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The day the Wicked Witch of the West is melted, Glinda has a most unnerving case of deja vu.
From her window she can see a parade through the streets of the Emerald City, confetti and sparklers glowing late into the night. She draws her curtains, muffling the cheering. Pours herself a drink.
She knows better, of course. Melting a person with water— Elphie, of all people, who was braver and stronger than anybody, who stayed composed even looking down the barrel of a shotgun— well, it was absurd. Ridiculous.
Glinda wasn’t brave. Glinda had had a shotgun pointed at her, too— by her own fiancee, a man who would never harm a hair on her head— and still she felt her feet go cold in their mother of pearl heels, hands shaking at her sides.
That cowardice must have been what did it, she thinks to herself bitterly as she sits in her dark quarters, curtains closed and a glass in her hand. What made Elphaba decide not to tell her the plan. Not to send word, proof of life.
To think Glinda was just like everyone else, blind and foolish. Like she wouldn’t notice the Fiyero shaped gap in her life, the funny little issue of his lack of a corpse. Like she wouldn’t know better than to think water could kill a girl so solid, so real. A girl with whom she had once raced through a rainstorm to class, breathless and laughing and hand in hand.
And it was just like in school. Like when she’d woken up on her desk in the History classroom and both Fiyero and Elphaba’s seats were cold and empty. The moment of knowing there was something just out of reach, something between the lines she couldn’t read. That she was still human, even if her best friends had become gods.
And they were, weren’t they. Larger than life, supernatural and deified. They build a statue in Munchkinland— Dorothy and her mangy dog, flanked by the Lion, by Boq in his ridiculous tin getup. By the Scarecrow, piercing eyes and loping, easy silhouette.
Boq and the Lion make it to the grand opening. The Scarecrow is notably absent.
And Elphaba… well, she looms the largest. It’s all in the silence, the hushed way the children say her name, the cutting whisper of wicked ringing sharpest from their mouths. She is a legend now.
It takes Glinda several weeks to get past the bitterness. And still she doesn’t let it go entirely. No, now it’s more numb, a dull pain that throbs late at night when the bed beside her is cold and she longs for warm green hands to reach across the chasm, to pull her away from her life. Or lack thereof.
They don’t, of course. Because Elphaba didn’t choose her, and at the end of the day she’s still just a girl. A silly, naive girl who wakes up, head aching, and understands that Elphie had seen something heroic and brave and special in someone else. In Fiyero, and not in her.
Boq, who has somehow become her closest friend— not that it’s saying much— sometimes tries to set her up. Dates, that sort of thing. They’ll leave the parliamentary chambers together; that’s about as much interaction as Glinda gets, these days. They’ll walk out and he’ll tell her slowly that she could get back out there, that there were plenty of eligible men in the city, that given their joint celebrity status they could get into any bar or elite club they wanted. “You’re so young, Glinda,” he says, “it’d be such a shame to waste it.”
Boq, tin shiny and polished since he’s started governmental work. Boq, Oz’s hero for the most ridiculous of quests. He stands there, proud and pitying as if he knows anything about her.
She isn’t wasting it, is the thing. True, she dates no one. Sleeps with no one. But she’s using her youth, using it to work. To fix things. To make Oz safe again, safe in case things ever changed. In case Elphaba changed her mind. If she wanted to come home.
So there is no time, is the thing. No time for wild nights out, or for friends, or even for sex. That time is for reading up on Ozian history, for drafting legal proposals, for stiff meetings. The Glinda she was, the one she was with Elphaba, would be horrified. Sometimes she looks in the mirror and doesn’t know who it is she’s seeing.
And it isn’t like she doesn’t get some of her needs met. True, there’s no romance in her austere little life, no devotion except to a ghost. But Glinda has her privacy, she has her late nights and her own fingers and enough images of Elphaba to last her a lifetime.
Not every night, that’s her rule. But it happens more often than she’d care to admit. Images, fantasies— climbing on top of Elphaba in their room at school, on one of those many nights where Elphaba lay reading with her fingers carding through Glinda’s hair. Grabbing her by the waist, pressing her up against the wall of the train car on the way to the Emerald City. Sometimes she flips it around and lets Elphaba, dream shaped and fuzzy around the edges, pin her to the bed in her apartments, push Glinda’s chin up with a finger, look down at her with a smirk.
So when her fingers slide down her stomach, lower lower lower until they tease at wet heat, she pretends they are Elphaba’s. It’s not hard, with her eyes screwed shut and finger drawing circles tight and fast over her clit. She always comes quickly, one hand on her breast and Elphaba’s name in her mouth, gasping and moaning and imagining Elphie smiling, Elphie murmuring sweet praises in her ear. Elphie, there even after she’s come down, cuddling in closer.
It’s her one indulgence.
Well, maybe she has another indulgence. Just one other.
Glinda meets with Chistery only in secret. None of her political advisors know, no one in the whole Emerald City knows. It’s almost unspoken— he knows what to look for, or more specifically who.
He’s learning to talk, though slowly, but she’ll get stilted reports nonetheless— a town past the desert, filled with Animal rebels from the Wizard’s reign who had fled, had set up their own little world far away. Rumors, sometimes, that the Scarecrow had been spotted on horseback. Never more than whisperings.
It just so happens that she’s in a meeting when Chistery barges in on that day, which is most odd. They have a schedule— every second Tuesday, it’s been that way for an entire year. They take place in Glinda’s apartments with a cup of tea, or sometimes a glass of whisky.
“Miss Glinda,” he says, and whichever governor she’s meeting with that day looks up in alarm. “I need to speak with you. It’s most urgent.”
She’s halfway out the door before he can finish his sentence.
“What is it, Chistery?” she says, and she can feel her heart beating. “Is something wrong? Is it…”
“Something strange, in the desert.”
“Is she hurt?”
Chisery looks up at her solemnly. Nods, just once. Glinda’s jaw sets. She tips her head up.
“Tell me where.”
And this is how she finds herself in this position.
Despite the constant overblown flattery from all of Oz, the ridiculous “good” moniker tacked on after her name, Glinda has never claimed to be selfless. It’s the opposite, really. When one’s best friend in the world, their inspiration, blows themself up in a desert, and when one has a perfectly large and comfortable bed for that friend to sleep in, right beside oneself… well, she doesn't think that’s such a crime.
She thanks whatever sick divine presence there is that Elphaba has crashed somewhere far away, past the prying eyes of any curious villagers or, worse, politicians. There’s just a chasm, a ripple in the sands far enough out in the desert that Glinda can’t tell left from right. A figure curled in the middle of a crater, shreds of black fabric torn around it. A small figure, far too bony, too sickly.
A flash of green.
And now here they are, in Glinda’s dimly lit apartment and she’s got Elphaba lying, unmoving, atop her duvet, and she’s sent word that she will miss the remainder of the work week due to an unforeseen illness.
And what an illness it is. She feels half manic, half crazy. Elphaba is beside her, very still and covered in dirt and scratches and some ash. It’s what she’s dreamed about for months, for years.
She hardly sleeps, drifting in and out and waking with a racing heart, blood pumping, stomach clenched. It’s like there’s a ghost in her house. Her eyes flick, as they have every night since that day, to the hat across the room, sloping and perched carefully atop her bookcase. But it seems foolish, now, when Elphaba is right beside her.
Even without her having said a single word, there’s something that goes out of the air— all those nights of crying, tears until she can barely breathe. The nights where, in a blind rage, she wished Elphaba would get hurt, would fall off her broom somewhere and want Glinda, for a change.
And that is the curse of Glinda the Good, isn’t it? Everything she’s wished for has come true, in a twisted sort of way.
She rises with the sun, sends word to the kitchen for breakfast to be delivered to the entrance to her wing and not a step further through the tall double doors.
“And make sure they send plenty of food,” she tells the young guard they’ve sent to her, head poked through the crack of the doorway and fingers fidgeting with her dressing gown. “Something filling— bread, sausage, eggs, that sort of thing.”
“Of course, ma’am,” he answers, standing straight. Glinda hates being called ma’am. “May I ask… what is the occasion?”
“You may not,” she says sharply, regretting her tone instantly. The man nods quickly, turns off down the long hall of the palace.
She shuts the door quickly, spins around so her back presses against the firm cool wood.
Really, she’s the most powerful person in Oz. If she demands privacy she will have it. Still, it’s hard not to feel a rush of panic at the thought of a guard, a maid, anyone entering her chambers and seeing the messy, ragged shape in her own bed.
Elphaba is still not awake when the food arrives at her door, warm and carefully plated. She’s even heated up water for tea, mixed in honey and poured it into her finest china teacups. She won’t wake her, she’s decided, she’ll just heat it all up again once she rises on her own.
But when she creeps into her own bedroom to set the tray down near the bed Elphaba is stirring, sitting up slowly and hissing in pain as she does.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Glinda whispers. And Elphaba’s head turns fast, panicked, afraid. There’s a lost look in her eyes— of course, Glinda thinks darkly, she’s practically kidnapped the woman. When her eyes meet Glinda's, the look only gets more pronounced, which hurts. It cuts deep, the way her brow furrows and she inches back like she’s been burned.
“What… how…” Elphaba’s voice is raspy, like she’s inhaled dust. She probably has, Glinda realizes, and her hands itch to give Elphaba the tea. To dote on her. To press her hair back from her face, smooth over her skin. She clasps them tightly behind her back instead.
“You blew yourself up, in the desert,” Glinda explains slowly, carefully. “Chistery found you. You’re in the palace. Don’t worry,” she adds, off Elphaba’s eyes, “nobody knows. Just me.”
“Chistery… you… I’m dreaming,” Elphaba’s chest heaves with the effort of breathing. She shakes her head dazedly, wrinkles appear on her forehead. “I— Fiyero is…”
“Fiyero, yes,” Glinda says, an eyebrow raised. “It does seem that a lot fewer of us are dead than we let on, doesn’t it?”
Elphaba blinks at her, mouth agape. It’s a cruel thing to say; Glinda has long since accepted the reality of this situation. It’s just that having Elphaba here, in front of her, well. It makes her feel a little unmoored. It’s an effect she’s always had on Glinda, making her put on a show for her. Exaggerated loathing, years ago, all so Elphaba would pay her a little extra attention and not treat her as dismissively as the hundreds of Shiz students she seemed to not even register.
To distract herself, she flits closer to the mattress, sets the tray down near the base of it and fusses with the contents, smoothing a napkin and clinking the silverware. “You should eat something. No offense, Elphaba, but you look awful.”
There’s a disbelieving wheeze to her left, where Elphaba shifts slightly to sit up fully.
“You don’t seem surprised to see me,” Elphaba says when Glinda has slid the tray towards her, standing awkwardly back again. There’s something strange in the air, overwhelming quiet that leaves her reeling. Downstairs and not far from here there are meetings she was meant to be at, politicians trying to cozy up to her. All the work to clear Elphaba’s name, of all things.
“Please,” Glinda scoffs, or tries to— she’s going for unbothered, but there’s a very real strain in her voice and she knows Elphaba isn’t buying the facade for a second. She never does. “You didn’t really think I believed that nonsense, did you?”
Elphaba puffs out air again, but it makes her cough terribly, wincing. Glinda’s hands reach out, but they don't touch her. After a moment she breathes in again, slow and shaky.
“I mean,” she says, in a low voice this time, “I did, yes. Maybe that was foolish of me.”
“Maybe it was.”
Elphaba shifts on the mattress again and pain flashes over her face, a lightning strike. She hisses, eyes screwed shut, hand flying to her abdomen. This time Glinda does move to her side, helps her slide back onto the bed so that she’s lying down once again, presses a hand very lightly to Elphaba’s rib cage. Elphaba is struggling to breathe properly, chest rattling horribly. And she doesn’t wince away from Glinda’s touch, a small mercy perhaps.
“Careful, careful,” Glinda murmurs unconsciously, grazing over Elphaba’s middle. She hates how it burns to do so, hates that it presses into her fingertips like a sip of hot chocolate and flows into her chest, her throat, her cheeks.
“I’m being careful,” Elphaba hisses back. It’s so very her. Glinda smiles despite herself.
“Your dress is too tight,” she says, “you can’t breathe. Just… here, can I…?”
Elphaba’s eyes flit down to where Glinda’s fingers linger on the obsidian shiny buttons trailing in a line down her body. They twitch there. Elphaba nods, just once.
Glinda unbuttons slowly, up from Elphaba’s collarbone down, down. Her fingers buzz. She tries very hard not to think about it, not to think about her dream two nights before where she’d unbuttoned half of Elphaba’s dress and then, in a fit of impatience, pulled the rest of it from her desperately so that she could press her face to Elphaba’s chest, her stomach, further down. How Elphaba had smirked at her, in her mind.
She’s much more delicate now, of course. Her hands float above the buttons, popping each one open so the dress gets looser, so that Elphaba breathes easier. She does not look at Elphaba’s bony clavicle or at the swell of her breasts beneath a plain black bra and the way they rise and fall with her breathing. She does not look at the faint trail of freckles, three in a crooked line, at the edge of her chest, moving inwards so that the third one is covered by black padding.
When she presses the fabric back from Elphaba’s abdomen she breathes in sharply. There’s a spiderweb of bruising all across her ribs, the soft skin of her stomach, curling across to her left side. Elphaba moves her head, craning to see, but Glinda places a hand on her shoulder and pushes her back down.
“Will you tell me if this hurts?” she murmurs, and Elphaba nods into the pillow.
And so she trails a hand, slowly and so so lightly, across Elphaba’s exposed skin. It lingers near the bruising, moves past her belly button and finally up to her ribs where Glinda, following a hunch, presses down ever so slightly. Elphaba gasps.
“Fuck. It hurts, Glinda…”
She retracts her hand quickly. Hates herself for how those words, the low way she’d said fuck, and Glinda, lodges itself in her stomach, sends a sharp heat through her body.
“I think you’ve got a broken rib,” she says, clearing her throat. “Maybe more than one. Oz, Elphaba, what happened?”
“Practicing a flying spell,” Elphaba grunts. “And I fell. Tried to cast something to catch myself but it just made a big hole in the sand, and then I crashed. And then I don’t know what.”
“You’re lucky I got there before some crazy vigilante,” Glinda tuts, picking up a piece of soft bread from the tray and guiding it toward Elphaba’s mouth. “I mean, honestly, Elphaba. Your pardon hasn’t passed yet. Even with it being posthumous there’s this absolutely infuriating statesman from Gillikin who—,”
“Pardon?” Elphaba wheezes, taking the bread from Glinda’s hand and studying it. “What pardon?”
“For you, of course. Yes, I know,” she says, waving a hand, “I broke my promise. It was quite a ridiculous thing to ask of me, really.”
Elphaba takes a bite of the bread, chews it contemplatively. She watches Glinda the whole time, eyes unmoving.
“You’re a very strange person, Glinda. Did you know that?”
She feels very perceived, all of a sudden. Elphaba’s always had that effect on her too, Glinda remembers it from school. Elphaba’s watchful gaze on her across the dormitory, making Glinda blush. It makes her blush now.
“Eat this,” she says again, turning away from the bed. “I’ll find you a looser dress. And some ice, I think.”
And then she’s gone from her bedroom in a whirl. She isn’t even dressed— these are the things Elphaba does to her. Somehow seeing her again after a whole year is both stunning and very expected. As if no time has passed. As if they’re just girls again, giggling over hair clips or behind the stacks in the library.
Her closet is big, expansive. She’d picked this wing of the palace on purpose, after all. She switches on the hanging lamp, studies the wall of clothes.
She has a few loose fitting gowns, silky ones she sleeps in. One of them is navy, clean and with a little white lace lining that reminds her of Elphaba so much it aches. She takes it off the hanger, folds it over an arm.
Then there’s the trouble of her own clothes. She’s in a dressing gown still, though she’s not sure Elphaba had really noticed how she looked what with all the gaping. But if Glinda knew anything now it was the same as what she had known at twenty, at fifteen, at ten. That those who looked their best got what they wanted.
So maybe it’s a little ridiculous, but she wants Elphaba to look twice. Even if it comes to nothing, even if she’s with someone else now. It’s been a year, after all, and the last time they’d seen each other there wasn’t time to flirt, to bat her eyelashes at Elphaba and watch her throat as she swallowed.
She reenters the bedroom with the silky nightgown over one shoulder and a pail of ice in her hand, the cold making her fingertips stick to metal. And she’s in a white dress, long but not floor length. It’s got a low neckline with little rosettes along it that presses against her chest quite flatteringly. Glinda has always known how to pick an outfit.
“Good, you’re eating,” she says; Elphaba has been grazing on the tray and has a slice of plum in her hand, the juice running. “I’ll help you stand up, we’ll change you into this and then you can rest. And I can figure out what to do.”
She puts the ice down, moves to Elphaba’s side to grasp her arm, help her up. And miraculously Elphaba’s eyes land just where she’d wanted them to, on the swell of her chest and the pale skin exposed above the neckline. Glinda bites her lip on a smile.
“Elphaba?” she says, innocently as if she’s waiting for something. Elphie’s eyes shoot back up and she’s blushing, it’s delicious. Glinda fights very hard not to show her glee. “Try to stand up, now. Slowly, it’s okay.”
They get Elphaba’s torn dress off of her delicately, and soon enough she’s in blue silk and looks truly beautiful, so much so that it takes Glinda’s breath away just a little. She also looks exhausted and Glinda gets her to lie down again, puts some ice in a thick towel.
“Here,” she says, “put this against your ribs and rest. I’ll clean this up.” So she reaches over Elphaba, takes the tray, and maybe she lets Elphaba get a long look at the arch of her back, the length of her body. It wouldn’t hurt anybody.
“You must be angry with me,” Elphaba says once Glinda’s almost at the door. She stops.
“What do you mean?”
“For leaving. But it wasn’t safe, Glinda, we thought that—,”
“I’m not angry that you left,” Glinda spins back around, brow scrunched up. “Is that what you think? No, Elphaba, I’m angry that you didn’t tell me. That you didn’t trust me.”
“I do trust you.” Elphaba sounds raspy, breath short. Glinda wants to tell her to be quiet, to go to bed, but she wants to hear her next words just a little bit more. “I trust you the most. I trusted you to fix everything, Glinda, to heal Oz, I—,”
“What if I didn’t want to heal Oz?” It’s too honest, maybe. She knows better, these days, than to be so honest. “Maybe I’m selfish, Elphaba. I know you aren’t. Hell, I’d like to think I’m not, but maybe I am. What if I just wanted you to choose me instead?”
Elphaba just blinks at her. She opens her mouth to speak but Glinda turns away again. “Get some rest,” she says, and shuts the heavy door, turning the knob until it clicks into place.
–
They don’t talk about it when Elphaba wakes up. Glinda doesn't let her get out of bed, instead gathering more fluffy pillows to prop Elphaba’s head up and taking disinfectant and balm to the scratches on her hands, her neck, her legs. She’s got dark bruising on the side of her cheek, too, and stretched across one shoulder— Glinda smooths cream over these, binds a cut that’s dragging down Elphaba’s calf starting at the back of her knee.
She has dinner sent up to them as well, turns on a jazzy record while they eat, silverware clinking on porcelain. Slowly, she gets Elphaba to talk. To tell her about the little town across the border where she’s been making a quiet life for herself. About the books she’s reading, the spells she’s practicing. Even, once the light outside goes low and the food is gone from their plates, about Fiyero.
“He misses you,” Elphaba tells her, and Glinda gives her a little smile. “We both do.”
Her smile goes a little sad. Fiyero and Elphaba, holed up together miles and miles from here. They surely are not talking about her, she knows it. They never have been.
“And are you two still… together, then?” Glinda can’t look her in the eye, twisting a finger around her fork.
She feels a hand at her arm, then, cold and sending waves of something up her spine. She glances up, sees Elphaba leaning in close and deliberate.
“Not like that,” Elphaba says. “Never like that. I need you to know that.”
It feels very intense in a way she’s not sure she likes. She just nods, then, and Elphaba looks satisfied. To have something to do, she stacks up the plates and picks the tray up to leave outside her front door.
“You should go to bed soon,” Glinda says. “I can sleep out on the couch, and maybe tomorrow we’ll try to get you walking again.”
“Glinda,” Elphaba says. The sound of her name, hanging so still in the air, makes her feel all glowy. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’ll sleep right here.”
Glinda feels herself go pink. “But… you need to rest.”
And Elphaba smirks, then. “What else would we be doing?”
“I— sleeping! I just—,”
Elphaba’s always been able to rile her up so easily. She knows her face is burning. Elphaba looks very pleased with herself.
“You slept here last night, didn’t you?”
“Just in case you needed something,” Glinda mutters, defensive. “I don’t mind the couch, it’s very high quality.”
Elphaba blinks long and slow, mesmerizing. “Let’s not quarrel,” she says, a private little smile on her face. Just for Glinda. It’s addictive, just like it’s always been.
Glinda lets out a long puff of air, half of a laugh as she glances up toward the ornate ceiling of her bedroom. “Alright,” she says finally. “I’ll stay.”
It feels more charged than the night before nearly a half hour later when she's slipped beneath the velvety covers inches from Elphaba. Just like in her dreams. And, of course, that’s all she can think about— other dreams that have taken place in this very spot, Elphaba kissing down her body and Glinda curled around her and fingers moving fast between her own legs.
She hears a rustle, sees that Elphaba’s shifted so that her head is tilted towards Glinda. In the faint moonlight her cheeks move, lips pulling into a smile.
“I’m glad you’re with me,” she whispers.
Glinda doesn’t answer, but she does smile.
–
They send word to Fiyero through Chistery of Elphaba’s whereabouts, at Elphaba’s insistence. In fact she isn’t quite sure what Elphaba’s told him, just watches them whisper before he nods, clasps her hand meaningfully, and takes to the skies. Elphaba relaxes, then.
The day is very slow. She helps Elphaba stand again, lets her walk in slow circles around the main room. When she goes to take a bath, Glinda finds herself at her desk again, flipping through a stack of papers.
Elphaba seems a bit baffled at the sight of Glinda submerged in work, surrounded by books and scrawled notes. She really shouldn’t be— Glinda had always been a hard worker, and Elphaba was the one who had given her the most hands on job in all of Oz, after all. This pardoning was tricky business, as was the stack of proposals for reforms. It was easy enough to reverse all the Wizard’s legislation, roll back the anti-Animal face of it all, but Glinda found it was much harder to stick the landing. To pass a law, a good one. To do something right was a hell of a lot more difficult than to not do something wrong.
“I’m sorry,” Glinda tells Elphaba, who has little drops of water still on her neck. She wants to watch them drip lower, wants to lick them. “I have so much to catch up on, if I’m going to be out— you should get back in bed. Borrow a book, anything,” she adds on, waving a hand toward the towering shelf in one corner anxiously.
But Elphaba smiles at her kindly. So kindly, and Glinda has to bite the inside of her cheek and remind herself that Elphaba isn't for her anymore. Even if she isn’t with Fiyero. Even if she trusts Glinda, however ridiculous that is.
She didn’t choose her.
Still, though. She isn’t trying to leave, though maybe that's because she can hardly walk. Presumably she hasn’t told Fiyero to come and get her. So she’s just here, and Glinda’s here, and they’re back in limbo again.
Glinda works until it is dusky outside, until Elphaba appears tentatively in the doorway to her room.
“It’s late,” she murmurs, and Glinda’s head swings up. “You should take a break. Have something to eat.”
“Ironic coming from you,” Glinda grumbles, but she does stand, abandoning the proposal she’s been annotating with a red pen.
They fall asleep side by side again, so close that Glinda can feel the chill from Elphaba’s ice near her own ribs. She shivers.
–
On the third day she sets Elphaba up on the couch for the day, pulling the coffee table closer to her, the surface covered with a mug of tea, a collection of salves, a small stack of books, and a little bowl of nuts for Elphaba to graze on. She’s leaning over, adjusting the contents, and Elphaba is studying her with something affectionate in her eyes. Or maybe Glinda’s imagining it.
“I’m really alright, Glinda, you don’t need to—,”
“Hush,” Glinda says, smiling. She’s very close to Elphaba now, her hair hanging down so that it grazes Elphaba’s shoulder. Elphaba’s smiling back, and Glinda gets the crazy urge to kiss her on the head, or something.
Terribly, horribly, there is a knock at the door. Elphaba freezes. The feeling of dread in Glinda’s stomach is all consuming, stretching out in big tendrils to make her heart beat faster, her hands shake as she pivots away from the couch.
“Just… stay here,” she says, glancing back as she moves toward the door. Elphaba nods, very quiet, sinking into the cushions so she’s just that little bit further out of the way.
Glinda flicks the gold casing of the peephole to the side, peers through it. On the other side of the big doors stands Boq, shined up for the Assembly and fidgeting with the tin at his wrist. The glass provides a strange sort of fish eye effect, so that the top of his head is very large where she can see it. She sighs, swings the door open just a few inches.
“Glinda!” He straightens, brow furrowing. “Where have you been? Everyone’s been saying you’re sick, I was filling in for you during the meetings with—,”
Glinda feigns a weak little cough, lets herself go a little limp along the doorframe where Boq can see. “Oh, unfortunately it’s true. Just horribly sick, haven’t been able to get out of bed.”
Boq raises an eyebrow, looks deliberately down at her outfit— today, it’s a pale yellow baby doll dress, one she hasn’t worn in years because being Glinda the Good used to require ball gowns, excessive waterfalls of fabric and sparkles. But still: her hair is perfectly wavy, yellow fabric matching nicely to the faint pink blush she’s patted on, dress cinched around her waist. Yes, she looks good. Elphaba’s eyes had widened ever so slightly when she’d seen her that morning, flicking down and back up.
“Oh, this?” she says, gesturing blandly down her body. “I always believe in getting dressed. Sometimes it just wakes you right up, don’t you agree?”
Boq looks at her wryly. “And is that helping? With the illness?”
“Not at all,” she replies easily. “Well, it was ever so nice of you to check up on me. I’m sure I’ll be back at work quite soon. Have a good night!”
She tries to swing the door closed but it stops, hits Boq where he’s pressed a tin foot through the crack.
“Can I come in?”
“Oh, definitely not. It’s an absolute mess. All the… sickness, you know how it is.”
Boq fixes her with a heavy look and she feels a rush of guilt. True, they've never been close, not before at least, but now… well. Boq is the only person in all of Oz who has even a hint of an idea about her, even a glimpse into her life. Except, of course, the woman hunched over behind her.
“Glinda,” he says solemnly, and she bites her lip. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”
“Of course we are, Boq, I—,”
“And you’d tell me if something was wrong?”
“Of course,” she says again. She’s gotten very used to being a liar over the past few years, but it still stings. Less so, now.
He sighs, retracts his foot and Glinda hears an ominous creak where his joints work. “Let me know if you need anything,” he says lowly, and then he’s gone, clanking his way down the long hall.
She turns, leans against the door again. Elphaba is there on the couch still, looking at her with an expression that’s hard to place.
“Very sick, are you?”
Glinda rolls her eyes. “I’m sure they don’t even notice I’m gone.”
Elphaba raises an eyebrow slowly. She has a way of doing it that makes Glinda’s heart beat faster, always has. “That’s not what it sounded like.”
“You know Boq, he’s quite dramatic.”
“That isn’t really my experience with him, frankly.”
Glinda just sighs. “You were… hurt. You’re hurt.”
“And you’re needed elsewhere, Glinda. You can go back to work, you know.”
“Elphie…”
Elphaba smiles softly. “You haven’t called me that, yet.”
Only in her head, a million times. Glinda puts a hand to her temple, which is beginning to ache.
“Your bones are broken. You’re sore. You can barely walk, I can’t just—,”
“I’m not suggesting I walk back across the desert,” Elphaba huffs. “I’ll stay right here, if you want. I won’t go anywhere.”
Glinda thinks, sickeningly and awfully, about the last time she’d let Elphaba out of her sight. About those horrible screams, the steam rising from the ground when she’d come out from her hiding spot. About the way her voice had cracked when she’d called her name, echoed in the empty silence of Kiamo Ko. About Elphaba, just inches below her, staying put until Fiyero knocked, hand all soft and stuffed with straw.
“Fine,” she says, despite the way it makes her stomach churn. “Tomorrow. But just for a little while.”
–
Even at work she thinks of Elphaba. She moves around the apartment, Glinda is sure, the same way she’s always circling through her mind, echoing and permanent. Still, Glinda is dressed to the nines, she is caught up on the nearly four days she’s missed, and she is on in every sense of the word.
Some of the governors and assemblymen are afraid of her. It’s for the better, since it means she can stand up three quarters of the way through a meeting with a well timed eye roll and announce that they’ll resume tomorrow. It means the politicians scramble after her, no one questioning the timing of it all. In actuality it’s the fact that it’s nearly dinnertime that moves her, the way Elphaba had always liked to eat right on schedule back at school. Back when they’d used to eat together, a million years ago.
When she gets back home she unlocks the door carefully, a glance behind her before she slips inside. And then she’s hit with a warm, hearty smell.
“Elphie?”
Elphaba pokes her head out from around the emerald tile of the archway into the kitchen. And she smiles, so softly that Glinda feels like she’s been pushed out of orbit. This is the same woman who had left her behind, who she had cried over nearly every night for as long as she could remember. It’s hard to marry the two in her head, to merge the anger and bitterness with the rush of affection that’s so impossible to ignore.
“Hi,” Elphaba says, “I cooked dinner. I hope you don’t mind.”
Momsie and Popsicle had never cooked a meal as long as Glinda had been alive, but she’s struck with the sensation of childhood regardless. Her dearest friend as a girl, whose parents would perpetually be preparing something in the kitchen whenever the girls would tumble inside the house, giggling. Fanciful roasts and filling pies served up at the table, aromas wafting every direction.
It’s oddly domestic, in a way Glinda is deeply struck by. Is this what Elphaba does now? What does Elphaba do now?
“Of course I don’t mind,” she answers, blushing lightly. “Thank you. You didn't have to.”
“I know. I wanted to.”
And, well. Isn’t that the crux of it, after all?
Elphaba’s made a thick soup, warmly spiced broth that fills Glinda’s stomach and makes her feel awake, aglow. They eat at Glinda’s tiny dining table, across from one another, and Elphaba listens raptly while Glinda relays the state of parliament to her, each meeting and conversation she’d had that day. She asks questions. Glinda could get used to this.
“Fiyero sent word back, by the way,” Elphaba says offhandedly as Glinda starts to clear the dishes, wincing as she tries to stand. Glinda gives her a look, and she remains seated a moment longer, breathing slow. “He says thank you for taking care of me. He wishes he could help.”
“I’ll bet he does,” Glinda grumbles. Elphaba is silent for a moment.
“I already told you,” she says finally, once Glinda’s back is to her, “we aren’t together. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
Which part, Glinda wants to ask. Wouldn’t take Fiyero for her own, or wouldn't be with someone else? She wants to take Elphaba in her arms and ask her what this is, what they're doing, what they are to each other. She wants to hold her and not let her go until she gets an answer. A real one, this time.
It depends on what you mean by friend, she thinks. Indeed.
“How do your ribs feel?” Glinda asks, trying for a lighter tone. “Have you been icing them?”
“It’s fine. Still hurts, but it’s— Glinda,” Elphaba says, and she turns to find her quite close, just that little bit sloped over on account of the bruising. “Can we talk? Please?”
“We are talking.”
“You’re upset with me,” Elphaba says. “You should be. I know.”
Glinda sighs. “I’m… I’m not upset with you, Elphaba. I’m just… confused. You’re my best friend and then you hate me, only you never really do. You get yourself killed, only you don’t really die. You’re here in my house cooking me dinner, only you live with Fiyero across the desert and I’m not supposed to see you again and I— I just don’t get it, Elphaba. It doesn’t…”
She will not cry. Elphaba’s brow has knit, care etched horribly into it.
“I was wrong,” she says quietly, and Glinda leans back so hard against the kitchen counter that the plates rattle. “I’ve been wrong about you more than once. I’m sorry.”
Glinda tightens her face, squints her eyes so that tears will not spill. Elphaba just sets her jaw, sighs a bit.
“Look,” she says finally, “I thought I was making the right choice. I thought, here’s the person I trust most in the world. If I can’t make a difference, or… I guess, make the right difference, well, so be it. But you could do something big, Glinda. All that respect you spent so many years earning, and now you can use it.”
“You could have just told me.” Her voice breaks, and pain flushes on Elphaba’s face.
“I know. I’m sorry, I— I know.” She breathes deep. “You don’t have to keep doing it. You could leave the government, stop the—,”
“Please,” Glinda huffs, rolling her eyes. “No I can’t. You know I can’t. It’s everything. It’s the most important thing in the world.”
Elphaba nods, then, and there’s a brief silence before Glinda steels herself, opens her mouth again.
“And it’s just… you picked—,” him, instead of me, she wants to say. Twice, she wants to say.
Elphaba is very close, now. She stands up straighter, off the countertop, and they’re face to face.
“Glinda,” she says, soft and in that voice Elphaba likes to use with her, the one that makes every word feel deeply meaningful. “There’s no one else, I’m choosing you, I—,”
It’s a split second sort of decision. It’s just that Elphaba’s wringing her fingers together, looking at Glinda with a little wrinkle in between her eyebrows, and the light is warm and Elphie hasn’t left and she’s been so worried about her and now here she is. And she has stayed. And so Glinda surges forward— delicately, of course, hands careful not to touch Elphaba’s side or her shoulders too hard— and kisses her firm, hard. She hears a little intake of breath from Elphaba, a surprised little sound, and there's a second’s pause which feels like an eternity under the yellowy kitchen lights.
Then Elphaba is pushing back, hand coming up to Glinda’s cheek and another one moving down at her waist. She’s kissing her so self assured, so passionate that it makes Glinda’s knees go a little weak. And Elphaba pushes further, so that Glinda’s back is pressing into the marble countertop and she feels a dull ache at her spine but doesn’t care, can’t care when Elphaba’s in front of her like this.
She’s dreamed of this, of Elphie in her home, in her life, in her space. But now, as real as it is, she feels her mind go fuzzy. She’s licking into Elphaba’s mouth, and Elphaba is letting out a little gaspy breath that sounds remarkably like Glinda’s name. It’s extremely addictive, but then again Elphaba’s always been addictive to Glinda. She’d been addicted to it all, over the years— to her company, to her attention, to her face in her mind when she’s lonely at night.
“Glinda,” Elphaba gasps, and it’s unmistakable this time. It sends a certain sharpness through her, something low in her stomach and hips, which press forward to slot together with Elphaba’s. She wants to absorb her, envelop her, feel her everywhere.
Maybe she should feel more surprised, more giddy. But this isn’t a crush, hasn’t been for years. No, this is slow and long and Glinda can’t feel anything but rightness, a profound sense that she’s done this before and will do it again. It’s not the butterflies she remembers getting around Elphie once upon a time, it’s matured and morphed and merged into this creature between them. Into Elphaba’s hot breath on her cheek, when they pull back from each other, and the dark circles of her pupils, and the unspoken way they back towards Glinda’s room, with its slightly rumpled bedspread and dim light.
“I like this,” Elphaba says breathlessly, glancing down as she runs her hands up and down Glinda’s work clothes. She’s left her ball gowns in the past, opting now for darker tones, silkier fabrics. A sign of maturity, perhaps. Or maybe she just can’t bear to put them back on, after it all.
“Not as much as you liked my white dress,” Glinda replies, between kisses. “You know, the one with the…” she trails off, gesturing towards her chest. Elphaba, to her delight, blushes.
“I knew you were doing that on purpose.”
Glinda just giggles and presses Elphaba, very slowly and delicately, into the bed so that her knees fold and she’s perched on the edge. She looks up at her, eyes bright.
There’s not much thinking involved when she helps pull the silky dress over Elphaba’s head, when she sheds her own outer layer so that she’s standing in her bra and underwear, rosy pink and drawing Elphaba’s gaze right where she wants it. She’s seen Elphaba in just her underwear before— they’d shared a room, after all, she’d caught accidental glimpses in the midst of changing, looked away faster than she would have with anyone else. And of course just days before, pulling fabric away from Elphie’s dark splotchy bruising.
But there’s something different about it this time, the way Elphaba’s slow breathing makes her stomach rise and fall where she’s flat on the bed. The feeling like this is monumental, bigger than both of them and something out of space and time.
She crawls forward a bit to hover over Elphaba, kiss her long and slow. It’s easy, like this, to feel the slide of Elphaba’s skin against her own, to feel sparks where she touches Glinda’s back and hips and waist, to listen to breathy little moans.
It gives Glinda a strange sort of rush, flips a switch that she hasn’t realized was there to begin with. A year of numbness, going through the choreographed motions, and now this— Elphaba underneath her, looking up at her. Glinda moves down to kiss her on the neck, sucking into the skin there and feels Elphaba’s legs shift, hips move up the slightest bit. She smiles.
“Fuck, you’re pretty,” she murmurs into the underside of Elphaba’s jaw, feels it hitch with a sharp breath as she drifts a hand down her body. It traces at Elphaba’s chest, at her stomach, teasing down until it rests at the tops of her thighs, just inches from where she clearly wants it. Elphaba shifts her hips again, lets out a breathy noise.
“Glinda,” she huffs, “don’t tease me.”
Glinda smiles against Elphaba’s neck again, picks her head up to look her in the eye. Her face is flushed, eyes wide.
“Why not?”
Elphaba gives her a flat, unimpressed look and pulls at her hand, trying to move it to the left just so. Glinda lets her, traces a finger through Elphaba all soft and slick.
“You’re so wet,” she says unnecessarily, a touch of awe in her voice. Elphaba moans, hands coming back up to rest on either side of her own head on the mattress. “Do you always get like this? Or is it just for me?”
Elphie, her Elphie, shuts her eyes at that, sucking in a shaky breath. Glinda’s never been possessive with any of the boys she's dated, with Fiyero or anyone. But this is different, of course it’s different. Everything with Elphaba is different.
“Fuck,” Elphaba moans, and Glinda presses one finger into her, long and delicate. “Just for you.”
“Good,” Glinda says, off the rush that gives her. She lets her finger slip out of Elphaba, gathering slickness before it flicks up to her clit and traces, light and teasing, over it.
Elphaba gasps, hands shifting along the mattress as if they’re itching to come up and touch Glinda. On a whim, following the purest and most basic of instincts, Glinda frees her other hand and pulls Elphaba’s arms up over her head. She presses Elphaba’s wrists into the bed, holds them firmly there and bends Elphaba’s arms at the elbows so she can continue rubbing at her clit. Elphaba’s arms tense, pulling, but she looks so eager and she lets out the loudest moan yet at that.
It makes Glinda smirk, moving her fingers faster. It feels like she comes alive at those two points, where Elphaba is beneath her hands and with the way her wrists twitch every time she loops a circle over her clit. Glinda knows that she could do this forever, never tire of it.
Soon enough, Elphaba’s hips start to roll faster, her breath hitching and legs tightening around Glinda’s hand. She feels a little buzz of pride, the unmistakable flame of her own arousal inching higher and growing near all encompassing. It’s almost hard to keep a steady rhythm, what with how much she wants to hear Elphie let go. To see the taut tension flow out of her body.
Elphaba is a vision, even with the gossamer bruising up her body. “Glinda,” she says, and that in itself is addictive. She speeds up ever so slightly, kissing Elphaba firm and hard and all at once she feels Elphie stiffen beneath her, moaning loud against her lips. She comes with her legs wrapped up in Glinda’s, their stomachs and chests pressed together.
And then Glinda is rolling off of her carefully, watching Elphaba take deep breaths and smile so softly. She feels shy, now, for reasons she isn’t sure of. She hasn’t been shy around Elphie in so long.
After a beat, Elphaba softens again. Glinda, moved to do so, peppers kisses across Elphaba’s exposed collarbone, shuts her eyes when Elphaba’s hand comes up to caress her hair. It’s easy to move into the touch, the way Elphie’s nails scratch at her scalp and comb through the waves of hair.
“I think about that all the time,” she murmurs into Elphaba’s skin. And then the fingers stop carding through her hair, they go still and Elphaba’s heart is beating in her ears. She glances up to see that Elphaba’s looking at her, eyes wide and a little bit dark.
“Do you?”
Glinda feels her cheeks go pink as she meets Elphaba’s gaze. She feels, suddenly, very aware of where her body is pressed against Elphaba’s. She nods.
And Elphaba is blushing too, now, but she doesn’t look away when she says, so sweetly, “show me?”
The air feels very charged when Glinda nods again slowly, shifts backward until she’s pressed against thick pillows and her headboard. Elphaba’s eyes linger at her stomach, at the wire of her bra where it presses against skin.
When she slides a hand down her body, pulling down blush pink fabric, she finds herself wet already. It isn’t surprising, with the way Elphaba had been moaning. With the way she’d looked as she came.
She sucks in a breath when her fingers make contact, sliding up through herself to graze over her clit. Her eyes flutter shut, but they open again when Elphaba makes a strangled noise, leans over her to kiss her lips, her neck, her shoulder blades.
Her hands are at Glinda’s chest, soon, one going around to her back to unhook the clasp of her bra. It falls away easily; she arches her back so that Elphaba can pull it away and then she’s got her face pressed into her skin there too. Which only makes the spark of arousal through her body hit harder, strike louder. Elphaba’s sucking kisses into her tits, leaving dark red marks behind as she goes. When she reaches Glinda’s nipple she pauses, takes it into her mouth and pulls, swirls her tongue.
Glinda jerks up. “Elphie,” she moans, and it’s all hoarse and breathy in a way that makes her cheeks go red to listen to. It feels deliriously good to have Elphaba here, to have her pressed against her body. Having her mouth at one breast and a hand at the other, squeezing and stroking over a hardened nipple, is somehow doing more for her than any sex she’s ever had with a man. Than anything she’s felt, really.
“I thought about you too, you know,” Elphaba whispers, and Glinda shudders. Her finger at her clit speeds up, though it’s moving somewhat erratically because she can’t seem to think straight. “Touching you. What you’d sound like. What you’d look like.”
And then she glances up at her. Glinda knows she must look a mess— her mouth is hanging open, just a little, and her hair is mussed all over the silk pillowcases. But Elphaba looks at her with a shy smile, and it’s so earnest in a way sex shouldn’t be. Or maybe it should be, maybe she’s just never done it properly. Maybe she’s just never done it with Elphaba.
“You’re so beautiful,” is what Elphaba says next, and Glinda’s finger stutters over her clit. She closes her eyes, feels Elphaba’s mouth at her tits again and then sucking at her neck. Feels her hand grazing over her stomach, the upper parts of her thighs, tracing and scratching lightly. Her body is buzzing, alight everywhere, she can’t even focus.
So she presses harder, rubs more firmly at her clit and feels her hips buck up in response. It makes Elphie hum into her neck, traces of a smile on her lips. She can’t help it, the way her hips keep jerking at every little breath and movement.
Deja vu, indeed. She’s spent more nights than she’d care to count right here, slipped beneath her underwear moving deliberate and quick. Thinking of Elphaba just like this, draped over her and sweaty from her own orgasm and naked, blissfully so. With her free hand she reaches out to stroke Elphaba’s back, purely because she can.
That hand tightens when Elphaba slides a hand up her body again, smooth against her sides and firm at her breast, then up to pull at her hair. Glinda can’t quite keep up with her own body, her own pleasure. She moans again.
Elphaba’s head swings up from her neck, eyes very wide and full. “Are you close?” she murmurs.
And Glinda finds herself blushing again, with how their eyes are locked. Still she nods, breathing heavily through her mouth with little gasps. Elphaba’s hand moves up to hers, where it’s moving fast at her clit.
“Can I…?”
“Don’t want you to— fuck. To overexert yourself,” she pants out. Elphaba gives her an incredulous look, but then a beat passes and she squints thoughtfully.
“So what if I just…” And then she’s lying down, pulling on Glinda’s hand to guide her toward her. She positions her so that Glinda’s straddling her abdomen, one leg on either side of Elphaba’s stomach. Elphie slides her hands up Glinda's thighs, smooth and slow and looking so very entranced. It sends a little flutter of pride through her chest.
She can’t help but grind down just a bit, into Elphaba’s stomach but careful not to press too hard where she’s bruised or to move anywhere near her ribs. “Elphie…” she says, hoping she’s conveying her borderline desperation.
Elphaba nods, looks up at her trustingly. “Come up here?” she asks, tentative and so very sweet and she’s gesturing up her body, toward her face. Goodness.
It takes a moment of maneuvering but soon enough Glinda finds herself with her knees on either side of Elphaba’s head, careful not to press on her beautiful hair. Her legs are shaking just a bit, and Elphaba’s got her hands stroking at Glinda’s hips, and it’s all just so overwhelming. She feels like she could come in a single clock tick, in a single breath.
Elphaba’s eyes lock onto hers and there’s something unspoken there, and she lowers herself down onto her mouth just then. It’s divine, that’s the only way she can think to explain it. Elphie is everywhere— at her hips, stroking up to her stomach, tongue flicking carefully in a way that makes Glinda moan brokenly, tipping forward.
She presses her hands to the top of the headboard soon after, starts to move jerkily. There’s something hugely intimate about this in particular, about the way she grinds down into Elphaba’s mouth and sees her gazing up with an expression Glinda can only describe as adoring. As ridiculous as that sounds.
She’s close, right on the edge of it. Her hips press forward, and Elphaba sucks ever so slightly on her clit, and spreads her hands at Glinda’s waist in the same moment. She gasps, but no sound comes out.
“Elphie,” she manages, and then she’s coming fast and hard. Her eyes are screwed shut, hips rolling, but she can feel Elphaba’s hands stroking so gently, holding her through it. It’s all so caring it makes her want to cry, which she will not do. No, instead she rides out the pleasure, moaning and pressing more desperately at the headboard.
When the feeling subsides Elphaba is still there, cradling her. Her legs are shaking terribly when she swings them off of Elphaba, letting herself flop messily into the mattress. Elphie looks a little starstruck, she thinks, a little mesmerized. Good.
“That didn’t hurt you, did it?” she asks once she’s caught her breath, once she’s snuggled impossibly closer to Elphaba’s warm frame. Elphie turns her head so they’re face to face again and Glinda can’t resist, kissing her long and deep.
“Definitely not,” she says, a sweet little smile on her lips. “You’re… definitely not.”
Glinda finds herself feeling a little shy again, in the way Elphaba is looking at her. She buries her head in her neck, pulls her closer by the waist very lightly. Without so much as a wince, Elphaba curls closer.
–
It’s hard to describe the kind of delirious goodness that Glinda moves through the following days with. It’s a honeymoon of sorts, though she’s still working. But even that has begun to go seamlessly, the votes for the pardon piling in and giving it a real chance on the parliamentary floor. She’s even made a promising task force to address economic strife in the Vinkus, meets with her Munchkinland advisors to further good news about the state of her reforms.
And then there’s Elphaba. Glinda finds herself coming home giddy, slightly dizzy and Elphie is always there to kiss her, to hear about her day. To read a book by her side, show her how to prepare a real hot meal. To be pressed against the bed, the couch, the wall.
She’s healing, too, and fast. In a sick sort of way it makes Glinda’s heart hurt to think of Elphie no longer needing her. Returning into the abyss, without a word.
“You’re feeling better,” she raises the topic lightly one night, tracing fingers across Elphaba’s naked stomach. There’s a little ache at her neck where Elphaba’s sucked a dark mark into her skin.
Elphie glances at her, curious eyes. “Yes,” she murmurs.
“What happens after this,” Glinda asks flatly, watching her own fingers instead of Elphaba’s face. “You won’t stay here, will you?”
It’s foolish to ask. She knows the answer. Elphaba sighs, stomach rising under Glinda’s touch.
“I don’t want to leave.”
Glinda knows. It’s funny how fast that can change, how she could go from near constant pain at the thought of Elphie passing her by to being sure in her heart of hearts that she’d choose her first whenever possible. It’s something in her eyes, in the way she touches, in the careful way she treats her.
“You don’t have to,” Glinda murmurs, knows it sounds desperate. “You could stay, Fiyero could come too, I can… no one would have to know, I could…”
Elphaba smiles sadly. “No,” she says, “no, I can’t. Not yet.”
Glinda hates how much she wants to cry, wants to throw herself at Elphie and never let her go.
“Just more time,” Elphie continues. “I mean, you’re about to get the pardon passed, Glinda, it’s… it’s more than I could have asked for. And with time… we just need to wait it out. Let everybody heal. And then we’ll try again. A fresh start.”
“How long?” Glinda knows she sounds petulant, spoiled. She doesn’t care. “A year? Five? I can’t be alone again, Elphie, I just…”
“It won’t be like last time. You won’t be alone, I promise.” Elphaba shifts, finds her face and Glinda meets her eyes finally. “I’m not leaving you behind again, ever.”
Glinda lets herself melt into Elphaba, lets herself drift down between Elphaba’s legs again. While she still has the time.
–
Elphaba leaves on a Friday, nearly three weeks since Glinda had scooped her up from her little crater in the vast, vast desert. She leaves with a fresh dress, and ointment applied to her skin, and a cheek and neck and mouth all burning where Glinda has kissed her again and again. She leaves, and Glinda is by herself. But she isn’t alone, not really.
Fiyero and Elphaba write her long, long letters with political advice— they always had been a good team, Glinda can admit that even begrudgingly, and had always cared that much about the world around them. She’s proud to know them, she always has been. It’s what makes her great, what made her stand taller even at Shiz. These are my friends. They know her, and they love her anyway.
Elphie visits her often, falling into bed together or sometimes staying up late to talk on the floor, her head in Glinda’s lap looking up at the ornate golden ceiling. What they are, Glinda isn’t sure— they’ve never been the type for doing things right, after all, never the type for labels and rules and timing. But there’s devotion in Elphie’s gaze when she touches her, love in her smile every time they part.
And one day, she will come home forever. Glinda knows it to be true, she can see her and Fiyero moving into the palace behind her eyelids every night. Elphaba will live in her chambers, of course. She will not be out of her sight ever again.
Glinda knows it, she has a feeling. An instinct. She’s always had very good instincts.