Defying Gravity, 24/?, by ainsleyaisling
Title: Defying Gravity, 24/?
Author: ainsleyaisling
Rating: PG
'Verse: Musical AU; some details from bookverse
Summary: Glinda and Elphaba - and Fiyero - working hand-in-hand, the way it was supposed to be . . . maybe . . .
This chapter: Elphaba flies; Glinda doesn't, quite.
Disclaimer: Wicked belongs mostly to Gregory Maguire, and musicalverse belongs to Stephen Schwartz, Winnie Holzman, and possibly Universal.
Notes: Sequel to "The Effects of Gravity," a link to all chapters of which, plus the posted chapters of this story, can be found here. The previous chapter of this story can be found here.
~~Glinda~~
Elphaba looked - not dubious, exactly, as she corralled an ant on her bedside table. That would be unfair to her; she did put a great deal of faith in Glinda, probably more than Glinda had earned. Uncertain, maybe. Hesitant. Her eyes darted up to meet Glinda's almost guiltily, over and over, as her fingertips gently and carefully kept the ant on the table before them.
Glinda gave her a shaky smile. Her eyes were still red from a night of crying herself to sleep - more than once; sleep had proved not only elusive but short-lived - in Elphaba's bed, and she felt the irritation as she blinked down at the ant. Still, this, at least, she could do. She read painstakingly from Elphaba's spell with her notes in the margin, and the ant disappeared.
Elphaba looked at her over the empty table for one breathless moment, and then they both got up from their knees and ran for the parlor before the ant had a chance to move much. They found it sitting on the arm of the sofa, just as Glinda had intended, nosing its antennae rather confusedly into the fabric.
"You did it," Elphaba said. Again, her tone was not quite astonished, more - awed. "How did you do it?"
Glinda put her finger on the arm of the sofa and let the ant crawl onto it before the cat could find it. "It's a bit silly," she said, her actual triumph not completely erasing the fact that she felt like a sheepish little girl when she considered her actual technique.
"It can't be silly, it worked."
The ant tried to crawl off the end of Glinda's finger, and she cupped her other hand underneath to catch it. "It was all those fairy stories," she said, feeling her face warm under Elphaba's scrutiny. "They were all about princesses asking the fairies for favors, things like that."
Elphaba nodded, but still looked confused.
"Well," Glinda said. Averting her eyes from Elphaba, she crossed to the window and set the ant on the sill, opening the window and letting in a gust of bitter air so that it could crawl out. "It just occurred to me to try. If the things were being sent through fairyland - for lack of a better word - then maybe the fairies -"
She looked up and scrunched her nose in embarrassment. Elphaba nodded and said, ". . . for lack of a better word. Yes?"
Glinda licked her lips. "In the stories, no one ever tells the fairies to do things. Well, sometimes evil queens do or wicked sorceresses, but it never works. They ask. So I changed the spell, so instead of sending things into fairyland, it asked the fairies to take them through safely. Sort of." She spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness. "I didn't use the word 'fairies' or anything. I don't actually know exactly how it worked, but -"
"But it did." Elphaba leaned against the back of the sofa and crossed her arms thoughtfully. "You asked. You asked," she repeated, frowning down at her shoes. "I wonder . . ."
Glinda crossed one foot over the other and wobbled on bent ankles. "Yes?" she finally asked.
Elphaba looked up at her, eyes narrowed in concentration. "I wonder how many other things work like that. Or could."
"You mean, by just politely asking the magic to do things?" Glinda managed a weak smile. "I think we proved it doesn't always."
"No, but - I don't know nearly enough about the old magic," Elphaba mused. "And you - you're the one who told me so much of the ancient magic got turned into legends and children's stories. You're - that was incredibly clever."
"Suppose there was some use to all those years I spent flouncing around ignoring my mathematics because I wanted to read about the prince turned into a Fish." The feeling that her stomach had been filled with rocks, never really gone since the previous night, was back in full force. "Elphaba," she said, hands slipping down into the pockets of her cardigan. "I need to be - am I useful, really?"
Elphaba's face changed slowly, though the change began immediately, her eyes widening and the lines of her mouth relaxing. "Why would you even -"
"Because what's the point in fighting if I'm not -" Glinda pressed her lips together over the end of her outburst.
Elphaba's breath left her in one hard gasped sigh. "Because - for one thing, you don't have to be useful, you're - I mean, I -" Just as Glinda had begun to lean forward in sudden expectation of something she couldn't quite identify, Elphaba stopped and started over. "But you are, I couldn't have done half the things we've done without you. For that matter, where would I be now without you? Dead, for all we know."
Glinda nodded, and spent a moment staring at the tips of her shoes. "I've been thinking," she said. "Wouldn't it be worse - to fight this battle and lose? To use up my energy and think I might win, and then - shouldn't I maybe just give in now, choose someone while I still have some choice -"
"No," Elphaba said firmly.
Glinda looked up at her, feeling her upper lip begin to tremble. It seemed, suddenly, as though every word had extra weight and as though she were testing Elphaba in a way she didn't even understand. "Why not?"
"Because." Elphaba crossed her arms harder, pressing them visibly into her chest. She shook her head. "Because you won't lose, I won't let you. You just - won't. The Wizard will -"
Glinda lifted one hand to her mouth, pressed her fingertips against her lips until the danger of tears had almost passed. "But," she said, the tears shaking her voice nonetheless, "if you don't get your hopes up, you can't be disappointed."
Elphaba looked at her, seeming for a moment to understand. "Words I've always lived by," she said softly. "But they don't sound quite right coming from you."
Glinda took a deep breath to calm the shaking deep within her chest, and swallowed. "I'm a big girl," she said.
"You're too important to be given away."
Glinda met Elphaba's eyes with jaw clenched, waiting for the worst to pass. After a while, Elphaba's fists - which Glinda had only just noticed were balled up tight against her sides - relaxed, and she shifted her weight against the sofa.
"I have to try the broom tonight," she said, not looking at Glinda. "Can you take me back to where you found it?"
Glinda surreptitiously wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and licked away the bit of salt that had dripped onto her upper lip. "Yes. Tonight," she said quietly.
~~Elphaba~~
Her years of never returning to this attic had apparently been a very good idea. Almost as soon as the door opened her breath caught and her stomach dropped; the very smell of the place made her instantly nauseated. She took an involuntary step back and clutched the door frame, while behind her Glinda laid a palm against her back and gently pushed.
"Go on, Elphie," Glinda said, careful to whisper. "Remember - you have to scout for the Animals. And see Nessa. Go on."
Elphaba nodded to no one in particular and let her feet carry her into the attic, with its clouds and swirls of dust dancing in the streams of moonlight, its musty odor of disuse, its greenish cast - a reflection from the moon-glowing marble outside, not the walls themselves. "I remember it," she whispered.
"I know." Glinda's cold hand slipped into hers. "Over by that window, see." She walked forward, slippered feet making not a sound, pulling Elphaba along.
The broom was propped against a wall, just as Glinda had said. Despite the ominous feeling trickling down her spine, the sight of the broom was oddly comforting, like seeing an old friend again for the first time in years. Her broom. It had almost carried her to freedom, to safety and incredible unknown danger. In a way she felt responsible for it, as if it were a pet or a farm animal - she'd enchanted it, given it life, in its way. With a flood of affection she held out her free hand.
Even after three years, she didn't need to say a word. The broom's bristly end lifted until it was roughly horizontal in the air, and then it drifted toward her, snuggling itself into her waiting palm. "Hello," she whispered so softly that it was no more than a breath.
Glinda had let go of her other hand without Elphaba noticing. "Maybe," she whispered, even that much sound seeming to fill the silent space, "you should try it in here first? For safety?"
Elphaba felt the curve of the broom handle in her palm and knew she didn't need to worry about safety, not the least bit, but Glinda was and so she nodded. "All right. Stand back."
Glinda backed away, but Elphaba never took her eyes off the broom. "I think we've waited long enough," she whispered to it, her consonants clicking against her tongue in contrast with the quiet of her breath. She could have sworn that the broom's bristly end lowered, to make it easier for her to mount. She swung a leg over without bothering to hike her skirt, pressed her knees together, felt the handle biting into the hard bones of her fingers. "Fly!" she whispered urgently.
The broom did not waste time. It shot off the floor so quickly that her shoulders were nearly pulled out of joint as she clung to the handle, but soon enough her body's momentum caught up and she was with it as they rode for the ceiling. Ignoring the sick dropping racing feeling in her stomach, she jerked her hands to the left and tried to steer. The broom obeyed, and when she turned downward, it listened to that, too. She landed beside Glinda breathless, hopping off as the broom tried to whiz by, hanging onto it by the edges of her fingernails. "Easy," she gasped.
Glinda lifted the hem of her own nightgown and carefully extracted the soft bundle wound around and around her waist - Elphaba's cloak, stuffed under Glinda's high-waisted shift for camouflage. She wrapped it around Elphaba's shoulders with shaking fingers. "I've done this before," she whispered, eyebrows lifting on her pale face in the shining moonlight. The corners of her eyes were crinkled, with the effort, Elphaba recognized, of appearing offhand.
Elphaba covered Glinda's hands with her own, over her own breastbone. "I'll be back in less than half an hour," she said. "Hide yourself if anyone comes."
Glinda nodded solemnly and twisted her hand around to squeeze Elphaba's fingers. "Be careful. Those guards have rifles . . ."
"I will." Elphaba turned away before she could get nervous, stepped up onto a convenient box, and unlatched the window. A stinging wind met her face, and with the hand that wasn't clutching the broom she pulled her cloak tighter. On that day three years ago it hadn't been nearly so cold, though the sky also hadn't been nearly as clear or as sharp. She put both hands tightly on the broom handle, dug her knees in, and whispered, "Fly!"
The tower dropped away at an alarming speed, but she kept her eyes on the stars and felt the cold wind against her face, soothing away her nausea. The far-distant stars didn't get any closer, and by the time she looked down the Palace was the size of a doll's house below her.
"Too high," she whispered to the broom, as if it could understand. Her hands struggled to draw its handle level, and after a moment it seemed to understand and evened out. A shiver ran through her - next time she'd borrow Glinda's coat; the cloak blew back and open in the wind and left most of her exposed in just her thin day dress.
Off to the west the river was a ribbon of darkness with the occasional flashing reflection of moonlight. She pointed toward it, winds rushing past, the smell of imminent snow in the air. Even though her arms were strained tight and her shoulders clenched to keep herself on the broom, an almost physical weight dropped away from her chest and she found herself, astonishingly, laughing out loud as she sailed into the west. So this, she thought, briefly, is what it would have been like.
Then she was over the river, and she remembered her mission, and suddenly seemed to feel the bite of the wind again, as if she had momentarily forgotten it. She followed the line of the river, swooping slightly lower, tracing it until she saw it join the smaller river that flowed out of the Palace, and then circling over the area, lower and gradually lower and lower, eyes peeled for anyone on the ground that might be looking up, squinting as hard as she could at the terrain.
There. Maybe three miles below the marina, there were trees and rocks and a place where the water was choppy and foamy, white in the pale moonlight. Choppy water meant rocks; rocks meant shallow. Someone could cross there, and on the other side, smooth, level banks and some tree cover. She flew over the river, somewhat conscious of entering the Vinkus for the first time in her life, and followed her imaginary trail inland a while. Nothing but more rocks, trees, and then - miraculous - a half-grown bit of a scrubby pine barren. Not much of a tourist site to be sure, but big enough to hide a group of Animals and people in for a day. The cool rush of adrenaline flowing through her, Elphaba turned back.
Like this, her mind insisted on repeating. It would have been like this.
Only without Glinda waiting. Her conscience, always honest, added, and without anywhere to go back to, probably. She took another deep, deep breath, filling her lungs with the smell of snow, and pressed the broom on.
When she sailed through the attic window and dropped her feet to the floor, Glinda was there in the shadows watching, eyes wide, hands clutched to her stomach. Elphaba propped the broom against a wall and Glinda's arms were flung around her, her friend's thin, warm body countering the chill.
"I did it," Elphaba laughed into Glinda's hair, and she felt Glinda laugh with her. "It was - I can't even tell you. And I think I found our path - but it was unbelievable, Glinda, and I think - well, I think it's going to snow, but that's not the point -"
Glinda's arms worked their way under her cloak and they stood pressed together as tightly as could be, Glinda shivering slightly - she was only in her nightgown, after all, and the window was still open, and Elphaba herself, her hair and her cloak, must have felt like an icicle. She held Glinda closer and tried to quiet her shivering with pure strength, and then she felt Glinda's chest lurch against her own, and realized that Glinda was crying.
"Oh no," Elphaba said, pulling away enough that she could run a cold hand over Glinda's cheek. "It's all right, it's all right . . ."
Glinda only shook her head fiercely.
"Let's go back downstairs," Elphaba murmured in what she hoped was a soothing tone. "Come on, let's go to bed now."
"Cloak," Glinda said through her tears.
"Right." Elphaba shed her cloak and rolled it into a ball. "It's too cold for you to -"
"No, it's all right." Glinda sniffled and took the cloak from her, and lifted her nightgown demurely to settle it around her waist as if it were a Quadling dancing skirt. "You shouldn't leave the broom here now," she added.
Elphaba looked at it, and felt as though it were looking back. "No," she agreed, "but if I come back for it tomorrow I can always say we spilled something. I can't think of a very good reason we'd need to go out and collect a broom in the middle of the night, and guards do talk -"
Glinda nodded as she finished settling Elphaba's cloak and let her nightgown fall to cover its added bulk. "Let's go then," she said quietly.
Elphaba turned once more to look at the broom over her shoulder as they left. It leaned against the wall like an abandoned pet, soulfully waiting for its master to return.
Author: ainsleyaisling
Rating: PG
'Verse: Musical AU; some details from bookverse
Summary: Glinda and Elphaba - and Fiyero - working hand-in-hand, the way it was supposed to be . . . maybe . . .
This chapter: Elphaba flies; Glinda doesn't, quite.
Disclaimer: Wicked belongs mostly to Gregory Maguire, and musicalverse belongs to Stephen Schwartz, Winnie Holzman, and possibly Universal.
Notes: Sequel to "The Effects of Gravity," a link to all chapters of which, plus the posted chapters of this story, can be found here. The previous chapter of this story can be found here.
~~Glinda~~
Elphaba looked - not dubious, exactly, as she corralled an ant on her bedside table. That would be unfair to her; she did put a great deal of faith in Glinda, probably more than Glinda had earned. Uncertain, maybe. Hesitant. Her eyes darted up to meet Glinda's almost guiltily, over and over, as her fingertips gently and carefully kept the ant on the table before them.
Glinda gave her a shaky smile. Her eyes were still red from a night of crying herself to sleep - more than once; sleep had proved not only elusive but short-lived - in Elphaba's bed, and she felt the irritation as she blinked down at the ant. Still, this, at least, she could do. She read painstakingly from Elphaba's spell with her notes in the margin, and the ant disappeared.
Elphaba looked at her over the empty table for one breathless moment, and then they both got up from their knees and ran for the parlor before the ant had a chance to move much. They found it sitting on the arm of the sofa, just as Glinda had intended, nosing its antennae rather confusedly into the fabric.
"You did it," Elphaba said. Again, her tone was not quite astonished, more - awed. "How did you do it?"
Glinda put her finger on the arm of the sofa and let the ant crawl onto it before the cat could find it. "It's a bit silly," she said, her actual triumph not completely erasing the fact that she felt like a sheepish little girl when she considered her actual technique.
"It can't be silly, it worked."
The ant tried to crawl off the end of Glinda's finger, and she cupped her other hand underneath to catch it. "It was all those fairy stories," she said, feeling her face warm under Elphaba's scrutiny. "They were all about princesses asking the fairies for favors, things like that."
Elphaba nodded, but still looked confused.
"Well," Glinda said. Averting her eyes from Elphaba, she crossed to the window and set the ant on the sill, opening the window and letting in a gust of bitter air so that it could crawl out. "It just occurred to me to try. If the things were being sent through fairyland - for lack of a better word - then maybe the fairies -"
She looked up and scrunched her nose in embarrassment. Elphaba nodded and said, ". . . for lack of a better word. Yes?"
Glinda licked her lips. "In the stories, no one ever tells the fairies to do things. Well, sometimes evil queens do or wicked sorceresses, but it never works. They ask. So I changed the spell, so instead of sending things into fairyland, it asked the fairies to take them through safely. Sort of." She spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness. "I didn't use the word 'fairies' or anything. I don't actually know exactly how it worked, but -"
"But it did." Elphaba leaned against the back of the sofa and crossed her arms thoughtfully. "You asked. You asked," she repeated, frowning down at her shoes. "I wonder . . ."
Glinda crossed one foot over the other and wobbled on bent ankles. "Yes?" she finally asked.
Elphaba looked up at her, eyes narrowed in concentration. "I wonder how many other things work like that. Or could."
"You mean, by just politely asking the magic to do things?" Glinda managed a weak smile. "I think we proved it doesn't always."
"No, but - I don't know nearly enough about the old magic," Elphaba mused. "And you - you're the one who told me so much of the ancient magic got turned into legends and children's stories. You're - that was incredibly clever."
"Suppose there was some use to all those years I spent flouncing around ignoring my mathematics because I wanted to read about the prince turned into a Fish." The feeling that her stomach had been filled with rocks, never really gone since the previous night, was back in full force. "Elphaba," she said, hands slipping down into the pockets of her cardigan. "I need to be - am I useful, really?"
Elphaba's face changed slowly, though the change began immediately, her eyes widening and the lines of her mouth relaxing. "Why would you even -"
"Because what's the point in fighting if I'm not -" Glinda pressed her lips together over the end of her outburst.
Elphaba's breath left her in one hard gasped sigh. "Because - for one thing, you don't have to be useful, you're - I mean, I -" Just as Glinda had begun to lean forward in sudden expectation of something she couldn't quite identify, Elphaba stopped and started over. "But you are, I couldn't have done half the things we've done without you. For that matter, where would I be now without you? Dead, for all we know."
Glinda nodded, and spent a moment staring at the tips of her shoes. "I've been thinking," she said. "Wouldn't it be worse - to fight this battle and lose? To use up my energy and think I might win, and then - shouldn't I maybe just give in now, choose someone while I still have some choice -"
"No," Elphaba said firmly.
Glinda looked up at her, feeling her upper lip begin to tremble. It seemed, suddenly, as though every word had extra weight and as though she were testing Elphaba in a way she didn't even understand. "Why not?"
"Because." Elphaba crossed her arms harder, pressing them visibly into her chest. She shook her head. "Because you won't lose, I won't let you. You just - won't. The Wizard will -"
Glinda lifted one hand to her mouth, pressed her fingertips against her lips until the danger of tears had almost passed. "But," she said, the tears shaking her voice nonetheless, "if you don't get your hopes up, you can't be disappointed."
Elphaba looked at her, seeming for a moment to understand. "Words I've always lived by," she said softly. "But they don't sound quite right coming from you."
Glinda took a deep breath to calm the shaking deep within her chest, and swallowed. "I'm a big girl," she said.
"You're too important to be given away."
Glinda met Elphaba's eyes with jaw clenched, waiting for the worst to pass. After a while, Elphaba's fists - which Glinda had only just noticed were balled up tight against her sides - relaxed, and she shifted her weight against the sofa.
"I have to try the broom tonight," she said, not looking at Glinda. "Can you take me back to where you found it?"
Glinda surreptitiously wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and licked away the bit of salt that had dripped onto her upper lip. "Yes. Tonight," she said quietly.
~~Elphaba~~
Her years of never returning to this attic had apparently been a very good idea. Almost as soon as the door opened her breath caught and her stomach dropped; the very smell of the place made her instantly nauseated. She took an involuntary step back and clutched the door frame, while behind her Glinda laid a palm against her back and gently pushed.
"Go on, Elphie," Glinda said, careful to whisper. "Remember - you have to scout for the Animals. And see Nessa. Go on."
Elphaba nodded to no one in particular and let her feet carry her into the attic, with its clouds and swirls of dust dancing in the streams of moonlight, its musty odor of disuse, its greenish cast - a reflection from the moon-glowing marble outside, not the walls themselves. "I remember it," she whispered.
"I know." Glinda's cold hand slipped into hers. "Over by that window, see." She walked forward, slippered feet making not a sound, pulling Elphaba along.
The broom was propped against a wall, just as Glinda had said. Despite the ominous feeling trickling down her spine, the sight of the broom was oddly comforting, like seeing an old friend again for the first time in years. Her broom. It had almost carried her to freedom, to safety and incredible unknown danger. In a way she felt responsible for it, as if it were a pet or a farm animal - she'd enchanted it, given it life, in its way. With a flood of affection she held out her free hand.
Even after three years, she didn't need to say a word. The broom's bristly end lifted until it was roughly horizontal in the air, and then it drifted toward her, snuggling itself into her waiting palm. "Hello," she whispered so softly that it was no more than a breath.
Glinda had let go of her other hand without Elphaba noticing. "Maybe," she whispered, even that much sound seeming to fill the silent space, "you should try it in here first? For safety?"
Elphaba felt the curve of the broom handle in her palm and knew she didn't need to worry about safety, not the least bit, but Glinda was and so she nodded. "All right. Stand back."
Glinda backed away, but Elphaba never took her eyes off the broom. "I think we've waited long enough," she whispered to it, her consonants clicking against her tongue in contrast with the quiet of her breath. She could have sworn that the broom's bristly end lowered, to make it easier for her to mount. She swung a leg over without bothering to hike her skirt, pressed her knees together, felt the handle biting into the hard bones of her fingers. "Fly!" she whispered urgently.
The broom did not waste time. It shot off the floor so quickly that her shoulders were nearly pulled out of joint as she clung to the handle, but soon enough her body's momentum caught up and she was with it as they rode for the ceiling. Ignoring the sick dropping racing feeling in her stomach, she jerked her hands to the left and tried to steer. The broom obeyed, and when she turned downward, it listened to that, too. She landed beside Glinda breathless, hopping off as the broom tried to whiz by, hanging onto it by the edges of her fingernails. "Easy," she gasped.
Glinda lifted the hem of her own nightgown and carefully extracted the soft bundle wound around and around her waist - Elphaba's cloak, stuffed under Glinda's high-waisted shift for camouflage. She wrapped it around Elphaba's shoulders with shaking fingers. "I've done this before," she whispered, eyebrows lifting on her pale face in the shining moonlight. The corners of her eyes were crinkled, with the effort, Elphaba recognized, of appearing offhand.
Elphaba covered Glinda's hands with her own, over her own breastbone. "I'll be back in less than half an hour," she said. "Hide yourself if anyone comes."
Glinda nodded solemnly and twisted her hand around to squeeze Elphaba's fingers. "Be careful. Those guards have rifles . . ."
"I will." Elphaba turned away before she could get nervous, stepped up onto a convenient box, and unlatched the window. A stinging wind met her face, and with the hand that wasn't clutching the broom she pulled her cloak tighter. On that day three years ago it hadn't been nearly so cold, though the sky also hadn't been nearly as clear or as sharp. She put both hands tightly on the broom handle, dug her knees in, and whispered, "Fly!"
The tower dropped away at an alarming speed, but she kept her eyes on the stars and felt the cold wind against her face, soothing away her nausea. The far-distant stars didn't get any closer, and by the time she looked down the Palace was the size of a doll's house below her.
"Too high," she whispered to the broom, as if it could understand. Her hands struggled to draw its handle level, and after a moment it seemed to understand and evened out. A shiver ran through her - next time she'd borrow Glinda's coat; the cloak blew back and open in the wind and left most of her exposed in just her thin day dress.
Off to the west the river was a ribbon of darkness with the occasional flashing reflection of moonlight. She pointed toward it, winds rushing past, the smell of imminent snow in the air. Even though her arms were strained tight and her shoulders clenched to keep herself on the broom, an almost physical weight dropped away from her chest and she found herself, astonishingly, laughing out loud as she sailed into the west. So this, she thought, briefly, is what it would have been like.
Then she was over the river, and she remembered her mission, and suddenly seemed to feel the bite of the wind again, as if she had momentarily forgotten it. She followed the line of the river, swooping slightly lower, tracing it until she saw it join the smaller river that flowed out of the Palace, and then circling over the area, lower and gradually lower and lower, eyes peeled for anyone on the ground that might be looking up, squinting as hard as she could at the terrain.
There. Maybe three miles below the marina, there were trees and rocks and a place where the water was choppy and foamy, white in the pale moonlight. Choppy water meant rocks; rocks meant shallow. Someone could cross there, and on the other side, smooth, level banks and some tree cover. She flew over the river, somewhat conscious of entering the Vinkus for the first time in her life, and followed her imaginary trail inland a while. Nothing but more rocks, trees, and then - miraculous - a half-grown bit of a scrubby pine barren. Not much of a tourist site to be sure, but big enough to hide a group of Animals and people in for a day. The cool rush of adrenaline flowing through her, Elphaba turned back.
Like this, her mind insisted on repeating. It would have been like this.
Only without Glinda waiting. Her conscience, always honest, added, and without anywhere to go back to, probably. She took another deep, deep breath, filling her lungs with the smell of snow, and pressed the broom on.
When she sailed through the attic window and dropped her feet to the floor, Glinda was there in the shadows watching, eyes wide, hands clutched to her stomach. Elphaba propped the broom against a wall and Glinda's arms were flung around her, her friend's thin, warm body countering the chill.
"I did it," Elphaba laughed into Glinda's hair, and she felt Glinda laugh with her. "It was - I can't even tell you. And I think I found our path - but it was unbelievable, Glinda, and I think - well, I think it's going to snow, but that's not the point -"
Glinda's arms worked their way under her cloak and they stood pressed together as tightly as could be, Glinda shivering slightly - she was only in her nightgown, after all, and the window was still open, and Elphaba herself, her hair and her cloak, must have felt like an icicle. She held Glinda closer and tried to quiet her shivering with pure strength, and then she felt Glinda's chest lurch against her own, and realized that Glinda was crying.
"Oh no," Elphaba said, pulling away enough that she could run a cold hand over Glinda's cheek. "It's all right, it's all right . . ."
Glinda only shook her head fiercely.
"Let's go back downstairs," Elphaba murmured in what she hoped was a soothing tone. "Come on, let's go to bed now."
"Cloak," Glinda said through her tears.
"Right." Elphaba shed her cloak and rolled it into a ball. "It's too cold for you to -"
"No, it's all right." Glinda sniffled and took the cloak from her, and lifted her nightgown demurely to settle it around her waist as if it were a Quadling dancing skirt. "You shouldn't leave the broom here now," she added.
Elphaba looked at it, and felt as though it were looking back. "No," she agreed, "but if I come back for it tomorrow I can always say we spilled something. I can't think of a very good reason we'd need to go out and collect a broom in the middle of the night, and guards do talk -"
Glinda nodded as she finished settling Elphaba's cloak and let her nightgown fall to cover its added bulk. "Let's go then," she said quietly.
Elphaba turned once more to look at the broom over her shoulder as they left. It leaned against the wall like an abandoned pet, soulfully waiting for its master to return.