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.