Chapter Text
The weight of the week had settled deep into Elphaba’s bones. An evening found her wandering the halls, feeling utterly untethered. Her thoughts were a tangled mess of Nessa’s knowing smiles, Fiyero’s useless advice, and the gnawing, persistent emptiness that had become her constant companion.
It was then she remembered that her annotated copy of The Ozian Crop Rotation Manual and several other crucial texts were still in her and Galinda’s old suite. Their old suite.
A part of her dreaded returning to that space, a physical reminder of a happiness that felt irretrievably broken. But she needed her books. She took a steadying breath and pushed the door open.
The room was not as she had left it. A lone, guttering candle cast long shadows, and standing in the middle of the chaos was Galinda.
They both froze.
“Elphie!” Galinda squeaked, but she quickly composed herself, adopting a casual air. “I was just… you know. Picking up a few things I’d left behind. This room is practically a storage closet now.”
Elphaba said nothing. She simply looked at Galinda.
“You’re a terrible liar,” Elphaba said softly, her defensive scowl finally melting away, leaving only a raw, weary honesty. She saw the nervous flutter in her hands, the way her eyes were slightly red-rimmed, all a physical version of what she herself was feeling at the moment.
Galinda’s shoulders slumped. “And you’re too observant for your own good.”
A heavy silence hung between them, filled with all the words they hadn’t said.
“She came to you, didn’t she?” Elphaba asked, leaning against the door. “Morrible.”
Galinda’s eyes widened. “She told me… she said you found me a burden. That you only put up with my… ‘incompetence and flamboyance’ because I was beneficial to your social standing.”
Elphaba let out a short, sharp laugh that held no humor. “So that was what she came up with.” Elphaba said faintly as if only for herself.
Saying it out loud it all made Galinda feel so dumb. Her Elphie wouldn’t do that to her.
“She suggested I get a new partner,” Elphaba continued, her voice low. “After I told her in no uncertain terms that I would rather fail than work with anyone but you, you started acting.. different. Distant. It was her revenge.”
Galinda´s eyes started filling with tears.
“You are not a burden,” Elphaba said, the words fierce and sure. “You are... the opposite of a burden. And even if you were, I would carry you gladly. I would carry you through every lecture, every potion class, every miserable bit of existence, just to have you beside me.”
Galinda took a step closer. “And for me you are the most brilliant, infuriating, wonderful person I have ever met. Being apart from you was the most painful experience and confusifying experience ever.”
The space between them vanished. Elphaba reached out, her hand cupping Galinda’s cheek, wiping away a stray tear with her thumb. “This past week has been the loneliest of my life,” she confessed. “It made me realize that what I feel for you is... different.”
“Different in what way?” Galinda asked, echoing the question that had haunted her, her voice barely a breath.
Elphaba’s answer was not in words. She leaned in, her movements slow and deliberate. She gave Galinda every opportunity to pull away. She didn’t.
Their lips met in a kiss that was at once tentative and certain, a silent conversation that held all the apologies, all the realizations, and all the love that had been simmering between them for months.
When they finally parted, foreheads resting together, a true, unburdened laugh bubbled up from Galinda. “You know... maybe we should thank Morrible.”
“For what?”
“For being such a great matchmaker.”
The sheer audacity of the statement made Elphaba burst out laughing, a rich, full sound that echoed in the quiet room. Galinda beamed, thrilled to have been the one to cause it, and leaned in to seal the joke with another quick, joyous kiss.
Weeks later, the campus of Shiz had settled into a new normal. The first crisp leaves of autumn swirled around the courtyard where a little friend group had planned to gather. Elphaba and Galinda strolled up, their fingers intertwined. Elphaba patiently listened as Galinda animatedly detailed her plans to completely reorganize their shared closet by color spectrum, a project Elphaba found as frivolous as she did endearing, though this was monthly due to how her face lit up while doing so.
“See?” Fiyero’s voice cut through the air as he saw them approaching, flashing a winsome smile. “What did I tell you, Greenbean? No use worrying. These things have a way of working themselves out.” He winked. “I’m happy for you both. Truly.”
Elphaba rolled her eyes, but there was no heat in it. “You were as always profoundly simplistic and unhelpful.”
“But correct,” he countered, leaning back on his chair and basking in the sun.
A moment later Nessarose arrived, surprisingly without Boq. Nessa’s face was filled with an expression of serene satisfaction.
“I am glad to see the two of you have reconciled properly,” Nessa said, her gaze drifting between them. “It’s a much better fit now that you’ve finally made it official.”
Galinda blinked. “Finally?”
“Well, yes,” Nessa said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “It’s much more peaceful now that it’s out in the open. I, for one, always thought you made a lovely couple.”
Elphaba and Galinda exchanged a look of pure bewilderment. “Nessa,” Elphaba said slowly. “We only… figured this out… last week.”
Nessarose’s smile didn't falter. “Did you? How curious. It seemed quite evident to me.”
Galinda felt a blush creep up her neck. She was immensely grateful that Pfannee and Shenshen were across campus, likely terrorizing some recently arrived students or critiquing someone’s hemline. Their combined "I told you so" energy would have been absolutely unbearable to endure.
It was then that Boq hurried up, looking thoroughly windswept and slightly sunburned. "Sorry I'm late!" he panted, clutching a large, mud-spattered book titled Comprehensive Guide to Munchkinland Irrigation and Soil Density. "You would not believe the week I've had. The library's entire agriculture section was being re-catalogued, and then I got completely sidetracked by a fascinating thesis on the effect of annual rainfall on strawberry yields. It's been an absolute whirlwind." He finally paused for breath, looking around at the group with a cheerful, oblivious smile. "So, what did I miss?"
He glanced at Elphaba and Galinda, who were sitting closer than was strictly necessary for a conversation about closet organization. Their fingers were laced together on the bench between them, but he registered none of it.
The entire group fell into a moment of stunned, shared silence before bursting into good-natured laughter. Boq just smiled. He was pleased to be included even if he wasn't entirely sure why.
From the balcony of her study, Madame Morrible observed the scene, her knuckles white as she gripped the railing. A profound, soul-deep annoyance settled in her bones as she observed Galinda reach up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind Elphaba’s ear, her touch lingering. Great. Her plan to drive those two apart had not only failed. She was now doomed, for the remainder of their academic careers, to endure the very thing she had sought to prevent: the unseemly, cavorting, and worst of all happy union of Miss Elphaba Thropp and Miss Galinda Upland.
High above, the weather seemed to sympathize with her as the sunniest of afternoons was suddenly besieged by a brooding, localized squall directly over the administration tower. It would later be noted in the Shiz weather logs that, despite an otherwise pleasant season, the campus had just endured the single stormiest week in its recorded history, though no one but a certain headmistress could have said precisely why.