Chapter Text
Fiyero tilted his head to the side as he watched Elphaba from across the lecture hall. She was in her usual seat, front row far left close to both the door and the blackboard, with her textbook open to the day's chapter. But her hands were, instead of scribbling at a blurring pace, sitting still in her lap. No notebook, no pen. She was still focused entirely on the professor's droning voice explaining something about wavy lines and triangles. It wasn't until she raised her hand to answer a question he didn't hear that he saw it: her right hand was wrapped up in so much bandaging that only the green tips of her fingers were visible above the bulky fabric.
Fiyero leaned to his left and whispered to Boq. "What happened to Elphaba's hand?"
Boq looked up from his own notes and squinted across the room to where Elphaba sat. "Nessa didn't mention anything when I saw her at breakfast," he said with a shrug, going back to copying the blackboard.
Usually during math Fiyero people watched. It was the best class for it, since math tended to inspire such a variety of facial expressions in his classmates. Some frowned, some looked like they could cry at any moment, and the look of pure joy that washed over someone when something clicked wasn't to be missed. But instead he found himself only watching Elphaba for the whole lesson. That had been happening a lot lately, ever since he first found himself standing stunned on the Ozdust dance floor as she danced and then ran off without him ever getting to say a single word to her. They still didn't speak much- only polite small talk at meals or in their two shared classes. He'd tried to break the ice with her more than once, but she was always running to another class, to go help Nessa, or so engrossed in a book she didn't even hear him let alone say something back. At first he took it pretty personally — was she giving him the cold shoulder because he'd turned down her roommate? But seeing her and Galinda interact, her and Boq, and honestly even her and Nessa made him realize that she was like that with everyone.
When the professor finally dismissed them, he watched as she struggled to put her textbook back into her satchel with just one hand. Each time she tried to use the wad of fabric masquerading as an appendage, she winced. Every single classmate passed her on the way to the door- but not a single person even looked her way, let alone offered her help. By the time he filed past she'd given up, slinging the bag over her shoulder and simply carrying the heavy tome in her good arm.
"Here, I've got that," he said with his usual breezy confidence, reaching his hand out to pull the book from her.
Instead of handing it over, she clutched the book closer to her chest. "I'm fine thanks," she said in a quick clip before turning way from him and marching out the door without looking back.
He didn't follow her... but they were both headed to the cafeteria for lunch, and he watched her struggle there, too. She finally managed to get her textbook into the bag, but now was balancing her tray with her good hand and very gingerly picking up food items with her bad one. She bee-lined out of the main seating, passing through the glass doors to the courtyard where she invariably sat alone. He considered going to join her, but instead grabbed his usual sandwich and went to find Boq; he had a favor to ask.
History was usually Fiyero's second to worse subject (worst being linguification with its obscene number of essays), but this particular afternoon he actually listened to the whole ninety minute lecture. As with that morning Elphaba sat with her textbook open but took no notes, cradling her hand under the desk. She'd taken out her notebook, but could barely hold her pen, and grimaced the whole time. And, as with that morning, nobody else seemed to notice, except for Doctor Dillamond at the end of class.
"Miss Elphaba, what in Oz happened to your hand?" he asked her as the rest of his students — besides Fiyero— exited the room as quickly as they could to enjoy the final hour of warmth before the late autumn sun set.
Elphaba sighed deeply, "An accident in sorcery yesterday. Eight stitches and one sprained finger doesn't sound like much but it seems its enough to make me completely useless."
"Madame Morrible wasn't able to help?" Dillamond asked.
Elphaba made a face Fiyero didn't know how to interpret and bit her lip. "Healing magic isn't her area of expertise."
Dr. Dillamond nodded, "Ah, I see. Well, I'll ask your classmates next session if anyone has any notes they can share with you."
Elphaba immediately began to shake her head, "No, that's really not necessary, I—"
Fiyero cleared his throat as he walked up, reminding the two of them that he was still in the room.
"That's alright Dr. Dillamond, Elphaba can have mine."
Both Dillamond and Elphaba stared at him, clearly not expecting him to say any of those words in that order. Fiyero tried not to blush.
"They're probably not up to your standard, but it's something," he said as he handed over the notebook. She took it with her good hand, her long nails lightly brushing his hand.
"Oh! And these," he quickly rummaged around in his bag. He pulled out another notebook, unceremoniously tore out a few pages, and passed them over, too. Elphaba looked down at them like she'd never seen paper before.
"I copied Boq's notes from calculus this morning. Hopefully you can read my handwriting."
"I—um" she swallowed for a moment, then blinked. "Thank you. I need to go now." Elphaba all but ran out of the room, not saying goodbye to either of them.
Doctor Dillamond looked at Fiyero and raised a silent eyebrow in question. Fiyero shrugged back and shook his head, equally confused by Elphaba's reaction.
Elphaba let the door slam behind her as she came into the thankfully empty dorm room. She placed the papers carefully on her bed, the loose ones slightly crumpled from her overly tight grip as she made her way across campus. It was just some sheets of notebook paper, so why did it cause a lump in her throat like she'd tried to eat it instead of just looking at it?
Fiyero noticed her hand hurt when nobody else did and helped —helped without her even asking. Why the hell would he do something like that? And now what was he going to want in return?
Elphaba frowned as she stripped off her shoes and jacket, carefully changing into her more comfortable study clothes instead of her uniform. She sat cross-legged on the bed and placed the notebook in her lap, slowly turning through the pages.
She immediately bust out laughing.
Some pages started with notes, but never made it beyond a paragraph or two. Instead the notebook was filled with doodles: colored pens and pencils, realistic and cartoony. Some were little flowers, or sketches of people she assumed were in their history class. Some were silly— she snorted so loudly Galinda would have been absolutely scandalized by her unladylike behavior, at a cartoon dog with a penis longer than its legs labeled "Gn Dog-Dick", an intentional misspelling of General Dawdique, the founder of the Munchkin home guard who, by all historical accounts, was kind of a prick. There were stick figure people fighting with giant swords and shields on days she assumed they were talking about the GilliQuad Wars. She was, however, most impressed by the illuminated letters: beautiful decorative letters like those done by monks when copying religious texts (likely drawn the week when they learned about the founding of the Unionist Church). "E" seemed to be his favorite; he made several "E's" each with different patterns. One was black and green, one was covered in red poppies, and one was green and blue diamonds she recognized as a traditional Vinkus motif.
Every page had a doodle: except the last two, with the day's date in the corner. These were actual notes, and good ones, with clear handwriting. True, they weren't as detailed as hers, but they were actually more legible in his bold print instead of her own rushed, slanted script. The bullet points, though, where were true Fiyero leaked through. Instead of a simple dot he made a little star, sometimes groups of stars, showing his mind beginning to wander before reigning himself back in.
Elphaba felt that lump in her throat again. Fiyero didn't just share his usual notes, he made an intentional effort to take notes for her. She turned her attention to the two torn-out pages filled with significantly less organized information than the history ones. A few things were even crossed out with arrows pointing to other parts of the paper. She remembered he said he'd copied Boq's notes —he must not have had his own to share and yet went out of his way to find some for her. Why?
She started down at the pages with more scrutiny, searching the writing for a rude word or some joke she'd missed the first time. She didn't find any (cartoon dog general's genitals not withstanding). She carefully pulled the last two sheets out of the history notebook and placed all four loose pages on her desk along with the rest of her textbooks. She stood there for several minutes, tamping down the odd feelings in her belly, before finally getting ready to head down to dinner.