The Effects of Gravity 7/? by ainsleyaisling
Title: The Effects of Gravity 7/?
Author: ainsleyaisling
Rating: PG-13
'Verse: Musical AU; some details from bookverse
Pairings: Glinda/Fiyero, Elphaba/Fiyero, Glinda/Elphaba
Summary: Glinda does a little scientific experimentation, and faces her attackers for the first time.
Disclaimer: Wicked belongs mostly to Gregory Maguire, and musicalverse belongs to Stephen Schwartz, Winnie Holzman, and possibly Universal.
Notes: It looks long, but it's practically all dialogue. Oh, and also it's a little long. Previous part can be found here.
~~Elphaba~~
Elphaba wasn't terribly surprised to enter her room and find Glinda sitting at the desk studying - her roommate had been unusually sedate and introspective in the past weeks, not that Elphaba could blame her, and she had been paying an increased amount of attention to her classwork - but she was surprised by the startled, guilty look on Glinda's face when she saw Elphaba. "Shut the door," she hissed, waving her hand wildly toward the hallway.
Then Elphaba noticed exactly what Glinda was studying. She hastened to slam the door and latch it behind her before any of the numerous girls walking through the hall were able to see into the room.
"Do you mind?" Glinda asked tentatively, her nose wrinkling in chagrin.
"Not at all," Elphaba replied, shrugging off her cloak and letting it fall across Glinda's bed. "But you might want to lock the door next time. I could have been anyone. The Wizard probably knows we have the thing, but if anyone else did - we don't want to run the risk of its being stolen."
"I know, I know," Glinda fretted. "I'm always forgetting to be careful about things like that."
Elphaba rested her hand on the back of Glinda's chair and leaned over to see which spell she was studying. It was one Elphaba didn't recognize, and even a moment of staring didn't allow her to decipher the words. "Are you having any luck?"
"No." Glinda sighed and began flipping through the pages. "I was hoping familiarity would help - like if I sat with it for a while, the magic would . . . seep into me or something."
Elphaba tried unsuccessfully to hide her smile, but Glinda wasn't looking at her anyway. "So it didn't work?"
"Not that I can tell." Glinda stopped flipping once she had found the page with the familiar levitation spell on it. "But I discovered something fun, watch."
Elphaba stepped back a few feet nervously. "All right."
Glinda retrieved her wand, which had been laying on the other end of the desk. "See, if I try to levitate that quill just using my wand . . ." She pointed her wand and said firmly, "Levitate!" Nothing happened. "See? Nothing. And, I also tried this . . ." She put the wand down and held out both her hands toward the quill, concentrating until her forehead crinkled. "See, nothing."
"This is fun?" Elphaba asked.
"No, see - I was trying to do the levitation spell from the book without saying the words out loud. Just thinking them silently. But it didn't work."
"I ask again - this is fun?"
"Watch, Elphie. Honestly, you're so impatient. This is much less impressive if I haven't shown you those two things first." She picked up her wand again. "Now watch." She pointed the wand toward the quill and again frowned at it in deep concentration. After a second, the quill rose into the air and Glinda grinned. "See? If I use my wand and recite the spell silently, then it works! Neither the wand nor the silent spell work by themselves, but with both together I can do it."
Elphaba returned her smile. "Well done."
"Because I thought, if I had to say the words out loud all the time, then anyone who knew sorcery might know what spell I was going to do."
"It's a good thought," Elphaba admitted, sitting on the end of Glinda's bed. "Especially with . . ."
"With what?"
"Well, Morrible. She knows some of the spells - if we can believe her - and there may come a time when you want to do a spell without her knowing which one it is."
"Right." Glinda beamed at her and set the wand back down on the desk, which allowed the quill to drift slowly to rest. "Now you try."
Elphaba frowned. "With your wand?" Madame Morrible had never tried to make Elphaba use a wand, since it had seemed entirely unnecessary, and Madame Greyling had followed suit in her first few lessons with both girls.
"No," Glinda clarified, "I want to see if the spell will work silently for you without a wand. It stands to reason that it might - they all work better for you anyway." This was said without a trace of bitterness.
"All right." Elphaba was ashamed to admit she had never thought of trying it this way, but she had memorized the spell and it was easy enough to bring the words to the forefront of her mind. She held her hands before her and focused intently on the quill. After a moment, it began to rise.
Elphaba flushed with the happiness of success, but before she could say anything Glinda crossed to the desk and pushed the quill back down. "Your lips were moving," she said apologetically. "Better try again. And really concentrate on just thinking the words."
Elphaba held her hands toward the quill again, this time thinking hard about both the spell and about keeping her mouth immobile. When the quill rose into the air with an even, steady motion, Glinda embraced her with such force that they almost fell over. "See!" Glinda crowed. "And it's even better for you - I bet if you practiced, no one would even know you were casting a spell at all."
"I bet if you practiced we could get it to work for you without the wand," Elphaba said, sitting back a little way from her friend. "It'll just take some work."
Glinda beamed and clasped Elphaba's hands, swinging them as a delighted child would. "See, I can be useful after all," she said.
"You're more than useful."
A knock on the door interrupted the conversation, and Glinda called, "Come in! Oh, no, wait - it's locked." She hurried to the door and unlatched it, letting their visitor - Pfannee, as it turned out - peer into the room.
"Why was the door locked?" she asked.
Glinda threw a glance over her shoulder at Elphaba still sitting on her bed. "Um . . . private . . . girl talk. Come in."
"I'm not interrupting, am I?"
"No, we were done," Elphaba interjected, moving off Glinda's bed and crossing toward her own desk.
"All right." Pfannee sounded suspicious, but she didn't ask any more questions. "Glinda, we're going to dinner downtown. Would you like to come?"
"Oh!" Glinda looked between Pfannee and Elphaba for a moment. "That would be . . ." Elphaba nodded expectantly at her - it would be good for Glinda to go out with her friends, she thought - and Glinda finished, "- nice. Thank you."
"Good." Pfannee headed back toward the hallway. "I'm just going to ask Milla. You know she's still a little out of sorts since -" She flushed awkwardly. "- since Noala was sent home."
"I thought she didn't like Noala." Elphaba was proud of Glinda; her voice didn't wobble at all when pronouncing the name of the girl who had helped set her up.
"She didn't," Pfannee shrugged. "But now she has no roommate and you know Noala was the one who tended to get her invited places . . . Anyway, we'll meet you downstairs." She paused, then added, "You too, Elphaba. If you want."
Elphaba looked up quickly in surprise. "Oh," she stammered. "Well . . ."
"We'll be right down," Glinda interrupted, seeing Pfannee out the door. When the other girl had gone she turned back to Elphaba and said, "You are coming, aren't you?"
"I don't think so," Elphaba replied. "You go on - spending all this time holed up with me has to be getting to you by now."
Glinda didn't laugh as Elphaba had expected. Instead she said, "It was nice of her to ask you."
Elphaba spread her hands on the battered wood of her desk and studied them closely. "Yes, it was," she said. "She's been trying very hard to be especially nice to you lately. I may not always approve of her, but I have noticed that."
"So you think she asked you along just to be nice to me?"
"Or because she felt awkward. It doesn't particularly matter."
Glinda shifted from one foot to another, still watching Elphaba. Finally she said, "I'd like it if you came."
Elphaba looked up - to her consternation she saw that Glinda's expression was rather stricken and pained. She went over and took her roommate's hand gently, saying, "It's all right, I know. Now go on."
"No." Glinda's brow furrowed in something that was only slightly more mature than a pout. "I meant, please come."
"Glinda . . ."
"Please?" She tugged on Elphaba's hand. "You know I haven't been out much without you since . . . well, that. I'd feel better if you were there."
Elphaba had a moment of heartache before she recognized the calculation in Glinda's eyes. "You are shameless," she said, impressed in spite of herself.
"Well, never mind. I really do want you to come, Elphaba, please. I'm not trying to be nice to you, I just - want you with me. Please?"
The pleading look in Glinda's eyes was real now, and as always Elphaba found herself softening. "Fine," she sighed. "I can listen to Pfannee and Shenshen talk about their gowns for the Winter Ball for one afternoon."
"Good!" Glinda had fetched Elphaba's cloak and draped it over her shoulders almost before Elphaba had time to move. She wrapped her hand tightly around Elphaba's and dragged her from the room, not letting go when they met the other girls downstairs. Pfannee gave their joined hands a hard look, but Glinda didn't appear to notice - she only laughed at something Shenshen had said, and leaned her head against Elphaba's shoulder.
~~Glinda~~
Somehow she hadn't expected the summons - it had seemed to her that the whole thing should have been resolved. Madame had believed her, Elphaba had been a witness, and the police lieutenant who came to the university had seemed to believe her. So she was startled to receive the official-looking parchment scroll with her name written quite formally - "Miss Galinda Upland, Complaining Witness" - on the outside. She was still sitting on a bench outside the university mail room, staring at the message, when Elphaba walked by.
"Something wrong?" she asked, dropping onto the bench beside Glinda with an enormous stack of books balanced on her lap.
Glinda held the scroll out to her. "The inquest is at the end of the week. They say I have to come and testify."
Elphaba's eyes skimmed the scroll. "I didn't get one," she commented. "Can't I testify instead of you? I was there."
"Not the whole time," Glinda pointed out softly. "And I'm the complainant - it says so right there. You can't press charges against them for attacking me."
Elphaba laid a gentle hand on her knee. "Are you going to -"
"I have to, don't I? Otherwise they might set them free."
"No, I meant - are you going to be all right?"
Glinda didn't feel even remotely all right. Although in the past weeks she had been able to put most of the immediate fear and shock of the incident behind her, the idea of standing up at an inquest and explaining to a roomful of people what had happened - it made her want to run home to the Uplands, crawl into her childhood bed, and never leave. She swallowed hard. "I'll have to be," she said, but her voice cracked at the end and the threat of tears began to burn in her eyes. Elphaba freed an arm from her stack of books and wrapped it around Glinda's shoulders, and Glinda sat breathing carefully through her nose for a while before saying, "I'm sorry."
"You don't have to be sorry." With a final squeeze to her shoulder, Elphaba staggered to her feet, balancing her books precariously across her arms. "Come on, let's go home."
Glinda tucked the scroll into her pocket and followed, silently taking the top few books from Elphaba's stack and carrying them for her.
Thankfully, the room for the inquest was not crowded - there were a good number of people in attendance, but not the mob Glinda had feared. Elphaba sat with her in the front row, holding her hand tightly while the local magistrate talked about the charges and the accused and the recommendation from the Palace that they be sentenced harshly. Fiyero had wanted to come as well, but Glinda had firmly nixed that idea, not wanting him to hear what she would have to say.
When it was her turn, Glinda stood behind a rail at the magistrate's right hand, trying to control her trembling. Elphaba's last whispered words of advice had been "If you get scared, look at me," and Glinda did, although Elphaba's look of sympathetic encouragement was more pained than anything else. Guided by the magistrate, pitching her voice as loudly as she could to control its shaking, she explained how a girl she didn't recognize had told her that "a friend" wanted to speak with her in the history classroom.
"A friend?" the magistrate interrupted. "A boyfriend, you mean?"
"Yes," Glinda said, nodding hesitantly.
"Did you often meet him in empty classrooms?"
In the front row, Elphaba's head gave a tiny, almost indiscernible shake. "No," Glinda said without conscious thought. "I just thought he must have something private to discuss." My goodness, I just lied at an inquest, sort of. She felt a bit sick.
"So you went to meet this boy?"
"Yes." Elphaba had also advised her not to mention his name if they didn't ask - in this particular context, Fiyero's reputation was unlikely to be helpful, prince or not.
"And what happened when you got there?"
She swallowed and focused on Elphaba. "It was dark - in the hallway and in all the classrooms. I saw - there was a lamp lit in our history room, at the end of the hall. I went down there, and I opened the door, and I called Fi- his name. I didn't see anyone in the room."
"And then?"
"The door slammed shut. There were three boys there - they had been up against the wall behind the door when I came in."
"Did you recognize them?"
"Two of them I did. One of them is - was - in my life sciences class. His name is Malin. Another one I had seen around, but I didn't know who he was. The third I didn't recognize at all."
The magistrate held up his hand for her to stop, and then waved with his other hand toward a door at the side of the room. It opened to admit six guards, bringing with them the three boys who had assaulted Glinda. She could feel the color draining from her face and the strength going from her body - her heart seemed to stop, and she felt lightheaded and ill. Vaguely she observed that Elphaba looked equally horrified. Only one conscious thought made its way through the shock: I can't believe they didn't warn me. Why didn't anyone warn me?
The boys looked defiant, but none of them met Glinda's eyes. She looked desperately to Elphaba, who held her gaze steadily. Very slowly Elphaba raised a hand and pressed it over her own heart. Glinda nodded to her and, feeling somewhat strengthened, leaned against the rail to hold herself more upright.
"Are these the boys?" the magistrate asked, gesturing in their direction.
Glinda nodded, still not trusting her voice just yet.
"I need it for the record, please."
"Yes," she said, surprising herself with the haste and the excessive volume of her reply.
"What happened then - did they say anything to you?"
Were they really not going to remove the boys again? Did she have to finish giving her testimony with them standing right there - looking at her? She wrenched her gaze away from them and stared at Elphaba's forehead until she felt able to speak. "Yes," she began, hearing a quaver in her voice. "The - the one I didn't recognize -"
"Which one is that?"
"Closest to the door," she said, almost in a whisper, lifting one hand to point.
"Go on."
"He said . . ." She stopped and cleared her throat. "He said, 'We're glad you could make it.'"
"Did you understand what he meant?"
"No."
"What then?"
"I asked where - my friend was. They said he wasn't coming. I said - something like, 'oh, sorry' and I turned to leave."
"Go on."
"The - the same boy moved in front of the door. He said, 'don't you want what you came here for?' I said, I came because I thought my friend wanted to see me, and if he wasn't there I'd be going. He said 'no, you won't.' Then I saw him gesture to the other two, and he said 'come on,' or something like that. Then they grabbed my arms -"
"The other two boys did?"
"Yes - they grabbed my arms and took me across the room, and held me against the wall." She stopped, feeling her stomach turn, and stood taking deep breaths until the magistrate spoke again.
"Go on, please."
"Then -" She suddenly found that she couldn't look at Elphaba anymore, not while she was telling this part. She focused her gaze high on the far wall, over the heads of the assembled people. "He - um, the one who had been talking - he kissed me." She let her eyes go unfocused and tried to disassociate herself from the words as they left her mouth. Just keep talking. "I tried to kick him, but the other two held my legs down - with their legs. He said . . . 'see, now we're having fun, aren't we.' I screamed. And then he kissed me again. He just - he kept kissing me, and he pulled the pins out of my hair, and then he started trying to open the front of my dress. The other two were saying something, but I don't remember what. I was too scared."
"What then?"
"Then the door blew open." She spared a quick glance for Elphaba, who was sitting with one hand clasped tightly over her mouth.
"It blew open?"
She nodded. "It was my roommate - she's a sorcery student."
"Aren't you a sorcery student?"
"I'm not very good at it," she said apologetically. Some of the people watching actually laughed in gentle sympathy, which made her feel surprisingly better.
"So your roommate had come."
"Yes."
"How did she know where to find you?"
"I had left her a note. And she had - should I tell this part?"
The magistrate nodded. "Go on."
"Well, she told me later that she had overheard some girls talking about playing a prank on someone in the history classroom. When she got my note, she figured it was me and thought I might need help."
"And she blew the door open."
"Yes. And the boy who had kissed me, he turned around and he hit her. And then she - put a spell on them, I guess, I'm not really sure how she did it. They fell down, and they couldn't move. She took me to tell the headmistress what had happened." She had left out the part where the boys realized Elphaba was the infamous green witch, but it didn't seem important. She suspected the local officials had already heard plenty from the Palace on that point.
"Madame Greyling?"
"Yes."
He nodded again. "Very well. We'll be hearing testimony from your headmistress after lunch. You are dismissed, Miss Upland."
She hesitated, holding tight to the rail. "I can go?"
"You can go."
She walked slowly until she had reached the edge of the first row of seating and saw that Elphaba had slipped from her seat out into the aisle - then she ran the last few steps into Elphaba's open arms. There was a slight commotion as those in the back recognized the green witch for the first time, but both girls ignored it. "Come on," Elphaba whispered. "Outside, then we can talk."
Once they had emerged into the cold sunshine, Glinda asked haltingly, "Was I very bad?"
"No!" Elphaba said emphatically, holding her tightly. "No, you were wonderful. I was proud of you."
"You didn't look proud."
Elphaba shook her head and rubbed her hands up and down Glinda's back. "I was just - sorry you had to do that. And when they brought them in -"
"I thought I would die."
"Me too. But you did really well, I promise."
"Can we go home, please?" She hid her face in Elphaba's neck. "I just want to rest for a while."
"Of course. Madame will tell us what happens later."
"And will you stay with me, this afternoon? - I know you usually go to the library . . ."
"I won't leave your side," Elphaba promised. "Let's go."
Glinda placed her hand in Elphaba's trustingly and allowed herself to be led back to school.
Author: ainsleyaisling
Rating: PG-13
'Verse: Musical AU; some details from bookverse
Pairings: Glinda/Fiyero, Elphaba/Fiyero, Glinda/Elphaba
Summary: Glinda does a little scientific experimentation, and faces her attackers for the first time.
Disclaimer: Wicked belongs mostly to Gregory Maguire, and musicalverse belongs to Stephen Schwartz, Winnie Holzman, and possibly Universal.
Notes: It looks long, but it's practically all dialogue. Oh, and also it's a little long. Previous part can be found here.
~~Elphaba~~
Elphaba wasn't terribly surprised to enter her room and find Glinda sitting at the desk studying - her roommate had been unusually sedate and introspective in the past weeks, not that Elphaba could blame her, and she had been paying an increased amount of attention to her classwork - but she was surprised by the startled, guilty look on Glinda's face when she saw Elphaba. "Shut the door," she hissed, waving her hand wildly toward the hallway.
Then Elphaba noticed exactly what Glinda was studying. She hastened to slam the door and latch it behind her before any of the numerous girls walking through the hall were able to see into the room.
"Do you mind?" Glinda asked tentatively, her nose wrinkling in chagrin.
"Not at all," Elphaba replied, shrugging off her cloak and letting it fall across Glinda's bed. "But you might want to lock the door next time. I could have been anyone. The Wizard probably knows we have the thing, but if anyone else did - we don't want to run the risk of its being stolen."
"I know, I know," Glinda fretted. "I'm always forgetting to be careful about things like that."
Elphaba rested her hand on the back of Glinda's chair and leaned over to see which spell she was studying. It was one Elphaba didn't recognize, and even a moment of staring didn't allow her to decipher the words. "Are you having any luck?"
"No." Glinda sighed and began flipping through the pages. "I was hoping familiarity would help - like if I sat with it for a while, the magic would . . . seep into me or something."
Elphaba tried unsuccessfully to hide her smile, but Glinda wasn't looking at her anyway. "So it didn't work?"
"Not that I can tell." Glinda stopped flipping once she had found the page with the familiar levitation spell on it. "But I discovered something fun, watch."
Elphaba stepped back a few feet nervously. "All right."
Glinda retrieved her wand, which had been laying on the other end of the desk. "See, if I try to levitate that quill just using my wand . . ." She pointed her wand and said firmly, "Levitate!" Nothing happened. "See? Nothing. And, I also tried this . . ." She put the wand down and held out both her hands toward the quill, concentrating until her forehead crinkled. "See, nothing."
"This is fun?" Elphaba asked.
"No, see - I was trying to do the levitation spell from the book without saying the words out loud. Just thinking them silently. But it didn't work."
"I ask again - this is fun?"
"Watch, Elphie. Honestly, you're so impatient. This is much less impressive if I haven't shown you those two things first." She picked up her wand again. "Now watch." She pointed the wand toward the quill and again frowned at it in deep concentration. After a second, the quill rose into the air and Glinda grinned. "See? If I use my wand and recite the spell silently, then it works! Neither the wand nor the silent spell work by themselves, but with both together I can do it."
Elphaba returned her smile. "Well done."
"Because I thought, if I had to say the words out loud all the time, then anyone who knew sorcery might know what spell I was going to do."
"It's a good thought," Elphaba admitted, sitting on the end of Glinda's bed. "Especially with . . ."
"With what?"
"Well, Morrible. She knows some of the spells - if we can believe her - and there may come a time when you want to do a spell without her knowing which one it is."
"Right." Glinda beamed at her and set the wand back down on the desk, which allowed the quill to drift slowly to rest. "Now you try."
Elphaba frowned. "With your wand?" Madame Morrible had never tried to make Elphaba use a wand, since it had seemed entirely unnecessary, and Madame Greyling had followed suit in her first few lessons with both girls.
"No," Glinda clarified, "I want to see if the spell will work silently for you without a wand. It stands to reason that it might - they all work better for you anyway." This was said without a trace of bitterness.
"All right." Elphaba was ashamed to admit she had never thought of trying it this way, but she had memorized the spell and it was easy enough to bring the words to the forefront of her mind. She held her hands before her and focused intently on the quill. After a moment, it began to rise.
Elphaba flushed with the happiness of success, but before she could say anything Glinda crossed to the desk and pushed the quill back down. "Your lips were moving," she said apologetically. "Better try again. And really concentrate on just thinking the words."
Elphaba held her hands toward the quill again, this time thinking hard about both the spell and about keeping her mouth immobile. When the quill rose into the air with an even, steady motion, Glinda embraced her with such force that they almost fell over. "See!" Glinda crowed. "And it's even better for you - I bet if you practiced, no one would even know you were casting a spell at all."
"I bet if you practiced we could get it to work for you without the wand," Elphaba said, sitting back a little way from her friend. "It'll just take some work."
Glinda beamed and clasped Elphaba's hands, swinging them as a delighted child would. "See, I can be useful after all," she said.
"You're more than useful."
A knock on the door interrupted the conversation, and Glinda called, "Come in! Oh, no, wait - it's locked." She hurried to the door and unlatched it, letting their visitor - Pfannee, as it turned out - peer into the room.
"Why was the door locked?" she asked.
Glinda threw a glance over her shoulder at Elphaba still sitting on her bed. "Um . . . private . . . girl talk. Come in."
"I'm not interrupting, am I?"
"No, we were done," Elphaba interjected, moving off Glinda's bed and crossing toward her own desk.
"All right." Pfannee sounded suspicious, but she didn't ask any more questions. "Glinda, we're going to dinner downtown. Would you like to come?"
"Oh!" Glinda looked between Pfannee and Elphaba for a moment. "That would be . . ." Elphaba nodded expectantly at her - it would be good for Glinda to go out with her friends, she thought - and Glinda finished, "- nice. Thank you."
"Good." Pfannee headed back toward the hallway. "I'm just going to ask Milla. You know she's still a little out of sorts since -" She flushed awkwardly. "- since Noala was sent home."
"I thought she didn't like Noala." Elphaba was proud of Glinda; her voice didn't wobble at all when pronouncing the name of the girl who had helped set her up.
"She didn't," Pfannee shrugged. "But now she has no roommate and you know Noala was the one who tended to get her invited places . . . Anyway, we'll meet you downstairs." She paused, then added, "You too, Elphaba. If you want."
Elphaba looked up quickly in surprise. "Oh," she stammered. "Well . . ."
"We'll be right down," Glinda interrupted, seeing Pfannee out the door. When the other girl had gone she turned back to Elphaba and said, "You are coming, aren't you?"
"I don't think so," Elphaba replied. "You go on - spending all this time holed up with me has to be getting to you by now."
Glinda didn't laugh as Elphaba had expected. Instead she said, "It was nice of her to ask you."
Elphaba spread her hands on the battered wood of her desk and studied them closely. "Yes, it was," she said. "She's been trying very hard to be especially nice to you lately. I may not always approve of her, but I have noticed that."
"So you think she asked you along just to be nice to me?"
"Or because she felt awkward. It doesn't particularly matter."
Glinda shifted from one foot to another, still watching Elphaba. Finally she said, "I'd like it if you came."
Elphaba looked up - to her consternation she saw that Glinda's expression was rather stricken and pained. She went over and took her roommate's hand gently, saying, "It's all right, I know. Now go on."
"No." Glinda's brow furrowed in something that was only slightly more mature than a pout. "I meant, please come."
"Glinda . . ."
"Please?" She tugged on Elphaba's hand. "You know I haven't been out much without you since . . . well, that. I'd feel better if you were there."
Elphaba had a moment of heartache before she recognized the calculation in Glinda's eyes. "You are shameless," she said, impressed in spite of herself.
"Well, never mind. I really do want you to come, Elphaba, please. I'm not trying to be nice to you, I just - want you with me. Please?"
The pleading look in Glinda's eyes was real now, and as always Elphaba found herself softening. "Fine," she sighed. "I can listen to Pfannee and Shenshen talk about their gowns for the Winter Ball for one afternoon."
"Good!" Glinda had fetched Elphaba's cloak and draped it over her shoulders almost before Elphaba had time to move. She wrapped her hand tightly around Elphaba's and dragged her from the room, not letting go when they met the other girls downstairs. Pfannee gave their joined hands a hard look, but Glinda didn't appear to notice - she only laughed at something Shenshen had said, and leaned her head against Elphaba's shoulder.
~~Glinda~~
Somehow she hadn't expected the summons - it had seemed to her that the whole thing should have been resolved. Madame had believed her, Elphaba had been a witness, and the police lieutenant who came to the university had seemed to believe her. So she was startled to receive the official-looking parchment scroll with her name written quite formally - "Miss Galinda Upland, Complaining Witness" - on the outside. She was still sitting on a bench outside the university mail room, staring at the message, when Elphaba walked by.
"Something wrong?" she asked, dropping onto the bench beside Glinda with an enormous stack of books balanced on her lap.
Glinda held the scroll out to her. "The inquest is at the end of the week. They say I have to come and testify."
Elphaba's eyes skimmed the scroll. "I didn't get one," she commented. "Can't I testify instead of you? I was there."
"Not the whole time," Glinda pointed out softly. "And I'm the complainant - it says so right there. You can't press charges against them for attacking me."
Elphaba laid a gentle hand on her knee. "Are you going to -"
"I have to, don't I? Otherwise they might set them free."
"No, I meant - are you going to be all right?"
Glinda didn't feel even remotely all right. Although in the past weeks she had been able to put most of the immediate fear and shock of the incident behind her, the idea of standing up at an inquest and explaining to a roomful of people what had happened - it made her want to run home to the Uplands, crawl into her childhood bed, and never leave. She swallowed hard. "I'll have to be," she said, but her voice cracked at the end and the threat of tears began to burn in her eyes. Elphaba freed an arm from her stack of books and wrapped it around Glinda's shoulders, and Glinda sat breathing carefully through her nose for a while before saying, "I'm sorry."
"You don't have to be sorry." With a final squeeze to her shoulder, Elphaba staggered to her feet, balancing her books precariously across her arms. "Come on, let's go home."
Glinda tucked the scroll into her pocket and followed, silently taking the top few books from Elphaba's stack and carrying them for her.
Thankfully, the room for the inquest was not crowded - there were a good number of people in attendance, but not the mob Glinda had feared. Elphaba sat with her in the front row, holding her hand tightly while the local magistrate talked about the charges and the accused and the recommendation from the Palace that they be sentenced harshly. Fiyero had wanted to come as well, but Glinda had firmly nixed that idea, not wanting him to hear what she would have to say.
When it was her turn, Glinda stood behind a rail at the magistrate's right hand, trying to control her trembling. Elphaba's last whispered words of advice had been "If you get scared, look at me," and Glinda did, although Elphaba's look of sympathetic encouragement was more pained than anything else. Guided by the magistrate, pitching her voice as loudly as she could to control its shaking, she explained how a girl she didn't recognize had told her that "a friend" wanted to speak with her in the history classroom.
"A friend?" the magistrate interrupted. "A boyfriend, you mean?"
"Yes," Glinda said, nodding hesitantly.
"Did you often meet him in empty classrooms?"
In the front row, Elphaba's head gave a tiny, almost indiscernible shake. "No," Glinda said without conscious thought. "I just thought he must have something private to discuss." My goodness, I just lied at an inquest, sort of. She felt a bit sick.
"So you went to meet this boy?"
"Yes." Elphaba had also advised her not to mention his name if they didn't ask - in this particular context, Fiyero's reputation was unlikely to be helpful, prince or not.
"And what happened when you got there?"
She swallowed and focused on Elphaba. "It was dark - in the hallway and in all the classrooms. I saw - there was a lamp lit in our history room, at the end of the hall. I went down there, and I opened the door, and I called Fi- his name. I didn't see anyone in the room."
"And then?"
"The door slammed shut. There were three boys there - they had been up against the wall behind the door when I came in."
"Did you recognize them?"
"Two of them I did. One of them is - was - in my life sciences class. His name is Malin. Another one I had seen around, but I didn't know who he was. The third I didn't recognize at all."
The magistrate held up his hand for her to stop, and then waved with his other hand toward a door at the side of the room. It opened to admit six guards, bringing with them the three boys who had assaulted Glinda. She could feel the color draining from her face and the strength going from her body - her heart seemed to stop, and she felt lightheaded and ill. Vaguely she observed that Elphaba looked equally horrified. Only one conscious thought made its way through the shock: I can't believe they didn't warn me. Why didn't anyone warn me?
The boys looked defiant, but none of them met Glinda's eyes. She looked desperately to Elphaba, who held her gaze steadily. Very slowly Elphaba raised a hand and pressed it over her own heart. Glinda nodded to her and, feeling somewhat strengthened, leaned against the rail to hold herself more upright.
"Are these the boys?" the magistrate asked, gesturing in their direction.
Glinda nodded, still not trusting her voice just yet.
"I need it for the record, please."
"Yes," she said, surprising herself with the haste and the excessive volume of her reply.
"What happened then - did they say anything to you?"
Were they really not going to remove the boys again? Did she have to finish giving her testimony with them standing right there - looking at her? She wrenched her gaze away from them and stared at Elphaba's forehead until she felt able to speak. "Yes," she began, hearing a quaver in her voice. "The - the one I didn't recognize -"
"Which one is that?"
"Closest to the door," she said, almost in a whisper, lifting one hand to point.
"Go on."
"He said . . ." She stopped and cleared her throat. "He said, 'We're glad you could make it.'"
"Did you understand what he meant?"
"No."
"What then?"
"I asked where - my friend was. They said he wasn't coming. I said - something like, 'oh, sorry' and I turned to leave."
"Go on."
"The - the same boy moved in front of the door. He said, 'don't you want what you came here for?' I said, I came because I thought my friend wanted to see me, and if he wasn't there I'd be going. He said 'no, you won't.' Then I saw him gesture to the other two, and he said 'come on,' or something like that. Then they grabbed my arms -"
"The other two boys did?"
"Yes - they grabbed my arms and took me across the room, and held me against the wall." She stopped, feeling her stomach turn, and stood taking deep breaths until the magistrate spoke again.
"Go on, please."
"Then -" She suddenly found that she couldn't look at Elphaba anymore, not while she was telling this part. She focused her gaze high on the far wall, over the heads of the assembled people. "He - um, the one who had been talking - he kissed me." She let her eyes go unfocused and tried to disassociate herself from the words as they left her mouth. Just keep talking. "I tried to kick him, but the other two held my legs down - with their legs. He said . . . 'see, now we're having fun, aren't we.' I screamed. And then he kissed me again. He just - he kept kissing me, and he pulled the pins out of my hair, and then he started trying to open the front of my dress. The other two were saying something, but I don't remember what. I was too scared."
"What then?"
"Then the door blew open." She spared a quick glance for Elphaba, who was sitting with one hand clasped tightly over her mouth.
"It blew open?"
She nodded. "It was my roommate - she's a sorcery student."
"Aren't you a sorcery student?"
"I'm not very good at it," she said apologetically. Some of the people watching actually laughed in gentle sympathy, which made her feel surprisingly better.
"So your roommate had come."
"Yes."
"How did she know where to find you?"
"I had left her a note. And she had - should I tell this part?"
The magistrate nodded. "Go on."
"Well, she told me later that she had overheard some girls talking about playing a prank on someone in the history classroom. When she got my note, she figured it was me and thought I might need help."
"And she blew the door open."
"Yes. And the boy who had kissed me, he turned around and he hit her. And then she - put a spell on them, I guess, I'm not really sure how she did it. They fell down, and they couldn't move. She took me to tell the headmistress what had happened." She had left out the part where the boys realized Elphaba was the infamous green witch, but it didn't seem important. She suspected the local officials had already heard plenty from the Palace on that point.
"Madame Greyling?"
"Yes."
He nodded again. "Very well. We'll be hearing testimony from your headmistress after lunch. You are dismissed, Miss Upland."
She hesitated, holding tight to the rail. "I can go?"
"You can go."
She walked slowly until she had reached the edge of the first row of seating and saw that Elphaba had slipped from her seat out into the aisle - then she ran the last few steps into Elphaba's open arms. There was a slight commotion as those in the back recognized the green witch for the first time, but both girls ignored it. "Come on," Elphaba whispered. "Outside, then we can talk."
Once they had emerged into the cold sunshine, Glinda asked haltingly, "Was I very bad?"
"No!" Elphaba said emphatically, holding her tightly. "No, you were wonderful. I was proud of you."
"You didn't look proud."
Elphaba shook her head and rubbed her hands up and down Glinda's back. "I was just - sorry you had to do that. And when they brought them in -"
"I thought I would die."
"Me too. But you did really well, I promise."
"Can we go home, please?" She hid her face in Elphaba's neck. "I just want to rest for a while."
"Of course. Madame will tell us what happens later."
"And will you stay with me, this afternoon? - I know you usually go to the library . . ."
"I won't leave your side," Elphaba promised. "Let's go."
Glinda placed her hand in Elphaba's trustingly and allowed herself to be led back to school.