The Effects of Gravity 20/?
Title: The Effects of Gravity 20/?
Author: ainsleyaisling
Rating: R
'Verse: Musical AU; some details from bookverse
Pairings for Story Overall: Glinda/Fiyero, Elphaba/Fiyero, Glinda/Elphaba
Summary: Morrible's going down someday.
Disclaimer: Wicked belongs mostly to Gregory Maguire, and musicalverse belongs to Stephen Schwartz, Winnie Holzman, and possibly Universal.
Notes: Previous section can be found here. Some housekeeping notes: originally, this was going to be one long story, but it's getting, well, a little too long. So this story will conclude with the end of the Shiz years (still a while down the road), and then there will a sequel that will finish out the time roughly covered by musicalverse canon. Thanks for reading!
~~Glinda~~
She entered consciousness slowly, peering downward through half-open eyelids. She was flat on her back - tucked in to the bed, it seemed - and apparently dressed in just her shift. Her feet brushing against the sheets felt bare. She blinked until she was able to make out the rest of the room, and Elphaba sitting in a chair with her feet pulled up to her chest.
"What happened?" Glinda asked after swallowing a few times.
Elphaba turned quickly and came to sit on the bed beside Glinda. Her hair had mostly dried, Glinda noticed - it must have been a while. "You fainted, I think," she said, her brow creasing in concern. "And then - it was like you came around, but you weren't awake - like you were sleepwalking or something."
Glinda's face burned, remembering the state she had been in when last she remembered being conscious. "Did I say anything?" she asked, dreading the reply.
"No," Elphaba said, and Glinda breathed a sigh of relief. "I kept asking you what had happened, but you never really woke up." Her hand drifted over Glinda's forehead and her neck - checking for fever, Glinda suspected. "Do you feel all right now?"
"I think so," Glinda said cautiously. Her head seemed clear - and any rate, Elphaba was touching her now and she didn't feel - like that, anymore. Even more blood managed to rush to her face. "I think I'm all right." She frowned. "I think my head hurts a little."
"Sorry about that," Elphaba said. "I caught you as well as I could, but you still bumped your head on the door."
"S'all right." Under the sheets Glinda's fingers fidgeted with the fabric of her shift. "You put me to bed?"
"It seemed like the best thing, when you didn't wake up. You didn't seem in danger or anything, just - I don't know, as if you were so sound asleep that nothing could wake you." She laid a light hand on Glinda's stomach through the blankets. "Can you tell me what happened, now? I didn't -" She paused, looking down at where her hand rested.
"What?"
"Well, when I was getting you undressed - I mean to say, it didn't look as though you'd been hurt."
"I wasn't." Her mind flitted, still a bit sleepily, over what she could remember. She lowered her voice, somehow remembering to worry about being overheard. "It was a spell. I think."
"A spell - to make you fall asleep?" Elphaba was whispering now, too.
"No. It was - it made me -" She looked up at Elphaba, her lips parted expectantly but unable to finish. "I can't say."
"You mean you physically can't? Or you're - bound in some way? Or -"
"No." She could feel her face warming again, rapidly. "No, I just mean - it's too . . ." No, she could see that she had to tell Elphaba, this was important, this meant she had been right about Morrible - sort of. "I - it made me . . ."
"You did something?" Elphaba asked gently.
"No. I didn't do anything." Though you easily could have, her mind told her. "It was just - it made me feel - I felt . . ." She licked her lips and pushed herself carefully to a sitting position, leaning against the headboard. "I was - excited." She squeezed her eyes tightly shut.
"Excited about what?"
"No," Glinda said without opening her eyes. "I mean - excited."
A pause from the unseen Elphaba, and then - "Oh."
Glinda swallowed. "And I couldn't control it," she said. "I couldn't - I felt it starting, but at first it just felt like I was too warm, or dizzy or something - but then - then it was - I couldn't think and I had all these images in my mind of someone . . . doing things to me - but not in a bad way, I wasn't frightened, but I couldn't stop seeing it, either. And then I got back here, and it all just got to be too much, I guess, and -"
"You fainted."
"I guess that's what happened." She opened her eyes, slowly, and met Elphaba's gaze. "When it was starting, Morrible was talking to me about - something about all the pleasures a young woman could find in the City? And something about power?" Her face was on fire, now, and she could feel the heat spreading throughout her body, but Elphaba's look was understanding.
"Why?" she asked. "Why would she want you to -" Suddenly Elphaba stopped, her face paling.
"What?"
Elphaba shook her head quickly. "No, nothing," she said. "Just - it's just so strange."
"It's not that strange," Glinda said quietly. "I think it's what I was talking about yesterday. What she thinks she knows."
An extremely queer look came over Elphaba's face, but she said only, "Oh?"
"She seems to think - I guess it's logical, maybe - that the most important thing to me would be being - attractive, and that she can - influence me if she offers me . . . well, you know . . ."
"The pleasures of the flesh?" Elphaba asked a little dryly.
"Yes, that. Do I really seem that weak, or that - I don't even know -"
"Carnal?" Elphaba suggested, causing Glinda to flush all over again. "No, of course not. She's wrong. And after all, you saw through it, didn't you?"
"Well - I guess. I mean, I was able to realize it was a spell afterwards, so I suppose it probably didn't work exactly right. And it did end when -" But no. The spell wasn't supposed to make her faint. The spell was supposed to keep working, for who knew how long - she had only fainted because of the crashing intensity she had felt, because the sensation just became entirely too much when - when Elphaba touched her. Not the doorman, not anyone else. Just Elphaba. "I know why it didn't work," she said aloud.
"Why?"
"I -" She blinked at Elphaba. How to explain without . . . "Because she thought - she thought that all that . . . well, sex, would be enough to make me forget about you, or forget that I was loyal, I guess, to you. But it wasn't. That's why . . ." She couldn't quite say it. "Don't you remember what happened right before I fainted?"
"You came back here?"
"No, right before."
"You shut the door and I . . . I touched your arm?"
"Exactly."
Elphaba frowned. "I touched your arm, so you fainted?"
Glinda almost told her what had happened, what she had felt, before the fainting, but found that she couldn't quite do it. "And me fainting broke the spell," she said instead. "Didn't it."
"I guess." Elphaba's frown cleared a little. "I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"For - a lot of things."
That didn't make much sense, but then, this was all very confusing. "I'm sorry too," Glinda said. "Because you were right, and I should have listened before. Morrible is trying to turn us against each other. Or at least make me forget to care about you."
Elphaba coughed quietly. "Yes. I think that must be true," she said. "I'm still not sure why. Or if the Wizard's involved."
"I think she sees that the Wizard prefers you," Glinda said. "And she wants to use me on her side. Two against two, only not in open conflict."
"Maybe . . ."
"But the point is, it's not going to happen." Glinda sat up further in the bed and leaned closer to Elphaba. "I'm not turning against you, now or ever. I think she just proved she can't even spell me into doing it."
Elphaba looked uncomfortable, but she let Glinda take her hands. "You have to let her think it worked," she said finally.
"How? I'm not going to tell her I - you know, with anyone . . ."
"No, of course not." Elphaba's thumbs stroked absently over Glinda's hands. "I'd act as if you don't remember any of it. Say - if she asks - say you got home very late, and you must have felt ill or something because you don't remember where you'd been. And say - say I was angry with you. For being late."
"All right." Glinda considered that for a moment. "We fought?"
"Maybe?"
"A little bit?" She nodded. "I'll let her think that." She took a deep breath and found that she wasn't really as calm as she had thought. Her breathing was a bit ragged. She felt somehow - loose, limp, as though something very strong had gripped her and then suddenly let go. And her skin tingled in a way she couldn't exactly identify; it wasn't really like anything she had ever felt before. She needed - she didn't know what. She felt weak and sleepy, she felt cold, she felt confused and a bit sad without understanding why.
She looked at Elphaba and saw that Elphaba was looking at her, waiting while Glinda collected herself. She knew what she needed - or she thought she did - but things had been so strange lately. She didn't think Elphaba was angry with her, but something had been wrong for a long while . . . but she was so concerned now, and so sweet, if just a little bit more uneasy around Glinda than usual . . . She tugged on Elphaba's hands and asked softly, "Will you - please - ?"
"Oh. Of course." Elphaba slid further up on the bed and settled in beside Glinda, wrapping long bare arms around her and letting Glinda rest against her. "Better?"
"Yes." Glinda turned her head and tucked herself under Elphaba's chin. This, she thought sleepily, was what Morrible didn't understand. This didn't have anything to do with anything sordid or selfish or with power or politics - very possibly, Morrible just wouldn't ever understand anything like this. What she felt for Elphaba - with Elphaba - had depth. That was what made it different from what Morrible had made her feel earlier.
Elphaba leaned her head against Glinda's and asked, "Are you sure you're all right? After all that?"
"Yes. I'm all right."
A pause, and then Elphaba added, "I'm afraid for you to see her again tomorrow."
"So am I. But I don't have a choice. And at least I know what to expect, sort of."
"Do you think you could resist it, if you knew it was coming?"
That was the question, wasn't it? "I don't know," she said. "At least I would have an idea of what was going on. I think maybe I could try."
She felt soothing fingers stroking through her hair, and Elphaba said softly, "I'm still proud of you, you know."
Glinda nodded against Elphaba's shoulder. "Thanks. Will you -"
"What?"
"Talk to me about something else. Tell me what happened with the Wizard today."
"Oh." She felt Elphaba shifting slightly under her. "It was - strange."
"Bad strange?"
"No, not bad. Just strange. He talked a lot about his legacy and what he wanted to leave behind for the people of Oz . . . and something about building a better road that would connect all the regions with each other and with the Emerald City."
"He talked to you about roads?"
"I don't think it was really about the road. It was . . ." Elphaba sighed. "I don't trust him. But in some ways he seems to trust me, which is -"
"Strange."
"Yes. And - he's nice to me, it's as if - well, and he says things that make me think he would listen to me, really listen, if I said the right things - or maybe if Morrible was just out of the way."
Glinda felt her eyes drifting shut and she settled herself more comfortably against Elphaba. She had the sense that Elphaba was still saying something, quiet and low, but it faded away into the distance as she fell asleep.
~~Elphaba~~
This time she had a goal, and the stakes made her nervous. If she played this right, she might be able to help Glinda; if she didn't manage it, she could make things worse. She had to concentrate hard to keep her fingers from fidgeting.
"Can I ask you a question?" she asked once she and the Wizard were seated more or less side by side on the steps of his throne.
"Of course you can, Elphaba."
"What exactly are you thinking of, for Glinda?"
The Wizard frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, what will she be doing, once we've finished school? You've talked to me a lot about myself, and I respect that you . . . prefer others talk to Glinda, for now -" Secretly Elphaba was beginning to suspect that the Wizard was afraid Glinda would charm him. "- but you haven't talked much even to me about her. I need to - I need to know that there's a plan for her, that she'll be all right."
"Well, of course there's a plan for her. We've been preparing for the two of you all year, haven't we?" He stretched his legs out in front of him. "I imagine we'd all feel more comfortable with the two of you in the Palace, don't you agree?"
Elphaba imagined that by "we all" he meant himself and Morrible, but she nodded.
"And it's a large place, really - there are all sorts of ways we could accommodate both of you, together if you'd prefer."
"We would," Elphaba said.
"A suite then. You'll both be well taken care of, you have nothing to worry about."
"But you will expect her to do something, I assume? That's what I'm wondering about."
"Oh, well - you know I've left that largely to Madame Morrible . . ."
"You don't need another press secretary, though," Elphaba pressed.
"No, I don't." He smiled at Elphaba almost fondly. "You are an interesting team, you know. Beauty and -" She winced, but he finished, "mystery."
"Mystery?"
"Of course I've recognized it's an intriguing possibility, the both of you side-by-side. People would be - interested."
Elphaba tried not to perk up visibly. "So -"
"You win. Next time you come, I will meet with you and Glinda both. Together."
She had almost won, but not entirely. "And - we'll continue to meet with Madame Morrible? Together?"
"You think you need the additional training? She's led me to believe Glinda has some catching up to do first."
Elphaba looked around the deserted throne room and slid closer to him. He raised an eyebrow in curiosity as she leaned close and whispered, "I don't think it's such a good idea for Glinda to be alone with her so much."
"Really?"
"Glinda's very impressionable, and some of the things she's said - well - I wouldn't want her to be confused about who is supposed to have her loyalty - you, or . . ." She bit hard on the inside of her lip, but it looked as though the Wizard had caught her drift. He leaned closer as well.
"You think I have reason to worry?"
"About Glinda, right now? No. But about . . . well, I'd watch my back."
"Is that a warning?" he asked.
"No. Just an observation about the general trustworthiness of people who enjoy power."
The Wizard's eyes went a darker green as she watched, and he nodded. "I will take it under advisement. Since you are the only one of us who seems to know what they've discussed."
"I don't know what they've discussed, exactly. Just the effect it seems to have had on Glinda."
"Good enough." He held out his hand to her. "Shall we shake on it and then carry on with what we were discussing yesterday?"
Elphaba took his hand, but reluctantly. He smiled at her.
"You know, Elphaba," he said, "no father is perfect. That isn't what it's about."
"No," she said. "I suppose not."
She returned to the hotel before Glinda again, which worried her only a little. It was early, after all, and there was nothing necessarily wrong yet. Still, when darkness fell she began to be concerned enough that she put her shoes back on, prepared to go back to the palace and look for her. She had her second shoe almost entirely laced when the door swung open and Glinda practically ran in. Her face was pale and frightened and she was clearly on the verge of tears.
"What happened?" Elphaba asked immediately. She locked the door behind Glinda and tried to lead her to a chair, but Glinda dropped to her knees on the floor and pulled Elphaba down with her. "Was it Morrible?" Elphaba asked, running her hands over Glinda's face and her disheveled hair. "Did she do something? Another spell?"
"Not a spell," Glinda said in a flat, disturbing tone. Her fingers clamped onto Elphaba's shoulders. "She didn't need a spell for this."
Elphaba's blood ran thoroughly cold. "What?" she begged, cradling Glinda's face between her hands. "What did she do?"
"She laughed," Glinda said, "and she said, 'I don't imagine you'll want Elphaba to know about this, will you?'"
Elphaba thought she might have stopped breathing. "Please tell me," she said.
"It's - it was -" Glinda took a deep breath and held tighter, painfully so, to Elphaba's shoulders. "You know how I said yesterday, she was trying to - show me what I could have, to make me forget about being loyal to you? Well, today - I think - today she was showing me what could happen if I didn't do what she wanted . . ."
No, no, no, a voice shouted in the back of Elphaba's mind. Such a thing couldn't possibly happen to Glinda twice, it just couldn't. She pulled Glinda closer and held her as tight as she could. "Tell me."
"Nothing - really - she took me all over the palace, into the basements and the dungeons and things, and - the way they were all looking at me, the guards and the soldiers - not like the ones they have upstairs, but - and I saw in the prison, Elphie, what was going on in there - I was trying to pretend it didn't bother me, you know? But it was - and then she took me out into the City, to this place - an alley, or a street somewhere, and it was dark already and the women there were - well - and, some of the men walking by - she let them think she had brought me there to - that I was . . . some of them touched me, tried to grab me, and she pulled me away - but then she left me there, and told me I could find my way back easily, and that no one - the Wizard would never believe my 'hysterical version of events -'" She choked and buried her face in Elphaba's shoulder. "I'm being a baby, I know," she whispered. "Nothing really happened to me. But it could have, and I'm just - I'm so -"
Elphaba knew with a sudden, complete certainty that the Wizard would not stand for something like this. She also knew that Morrible was right, that he would be so horrified by even the faintest suggestion of something like this - he would want to think Glinda was exaggerating, that she was just a silly, frightened girl unable to handle the less rosy aspects of life.
She knew something else, too - it hit her like a bolt of lightning. No one would ever figure out exactly why some girls Glinda barely knew had suddenly hated her so much that they would set her up to be assaulted - because it wasn't those girls who wanted Glinda broken and frightened and obedient. She still didn't know what Morrible had thought to accomplish by it, but she knew now who had been behind Glinda's ordeal.
She held Glinda away from her and looked into her reddened eyes. "Glinda," she said firmly, "say the word and we leave now."
Glinda lifted one hand and rubbed the moisture from her eyes. "What?" she asked.
"It's your decision to make. You shouldn't have to handle this, this shouldn't happen to you. I talked to the Wizard today and I don't think you'll be alone with Morrible again - but if you want to, if you need to get away, we'll leave right this minute."
"And go where?" Glinda sniffled. "We'll get in trouble."
"Go anywhere. Not back to school of course, but - anywhere you want. Away."
Glinda bit her lip. "You'd do that, even though I made you give it up the first time?"
"You were right then. But this, this is -"
"And it's been going well for you," Glinda said softly. "A little, hasn't it? The Wizard and all. You're so close to getting him to listen to you, to getting what you wanted from the beginning . . ."
"That doesn't matter."
"You'd leave anyway? For me?"
"Yes."
"I love you, Elphaba," Glinda said with an intensity that was almost frightening. Elphaba could only freeze as Glinda hugged her hard, burying her face in Elphaba's neck. "And we're staying," she said.
Elphaba finally forced herself to speak. "Are you sure?"
"I have to."
"No, you don't."
"Yes. I do." She turned her head and kissed Elphaba's cheek. "I can't explain. But that's all there is. We have to do this - we have to beat her, Elphie. You know we won't be safe anywhere, really, until we do."
The thing was, Elphaba did know that. She also knew that the Wizard didn't trust her enough to believe her - not just yet. But someday he would.
Author: ainsleyaisling
Rating: R
'Verse: Musical AU; some details from bookverse
Pairings for Story Overall: Glinda/Fiyero, Elphaba/Fiyero, Glinda/Elphaba
Summary: Morrible's going down someday.
Disclaimer: Wicked belongs mostly to Gregory Maguire, and musicalverse belongs to Stephen Schwartz, Winnie Holzman, and possibly Universal.
Notes: Previous section can be found here. Some housekeeping notes: originally, this was going to be one long story, but it's getting, well, a little too long. So this story will conclude with the end of the Shiz years (still a while down the road), and then there will a sequel that will finish out the time roughly covered by musicalverse canon. Thanks for reading!
~~Glinda~~
She entered consciousness slowly, peering downward through half-open eyelids. She was flat on her back - tucked in to the bed, it seemed - and apparently dressed in just her shift. Her feet brushing against the sheets felt bare. She blinked until she was able to make out the rest of the room, and Elphaba sitting in a chair with her feet pulled up to her chest.
"What happened?" Glinda asked after swallowing a few times.
Elphaba turned quickly and came to sit on the bed beside Glinda. Her hair had mostly dried, Glinda noticed - it must have been a while. "You fainted, I think," she said, her brow creasing in concern. "And then - it was like you came around, but you weren't awake - like you were sleepwalking or something."
Glinda's face burned, remembering the state she had been in when last she remembered being conscious. "Did I say anything?" she asked, dreading the reply.
"No," Elphaba said, and Glinda breathed a sigh of relief. "I kept asking you what had happened, but you never really woke up." Her hand drifted over Glinda's forehead and her neck - checking for fever, Glinda suspected. "Do you feel all right now?"
"I think so," Glinda said cautiously. Her head seemed clear - and any rate, Elphaba was touching her now and she didn't feel - like that, anymore. Even more blood managed to rush to her face. "I think I'm all right." She frowned. "I think my head hurts a little."
"Sorry about that," Elphaba said. "I caught you as well as I could, but you still bumped your head on the door."
"S'all right." Under the sheets Glinda's fingers fidgeted with the fabric of her shift. "You put me to bed?"
"It seemed like the best thing, when you didn't wake up. You didn't seem in danger or anything, just - I don't know, as if you were so sound asleep that nothing could wake you." She laid a light hand on Glinda's stomach through the blankets. "Can you tell me what happened, now? I didn't -" She paused, looking down at where her hand rested.
"What?"
"Well, when I was getting you undressed - I mean to say, it didn't look as though you'd been hurt."
"I wasn't." Her mind flitted, still a bit sleepily, over what she could remember. She lowered her voice, somehow remembering to worry about being overheard. "It was a spell. I think."
"A spell - to make you fall asleep?" Elphaba was whispering now, too.
"No. It was - it made me -" She looked up at Elphaba, her lips parted expectantly but unable to finish. "I can't say."
"You mean you physically can't? Or you're - bound in some way? Or -"
"No." She could feel her face warming again, rapidly. "No, I just mean - it's too . . ." No, she could see that she had to tell Elphaba, this was important, this meant she had been right about Morrible - sort of. "I - it made me . . ."
"You did something?" Elphaba asked gently.
"No. I didn't do anything." Though you easily could have, her mind told her. "It was just - it made me feel - I felt . . ." She licked her lips and pushed herself carefully to a sitting position, leaning against the headboard. "I was - excited." She squeezed her eyes tightly shut.
"Excited about what?"
"No," Glinda said without opening her eyes. "I mean - excited."
A pause from the unseen Elphaba, and then - "Oh."
Glinda swallowed. "And I couldn't control it," she said. "I couldn't - I felt it starting, but at first it just felt like I was too warm, or dizzy or something - but then - then it was - I couldn't think and I had all these images in my mind of someone . . . doing things to me - but not in a bad way, I wasn't frightened, but I couldn't stop seeing it, either. And then I got back here, and it all just got to be too much, I guess, and -"
"You fainted."
"I guess that's what happened." She opened her eyes, slowly, and met Elphaba's gaze. "When it was starting, Morrible was talking to me about - something about all the pleasures a young woman could find in the City? And something about power?" Her face was on fire, now, and she could feel the heat spreading throughout her body, but Elphaba's look was understanding.
"Why?" she asked. "Why would she want you to -" Suddenly Elphaba stopped, her face paling.
"What?"
Elphaba shook her head quickly. "No, nothing," she said. "Just - it's just so strange."
"It's not that strange," Glinda said quietly. "I think it's what I was talking about yesterday. What she thinks she knows."
An extremely queer look came over Elphaba's face, but she said only, "Oh?"
"She seems to think - I guess it's logical, maybe - that the most important thing to me would be being - attractive, and that she can - influence me if she offers me . . . well, you know . . ."
"The pleasures of the flesh?" Elphaba asked a little dryly.
"Yes, that. Do I really seem that weak, or that - I don't even know -"
"Carnal?" Elphaba suggested, causing Glinda to flush all over again. "No, of course not. She's wrong. And after all, you saw through it, didn't you?"
"Well - I guess. I mean, I was able to realize it was a spell afterwards, so I suppose it probably didn't work exactly right. And it did end when -" But no. The spell wasn't supposed to make her faint. The spell was supposed to keep working, for who knew how long - she had only fainted because of the crashing intensity she had felt, because the sensation just became entirely too much when - when Elphaba touched her. Not the doorman, not anyone else. Just Elphaba. "I know why it didn't work," she said aloud.
"Why?"
"I -" She blinked at Elphaba. How to explain without . . . "Because she thought - she thought that all that . . . well, sex, would be enough to make me forget about you, or forget that I was loyal, I guess, to you. But it wasn't. That's why . . ." She couldn't quite say it. "Don't you remember what happened right before I fainted?"
"You came back here?"
"No, right before."
"You shut the door and I . . . I touched your arm?"
"Exactly."
Elphaba frowned. "I touched your arm, so you fainted?"
Glinda almost told her what had happened, what she had felt, before the fainting, but found that she couldn't quite do it. "And me fainting broke the spell," she said instead. "Didn't it."
"I guess." Elphaba's frown cleared a little. "I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"For - a lot of things."
That didn't make much sense, but then, this was all very confusing. "I'm sorry too," Glinda said. "Because you were right, and I should have listened before. Morrible is trying to turn us against each other. Or at least make me forget to care about you."
Elphaba coughed quietly. "Yes. I think that must be true," she said. "I'm still not sure why. Or if the Wizard's involved."
"I think she sees that the Wizard prefers you," Glinda said. "And she wants to use me on her side. Two against two, only not in open conflict."
"Maybe . . ."
"But the point is, it's not going to happen." Glinda sat up further in the bed and leaned closer to Elphaba. "I'm not turning against you, now or ever. I think she just proved she can't even spell me into doing it."
Elphaba looked uncomfortable, but she let Glinda take her hands. "You have to let her think it worked," she said finally.
"How? I'm not going to tell her I - you know, with anyone . . ."
"No, of course not." Elphaba's thumbs stroked absently over Glinda's hands. "I'd act as if you don't remember any of it. Say - if she asks - say you got home very late, and you must have felt ill or something because you don't remember where you'd been. And say - say I was angry with you. For being late."
"All right." Glinda considered that for a moment. "We fought?"
"Maybe?"
"A little bit?" She nodded. "I'll let her think that." She took a deep breath and found that she wasn't really as calm as she had thought. Her breathing was a bit ragged. She felt somehow - loose, limp, as though something very strong had gripped her and then suddenly let go. And her skin tingled in a way she couldn't exactly identify; it wasn't really like anything she had ever felt before. She needed - she didn't know what. She felt weak and sleepy, she felt cold, she felt confused and a bit sad without understanding why.
She looked at Elphaba and saw that Elphaba was looking at her, waiting while Glinda collected herself. She knew what she needed - or she thought she did - but things had been so strange lately. She didn't think Elphaba was angry with her, but something had been wrong for a long while . . . but she was so concerned now, and so sweet, if just a little bit more uneasy around Glinda than usual . . . She tugged on Elphaba's hands and asked softly, "Will you - please - ?"
"Oh. Of course." Elphaba slid further up on the bed and settled in beside Glinda, wrapping long bare arms around her and letting Glinda rest against her. "Better?"
"Yes." Glinda turned her head and tucked herself under Elphaba's chin. This, she thought sleepily, was what Morrible didn't understand. This didn't have anything to do with anything sordid or selfish or with power or politics - very possibly, Morrible just wouldn't ever understand anything like this. What she felt for Elphaba - with Elphaba - had depth. That was what made it different from what Morrible had made her feel earlier.
Elphaba leaned her head against Glinda's and asked, "Are you sure you're all right? After all that?"
"Yes. I'm all right."
A pause, and then Elphaba added, "I'm afraid for you to see her again tomorrow."
"So am I. But I don't have a choice. And at least I know what to expect, sort of."
"Do you think you could resist it, if you knew it was coming?"
That was the question, wasn't it? "I don't know," she said. "At least I would have an idea of what was going on. I think maybe I could try."
She felt soothing fingers stroking through her hair, and Elphaba said softly, "I'm still proud of you, you know."
Glinda nodded against Elphaba's shoulder. "Thanks. Will you -"
"What?"
"Talk to me about something else. Tell me what happened with the Wizard today."
"Oh." She felt Elphaba shifting slightly under her. "It was - strange."
"Bad strange?"
"No, not bad. Just strange. He talked a lot about his legacy and what he wanted to leave behind for the people of Oz . . . and something about building a better road that would connect all the regions with each other and with the Emerald City."
"He talked to you about roads?"
"I don't think it was really about the road. It was . . ." Elphaba sighed. "I don't trust him. But in some ways he seems to trust me, which is -"
"Strange."
"Yes. And - he's nice to me, it's as if - well, and he says things that make me think he would listen to me, really listen, if I said the right things - or maybe if Morrible was just out of the way."
Glinda felt her eyes drifting shut and she settled herself more comfortably against Elphaba. She had the sense that Elphaba was still saying something, quiet and low, but it faded away into the distance as she fell asleep.
~~Elphaba~~
This time she had a goal, and the stakes made her nervous. If she played this right, she might be able to help Glinda; if she didn't manage it, she could make things worse. She had to concentrate hard to keep her fingers from fidgeting.
"Can I ask you a question?" she asked once she and the Wizard were seated more or less side by side on the steps of his throne.
"Of course you can, Elphaba."
"What exactly are you thinking of, for Glinda?"
The Wizard frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, what will she be doing, once we've finished school? You've talked to me a lot about myself, and I respect that you . . . prefer others talk to Glinda, for now -" Secretly Elphaba was beginning to suspect that the Wizard was afraid Glinda would charm him. "- but you haven't talked much even to me about her. I need to - I need to know that there's a plan for her, that she'll be all right."
"Well, of course there's a plan for her. We've been preparing for the two of you all year, haven't we?" He stretched his legs out in front of him. "I imagine we'd all feel more comfortable with the two of you in the Palace, don't you agree?"
Elphaba imagined that by "we all" he meant himself and Morrible, but she nodded.
"And it's a large place, really - there are all sorts of ways we could accommodate both of you, together if you'd prefer."
"We would," Elphaba said.
"A suite then. You'll both be well taken care of, you have nothing to worry about."
"But you will expect her to do something, I assume? That's what I'm wondering about."
"Oh, well - you know I've left that largely to Madame Morrible . . ."
"You don't need another press secretary, though," Elphaba pressed.
"No, I don't." He smiled at Elphaba almost fondly. "You are an interesting team, you know. Beauty and -" She winced, but he finished, "mystery."
"Mystery?"
"Of course I've recognized it's an intriguing possibility, the both of you side-by-side. People would be - interested."
Elphaba tried not to perk up visibly. "So -"
"You win. Next time you come, I will meet with you and Glinda both. Together."
She had almost won, but not entirely. "And - we'll continue to meet with Madame Morrible? Together?"
"You think you need the additional training? She's led me to believe Glinda has some catching up to do first."
Elphaba looked around the deserted throne room and slid closer to him. He raised an eyebrow in curiosity as she leaned close and whispered, "I don't think it's such a good idea for Glinda to be alone with her so much."
"Really?"
"Glinda's very impressionable, and some of the things she's said - well - I wouldn't want her to be confused about who is supposed to have her loyalty - you, or . . ." She bit hard on the inside of her lip, but it looked as though the Wizard had caught her drift. He leaned closer as well.
"You think I have reason to worry?"
"About Glinda, right now? No. But about . . . well, I'd watch my back."
"Is that a warning?" he asked.
"No. Just an observation about the general trustworthiness of people who enjoy power."
The Wizard's eyes went a darker green as she watched, and he nodded. "I will take it under advisement. Since you are the only one of us who seems to know what they've discussed."
"I don't know what they've discussed, exactly. Just the effect it seems to have had on Glinda."
"Good enough." He held out his hand to her. "Shall we shake on it and then carry on with what we were discussing yesterday?"
Elphaba took his hand, but reluctantly. He smiled at her.
"You know, Elphaba," he said, "no father is perfect. That isn't what it's about."
"No," she said. "I suppose not."
She returned to the hotel before Glinda again, which worried her only a little. It was early, after all, and there was nothing necessarily wrong yet. Still, when darkness fell she began to be concerned enough that she put her shoes back on, prepared to go back to the palace and look for her. She had her second shoe almost entirely laced when the door swung open and Glinda practically ran in. Her face was pale and frightened and she was clearly on the verge of tears.
"What happened?" Elphaba asked immediately. She locked the door behind Glinda and tried to lead her to a chair, but Glinda dropped to her knees on the floor and pulled Elphaba down with her. "Was it Morrible?" Elphaba asked, running her hands over Glinda's face and her disheveled hair. "Did she do something? Another spell?"
"Not a spell," Glinda said in a flat, disturbing tone. Her fingers clamped onto Elphaba's shoulders. "She didn't need a spell for this."
Elphaba's blood ran thoroughly cold. "What?" she begged, cradling Glinda's face between her hands. "What did she do?"
"She laughed," Glinda said, "and she said, 'I don't imagine you'll want Elphaba to know about this, will you?'"
Elphaba thought she might have stopped breathing. "Please tell me," she said.
"It's - it was -" Glinda took a deep breath and held tighter, painfully so, to Elphaba's shoulders. "You know how I said yesterday, she was trying to - show me what I could have, to make me forget about being loyal to you? Well, today - I think - today she was showing me what could happen if I didn't do what she wanted . . ."
No, no, no, a voice shouted in the back of Elphaba's mind. Such a thing couldn't possibly happen to Glinda twice, it just couldn't. She pulled Glinda closer and held her as tight as she could. "Tell me."
"Nothing - really - she took me all over the palace, into the basements and the dungeons and things, and - the way they were all looking at me, the guards and the soldiers - not like the ones they have upstairs, but - and I saw in the prison, Elphie, what was going on in there - I was trying to pretend it didn't bother me, you know? But it was - and then she took me out into the City, to this place - an alley, or a street somewhere, and it was dark already and the women there were - well - and, some of the men walking by - she let them think she had brought me there to - that I was . . . some of them touched me, tried to grab me, and she pulled me away - but then she left me there, and told me I could find my way back easily, and that no one - the Wizard would never believe my 'hysterical version of events -'" She choked and buried her face in Elphaba's shoulder. "I'm being a baby, I know," she whispered. "Nothing really happened to me. But it could have, and I'm just - I'm so -"
Elphaba knew with a sudden, complete certainty that the Wizard would not stand for something like this. She also knew that Morrible was right, that he would be so horrified by even the faintest suggestion of something like this - he would want to think Glinda was exaggerating, that she was just a silly, frightened girl unable to handle the less rosy aspects of life.
She knew something else, too - it hit her like a bolt of lightning. No one would ever figure out exactly why some girls Glinda barely knew had suddenly hated her so much that they would set her up to be assaulted - because it wasn't those girls who wanted Glinda broken and frightened and obedient. She still didn't know what Morrible had thought to accomplish by it, but she knew now who had been behind Glinda's ordeal.
She held Glinda away from her and looked into her reddened eyes. "Glinda," she said firmly, "say the word and we leave now."
Glinda lifted one hand and rubbed the moisture from her eyes. "What?" she asked.
"It's your decision to make. You shouldn't have to handle this, this shouldn't happen to you. I talked to the Wizard today and I don't think you'll be alone with Morrible again - but if you want to, if you need to get away, we'll leave right this minute."
"And go where?" Glinda sniffled. "We'll get in trouble."
"Go anywhere. Not back to school of course, but - anywhere you want. Away."
Glinda bit her lip. "You'd do that, even though I made you give it up the first time?"
"You were right then. But this, this is -"
"And it's been going well for you," Glinda said softly. "A little, hasn't it? The Wizard and all. You're so close to getting him to listen to you, to getting what you wanted from the beginning . . ."
"That doesn't matter."
"You'd leave anyway? For me?"
"Yes."
"I love you, Elphaba," Glinda said with an intensity that was almost frightening. Elphaba could only freeze as Glinda hugged her hard, burying her face in Elphaba's neck. "And we're staying," she said.
Elphaba finally forced herself to speak. "Are you sure?"
"I have to."
"No, you don't."
"Yes. I do." She turned her head and kissed Elphaba's cheek. "I can't explain. But that's all there is. We have to do this - we have to beat her, Elphie. You know we won't be safe anywhere, really, until we do."
The thing was, Elphaba did know that. She also knew that the Wizard didn't trust her enough to believe her - not just yet. But someday he would.