Chapter Text
I couldn’t be happier!
Oh dear
I couldn’t be happier
Right here
Look what I’ve got
A fairy-tale plot
My very own happy ending….
So maybe it wasn’t the exact happy ending Glinda always dreamed of.
In that ending, she maybe only slept in a forest one time as a prank or charity stunt, instead of half the nights for the last two years. In that ending, the rare times she slept under a roof for more than a few months in a row were in a palace, not…well, very much not palaces.
With at least a half-dozen fewer sleeping Animals she had to tip toe past for a glass of water – at least it better have been water – most of those nights.
And yes, she had to sing that it was her very own happy ending – because it wasn’t ours yet. But that’s only because Elphie’s happy ending was…not her. Not like she was for Glinda.
She fought off every less than fabulouscious thing inside herself, to make Elphie the happy ending she finally admitted she wanted. But it wasn’t like that for Elphie. Because she had…other dreams.
Other dreams that made them fugitives and made her the most hated “witch” in Oz. Other improbable, society changing dreams that wouldn’t make her fulfilled until they came true.
Because Glinda wasn’t dreamy enough for her. Despite being right here and already hers. In every way now.
But that was okay. Really!
Elphie said it herself. She didn’t need Glinda to care or fight or do the whole “save the Animals and destroy the way government works” thing like she did! She didn’t need to be like Elphie, just like herself!
Even if herself wasn’t popular. Or pretty without expensive or even half-priced things around. Or as….good as her.
So in a way, maybe this was exactly like her old dream. Like she was always told she wanted, until she knew it was what she wanted. Back then.
All she had to do for the rest of her life was support the person she loved, be their unquestioning champion, love them at the end of the day even if they hated everything else about their life, and enjoy the rest of her own life without anything getting her down. Because with true love at her side, what else mattered?
Especially now that she really knew what true love was…
That was Glinda’s true, maybe kinda the same as before, but much better happy ending. And all she had to do was cheer Elphie on a little while longer until she got hers. Then they could go back to Oz and she could cheer her on from a real house/palace with a view in no time.
It couldn’t be much longer now. Therefore, she….
Couldn’t be happier!
Because happy is what happens
When all your dreams come true!
*******************************************************
….so then why wouldn’t those annoying voices shut up?
Once she stopped fighting her feelings for Elphie, and how much they mattered to her, she wasn’t supposed to have ickifying thoughts in her head before she went to sleep. That was the deal. And just changing their words didn’t count!
You’d think having Elphie in her arms at night now, after…the things their lips did before they – well, Elphie anyway – went to sleep….and some of the scandalocious places they went….
Well, you’d think that’d be enough to make Glinda sleep like a baby. A well kissed….well, well kissed among other things…baby. Okay, maybe she should stop thinking about babies when it comes to that stuff….although with what they were doing, that’d be impossible by now if Elphie was…
No, focus, bad Glinda! But at least these were normal bad Glinda thoughts instead of…
Ugh, the whole point of happy endings and true love – especially true, forbidden, oh so wonderful, leave a whole life behind for it love – was that dumb old unhappy thoughts would never come back!
For Oz’s sake, loving Elphie got rid of all those “What if I’m a fraud?” “What if I’m not perfect?” and “Would anyone ever love me if I wasn’t?” thoughts forever! It had to! So then why did they still get remade into…
What if I’m still not enough for her?
What if she really does need more from me? She said just letting her fight her fight, and just being there to fight for her, was enough…but what if it shouldn’t be?
What if not settling for someone less than Elphie…means I shouldn’t settle for the same “do nothing while my love does all the work” life I’d have had without her too?
What if….I should want to do more for her?
….and what would it say about me – what would it say to her – if I didn’t? If I couldn’t? If I tried and it wasn’t enough?
….would she finally wish I was more than…the *real me*….then?
No, not her Elphie! That ridiculousity is going much too far!
….right?
After those first few magical months, even Glinda’s….finally magical hands – well, magical in a way Morrible hopefully never would have teached – weren’t enough to cheer Elphie up after a hard day of revolutionizing and Animal rescuing. Especially after the days with no Animal rescuing.
And she was still really mad about the flying monkeys. Or really sad about them. Sometimes she was madder and sadder at herself about the monkeys than she was at the Wizard. More and more, she kept saying out loud – and even loud enough in her sleep that she woke Glinda up a few times – she wished she just could fly back there and free them all herself.
But that stuff wasn’t supposed to be Glinda’s problem too. It didn’t have to be for Elphie to love her, she knew that now.
Though if it was, maybe she’d actually say…the word.
Then again, Glinda hadn’t either. But she started their first kiss, so it was Elphie’s turn to say that word first now! That’s how it works! Between a man and a woman who aren’t on the run from a whole city, anyway! This…
….okay, maybe Glinda still didn’t know how…this…is supposed to work for other people. But then how else would she know it was working? How else could she keep it?
And when it’s something she couldn’t, wouldn’t, ever afford to lose…not after she almost threw it away herself anyway….well, after that, she would not be that stupid again! She would be good enough to hold on and never think of letting go again!
….so why was she still….bad enough to think it still wasn’t enough? That she wasn’t doing enough?
That Elphie deserved so much more from her…
The same way she did before Ozdust….before flying away from Oz….
But Glinda made up for that stuff – eventually! And she hadn’t even done anything to her lately! Outside of nighttime stuff, anyway! So what else in Ozma’s name was she supposed to do?!
….what would someone worthy of Elphie do? And if she couldn’t answer that…
….is that someone really me?
******************************************************
Sometimes it made Glinda think. As if it wasn’t bad enough it made her think at all.
But sometimes it made her think things would be much easier if all those posters were right.
All those posters. All those speeches. All those articles that claimed Elphie hypnotized her, brainwashed her or controlled her mind to go with her. All those big crowds that demanded the Wicked Witch “Free Glinda” from her power. All of Oz being made to believe Glinda would never willingly be with Elphie, if she wasn’t forced against her will and had no mind of her own.
At least in some ways, not having a mind of her own would be much easier. It was before Elphie, anyway.
Sweet Oz, if they only knew how close she came to joining Morrible and the Wizard, all on her own. She pretty much told them she would get Elphie back for them before she left! As far as they knew…
As far as they knew…
Hold on. What did they know?
They weren’t there to see her decide to go with Elphie. She wasn’t actually on Elphie’s broom with her when the guards saw them and grabbed them. Once the trauma of falling 50 stories with Elphie and that first flight wore off, she remembered it was Elphie who reached for her and took her away – but she never had a chance to reach out for her.
As far as the guards could tell, maybe it did just look like Elphie had kidnapped her. And if that’s what they told the Wizard and Morrible…
Well, they still embellishified the story to make Elphie look bad. But if they really, truly thought, and still thought, Glinda was Elphie’s unwilling prisoner this whole time…
Hmm. That would be….something, wouldn’t it? Was it something?
Well, if the worst happened and they took her away from Elphie, at least maybe they wouldn’t lock her up. Maybe they’d even open up the palace and have all of Oz celebrate her rescue from…
From…
From!
No, no, that’s not the word! There were other words! Bigger words! Words that put all together almost sounded like…
An idea. A real idea.
An Elphie kind of idea.
*****************************************************************
Long ago, Elphie was supposed to be Galinda’s next big project. Now, in a way, she would be Glinda’s first big project.
More accurately, her first real one.
Non beauty related projects and most other things that sounded like schoolwork, or work work, were never Galinda’s specialty. A good many times, they weren’t even something she did herself. But this time, Glinda had to actually do this one – and do it on her own.
Out of all the things no one would have ever imagined her doing while at Shiz, this would be the most improbable – if not impossible – one to ever imagine.
The sight of her really, truly working. Studying. Writing down thoughts, ideas, plans somewhere other than a diary, before she could forget them. Hiding what she wrote far more zealously than she hid any diary – at least until she was ready to present it.
But for once, she wouldn’t be giving a presentation powered by hair tosses, or someone else’s words. And this presentation would be about something that actually mattered – and for someone.
So she forced herself to focus. Find time while Elphie was away not to relax, but to think. Find a quiet little corner not just to be alone, but to review if there was anything she missed so far. Anything Elphie might poke holes in and reject the whole thing over.
Stay up long enough to fine tune certain parts, but not long enough that Elphie would wonder why she wasn’t in bed yet. Ideally, she’d be asleep before it got that far anyway. Indeed, for once, her being too tired and too frustrated to pay attention to Glinda in bed worked out – hopefully for the last time.
One more reason why this had to work, so there could never be a next time.
Glinda checked, double checked and even triple-dripple checked that she’d thought everything out. That this really could work. That when Elphie heard it, she wouldn’t dare turn her – turn it – down.
Not after she saw how Glinda worked so hard, for once. Not after she proved…
….she could be a real partner after all.
She didn’t have to settle for being a stay-at-home, do nothing but finally look properly pretty again girl. Because that kind of settling would be for someone worth just settling for. Not Elphie.
She didn’t have to just cheer her on and nothing more, at least not now. Because that kind of cheering would be for someone who wasn’t worth more than a mere cheer. Not Elphie.
And as hard as it was to do all this thinking, planning, remembering, focusing, and everything else she was taught it was okay never to do – and was taught long ago it wasn’t worth trying to do any better….
….it was when it was for Elphie.
Every time an idea slipped through her head, and she fought to get it back, it was worth it when it was for Elphie. Every time she made herself fight through how tired she was, how new any of this was for her, and held back her natural instinct to just make someone else do the work for her – she won for Elphie.
She won because for once, she wanted to do someone else’s work for her. Once Elphie saw that, she would win so much more. And not just….the obvious benefits.
So Glinda powered through it all, powered by one mantra.
I can do this. For Elphie, I can do anything.
….sometimes, it powered her so much, she even forgot the rest of it. Most of the time, anyway.
….if I can’t, what good am I?
**************************************************************
Finally, it was time.
“Elphie? I have something for you!” she announced as soon as Elphie got back to their hovel of the month.
“Aren’t you a few hours early with that line?” Elphie at least tried to put something other than exhaustion and a half-focused attention span in her answer. Maybe that bode well.
“Okay, if this goes well, I can have two things! Good to know!” Glinda let herself dare to dream a while longer. “But the first thing I have? Is the answer to all our problems!”
Elphie sat herself down, instead of ignoring or laughing at her. The good signs were piling up now.
“Are you ready? Cause I’m gonna tell you something that’ll make you so proud in a few minutes!” Glinda teased, before willingly banging her hands on splinter-risking wood to show how serious her drum roll, and the rest of her, was.
“I’m going back to Oz!”
….
….okay, maybe those five extra minutes of sleep last night instead of reviewing the intro was a bad idea. But that was the only one.
It had to be.
“….trust me, you’re gonna love giving me those few minutes in a minute!”
“….I had better.”