Work Text:
“Elphaba Thropp, I know you’re out here,” Glinda said. The dark sky laid out before her was quiet, still, a blanket over the sleeping city below. “Just come in before the Monkeys spot you.”
The wind ruffled her curls, and the air shifted, making her pause her frantic searching. Slowly, she turned. Her eyes stayed on the balcony floor, heart pounding as she let herself dare to hope.
Is it really-, her thoughts were stopped with a gasp, dark eyes catching on a dark figure between her and her bubble.
Elphaba.
“You’re really doing it,” Elphaba lifted her head, the lamp above lighting the side of face, her hat casting deep shadows still hiding her from Glinda’s view, “you’re marrying him.”
The corset of her dress had never felt so unbearably tight.
“It was the Wizard’s idea,” she’d never felt so wrong being right before. Her secret, shared between new friends, had been a frivolous dream of a girl caught up in the romance of romance, of a love that fit all the stereotypes of a ‘happily ever after’. “Something to please the crowds.” The crowds, yes, but not her. Never her.
“I’m sure you and Fiyero will be happy,” Elphaba took a step forward, broom in hand, “he even seems to know this time.”
“I couldn’t be happier,” Glinda heard herself say. Lies, her mind whispered.
“So you say,” another step, “you haven’t changed.”
The same could not be said for the girl - woman now - standing in front of her. From her clothes, to the look burning in her eyes, everything had changed.
“Still popular,” the corner of green lips quirked up in a smirk, “still blonde.”
Everything had changed, except them.
Elphaba’s words were echoes of the past, but lilted and sang with a fondness that could never be lost to time. Years had passed, and yet it was still her Elphie standing in front of her.
Glinda’s carefully curated mask slipped, just for a clock tick, before falling completely.
“Elphie,” she whispered, taking her own step closer. Face to face, she could see the exhaustion in green eyes, could see the slightly sharper cheekbones and the more pronounced jawline; time on the run hadn’t been kind, but Elphaba was still as beautiful as the last day she’d seen her.
“I’ve missed you,” Elphaba added in her own soft whisper.
She couldn’t bring herself to lie again, not with the earnest look of utter vulnerability on Elphaba’s face.
“I’ve missed you too.”
Green eyes sparkled with unshed tears as the woman before her let out a watery chuckled, the wonky grin that had haunted Glinda’s dreams on her lips.
The clock chimed again, reminding her that time was still ticking on, and the world outside of their slowly forming bubble was still moving forward.
“It’s not safe here,” she muttered, looking back to the skies for any hint of a beating wing, “can we go somewhere else?” Her eyes flicked to the broom in Elphaba’s hand.
“Where?” The wariness shouldn’t have stung as it did, Glinda was well aware of the many attempts to capture the woman, but it made her heart ache keenly.
Undeterred, she pushed forwards, “the attic, at the palace. There’s something I want to show you.”
Glinda felt a wave of pride ripple through her at the expertly raised dark eyebrow, proof that her efforts back at Shiz had been worth it.
But no words came, and for one heart-stopping moment, she thought Elphaba might say no.
And then finally, “ok.”
“Why are we here?” Elphaba asked softly. In slow turns, the woman took in the attic around them. Glinda had made sure the space had been cleaned up after that disastrous one short day, the shattered glass of the window replaced, the mess of boxes sorted into some form of order. Old carts, bits and bobs from the Wizard’s old world, and mounds of books that had once littered the lower level had been meticulously tidied away.
The attic had been the one place she could still be just Glinda , instead of the perfectly perfect Glinda the Good . She could be messy and get her spells wrong… fail without retribution. She could cry, yearn for the woman she loved, grieve the life she’d thought they might have. She could worry about the future, rage about the present, and dream about the past.
It was safe. No one went there, as high up and out of the way in the palace as it was.
So she’d claimed it for her own, a home away from the walls of her gifted apartment.
“I’ve been practicing,” Glinda said, her heart racing with nerves. Her fingers played with the buttons on her hastily grabbed cover up anxiously, eyes snapping from one misplaced book to the next.
“Practicing what?” There was that eyebrow again.
I never should have shown her that.
“Magic,” she said, a slow burning warmth spreading across her cheeks. “Madame Morrible still doesn’t have faith in me, but,” she moved to one of the walls pulling on a leaver with a grunt, and a self-depreciating grin, “I’m not as hopeless as she thinks.”
Gears clicked and clunked, grinding together as a shadow lowered from the far up ceiling. Glinda watched Elphaba look up in alarm, eyes widening as she took in the steadily lowering ropes.
She bit her lip, waiting.
“Are they… brooms?” Attached to the end of the rope, tied together with the sturdiest rope she could find, were two brooms of twisted wood, not unlike the one Elphaba had set against the wall when they’d arrived. When the idea had come to her, Glinda had scoured the relics for something that might work, and then, when she was running out of patience, she’d come across these.
After a quiet breakdown and countless tears, she’d pulled herself together and got to work. The Wizard might not have any real power, but he was an excellent engineer. An engineer who loved to talk more than she did. So she had learnt, and remembered, and used the knowledge for her own self-indulgent cause.
A swing, one that would let her feel like she was flying, like she was defying gravity.
Just like Elphaba.
“Mhmm,” she hummed. Glinda reached out without thinking, taking Elphaba’s hand in hers before startling. “I’m sorry.”
Elphaba looked down, a soft smile growing as she looked back up. She didn’t speak, but she lifted her hand. And turned it palm up. And waited.
An invitation.
One that Glinda did not hesitate to take up.
It felt like coming home. Two pieces of a puzzle reconnecting.
She could feel her dimple pop with the size of her smile. It had been so long since she’d smiled so much that her cheeks ached with misuse.
Glinda led them to the broom, their backs turned towards it, and as one, they sat. Their spare hands held on tight to the thick rope, and she took a breath.
The practiced motions were second nature to her by now, her eyes falling closed and her toes curling lightly in her shoes. One breath in, one breath out. The familiar tingle at her fingertips told her it was time, and she gave a gentle squeeze to the rope before, slowly, they started to rise.
Beside her, Elphaba gasped, her fingers tightening around her hand as they went up, up, up.
She let her magic flow, free and unhindered, until they reached the halfway point and stopped. They sat there, suspended mid-air, hand in hand as they always should have been.
Glinda tilted her head towards Elphaba, taking in her gaping expression as she looked down to the floor.
“How did you-”
She shrugged, “magic.”
Green eyes found hers, “but, why?”
“I wanted to see what it was like to fly,” she said softly.
“But your bubble?”
“It’s not magic,” it wasn’t the same.
Elphaba let out a disbelieving laugh, looking around at the dark attic with marvel in her eyes. When she looked back, her eyes were impossibly warm, filled with something Glinda didn’t - couldn’t - acknowledge. Not yet.
“I always knew you could do it,” the words nearly broke her already shaky composure. The warm pinpricks of tears poked unforgivingly at the corners of her eyes.
“There’s more,” Glinda said with a shaky breath.
She didn’t wait for acknowledgement, scared she’d lose her nerve. Closing her eyes again, she concentrated on the tingling, and pushed.
“Glinda-” Elphaba breathed.
Waiting a few more seconds, just long enough to know that it would (probably) hold, Glinda opened her eyes and beamed.
With a touch of magic, dust that had only been visible as it danced in the moonbeams had blossomed into pink flecks of glowing light. All around the attic, small specks of warm pink filled the room from floor to ceiling, bathing the space in colour. They drifted like constellations, forming pictures that distorted and reformed before their eyes.
“You made stars,” Elphaba whispered in awe.
The way she was looking around the room, like she’d never seen such a beautiful sight, was all the praise Glinda could ever want. And she couldn’t blame her really, the sight she was looking at was also the most beautiful one she’d ever seen… it just wasn’t the stars that her eyes were drawn to.
Glinda felt her face fall into a lovesick expression, one she knew she’d made at Fiyero once upon a time. She dragged her eyes away from Elphaba, back to the magic around them as she cleared her throat.
“There wasn’t enough pink,” she said, “so I made my own.”
Elphaba quietly chuckled, “of course you did.”
Glinda chanced a glance back, a small smile growing as she took in the pink hue of Elphaba’s skin.
“Pink goes good with green,” she teased.
Elphaba’s gaze shot to hers, with a teasing grin of her own, “goes well with green.”
It was almost like they were back in Shiz.
“It so does.”
For a moment, they just looked at each other, caught up in memories.
“Maybe you have changed,” Elphaba said.
“What do you mean?”
She sighed, looking back to the pink specks, “do you remember what I said about things being easy for you, so you didn’t need magic? And that’s why it was hard?” Glinda remembered it as clearly as if it were yesterday. She nodded. “Maybe things haven’t been so easy for you lately.”
It was like looking in a mirror and seeing all her vulnerabilities at once.
It was too much.
“It can’t have been easy for you either,” she deflected.
Elphaba sighed, “no, not easy. Lonely.”
“Lonely, but, the Animals?”
A nod, and a wistful look sent her way, “the Animals are good company, but,” she shrugged, “like I said, I missed you.”
Before she could reply, she felt an uncomfortable emptiness as her magic began to fade from her fingers, what little there was running out.
The moment had run its course, and with no small amount of despair for the brief break from the chaos, Glinda lowered the swing.
The lights around them dimmed, pink fading from existence as the dust returned to dust.
Her magic wasn’t much, she knew that, but it was something. Something she had worked hard to achieve. It had given her an escape, one she’d hoped to be able to show Elphaba. Show her what she’d learnt. Show her that she wasn’t just a pretty face and that she could be useful.
And now she had, and she didn’t want to let it end.
As the ropes lowered, her magic bringing them back to the ground, Glinda felt panic take hold. She squeezed the hand in hers and turned to face Elphaba.
“Take me with you,” the words fell out, not at all thought out. Glinda’s eyes widened along with Elphaba’s, shocked at what they’d both heard.
Too late to go back, and through regretting broken promises and playing by the rules she’d spent a lifetime following, Glinda pressed on, “think of what we could do,” she echoed those words that had been spoken so long ago, “together.”
She waited with baited breath, scared of what she’d just asked for and scared of the response she’d receive.
She needn’t have worried. A clock tick, and then…
Elphaba smiled.