The Effects of Gravity, Epilogue, by ainsleyaisling
Title: The Effects of Gravity, Epilogue
Author: ainsleyaisling
Rating: PG-13
'Verse: Musical AU; some details from bookverse
Pairings for Story Overall: Glinda/Fiyero, Elphaba/Fiyero, Glinda/Elphaba
Summary: A last night at Shiz.
Disclaimer: Wicked belongs mostly to Gregory Maguire, and musicalverse belongs to Stephen Schwartz, Winnie Holzman, and possibly Universal.
Notes: A table of all chapters can be found here.
And also more Notes: Thank you all for reading! I will be taking only a very tiny breaklet (more because of work than anything else) and then start posting the sequel to this story. Thank you so much for all your comments and I hope some more of your questions get answered in the sequel.
~~Elphaba~~
"There." Glinda beamed as she stepped back, looking down at Elphaba from her unaccustomed greater height. "You're perfect."
"You're blind. Or insane," Elphaba replied. She ran her hand experimentally over the braids Glinda had pinned to her head to keep the front of her hair out of her face. "But thank you."
In response Glinda reached out and stroked Elphaba's head, running her fingers through the thick waves of hair that still hung loose in the back. "I almost don't want to go," she said with a wistful smile. "As if nothing will change and we could just stay here forever, if I refuse to go to the party."
Elphaba leaned back a little in her chair and took advantage of one of her last opportunities to look at Glinda here, in the small, dimly lit room where they had feuded and become friends and studied together and stayed up late talking and cried in each other's arms and laughed at things no one else would have understood. Glinda's pale blue dress was as elaborate as anything she had worn when they were first-years, but it was less flouncy, more mature. The weight she'd lost at the end of that year had never returned, giving her face a leaner, less girlish appearance and making her eyes look very wide. She had gone from angelically pretty to perfectly beautiful.
Those wide eyes sparkled as Elphaba got up from her chair and put her arms around her roommate, saying, "Nothing important is going to change. We just won't be here anymore."
"I know." Glinda leaned her head on Elphaba's shoulder, careless of her neatly curled hair.
"It wasn't always so wonderful here anyway."
Glinda laughed. "I know. But I'll miss it anyway, our room and all."
"I will too." Elphaba held on to the smaller girl in her arms and forced the words past her suddenly stiff tongue. "But I'll still have you."
"Yes, you will." Glinda stretched up to kiss Elphaba's cheek and gave a little ironic sigh. "And Fiyero."
"And Fiyero." Fiyero had turned up in their room earlier in the evening, for old times's sake, to tell them that he had accepted a commission with the Palace Guards, for a whole string of reasons including his lack of desire to return home and the fact that his bloodline granted him automatic admission as an officer, but mostly seeming to center around his desire to look after them and to be near them. Glinda thought it was sweet. Elphaba wasn't quite sure what she thought.
But first, they had a graduation party to attend. Glinda had pleaded and cajoled and flattered, to very little avail, and had finally convinced Elphaba that she needed a dress with its bodice cut close to her body, not as comfortably loose and concealing as those Elphaba would have preferred, and with her arms and shoulders bare - the early summer heat had finally convinced Elphaba on that point. She felt terribly exposed, although she knew inwardly that the dress was still very modest by anyone else's standards; but Glinda's expression when she looked at her was pleased and satisfied, and so Elphaba bit her tongue and, for the last time in their years as undergraduates, went to a party.
Glinda was the immediate object of a great deal of interested attention, though it was a different sort than it once might have been. Instead of a flurry of boys clamoring and clustered around her, it was a bit of a hush where she and Elphaba passed, a quiet burst of whispering, and polite, somewhat awed boys approaching more or less one at a time. Glinda smiled and laughed politely in return, so poised and upright that she almost appeared tall, and accepted a few invitations to dance, always with a quick glance at Elphaba as if seeking approval.
Elphaba was watching Glinda dance with a ridiculously tall boy from the Emerald City who had once been in her literature class when Rikk, Fiyero's first-year roommate, came up behind her and asked her to dance. With a bit of surprise, because she and Rikk had spoken fairly often throughout the last two years but hadn't done anything as, well, boy-and-girl, since he had asked her to dance at their very first winter ball, she agreed.
They danced without comment past the table at which Nessa was holding court with her friends, including of course Kiren, the Munchkin boy that she seemed to prefer to keep both near her and just slightly at arms-length all the time. Rikk's eyes slid over Elphaba's bared shoulders in an almost guilty way, which made something in her stomach tighten just a bit and made her want in equal parts to kill and to kiss Glinda - not that she would ever admit Glinda had been right about this.
Fiyero was waiting for them when the dance had finished, and without entirely realizing how it had happened Elphaba found herself dancing with him next, trying to ignore the whispers - although Fiyero's reputation had quieted a great deal since their first year, he was still a prince - trying to return the fond smiles Glinda was sending their way, and trying to pretend she didn't feel slightly dizzy. They were so comfortable together, or rather he was so comfortable with her, at any rate, that formality had very little part in their dance. His hand at her waist slid easily to her back, and pulled thus closer she somehow found herself resting one hand on his chest instead of his shoulder. The smile he gave her was a real one, not the attempt at charm he turned on so many others, and for that she couldn't begin to describe her gratitude.
As the evening wore on and the night grew older, more and more of the punch appeared to be spiked and more and more students had begun to slip off into the corners and the shadows in pairs, and those on the dance floor were growing more and more unsteady. Glinda looked wisely sober as she talked animatedly with a group of her friends, and seeing her safely taken care of, Elphaba decided she had finally had enough of celebrating. She whispered her intentions in Glinda's ear, squeezing her hand and promising to wait up to discuss the party when Glinda looked disappointed, and then slipped off across the darkened campus to their room.
The room was practically empty, since they had both mostly packed. It was never easy to see it like this, although it was much worse those times when Glinda had left earlier or come back later and Elphaba had remained on her own. She left the door to the hallway open for the moment, enjoying that little bit of contact with life outside of herself, and crossed the room to open the window wider and let the cooler night air in. She hadn't had much of the punch, spiked or otherwise, but it was enough to make her warm and just a touch lightheaded.
She turned when she heard the door close, expecting Glinda, and gave a tiny cry of alarm when she saw a tall male figure in the dim moonlight instead. She clapped her hand over her mouth to silence her cry a moment later upon recognizing Fiyero, and laid the other hand over her racing heart. "You scared me," she scolded softly.
"I'm sorry." He took a step forward into a brighter patch of moonlight; Elphaba hadn't gotten around to lighting any of the lamps. "I didn't mean to. I - I wanted to tell you something."
"Glinda didn't come back with me . . ."
"I know," he said. "Just you, I mean."
"Oh." She took a step closer. "All right."
His face appeared a bit flushed and he was looking nervously at the floor. He and some of his friends had made up one of the wilder parts of the party as the night had gone on; his hair was slightly disheveled and his shirt open lower than usual in the warm summer night. He nodded as if to himself a few times and then looked up at Elphaba with a sharp display of bravado and said, "I love you."
Elphaba froze and forgot to breathe. "I'm sorry?"
"I love you," he repeated, still looking earnestly at her. As the sinking feeling in her stomach and the cold creeping horror over her skin started to spread, he continued, "I couldn't leave without telling you that - even though I'll see you in the City, I had to -"
"Fiyero," Elphaba said, keeping her voice as steady and gentle as she could despite her inner turmoil, "you're drunk."
"No, I'm not," he said, but as he came closer she was entirely sure that this was a lie, or at the very least a delusion. His eyes shone, his step was not completely steady, and there was a not-unpleasant but definite smell of spirits on his skin.
"You are," she protested softly. "You wouldn't be saying such ridiculous things if you weren't." Saying it out loud made the heavy sick feeling in her stomach worse somehow, even though of course she knew full well that she could never expect him to actually feel this way about her.
"I'm not so drunk that I don't know what I'm saying," he said, and although his diction was not completely unaffected, he sounded relatively lucid. And then he was coming closer and reaching for her waist, and he somehow had her backed up against the wall, and at the first touch of his lips on hers she almost stopped thinking altogether. It was nothing like being kissed by Glinda. His kiss was hard and almost rough, desperate in its force. His form had become familiar to her in the time they'd known each other, but now it felt foreign - his arms, strong enough to keep her locked in his embrace no matter how hard she pushed against him, his chest pressed against hers, his hair under her fingers . . . it was a moment, several moments, she didn't even know, before she fully realized that she wasn't pushing him away, that she had barely responded at all.
She felt heat flood her face at the realization that she had to pull her hands away from the back of his head in order to push against his shoulders - how could she forget herself like that? - but her efforts were ineffectual at best. He wasn't really rough with her and he wasn't trying to force her, and she wasn't the least bit alarmed, but she wasn't strong enough to push him away and he wasn't sober enough to realize she was trying. So, wincing against his lips, she did the only thing she could think of. She raised one hand and slapped him as hard as she could.
Apparently she was stronger than she thought. He released her and stepped away almost before the sound of the slap had faded. Her thumb had grazed her own cheek, close as they had been, and she felt its force, and she had to close her fingers around her stinging palm. His hand had gone instinctively to his face, and he looked as shocked as she felt.
"I'm sorry," she said immediately, horror beginning to sink in. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to -"
He held up one hand, stopping her. "It's all right," he said, not looking at her. His other hand covered his face. "I shouldn't have . . . I should have known - I'm sorry . . ."
"No - no, it's all right -"
"I didn't hurt you - did I?" he stammered.
"No -"
"Did - did I scare you?" He looked stricken, and of course she knew why. He would never want to do to her what someone had done to Glinda, and she knew it and believed it firmly.
"No, of course not," she said, feeling suddenly close to tears. "I know you wouldn't hurt me."
He was wavering on his feet, and, full of remorse for having hit him so hard, she rushed forward and pushed him down onto the end of her bed. "Here, sit down," she said. She pulled his hand away from his face and took hold of his chin, turning his head so that the moonlight hit his cheek. It was already discolored. "I'm so sorry," she said again. "I didn't mean to hit you nearly so hard - hold on, I'll get something to put on it." He didn't seem able to respond. She ran into the little bathroom and soaked a cloth in cold water, staring down into the sink to avoid the sight of her face in the mirror. Somehow she didn't think she could bear to see herself right now.
When she returned, he had collapsed across the bed. A quick examination revealed that he was merely asleep and drunk, and that she had not actually killed him. She was still looking at him, biting her thumbnail and considering what to do next, when Glinda returned.
"Elphie," she whispered as she shut the door, "you're still - is that Fiyero?"
Elphaba looked over her shoulder at Glinda standing perplexed near the doorway. "Yes," she said.
"What's he doing here?"
Elphaba hesitated for only a moment. "He said he wanted to tell me something, but - he couldn't quite manage it. He's had a lot to drink, I think he's basically unconscious."
"Oh." Glinda came to stand beside her and let one hand rest just casually on Elphaba's hip. "What did he want to tell you?"
"I don't know," Elphaba said. "He - it was probably nothing. He wasn't making much sense."
"Poor thing." She paused. "Is he staying here?"
It seemed like a terrible, impossible idea, but Elphaba couldn't think of anything else, save for trying to levitate him out their window, which would probably draw undue attention. "Would you like to try to move him?" she asked.
Glinda contemplated Fiyero's sleeping form. "Not especially," she said. The hand on Elphaba's hip slipped around her waist and pulled her closer to Glinda. "Lucky we're both so skinny."
"I suppose it is."
Glinda pulled away and started to unfasten the laces on her dress. "Glinda!" Elphaba whispered. "With him right there?"
Glinda shrugged. "You're the one who said he was unconscious."
Elphaba glanced uneasily at Fiyero. "I guess."
"So?" Glinda flexed her fingers in Elphaba's direction. "Come on, I'll undo you."
Elphaba backed into Glinda's hands and felt the bodice of her dress loosen as the buttons were unfastened. "We'll have to get rid of him in the morning before my father and your parents come looking for us."
Glinda's fingers brushed against her back as they moved down the row of buttons. "My parents won't be here until afternoon," she said. "Just before the ceremony. They're taking the morning train; it seems the baby doesn't like to be left alone with his nannies any longer than necessary."
"My father then," Elphaba said. "Can you imagine the shame it would bring on the house of my forefathers, to have a Winkie prince discovered in my bedroom?"
Glinda giggled. "In some houses in Gillikin that would improve your reputation."
"Somehow I doubt my father would be impressed."
Fiyero didn't stir in all the time it took them to get ready for bed, both putting on clothes modest enough to be worn in the daytime in deference to the boy in their room. Elphaba crawled into Glinda's bed and instinctively waited for the touch of Glinda's warm body against her back before settling into a comfortable position.
"It's sort of nice," Glinda whispered as she arranged herself close to Elphaba. "Us together, since it's our last night as really roommates." Although they would share a suite of rooms in the Wizard's palace - they had seen it on their last journey - they'd each have a private bedroom within it.
"It is," Elphaba agreed quietly.
"Even with him. Since he'll be with us and all."
"But not, I hope, ending up drunk in our rooms all that often."
Glinda's soft laugh shook against Elphaba's back. "No, probably not," she whispered. Her arm wrapped around Elphaba's waist and she clasped one of Elphaba's hands, threading their fingers together and pressing her face into Elphaba's shoulder. "'Night, Elphie," she murmured sleepily. "I love you."
Elphaba squeezed her fingers in response and turned her face into the pillow, so that she could no longer see Fiyero's sleeping body outlined against the moonlight.
Author: ainsleyaisling
Rating: PG-13
'Verse: Musical AU; some details from bookverse
Pairings for Story Overall: Glinda/Fiyero, Elphaba/Fiyero, Glinda/Elphaba
Summary: A last night at Shiz.
Disclaimer: Wicked belongs mostly to Gregory Maguire, and musicalverse belongs to Stephen Schwartz, Winnie Holzman, and possibly Universal.
Notes: A table of all chapters can be found here.
And also more Notes: Thank you all for reading! I will be taking only a very tiny breaklet (more because of work than anything else) and then start posting the sequel to this story. Thank you so much for all your comments and I hope some more of your questions get answered in the sequel.
~~Elphaba~~
"There." Glinda beamed as she stepped back, looking down at Elphaba from her unaccustomed greater height. "You're perfect."
"You're blind. Or insane," Elphaba replied. She ran her hand experimentally over the braids Glinda had pinned to her head to keep the front of her hair out of her face. "But thank you."
In response Glinda reached out and stroked Elphaba's head, running her fingers through the thick waves of hair that still hung loose in the back. "I almost don't want to go," she said with a wistful smile. "As if nothing will change and we could just stay here forever, if I refuse to go to the party."
Elphaba leaned back a little in her chair and took advantage of one of her last opportunities to look at Glinda here, in the small, dimly lit room where they had feuded and become friends and studied together and stayed up late talking and cried in each other's arms and laughed at things no one else would have understood. Glinda's pale blue dress was as elaborate as anything she had worn when they were first-years, but it was less flouncy, more mature. The weight she'd lost at the end of that year had never returned, giving her face a leaner, less girlish appearance and making her eyes look very wide. She had gone from angelically pretty to perfectly beautiful.
Those wide eyes sparkled as Elphaba got up from her chair and put her arms around her roommate, saying, "Nothing important is going to change. We just won't be here anymore."
"I know." Glinda leaned her head on Elphaba's shoulder, careless of her neatly curled hair.
"It wasn't always so wonderful here anyway."
Glinda laughed. "I know. But I'll miss it anyway, our room and all."
"I will too." Elphaba held on to the smaller girl in her arms and forced the words past her suddenly stiff tongue. "But I'll still have you."
"Yes, you will." Glinda stretched up to kiss Elphaba's cheek and gave a little ironic sigh. "And Fiyero."
"And Fiyero." Fiyero had turned up in their room earlier in the evening, for old times's sake, to tell them that he had accepted a commission with the Palace Guards, for a whole string of reasons including his lack of desire to return home and the fact that his bloodline granted him automatic admission as an officer, but mostly seeming to center around his desire to look after them and to be near them. Glinda thought it was sweet. Elphaba wasn't quite sure what she thought.
But first, they had a graduation party to attend. Glinda had pleaded and cajoled and flattered, to very little avail, and had finally convinced Elphaba that she needed a dress with its bodice cut close to her body, not as comfortably loose and concealing as those Elphaba would have preferred, and with her arms and shoulders bare - the early summer heat had finally convinced Elphaba on that point. She felt terribly exposed, although she knew inwardly that the dress was still very modest by anyone else's standards; but Glinda's expression when she looked at her was pleased and satisfied, and so Elphaba bit her tongue and, for the last time in their years as undergraduates, went to a party.
Glinda was the immediate object of a great deal of interested attention, though it was a different sort than it once might have been. Instead of a flurry of boys clamoring and clustered around her, it was a bit of a hush where she and Elphaba passed, a quiet burst of whispering, and polite, somewhat awed boys approaching more or less one at a time. Glinda smiled and laughed politely in return, so poised and upright that she almost appeared tall, and accepted a few invitations to dance, always with a quick glance at Elphaba as if seeking approval.
Elphaba was watching Glinda dance with a ridiculously tall boy from the Emerald City who had once been in her literature class when Rikk, Fiyero's first-year roommate, came up behind her and asked her to dance. With a bit of surprise, because she and Rikk had spoken fairly often throughout the last two years but hadn't done anything as, well, boy-and-girl, since he had asked her to dance at their very first winter ball, she agreed.
They danced without comment past the table at which Nessa was holding court with her friends, including of course Kiren, the Munchkin boy that she seemed to prefer to keep both near her and just slightly at arms-length all the time. Rikk's eyes slid over Elphaba's bared shoulders in an almost guilty way, which made something in her stomach tighten just a bit and made her want in equal parts to kill and to kiss Glinda - not that she would ever admit Glinda had been right about this.
Fiyero was waiting for them when the dance had finished, and without entirely realizing how it had happened Elphaba found herself dancing with him next, trying to ignore the whispers - although Fiyero's reputation had quieted a great deal since their first year, he was still a prince - trying to return the fond smiles Glinda was sending their way, and trying to pretend she didn't feel slightly dizzy. They were so comfortable together, or rather he was so comfortable with her, at any rate, that formality had very little part in their dance. His hand at her waist slid easily to her back, and pulled thus closer she somehow found herself resting one hand on his chest instead of his shoulder. The smile he gave her was a real one, not the attempt at charm he turned on so many others, and for that she couldn't begin to describe her gratitude.
As the evening wore on and the night grew older, more and more of the punch appeared to be spiked and more and more students had begun to slip off into the corners and the shadows in pairs, and those on the dance floor were growing more and more unsteady. Glinda looked wisely sober as she talked animatedly with a group of her friends, and seeing her safely taken care of, Elphaba decided she had finally had enough of celebrating. She whispered her intentions in Glinda's ear, squeezing her hand and promising to wait up to discuss the party when Glinda looked disappointed, and then slipped off across the darkened campus to their room.
The room was practically empty, since they had both mostly packed. It was never easy to see it like this, although it was much worse those times when Glinda had left earlier or come back later and Elphaba had remained on her own. She left the door to the hallway open for the moment, enjoying that little bit of contact with life outside of herself, and crossed the room to open the window wider and let the cooler night air in. She hadn't had much of the punch, spiked or otherwise, but it was enough to make her warm and just a touch lightheaded.
She turned when she heard the door close, expecting Glinda, and gave a tiny cry of alarm when she saw a tall male figure in the dim moonlight instead. She clapped her hand over her mouth to silence her cry a moment later upon recognizing Fiyero, and laid the other hand over her racing heart. "You scared me," she scolded softly.
"I'm sorry." He took a step forward into a brighter patch of moonlight; Elphaba hadn't gotten around to lighting any of the lamps. "I didn't mean to. I - I wanted to tell you something."
"Glinda didn't come back with me . . ."
"I know," he said. "Just you, I mean."
"Oh." She took a step closer. "All right."
His face appeared a bit flushed and he was looking nervously at the floor. He and some of his friends had made up one of the wilder parts of the party as the night had gone on; his hair was slightly disheveled and his shirt open lower than usual in the warm summer night. He nodded as if to himself a few times and then looked up at Elphaba with a sharp display of bravado and said, "I love you."
Elphaba froze and forgot to breathe. "I'm sorry?"
"I love you," he repeated, still looking earnestly at her. As the sinking feeling in her stomach and the cold creeping horror over her skin started to spread, he continued, "I couldn't leave without telling you that - even though I'll see you in the City, I had to -"
"Fiyero," Elphaba said, keeping her voice as steady and gentle as she could despite her inner turmoil, "you're drunk."
"No, I'm not," he said, but as he came closer she was entirely sure that this was a lie, or at the very least a delusion. His eyes shone, his step was not completely steady, and there was a not-unpleasant but definite smell of spirits on his skin.
"You are," she protested softly. "You wouldn't be saying such ridiculous things if you weren't." Saying it out loud made the heavy sick feeling in her stomach worse somehow, even though of course she knew full well that she could never expect him to actually feel this way about her.
"I'm not so drunk that I don't know what I'm saying," he said, and although his diction was not completely unaffected, he sounded relatively lucid. And then he was coming closer and reaching for her waist, and he somehow had her backed up against the wall, and at the first touch of his lips on hers she almost stopped thinking altogether. It was nothing like being kissed by Glinda. His kiss was hard and almost rough, desperate in its force. His form had become familiar to her in the time they'd known each other, but now it felt foreign - his arms, strong enough to keep her locked in his embrace no matter how hard she pushed against him, his chest pressed against hers, his hair under her fingers . . . it was a moment, several moments, she didn't even know, before she fully realized that she wasn't pushing him away, that she had barely responded at all.
She felt heat flood her face at the realization that she had to pull her hands away from the back of his head in order to push against his shoulders - how could she forget herself like that? - but her efforts were ineffectual at best. He wasn't really rough with her and he wasn't trying to force her, and she wasn't the least bit alarmed, but she wasn't strong enough to push him away and he wasn't sober enough to realize she was trying. So, wincing against his lips, she did the only thing she could think of. She raised one hand and slapped him as hard as she could.
Apparently she was stronger than she thought. He released her and stepped away almost before the sound of the slap had faded. Her thumb had grazed her own cheek, close as they had been, and she felt its force, and she had to close her fingers around her stinging palm. His hand had gone instinctively to his face, and he looked as shocked as she felt.
"I'm sorry," she said immediately, horror beginning to sink in. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to -"
He held up one hand, stopping her. "It's all right," he said, not looking at her. His other hand covered his face. "I shouldn't have . . . I should have known - I'm sorry . . ."
"No - no, it's all right -"
"I didn't hurt you - did I?" he stammered.
"No -"
"Did - did I scare you?" He looked stricken, and of course she knew why. He would never want to do to her what someone had done to Glinda, and she knew it and believed it firmly.
"No, of course not," she said, feeling suddenly close to tears. "I know you wouldn't hurt me."
He was wavering on his feet, and, full of remorse for having hit him so hard, she rushed forward and pushed him down onto the end of her bed. "Here, sit down," she said. She pulled his hand away from his face and took hold of his chin, turning his head so that the moonlight hit his cheek. It was already discolored. "I'm so sorry," she said again. "I didn't mean to hit you nearly so hard - hold on, I'll get something to put on it." He didn't seem able to respond. She ran into the little bathroom and soaked a cloth in cold water, staring down into the sink to avoid the sight of her face in the mirror. Somehow she didn't think she could bear to see herself right now.
When she returned, he had collapsed across the bed. A quick examination revealed that he was merely asleep and drunk, and that she had not actually killed him. She was still looking at him, biting her thumbnail and considering what to do next, when Glinda returned.
"Elphie," she whispered as she shut the door, "you're still - is that Fiyero?"
Elphaba looked over her shoulder at Glinda standing perplexed near the doorway. "Yes," she said.
"What's he doing here?"
Elphaba hesitated for only a moment. "He said he wanted to tell me something, but - he couldn't quite manage it. He's had a lot to drink, I think he's basically unconscious."
"Oh." Glinda came to stand beside her and let one hand rest just casually on Elphaba's hip. "What did he want to tell you?"
"I don't know," Elphaba said. "He - it was probably nothing. He wasn't making much sense."
"Poor thing." She paused. "Is he staying here?"
It seemed like a terrible, impossible idea, but Elphaba couldn't think of anything else, save for trying to levitate him out their window, which would probably draw undue attention. "Would you like to try to move him?" she asked.
Glinda contemplated Fiyero's sleeping form. "Not especially," she said. The hand on Elphaba's hip slipped around her waist and pulled her closer to Glinda. "Lucky we're both so skinny."
"I suppose it is."
Glinda pulled away and started to unfasten the laces on her dress. "Glinda!" Elphaba whispered. "With him right there?"
Glinda shrugged. "You're the one who said he was unconscious."
Elphaba glanced uneasily at Fiyero. "I guess."
"So?" Glinda flexed her fingers in Elphaba's direction. "Come on, I'll undo you."
Elphaba backed into Glinda's hands and felt the bodice of her dress loosen as the buttons were unfastened. "We'll have to get rid of him in the morning before my father and your parents come looking for us."
Glinda's fingers brushed against her back as they moved down the row of buttons. "My parents won't be here until afternoon," she said. "Just before the ceremony. They're taking the morning train; it seems the baby doesn't like to be left alone with his nannies any longer than necessary."
"My father then," Elphaba said. "Can you imagine the shame it would bring on the house of my forefathers, to have a Winkie prince discovered in my bedroom?"
Glinda giggled. "In some houses in Gillikin that would improve your reputation."
"Somehow I doubt my father would be impressed."
Fiyero didn't stir in all the time it took them to get ready for bed, both putting on clothes modest enough to be worn in the daytime in deference to the boy in their room. Elphaba crawled into Glinda's bed and instinctively waited for the touch of Glinda's warm body against her back before settling into a comfortable position.
"It's sort of nice," Glinda whispered as she arranged herself close to Elphaba. "Us together, since it's our last night as really roommates." Although they would share a suite of rooms in the Wizard's palace - they had seen it on their last journey - they'd each have a private bedroom within it.
"It is," Elphaba agreed quietly.
"Even with him. Since he'll be with us and all."
"But not, I hope, ending up drunk in our rooms all that often."
Glinda's soft laugh shook against Elphaba's back. "No, probably not," she whispered. Her arm wrapped around Elphaba's waist and she clasped one of Elphaba's hands, threading their fingers together and pressing her face into Elphaba's shoulder. "'Night, Elphie," she murmured sleepily. "I love you."
Elphaba squeezed her fingers in response and turned her face into the pillow, so that she could no longer see Fiyero's sleeping body outlined against the moonlight.