see the muscles in her stomach jump.

Glinda searches for something to say, to drown out the misplaced sense of intimacy that comes with close physical proximity and silence. “How did this happen?”

“This wasn’t my first crash landing.” Elphaba tips her head back, looking up at the ceiling.

“You seem to be feeling a little better.”

There’s a pause, during which Elphaba doesn’t even open her mouth to respond. The water whispers against the edge of the bathtub, sloshing around Glinda’s wrist as she moves her hand back and forth.

“You know, than maybe ten minutes ago,” Glinda adds, in hopes that this will pull some sort of response.

Elphaba glances down at Glinda without lowering the upward tilt of her chin. “I tend to do better when I’m experiencing less pain,” she says dryly.

“Is this helping, then?”

“You really have a thing for helping people, don’t you?”

Glinda looks up, actually meeting Elphaba’s eyes for the first time since scooping her up from the floor. That’s you, she thinks of saying. Helping the rebel animals, freeing the lion… I never wanted to help people, not really. I just wanted to be liked. And I wanted you to think I was helping people, the way you thought Fiyero was. I wanted you to look at me the way you looked at him. Elphaba holds her gaze, nearly defiant. The steam from the warm water has plastered the wispy hairs at her hairline to the edges of her face, and her skin gleams as if she’s been sweating. Glinda must look similar. Glinda looks back down at Elphaba’s cut, now cleared of blood, and drags the washcloth a couple of times around the bar of soap. “No.”

The edge dress falls, drifting out across the surface of the water slightly before getting soaked and billowing slowly down. Glinda pushes it up again, slightly more forcefully than she probably should, and wedges the soaked fabric between Elphaba’s side and her arm to hold it up, Elphaba’s skin cold in contrast to the warm water she’s submerged in. She goes back in with the cloth, releasing little white clouds of soap into the water.

What has she done? Yes, she does please the public by going along with their mad fear of Elphaba, but despite that, she’d felt they’d been getting on… at least not badly until today, when Elphaba suddenly became so much colder than usual—and that was saying something.

Maybe it’s all in her head. Maybe they were never getting on. Maybe she’s imagining Elphaba’s shortness because Elphaba’s in too much pain and it’s making her snappy, but she doesn’t feel like that’s it. It feels like there’s a truly frosty edge to the way Elphaba’s not looking at her, the way she says you really have a thing for helping people, don’t you?

“So,” Elphaba begins, and Glinda starts slightly. Elphaba seemed so determined to stay quiet that her deep voice in the air is—well, it’s not frightening, but it catches Glinda unprepared. “How was your chit chat with Fiyero?”

Oh.

That must be it, then. Even if she didn’t know how Elphaba feels about Fiyero, Glinda couldn’ve guessed from the hardness in Elphaba’s voice alone. She says each word as if she’s dragging them up and slamming them down, one by one, like heavy blocks of iron.

Glinda’s fingers tighten around the washcloth involuntarily, squeezing a thin wisp of blood into the water. She swishes it through the bathwater, once, twice, then runs it over the bar of soap again. “I didn’t tell him anything, if that’s what you’re worried about. I said I wouldn’t, Elphaba. Who do you think I am?”

“Glinda the Good Witch,” Elphaba replies flatly.

Glinda lets out a huff. She’s tried to be as held-together as possible tonight, but she’s always found it so hard to perform around Elphaba. The false projection she holds up for everyone else disintegrates under Elphaba’s honest gaze, and her desperation and hurt are pushing at the fissures in her mask. “Right.”

“Well, if you didn’t tell him I was here, what did you tell him?” Elphaba pushes. She’s stopped staring up at the ceiling to pin Glinda down, like a butterfly under glass, with her prying stare.

Glinda puts the washcloth down, a soft wet slap against the side of the bathtub. “I didn’t tell your boyfriend anything, okay? I—I just pretended to be scared that… you were terrorizing the area.” She comes out swinging, but she loses steam before she even finishes speaking, already regretting her words. Boyfriend? She’s always been sort of petty, but she can’t stand to be so painfully obvious about her jealousy.

Elphaba is silent, and Glinda doesn’t want to look at her and see the expression on her face. In her peripheral vision, she’s aware of Elphaba’s searching gaze intensifying even further.

“You’re done,” Glinda says, slipping an arm under Elphaba’s arms and pulling Elphaba’s dress back down over her abdomen. “I’m going to lift you, are you ready?”

Elphaba doesn’t respond, so Glinda glances at her briefly. As expected, Elphaba’s staring at her intently, entirely unresponsive to Glinda’s question, even when Glinda raises her eyebrows impatiently. She just wants to dry Elphaba off, tuck her under a blanket, and escape to be alone with her thoughts for a moment, without the feeling of Elphaba’s eyes on her like fire dancing over her skin.

Whatever. She scoops up Elphaba, slow and careful. Elphaba tightens her arms cold, wet arms around Glinda for support, but she doesn’t make a sound of protest, so Glinda hauls her up and takes her back to her bed.

She lays Elphaba out gently and murmurs that she’s going to grab some dry clothes from her wardrobe as the moisture spreads across her blankets, forming little damp outlines around the shape of Elphaba’s body and the tendrils of hair straying across the pink comforter.

“Why did you say that?” Elphaba asks, just as Glinda is moving away. Her arms feel cold where they were touching Elphaba and now are not, the water from Elphaba’s skin evaporating off of Glinda’s and leaving goosebumps in their wake. “About Fiyero?”

Glinda turns to look at Elphaba, who’s still watching her, though from the awkward angle of lying down. She turns back and begins to rifle through her clothes. Elphaba would probably die before she agreed to wear most of them, blue dresses full of tulle and covered in sequins, but in the back she has some long, soft gowns that Elphaba might at least be willing to wear, if not happy. She picks one, long powder-blue velvet that falls straight down to her ankles, and grabs the bandages she had ready before the bath, bringing them both to the bed.

She goes to Elphaba’s side again, reaching for the hem of her threadbare black dress, soaked and clinging to the worryingly thin shape of Elphaba’s body, but Elphaba holds up a hand.

“Glinda,” she says, unnervingly commanding. As she always is.

For goodness sake. Glinda tightens her hold on the roll of bandages, the rough fabric creasing softly under her fingers. The way Elphaba has this hold over her is infuriating. It’s irresistible. “I don’t know,” she answers reluctantly, “It’s been a long day. I had to lie to my best friend for you—sorry if I’m not in tip-top shape.”

She goes for the dress again.

“Glinda.” Elphaba once again reaches out and stops her. Her arms are covered in goosebumps, and she looks like she’s suppressing shivering through sheer force of will. She keeps staring at Glinda, as if to will her to meet her eyes, but Glinda refuses to look back. She just wants to go. “What is it? What are you not telling me?”

“Oh—good God, Elphaba, can’t you just let me get you out of this stupid dress?” Glinda bursts out, dropping the bandages on the bed. They roll off and land on the floor with a soft thump, leaving a trail of unrolled bandage behind it, a white stripe down her pink bedspread. “I refuse to take care of you all week only for you to catch cold.”

Elphaba seems mildly surprised at Glinda’s outburst and drops her hands in a gesture of capitulation. “Fine.”

“Thank you.” Gently, Glinda works the dress up, over Elphaba’s head, muttering about how much easier it would be to simply cut it off of her body. Elphaba limply allows Glinda to manuver her arms through the arm holes and ducks her head down to make it easier for Glinda to pull it up and over, clearly trying not to induce any more pain by using any more muscle than she has to.

As Glinda’s drying her off, Elphaba speaks again. “You’re terrible at hiding things.”

Glinda begins re-rolling the bandages. “What do you think I’m hiding?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” Elphaba lifts her arms gingerly so that Glinda can smooth ointment over the cut, then wrap it all methodically with bandages. Sometimes, the tips of her fingers brush Elphaba’s skin, now slightly warmed and dry.

“What am I supposed to do to get you to trust me?” Glinda asks flat out, tired of skirting around it. Perhaps the answer is nothing. Wouldn’t it be better to have out with it, rather than holding out hope for nothing? The nickname just slips out of her mouth without permission. “I’m doing everything I can, Elphie.”

Elphaba’s stomach muscles tighten briefly, as if she’s caught by surprise, and she winces. “Stop hiding from me,” she answers simply, in that low velvet voice of hers. “I can tell there’s something you’re not saying. Something you haven’t been saying.”

Well, Elphaba’s right about that. And Glinda was right all along, when she felt that Elphaba could look right past her mask and read her like a book. She has.

I’m in love with you. She practices saying the words in her head, imagining them here. Glinda smoothing over the last of the bandages, her fingers brushing Elphaba’s bare skin, saying I’m in love with you… and then what? What would Elphaba do? She can’t imagine how Elphaba could plausibly react.

Okay, she imagines Elphaba saying disinterestedly, or maybe flat and unreadable. Or, Oh, is that it?

Glinda tucks in the end of the bandage securely and gently runs her fingers over the layers, searching for give. When she doesn’t find any, she steps back, feeling as if every step she takes away from Elphaba takes her one step out of a hypnotic haze. She unzips the dress she picked out for Elphaba and wiggles it in the air so that the fabric swishes. “Isn’t this lovely?”

“Sure.”

Good enough for her. For Elphaba, that’s high praise for something that isn’t black from head to toe.

As Glinda brings it over her head, Elphaba raises her arms gingerly, slipping her arms through on her own.

“Feeling better?”

“Mm.”

Elphaba’s never been the sociable type, but Glinda’s never gotten such blatant disregard from her on such clear invitations to conversation.

Elphaba turns her back to Glinda slightly and Glinda gently moves aside the still-wet locks that fall down to the middle of Elphaba’s back, getting little spots of wet on the back of her dress.

“What’s got you so cross with me?” she asks, as she zips up the back of the dress.

Elphaba’s shoulders tense slightly. “I’m not,” she says shortly.

“Elphie.” Now that she’s slipped up, she doesn’t much see the point of holding it back. She’s already given herself away, she figures.

Elphaba lets out a long, slow breath. It sounds clearer and less labored than she has all week, so at least one thing is going well for them: the bath and bandages seem to have done her some good. “Fiyero,” she says, low. “You and Fiyero…. You have something I can’t touch.”

“I thought so,” Glinda says. She smooths her hands down Elphaba’s arms. “You’re all done.” She immediately regrets saying it like that—as if she’s a hairdresser, getting Elphaba ready for an upcoming ball, rather than her caretaker/friend who’s cleaning her up from a nasty injury that hurts her so much, she can’t walk.

Elphaba turns around and gives Glinda a melancholy smile. You have something I can’t touch. Glinda swallows, unable to reply. It’s true. She has a life Elphaba will never have, because the world simply isn’t ready for her. Ready for her ideas, ready for her kind of beauty, ready for her way about the world: headstrong and indelicate.

You are something I can’t touch.

Glinda pulls back her hands, ignoring the way they tingle.

They don’t talk much for the rest of the day.

They’ve never been extremely chatty, but this isn’t quiet, it’s silence, and it feels significantly different. They look at each other and look away, unless they lock eyes in a way that’s undeniable, at which point they exchange wincing nods (Elphaba) or polite, wincing smiles (Glinda).

Unable to imagine Elphaba telling her how to cook under such conditions, Glinda slips out and steals plates full of food from the kitchens—steamed seasonal vegetables and thick slices of brown bread with sweet, sticky jam that smears messily on their fingers. Elphaba licks her fingertips clean. Glinda watches in fascination. She wouldn’t have pegged Elphaba as the lick-jam-off-her-fingers type, but judging from her expression, it isn’t so much about the jam as getting rid of the stickiness.

Elphaba looks up from inspecting her hands for any more jam and catches Glinda watching her. Glinda looks away from Elphaba’s mouth immediately, but if anything, her instant reaction is only more incriminating. Elphaba’s lips twist up humorously, as if she’s mocking both of them, mentally, for being so awful at being around each other.

“So why did you call him my boyfriend?” she asks, inspecting her bread once again.

Glinda swallows hard, her mouth suddenly dry, and puts the ceramic plate down on the table with a scrape. They’ve resumed their usual spots: Elphaba swaddled in blankets on one sofa and Glinda on the opposite couch, relieved and disappointed to be so far.

“No reason.” She pokes at the slices of baked sweet squash, cutting off a bite with the edge of her fork. She doesn’t eat it, though. Glinda the Good. Isn’t she supposed to be good, then? Why is it she can only do good when it benefits her? That’s only coincidentally making good as a side effect to making herself happy. That’s no kind of good, when it comes down to it. She closes her eyes. She’s going to do it, isn’t she? She has to.

Elphaba is just drawing a breath to respond—probably to push her on the point—when Glinda continues abruptly.

“No—that’s not true.”

Elphaba stills, watching her intently.

Glinda drags in a slow breath, focusing on the sensation of the air flowing against her dry throat, rather than the words she’s about to say. “He loves you, you know.” She says this to the bite of her squash, sitting uneaten on her plate. She sets the fork down. If she goes part way she might as well go the whole way. “He just doesn’t know you.” Like I do sits unspoken in the air.

Elphaba is quiet for a long moment, long enough to make Glinda glance up, checking her expression for any outward response. Her mouth is a tight line, her eyebrows drawn slightly together.

“You think if he knew me, he wouldn’t love me,” she says matter-of-factly, as if this is anything like what Glinda just said.

“No,” Glinda interjects immediately, before Elphaba even finishes. “No, Elphie—what?”

Elphaba lifts her chin with that cold stare that reminds Glinda of their years in school, of the way Elphaba would stare her down from across the room as she neatly put things away and Glinda pranced around in her sparkling dresses. It was all ever just a bid for Elphaba’s attention.

“You just can’t bear to imagine that something you want isn’t yours, is that it?” The hurt evident beneath her cold façade makes Glinda frantic, mindless.

“No,” she blabbers, “Yes. No, I just.” She pushes her plate away to drag a hand over her face. She has the irrational, irrelevant thought that she’s going to smear her blush, which she started applying when the toll of worrying about Elphaba all the time was starting to show.

“The Wicked Witch of the West, huh,” Elphaba’s musing, hands clasped over her blanket. She tips her head back to look at the ceiling, as if fed up with the world as a whole. “Is that how you see me?”

That’s really the last straw for Glinda. “Oh for goodness sake, Elphaba, you know it’s not,” she snaps, getting up off of the couch to march up to Elphaba. “I’ve been doing what I can to help you for the past week, in case you hadn’t noticed. Oh, and I worry about you every single day. By the way. And what I was going to say is I love you too. And I know you better.” Her voice falters embarrassingly, and Elphaba is staring incredulously at her, and somehow she’s ended up physically in Elphaba’s space, her voice high and hysterical. She steps back, curling her arms around her middle, and looking out the window. When she speaks, she makes her voice quieter and more even. “And it doesn’t matter, because he’s the one you want. So… now you know. He loves you too.”

She walks over to the window, gazing out over the city in the last rays of sunset.

Oz is beautiful, she’s always believed that. Once again, she watches yellow lights flicker on in windows and watches the soaring buildings fade into blocky shadows, because she’d rather watch that than think about what Elphaba must be thinking.

This is how you show your love? Elphaba might say, how pathetic. This is your best? Hiding me away from the city so that they don’t turn against you, too?

“They’re all I have,” Glinda says, as if responding to the Elphaba in her head outloud. “Oz loves me. They’re the only ones who do.”

Saying that out loud makes her realize how true it is. Fiyero cares for her, but Elphaba has always driven a wedge between them. Only Oz loves her wildly and without reservation, and it’s only because they don’t know her at all.

She stands alone in the window, looking out at the people who have fallen in love with a false image, fingers curled over the windowsill. She envies Elphaba. She always has. Elphaba, brave enough to be herself and beautiful enough that herself is enough to win the love of someone else.

“Glinda,” comes Elphaba’s velvet voice through the darkness. It holds an edge of a command: turn around, look at me.

Glinda shakes herself. “I’m going to bed,” she says, moving for her bedroom. She’ll have to change the blankets, since they’re probably still wet from Elphaba after her bath, but she’d rather do that than sleep on the couch across from Elphaba again. “Do you need anything before I go? More blankets? The bathroom?”

“Glinda.”

“Do you need anything?” she asks again, loud and shrill. She waits a moment, but she doesn’t get a response. “Great.”

She sweeps out of the room, changes her blankets, determinedly avoiding thinking of Elphaba alone in the living room, and goes to sleep.

— — —

Glinda wakes to find Elphaba standing in her doorway.

If she’d still been wearing that black dress, Glinda probably would’ve been scared out of her skin, but in that long, drape-y blue dress, she looks…

She looks gorgeous. Admittedly, she might look better in a deeper, darker blue, to match the rich emerald of her skin, but she’s breathtaking already. Well, she was breathtaking when she was wearing that ratty black dress, too. Just now…

The sleeves are short, exposing the smooth expanse of skin on Elphaba’s arms, and the collar dips so that Glinda can see her collarbone. It looks different on her than when she was sitting and lying down. Now, she’s standing up, leaning heavily on her broom, which she’s using to prop her up like a cane.

“Hi?” Glinda murmurs groggily, rubbing at her eyes. She can feel her curls have all smushed to one side while she was sleeping, so she slides up the headboard to run her fingers through them, shivering slightly in her thin nightgown.

It comes back to her now, what she said last night.

After clearing the sleep from her eyes, she can now make out Elphaba’s expression, which she recognizes as that stubborn, unsubtle determination she grew so familiar with when they were young. “Oh my goodness. There’s no need to get into this,” she says preemptively, and slides out of bed, feeling nerves knot themselves in her stomach. The morning light peeks through the cracks in the curtains, but otherwise, the two of them stand mostly in shadow, which Glinda finds herself grateful for, because she suspects it’s the only thing masking the flush on her cheeks. She goes to her wardrobe and pulls on a fluffy robe over her thin nightgown, facing away from Elphaba as she buttons it up briskly.

Elphaba stands silently in the doorway, watching. “Glinda,” she says again, but it doesn’t sound anything like the other times. It’s most similar to the way Elphaba used to say her name when they were still roommates at Schiz, when they’d be up at night, the lights out, whispering things across the dark expanse between their beds. Glinda would spend most of those nights wishing that expanse would disappear, that they’d be lying side by side, their calves brushing under the covers. The way Elphaba says her name now brings her back to that ache as if she never left it. Maybe she never did leave it.

Glinda draws a breath, feeling as if her heart is restricting her intake of air. She turns, finally, to look Elphaba in the eye. “Elphaba,” she returns evenly. “I’m going to make us breakfast.”

Elphaba stands resolutely still, her pain nearly invisible, save for the tension on her brow.

“And you’re going to lie back down immediately,” Glinda adds imperiously, stepping up closer to Elphaba, angling to get around her and head for the living room.

Elphaba leans more firmly on her broomstick—and closer to Glinda. Her expression is… tender, but also pained. Glinda can detect an element of panic behind her stoic mask. “No,” she says. Unstoppable force versus the immovable object. “You’re going to talk. Now.”

Glinda throws up her hands. “What do you want me to—” She breaks off. “You want me to get Fiyero,” she realizes flatly.

Elphaba looks surprised, then oddly affronted. “No.”

Glinda steps even closer, hopeless fury rising in her, about what she’s not even sure. About the way nothing she’s done is enough yet for Elphaba to at least speak kindly to her? A knee-jerk reaction to Elphaba’s own frustration? She angles her body around, halfway through the doorway and close enough to Elphaba that she worries she might accidentally bump into Elphaba’s bandaged torso on her way out. “What do you want me to say?”

Elphaba leans forward even farther, letting her broom fall to the floor and propping herself up against the doorframe instead, effectively trapping Glinda in. Slowly, eyes wide open, she moves closer—God—and closer, and kisses Glinda’s cheek.

Her lips are chapped and dry. They brush against Glinda’s skin lightly and simply, as if Elphaba isn’t exactly sure how to do it. Her deep brown eyes are still wide open when she pulls back to stare at Glinda as if Glinda is the one who just did something unfathomable.

Glinda’s heart thuds in her throat. The doorframe digs into her back, and she feels like her knees might give out from under her at any moment. She wants to ask—she wants to reach out and—she wants—

“Nothing,” Elphaba murmurs, low and smooth.

Glinda says shrilly, “Nothing what?”

“I don’t want you to say anything.” Elphaba’s eyes are still searching her face, but they seem okay whatever they find, because her mouth curls up slightly. It’s like watching the sunrise. “I just want you to stop running away. I can’t follow you.”

Glinda stares for several seconds before she processes what Elphaba has said. No, Elphaba can’t follow her. She’s injured, for goodness sake.

The broom lies on the floor, and Elphaba has both hands on the wall, clearly holding herself stiff because movement will be painful. Her hair falls around her face, because Elphaba doesn’t have the faculties to tuck it back. God, she must’ve limped her way all the way from the couch to get to Glinda, all because Glinda wasn’t brave enough to talk to her like an adult.

Glinda reaches out and tucks the stray lock of hair behind Elphaba’s ear for her—the better to see those watchful brown eyes. “Sorry,” she whispers. “Let me take you back to the couch.”

Elphaba raises one hand in acquiescence and Glinda sweeps her up in one practiced move—she’s been getting better and better at it—her head spinning.

She’d have to be an idiot not to understand what that kiss was supposed to mean, after everything, and she’s quite familiar with Elphaba’s unsure, slightly unusual ways of showing affection, but it just doesn’t seem plausible. She’d always thought Fiyero was the one for Elphaba, and Elphaba was the one for Fiyero. And whoever was the one for Glinda never really mattered, in the grand scheme of things.

When she lowers Elphaba back onto the couch, propping her head up on the arm, she doesn’t move away immediately, hovering with a million questions on the tip of her tongue. When she boils them down to their essence, they all reveal themselves to be the same thing: “Are you sure?”

“Am I sure,” Elphaba echoes, as if she doesn’t understand the question. She’s watching with that intent look again, her eyes burning bright. “Are you?”

Glinda huffs out a breath, dropping her head down lower, closer. “What does it seem like?”

This feels unreal. The possibility of kissing Elphaba, of touching her in a way other than carting her around from one place to another. The possibility of pressing her fingers into her emerald skin and knowing it’s something she can have. Something Elphaba wants her to have.

She watches Elphaba swallow.

“I don’t know,” Elphaba whisper-speaks up at her, the words dragging audibly in her throat. Her eyes are wide, her lips parted. “Glinda, I don’t know how this—any of this—I don’t know how to…” She turns her head to the side, her cheeks deep green.

It’s funny. They’re both adults, and neither of them seem to know the first thing about intimacy.

“Neither do I.” There’s a wisp of hair on Elphaba’s cheek again, and Glinda tucks it back. Is she allowed to do this now?

Elphaba scoffs. “Yes you do. What about Fiyero?”

“I told you—Fiyero doesn’t want me.”

Elphaba, Glinda realizes, has to have witnessed it very little in her life, with her mother gone and her sister cold towards her, shunned all her life. Glinda, on the other hand, suffers from the opposite affliction, if it doesn’t seem too awful to think it: she’s so often been exactly what people wanted (or thought they wanted) that she doesn’t know how to put effort into anyone. She’s never had to, but she wants to. She wants to dedicate herself to Elphaba entirely, day and night. Tend her when she’s unwell and make her nights swell with pleasure when she’s healthy again, send her off with a blessing at the beginning of the day and be the thing she looks forward to coming home to when the day is over.

Elphaba closes her eyes and shakes her head, as if Glinda is an apparition she’s trying to clear from her sight. Glinda sits back, curling her hands in the fabric of her dress. What does she do? What does Elphaba want her to do?

“I’m sorry,” Elphaba says, her eyes still closed. “You have to understand, I always—I always wanted you, and I always thought it would be you and Fiyero. I’m—” Her mouth stays open, even though her words halt, as if she’s waiting for the word she’s looking for to fall onto her tongue. “Green,” she says finally, in a rueful tone. The way she says it seems to indicate it’s not the word she wants, but it’s a word that somehow sums it all up anyway.

Glinda runs those words around and around in her head. I always wanted you.

“Elphie, you’re—” she pauses. Beautiful doesn’t cut it. She’s something beyond that, impossible and glorious, a stunning emerald that one is afraid to touch, lest they smear their fingerprints on its perfection. “Enchanting.”

Elphaba cracks her eyes open and raises her eyebrows wryly, like saying, nice try.

“I used to leave your hairbrush by your bed so that you’d remember to brush it,” Glinda says. “I used to stare over at the shape of you under your covers and think—whenever I tried to dress you up all I really wanted was to be close to you.”

“I thought they were so hopeless.” Elphaba’s looking at her as if she’s never been allowed to look at Glinda before and she isn’t sure she’ll ever be able to again. As if a blink would be a waste of precious time.

“The make overs?”

“Trying to make me beautiful, like you. Trying to make me dance like you and toss my hair and laugh like you.” Elphaba smiles self-deprecatingly. “There was never anyone like you. It was so stupid to try.”

At a loss, Glinda slides to her knees beside the couch, once again tucking the stray hair framing Elphaba’s face behind her ears. She can’t stop. It’s smooth as silk under her fingers, glossy black. “You’re like this,” she says, her fingers lingering on the side of Elphaba’s face, and kisses her.

Elphaba’s lips part slightly, uncertainly, and Glinda clutches her dress tighter, tighter, sure the immense, whirling energy inside her, pure joyful exhilaration, will break them both open if she doesn’t put it somewhere. It’s hardly anything—one second, two—and gentle as anything, but when she pulls away, she feels like the chemistry of her entire being has been quietly rewritten in those two seconds.

She opens her eyes, and Elphaba is staring at her as if she has just caught a shooting star, her cheeks evergreen and her brown eyes shining.

“I should’ve trusted you from the beginning,” Elphaba whispers, “All week you’ve been… and I just—oh, Glinda.” She winds a lock of Glinda’s hair around her finger, letting the natural curl bounce back into shape when she releases it.

“No, I know. I never showed my real loyalties, and you never could’ve known.” The rest of the world sweeps in, a tornado overturning the daydreams Glinda has already begun to envision for their future.

Elphaba hitches herself up on her elbow. “I knew you as a friend, not an enemy. And now I guess I know you as something else.”

“I guess so.”

Elphaba casts her gaze around the room. The green glass windows and the pink furniture, Glinda’s little kitchenette space that’s gotten more use in the past week than it has in the rest of the time Glinda’s lived here combined, the two couches opposite each other, rumpled blankets on either end. “What now?”

“Now you know. No one will ever hurt you, not while this city is still mine.”

Elphaba smiles, real and wide, and closes her fingers around Glinda’s hand, where it’s still fisted mindlessly in the fabric of her dress, gently pulling it free. “And what do we do now?”

It’s a good question. Glinda doesn’t know what future they could possibly build together. She doesn’t know how to keep seeing Elphaba safely, or whether they’ll ever live out her dream of a simple, domestic life, no city hating or loving them or both. She doesn’t even know what tomorrow might hold. But she knows that they have the moment they live in now. She knows that today, she’ll love Elphaba with all the built-up passion that’s collected within her over the years, a flood after so many years of rain. She knows that tonight, if Elphaba will let her, she’ll kiss that green skin until it’s spotted pink with lipstick and pale brown with light bruises.

Glinda squares her shoulders, squeezes Elphaba’s hand, and stands. “Now? Now we make breakfast.”