Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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The library was supposed to be her sanctuary—a fortress of solitude where the chaos of her heart couldn’t reach her. But today, even the musty scent of ancient tomes couldn’t drown out the storm inside Elphaba’s mind.

She sat hunched over a book on political theory, her fingers tracing the same sentence for the fifth time without absorbing a single word.

Galinda. Fiyero.

Her chest ached.

Why does this hurt so much?

Galinda—her Galinda—was sunlight given human form. She was the warmth in Elphaba’s cold world, the laughter that melted her scowls, the relentless optimism that refused to let her drown in her own bitterness. When Galinda looked at her, Elphaba felt seen, not as a spectacle or a monster, but as someone worthy.

And then there was Fiyero.

Fiyero, who challenged her, who matched her sharp tongue with his own lazy smirk, who looked at her like she was a puzzle he was determined to solve. With him, she didn’t have to be soft. She could be angry, stubborn, difficult—and he’d still lean in closer, as if her edges were the most interesting thing about her.

She wasn’t stupid. She knew what this feeling was, this awful, clawing thing in her chest that made her want to both flee and cling at the same time. But acknowledging it meant risking it—risking them—and she couldn’t. She couldn’t.

Because that was the cruelest joke of all—she wanted both. She wanted Galinda’s hands in hers, her lips pressed to her temple. She wanted Fiyero’s arms around her, his voice low in her ear. But the world didn’t work that way. 

Love wasn’t supposed to work that way.

Because who would ever choose her?

The thought was a blade between her ribs.

Galinda, who could have anyone at Shiz with a flutter of her lashes—why would she want Elphaba, all sharp angles and sharper words? And Fiyero, who had once loved Galinda’s golden ease—how could he ever look at her and feel the same?

They pity you.

The voice in her head was cruel, but familiar.

They pitied the lonely, green girl with no friends, the one who scowled at parties and hid in libraries. They were kind to her because that’s what good people did—they didn’t love her. They couldn’t.

You’re not lovable.

Her throat tightened.

And yet—

And yet, when Galinda tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, when Fiyero’s shoulder pressed against hers in the crowded dining hall—

It feels like they do.

But that was the most terrifying part.

Because what if she let herself believe it? What if she reached for them, only for them to realize their mistake?

Because if she lost them—if she let herself want them and they left—

The book slipped from her lap, hitting the floor with a thud that echoed like a gunshot. A librarian scowled in her direction.

The shadows stretched long as the sun dipped below the horizon. Time was up.

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The door creaked as Elphaba shouldered it open, her arms full of books she hadn’t read and notes she hadn’t taken. The library had been a failed refuge, every word swimming before her eyes as her mind replayed the way Fiyero's shoulder had brushed hers at lunch, the way Galinda's fingers lingered whenever she passed Elphaba a cup of tea.

She barely had time to blink before—

"Elphie!"

Elphaba's stomach dropped. This is it, some panicked part of her brain supplied. She's finally realized. Realized what a mistake it all was—the lingering touches, the shared smiles, the way Elphaba's heart stuttered whenever Galinda said her name like that, all bright vowels and affection.

"W-what did you do?" Elphaba cursed the tremor in her voice, gripping her books like a shield.

Galinda's smile flickered, nervous. "Why do you assume I did something?"

"Because you only act like that when you've done something." The words came out automatically, even as Elphaba's pulse roared in her ears. She dropped her bag with a thud, eyes tracking the way Galinda's fingers twisted in her skirt—nervous, she's never nervous—"Did you use my notes as kindling again?"

"No! Well—not today—" Galinda huffed, cheeks flushing pink. "Just—sit down, would you?"

Every instinct screamed at Elphaba to run. To hide. To bury this unbearable hope before it could ruin everything. She crossed her arms instead. "That's ominous."

Galinda groaned, dragging a hand through her perfectly curled hair. "I'm trying to be serious, you impossible creature!"

Something in Galinda’s voice—a tremor, a rawness—made Elphaba’s chest tighten. Slowly, she sank onto the edge of her own bed, the mattress creaking under her weight.

"...Alright," Elphaba said, voice carefully flat even as her thoughts spiraled.

She knows. She must know. About the way I watch her brush her hair in the mornings, about the poems I've scribbled and burned—

Galinda inhaled sharply.

Then exhaled.

Then opened her mouth—

—and closed it again.

Elphaba's nails bit into her palms. Just say it. Tell me you've had enough of the freak, the green girl, the— "Is something wrong?" The words tore out of her, too harsh, too loud.

"No!" Galinda’s voice pitched high. "I just—" She fidgeted, gaze darting everywhere but Elphaba’s face. "I need to tell you something. Something important."

The room tilted. Elphaba's breath came too fast. Galinda never hesitated. Galinda always had words—too many, too loud, too bright. This quiet, shaking version of her was wrong.

"Out with it, then," Elphaba muttered, fingers digging into her own knees hard enough to bruise.

Galinda swallowed hard.

Then—

"I think about kissing you all the time."

Silence.

The words hung between them, fragile as glass.

Elphaba’s breath stopped.

Galinda’s face was scarlet now, her hands fluttering like startled birds. "Not—not in a weird way! Or—well, maybe a little weird, because sometimes I think about it when you’re scowling at your books, or when you’re covered in ink, or when you—" She cut herself off, pressing her palms to her cheeks. "Oz, I’m making this worse."

Elphaba's mind had gone terrifyingly blank. This wasn't happening. It couldn't be happening. Galinda—her Galinda, all sunshine and glitter and effortless charm—wanted to kiss her? The girl who stained every teacup she touched with ink? The girl whose own father couldn't bear to look at her?

She's confused. She'll realize her mistake—

Galinda’s hands were warm.

That was the first thing Elphaba registered—the heat of Galinda’s fingers tangled with hers, the way her palms trembled but didn’t let go. The second thing was Galinda’s face, so close now, her brown eyes wide and wet and terrified.

"You’re joking," Elphaba whispered, but her voice cracked.

Galinda let out a shaky laugh. "Do I look like I’m joking?"

She didn’t. She looked—

Beautiful.

Elphaba's throat closed. Galinda's confession still hung between them, bright and fragile as a soap bubble. And suddenly, desperately, Elphaba wanted to catch it. To keep it.

"Galinda, I—"

I love you too.

The words lodged in her chest, too big, too much. But she could show her. She could—

Slowly, hesitantly, Elphaba lifted her free hand. Her fingers brushed Galinda's cheek, tracing the damp trail of a tear she hadn't realized had fallen. Galinda's breath hitched.

"Elphie?"

Elphaba swallowed. "Shut up."

And then—

Then she leaned in.

Galinda’s eyes fluttered shut.

Their lips were a breath apart—

A knock at the door.

Both women froze.

"Elphaba?" Fiyero’s voice, muffled but unmistakable. "You in there?"

Galinda made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob. She flopped backward onto the bed, arms splayed.

Elphaba stood so fast the bedframe groaned. "I should—" She gestured vaguely at the door, her entire body thrumming with adrenaline.

Galinda's expression flickered—something between disappointment and resignation. "Right. Of course." She sat up, smoothing her skirts with trembling hands. "Go on, then."

Elphaba hesitated. "Galinda, I—"

I want to kiss you. I want to choose you. I don't know how to say any of this.

Galinda offered a wobbly smile. "Go talk to him, and then come back to me."

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Elphaba shut the dormitory door behind her with a sharp click, her pulse still hammering from what had almost happened with Galinda. The cool hallway air did nothing to soothe the fire in her cheeks.

Fiyero stood before her, all broad shoulders and nervous energy, his usual effortless charm replaced by something painfully earnest. His hands were behind his back, his posture too straight—like a soldier bracing for battle.

Elphaba's stomach twisted. "What is it, Yero?"

Fiyero exhaled, then produced the bouquet—wild poppies, vibrant as a sunset, their stems bound with leather.

Elphaba's breath caught. 

"Are those… for me?"

"No, I brought them for the hallway." His usual smirk was there, but strained at the edges. "Yes, they're for you."

She didn't take them. Couldn't. Her fingers twitched at her sides, nails biting into her palms. "Why?"

Fiyero stepped closer. The flowers brushed her wrist, their petals soft as a whisper.

"Because you're you." His voice was rough, stripped bare. "Because you're the only person who doesn't let me get away with anything. Because I—" A pause. A swallow. "Because I like you. More than I should."

The world tilted.

First Galinda. Now him. With flowers.

Elphaba's chest constricted. This wasn't happening. It couldn't be happening. Love wasn't supposed to work like this—not for her. Not ever.

“You don’t mean that,” she whispered.

Fiyero’s expression darkened. “Don’t tell me what I mean.”

Before she could respond—before she could think—the door flew open.

“Elphie, I forgot to ask if you wanted to—” Galinda froze. Her gaze dropped to the bouquet, then snapped to Fiyero’s face.

A beat.

“You,” she said, voice dangerously sweet, “are kidding me.”

Fiyero stiffened. “Galinda—”

“You brought her flowers?” Her hands flew to her hips. “Actual, real flowers? Not a half-dead dandelion you picked off the quad? Not a ‘oh, I forgot, here’s a leaf’?”

Fiyero’s ears turned red. “That was one time—”

“You never brought me flowers!”

Elphaba's vision tunneled. The hallway walls pressed in. The poppies in Fiyero's grip blurred.

This was a mistake. All of it.

She took a step back. "I'm leaving."

“No!” They both turned on her in unison.

Galinda’s eyes narrowed. “Oh no, Elphie. You don’t get to escape this.” She jabbed a finger at Fiyero. “He doesn’t just get to waltz in here with—” She gestured wildly at the bouquet. “With effort!”

Fiyero groaned. “That’s what you’re mad about?”

“Yes!”

Elphaba buried her face in her hands. The weight of it all—Galinda's confession, Fiyero's poppies, the way her heart threatened to crack open—crushed her.

This wasn't how love worked. Not for girls like her.

And yet—

And yet, when she dared to peek through her fingers, Galinda was glaring at Fiyero with familiar exasperation, and Fiyero was rolling his eyes like this was just another Tuesday.

No pity. No regret.

Just them.

Elphaba's breath hitched.

Maybe—

Maybe—

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The door clicked shut behind them, sealing the three of them in the dorm room that suddenly felt far too small. Elphaba's back hit the wall as if pulled by gravity, her lungs refusing to expand properly. The air smelled like Galinda's perfume and Fiyero's leather boots and the faint ozone crackle of her own panic.

Galinda whirled on Fiyero first, her golden curls bouncing with righteous indignation. "You—you absolute turncoat!" Her voice climbed an octave. "You knew I—!" She flapped her hands wildly, rings glinting in the lamplight. "And you just waltz in here with flowers?!"

Fiyero crossed his arms, the poppies crumpling slightly in his grip. "Oh, please. Since when do you have feelings for Elphaba?"

"Since forever!" The shriek made Elphaba's ears ring.

"You never said anything!"

"I just did! Like, five minutes ago!"

Elphaba pressed harder against the wall, the rough plaster biting through her dress. Her pulse roared in her ears, drowning out reason. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. She'd imagined (in her weakest moments) maybe one of them looking at her differently someday. Never both. Never like this—with Galinda's confession still warm on her lips and Fiyero's flowers wilting between them.

"Stop." The word came out strangled. "Both of you."

They didn't hear her.

Galinda jabbed a finger at Fiyero's chest. "You had months to make a move! Months! And you wait until today?!"

"I didn't plan this!" Fiyero's voice dropped into that dangerous register that usually preceded broken furniture. "And since when is there a schedule for—"

"ENOUGH!"

Elphaba's voice shattered the argument like glass.

Silence fell heavy and sudden.

She was shaking, she realized. Her hands clenched at her sides, nails leaving crescent moons in her palms. "I can't—" The words choked her. "Oz above, I can't do this."

Galinda's anger dissolved instantly. "Elphie—"

"No." Elphaba squeezed her eyes shut, green skin flushing emerald. "You both just—you drop this on me like it's nothing? Like I'm supposed to choose?"

Fiyero's brow furrowed. "Elphaba—"

"I can't." Her voice broke. "Don't make me. You're both—" Her gesture encompassed all of them, the space between them. "You're everything. And it's terrifying."

The silence this time was different. Thicker.

Galinda's lips parted. Fiyero's grip on the flowers loosened.

Then—

"Oh," Galinda breathed, soft as a sigh.

Fiyero rubbed the back of his neck. "...Huh."

Elphaba's eyes flew open. "That's it? 'Oh'? 'Huh'?"

Galinda bit her lip, a slow, dangerous smile spreading across her face. "So... you're saying... you want both of us?"

Elphaba's face burned. "I'm saying I can't choose."

The glance Galinda and Fiyero exchanged then spoke volumes—an entire conversation in raised eyebrows and quirked lips.

Then, like the sun breaking through storm clouds, Galinda grinned. "Well. That's convenient."

Fiyero snorted, tossing the poppies onto the dresser. "Yeah. Real tragic."

Elphaba's brain short-circuited. "What?"

Galinda bounced on her toes, clapping her hands. "Elphie, darling," she drawled, "did it ever occur to you that maybe none of us have to choose?"

The world tilted. Elphaba's knees threatened to buckle.

Galinda's hands found hers, warm and sure. "We've talked about something like this, Fiyero and I. Extensively."

Fiyero leaned against the dresser, arms crossed. "Turns out we make terrible lovers but excellent co-conspirators."

"You still owe me twenty oznotes from last week's poker game."

"You cheated —"

"Prove it."

Elphaba looked between them, the pieces slotting into place with dizzying clarity. "You... planned this?"

"Planned?" Galinda scoffed. "We merely hoped—I think... even if we didn't know back then, it had always been about you."

Fiyero pushed off the dresser, closing the distance in two strides. His hand hovered near Elphaba's cheek, waiting. "The only question," he murmured, "is what you want."

Galinda squeezed her fingers. "And before you argue—yes, we're very sure."

Elphaba looked at them—really looked—and saw no pity. No hesitation. Just Galinda's bright certainty and Fiyero's steady patience and...

Oh.

Elphaba stared at their joined hands—Galinda's pink nails against her green skin, Fiyero's calloused fingers laced through hers. The warmth was undeniable, but the fear still coiled tight in her chest.

"I don't... I don't know how to do this," she admitted, voice barely above a whisper.

Galinda squeezed her hand. "Neither do we."

Fiyero's thumb brushed her knuckles. "We'll figure it out."

Elphaba swallowed hard. "People will talk."

"Let them," Galinda said with a toss of her curls.

"They'll say—"

"That you're lucky?" Fiyero smirked.

Elphaba huffed, but the corner of her mouth twitched. "They'll say I've bewitched you both."

Galinda gasped in delight. "Oh! Can you? That would make things so much easier—"

"Galinda."

"Fine, fine." She leaned in, resting her head on Elphaba's shoulder. "No magic. Just us."

Elphaba looked between them—at Galinda's hopeful smile, at Fiyero's steady gaze. The fear didn't vanish, but something else bloomed alongside it. Something warm and fragile and worth protecting.

Slowly, carefully, she let herself lean into them both.

"Okay," she breathed. "We'll try."

Galinda squealed loud enough to startle the birds outside their window. Fiyero pressed a kiss to Elphaba's temple—then immediately yelped as Galinda pinched his side.

"Hey! What was that for?"

"You kissed her first!" Galinda huffed. "I'm supposed to be the favorite!"

Elphaba groaned, hiding her face in her hands. "I take it back. I don't want this."

"Too late!" Galinda chirped, throwing her arms around them both. "We come as a set now!"

Fiyero grinned, dodging another pinch. "Like a really dysfunctional set of dinnerware."

Elphaba peeked through her fingers at their ridiculous, beaming faces—and despite herself, she laughed.

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Chapter Text

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When Fiyero finally left for the night, Elphaba exhaled, her shoulders finally relaxing after the emotional whirlwind of the evening.

Galinda turned to her, her eyes bright and hopeful. "So," she said, twirling a lock of golden hair around her finger. "Now that he's gone..."

Elphaba rolled her eyes, but her heart was racing. "Yes?"

Galinda stepped closer, until the toes of their shoes touched. "I believe we were interrupted earlier."

Elphaba swallowed hard. "Were we?"

Galinda grinned. "Mmhm. Right about... here." She lifted a hand to Elphaba's cheek, her touch feather-light.

Elphaba's breath caught as Galinda leaned in, her lips brushing against hers—soft, warm, and perfect. It was tentative at first, a question more than a statement, but when Elphaba didn't pull away, Galinda deepened the kiss, her fingers tangling in the dark fabric of Elphaba's dress.

When they finally broke apart, Galinda was beaming. "See? That wasn't so scary, was it?"

Elphaba huffed, but her face was warm. “It was slightly scary.”

Galinda laughed, bright and musical, before tugging Elphaba toward her bed. "Come on. Stay with me tonight."

Elphaba hesitated. "Galinda—"

"Just to sleep," Galinda clarified, though her smirk suggested she wouldn't mind otherwise. "I promise."

Elphaba sighed, but there was no real resistance in it. "Okay."

Galinda squealed—actually squealed—before dragging her under the covers. Elphaba let herself be pulled, her heart lighter than it had been in years.

As they settled in, Galinda curled against her side, her head resting on Elphaba's shoulder. "This is nice," she murmured.

Elphaba hummed in agreement, her fingers absently tracing patterns on Galinda's arm.

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Elphaba blinked awake to the warmth of Galinda curled around her—one arm slung possessively over her waist, blonde hair tickling her shoulder, lips slightly parted in sleep.

Elphaba held her breath.

How is this my life?

She traced the shape of Galinda’s wrist where it rested against her stomach, marveling at the contrast—pale pink nails against her own green skin. Somewhere, Fiyero was probably still asleep too, his dark hair mussed against his pillows, that ridiculous smirk softened in dreams.

Galinda stirred, mumbling into Elphaba’s neck. “Mmf. S’too early.”

Elphaba pressed a kiss to her forehead. “The bell tower’s about to ring.”

“Don’t care.” Galinda tightened her grip. “Five more minutes.”

She kissed Galinda’s temple next, then the tip of her nose, smiling when Galinda scrunched her face in protest. “You’ll be late to Linguification.”

“Worth it,” Galinda sighed, but her eyes fluttered open, blue and sleep-soft. Then—“Oh! You’re kissing me awake!” She beamed, suddenly alert. “That’s new.”

Elphaba rolled her eyes, but her cheeks burned. “Don’t get used to it.”

Galinda kissed her properly—slow and sweet, her fingers tangling in Elphaba’s dark hair. When they parted, she grinned. “Too late. I’m very used to it.”

The bell tower chimed.

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The cobblestone path to the dining hall glittered with morning dew as Elphaba and Galinda walked side by side—close enough that their shoulders brushed with every other step. Without thinking, Galinda reached for Elphaba's hand, threading their fingers together like she'd done a hundred times before.

Elphaba didn't pull away.

Around them, Shiz students barely glanced up from their hurried conversations. A few first-years whispered behind their books, but most were too preoccupied with morning fatigue or last-minute studying to care about two roommates holding hands.

"You're squishing my fingers," Elphaba muttered, though she made no move to disentangle them.

Galinda gasped dramatically. "I am not! If anything, you're the one with the vice grip—" She swung their joined hands between them, making Elphaba's elbow bump against her side. "Admit it. You like it."

Elphaba rolled her eyes, but the corner of her mouth twitched. "I tolerate it."

Galinda popped up onto her toes and pressed a quick kiss to Elphaba's cheek—another common sight, though this one did earn a few more glances from passing students.

By the time they reached the dining hall doors, Fiyero was already waiting, leaning against the stone archway with a lazy grin. His eyes dropped to their linked hands, then back up to Elphaba's face.

"Took you long enough," he said, pushing off the wall to fall into step beside them.

Galinda squeezed Elphaba's fingers. "We were busy."

Fiyero snorted. "Obviously."

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The library was unusually crowded for a Thursday afternoon, students crammed into every alcove and study table ahead of midterms. Elphaba had claimed her usual spot in the history section—a narrow table wedged between two towering bookshelves, far enough from the windows to avoid the worst of the afternoon glare.

She was halfway through annotating a dense treatise on Ozian trade laws when a shadow fell across her parchment.

"Move over, Fae."

Fiyero didn’t wait for permission before sliding into the chair beside her, his arm brushing hers as he dropped a stack of books onto the table with a thud that made several nearby students jump.

Elphaba didn’t look up. "Go away."

"Can’t." He stretched his legs out under the table, knocking his boot against hers. "Assigned reading."

She finally glanced at him—and immediately regretted it. He was grinning, all lazy confidence and sun-kissed skin, his collar undone just enough to be distracting.

"You’re not even holding a pen," she pointed out.

Fiyero shrugged. "Forgot one."

Elphaba rolled her eyes and returned to her notes—only for him to pluck the quill from her fingers a moment later.

"Thanks."

"Fiyero—"

He was already scribbling in the margin of her parchment, his handwriting an atrocious scrawl next to her neat script. "Trade sanctions are boring," he’d written. "Let’s sneak out."

Elphaba snatched the quill back. "I’m working."

"So am I." He leaned closer, his breath warm against her ear. "Working on this."

Before she could react, he pressed a kiss just below her jaw—quick, deliberate, and impossible to miss.

A gasp came from the next table over. Someone dropped a book.

Elphaba went rigid. "Are you insane?" she hissed.

Fiyero just smirked. "Probably."

Her face burned. The entire history section had gone eerily quiet, every eye fixed on them. Even Madame Mirthless, who had been reshelving scrolls nearby, had paused mid-reach, her eyebrows nearly in her hairline.

Fiyero, of course, seemed utterly unbothered. He draped an arm over the back of Elphaba’s chair, his fingers playing idly with a loose thread on her sleeve. "So. About those trade sanctions..."

Elphaba wanted to throttle him. She also, infuriatingly, wanted to kiss him again.

Instead, she grabbed her books and stood so abruptly her chair screeched against the floor. "We’re leaving."

Fiyero’s grin turned triumphant. "Knew you’d see it my way."

As they strode out—Elphaba stiff-backed, Fiyero sauntering—the whispers erupted behind them:

"Did you SEE that—"

Fiyero waited until they’d turned the corner before pulling her into an alcove, his hands settling at her waist. "You’re blushing," he murmured.

Elphaba sighed. "We’re going to be the death of each other."

Fiyero’s laugh was warm against her skin. "What a way to go."

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A fire crackled in the small hearth, casting flickering golden light across the piles of books, half-finished essays, and Galinda’s discarded hair ribbons that littered every available surface.

Elphaba sat cross-legged on the rug, her back against the foot of the bed, a heavy book open in her lap. Galinda was sprawled across the mattress above her, idly braiding and unbraiding a strand of Elphaba’s dark hair while humming some popular Gillikinese tune under her breath.

Fiyero, stretched out on his stomach beside Elphaba, flicked a crumpled ball of parchment at Galinda’s head. "You’re off-key."

Galinda gasped in outrage, abandoning Elphaba’s hair to throw a pillow at him. "I am not! Elphie, tell him he’s being rude—"

Elphaba didn’t look up from her book. "He’s right. You’re flat."

Galinda flopped backward with a dramatic groan. "Betrayed by my own true love—"

Fiyero snorted, nudging Elphaba’s knee. "She’s your problem tonight."

Elphaba finally glanced up, her lips twitching. "You’re the one who let her drink that second cup of cocoa."

Fiyero grinned, unrepentant. "She looked cute holding the mug."

Galinda sat up abruptly, her curls bouncing. "I am cute! And both of you are mean." She snatched the book from Elphaba’s hands and tossed it aside. "No more studying. We’re cuddling."

Elphaba opened her mouth to protest, but Galinda had already grabbed her wrist and yanked her backward onto the mattress. Fiyero, laughing, let himself be dragged up too, collapsing in a heap of long limbs beside them.

Somehow, they ended up tangled together—Galinda’s head pillowed on Elphaba’s shoulder, Fiyero’s arm slung across both their waists, his nose buried in Elphaba’s hair. 

Galinda sighed happily. "See? Isn’t this better than reading?"

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The courtyard buzzed with the usual students milling about between classes. Elphaba sat beneath the shade of an ancient oak tree, her nose buried in a thick book as usual. The sunlight filtered through the leaves, casting dappled patterns across the pages—and across her green skin.

Then, like a summer storm rolling in, Galinda appeared.

"Elphie!" she trilled, flopping onto the grass beside her with all the grace of a falling star. Her skirts billowed around her, a cloud of pink tulle. "You’ve been hiding out here forever."

Elphaba didn’t look up. "I’ve been here twenty minutes."

"Exactly! An eternity." Galinda plucked the book from her hands and snapped it shut. "You’ll go cross-eyed."

Elphaba scowled, but before she could retort, Galinda leaned in and pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth—quick, playful, and utterly unthinking.

Elphaba froze.

So did the nearby students. Across the courtyard, Pfannee and ShenShen gaped like fish.

Galinda, blissfully oblivious—or perhaps deliberately so—tucked a loose strand of Elphaba’s hair behind her ear. "There. Now you look almost presentable."

Elphaba’s cheeks burned. "Galinda—"

"Oh, don’t be such a grump." Galinda grinned, then plucked a stray leaf from Elphaba’s shoulder, letting her fingers linger just a heartbeat too long. "Honestly, how do you manage to collect foliage just by sitting still?"

Elphaba’s pulse rabbited in her throat. She could feel the weight of dozens of eyes on them, the whispers already beginning to ripple through the crowd.

Galinda, of course, noticed none of it. Or if she did, she didn’t care. She stretched out on the grass, resting her head in Elphaba’s lap as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "Read to me," she demanded, closing her eyes.

Elphaba stared down at her, torn between exasperation and something far softer. "...You hate history."

Galinda cracked one eye open. "I hate boring history. Make it interesting."

Elphaba sighed—but she opened the book again, her fingers absently carding through Galinda’s golden curls as she read.

The whispers grew louder.

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By dinner, the rumors had taken on a life of their own.

“They’re definitely together.”

“No, it’s just Galinda being Galinda.”

“Did you see the way she—?”

“But what about Fiyero?”

Elphaba ignored them all, focusing on her meal with forced indifference. Across the table, Galinda chattered away, her foot hooked around Elphaba’s ankle beneath the table like it belonged there.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The hum of pre-class chatter filled Dillamond’s lecture hall as students settled into their seats. Elphaba sat near the front, her usual spot, already scribbling notes in the margins of her textbook. The scrape of chairs and rustle of parchment filled the air—until a familiar golden whirlwind swept into the room.

"Elphie!" Galinda sang, dropping into the seat beside her with a dramatic flourish of pink skirts. "You cannot believe what Avaric just said about my new gloves—"

Before Elphaba could respond, Fiyero slid into the seat on her other side, his long legs stretching into the aisle. "Let me guess," he drawled, stealing Elphaba’s quill to twirl between his fingers. "He called them ‘tacky’ again?"

Galinda gasped. "How did you—"

"Because he says that about everything you wear, Glin."

Elphaba snatched her quill back with a scowl. "Do you two mind? Some of us are trying to—"

Her protest was cut short as Galinda plucked the ink-stained handkerchief from Elphaba’s sleeve—the one she’d been using to blot her notes—and dabbed lightly at her cheek. "Honestly, darling," she tutted, her thumb brushing the corner of Elphaba’s mouth. "You’ve got ink everywhere. What am I to do with you, hm?”

A hushed whisper swept through the front rows.

"Did Upland just—"

Fiyero, noticing the attention, smirked and stretched his arm across the back of Elphaba’s chair. "Relax, Fae. You’re wrinkling your pretty forehead."

Elphaba elbowed him sharply, but the damage was done.

At the back of the room, Pfannee whipped around in his seat, eyes wide. "Excuse me?" he stage-whispered to ShenShen. "Did Tigelaar just flirt with Thropp?"

A Munchkin boy in the next row scoffed. "Don’t be ridiculous. They probably just—"

His words cut off as Galinda plucked an apple from Fiyero’s bag, took a deliberate bite, then handed it to Elphaba with a wink.

Silence.

Then—

"Are they… together ?" someone squeaked.

The classroom erupted.

"Don’t be absurd—"

"Look at her, she’d never—"

"But did you see how he—"

Elphaba buried her face in her hands. "I’m transferring universities."

Fiyero stole the apple back from her desk. "Too late. You’re stuck with us."

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Nessa cornered Elphaba in the library stacks when the rumors were at their peak, her wheelchair rolling to a deliberate stop in front of her sister's hiding spot.

"So," Nessa said, crossing her arms. “Is there something you want to share, Fabala? Maybe about those rumours circling around about you bewitching two people with some obscure love spell.”

"Nessa," Elphaba hissed, glancing around the empty aisle, her cheeks darkening.

"Oh, don't bother. No one comes back here except you and the dust bunnies." Nessa leaned forward, eyes sharp. "Are you actually involved with both of them?"

Elphaba's fingers tightened around her book. A long silence stretched between them before she muttered, "...Yes."

Nessa blinked. " Both ."

"Yes."

"Galinda Upland and Fiyero Tigelaar ."

Elphaba groaned, pressing her forehead against the shelf. "Must you say it like that?"

Nessa stared at her sister for a long moment—then burst out laughing. "Oh, that's rich! The girl who spent years scowling at everyone suddenly has two of the most sought-after people at Shiz wrapped around her finger?" She wiped at her eyes. "I'm impressed, actually."

Elphaba peeked at her. "...You're not going to lecture me?"

"Oh, I should," Nessa said, still grinning. "It's scandalous, it's reckless, and it's going to cause endless drama." She shrugged. "But you're happy. Actually happy. I haven't seen you like this... ever."

Elphaba's shoulders relaxed slightly.

"Just—" Nessa held up a finger. "Don't expect me to cover for you when Father finds out."

Elphaba snorted. "Deal."

Nessa shook her head as she turned her chair around. "Honestly, Elphaba. Only you could make polyamory look like a political power move."

As she wheeled away, Elphaba called after her, "You can't tell anyone—"

"Oh, please," Nessa tossed over her shoulder. "Like I'd ruin my front-row seat to this spectacle."

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The Astronomy Tower stood empty between classes, late morning sunlight spilling through the arched windows and painting lazy golden patterns across the stone floor.

Elphaba leaned against the railing, a half-written essay forgotten in her hands. The breeze carried the scent of grass and Galinda’s lingering perfume from where she’d hugged her goodbye moments ago. A year ago, she might have come up here to escape the world. Now, she came to savor it.

The familiar creak of boots on the stairs announced Fiyero’s arrival—that particular rhythm of steps, unhurried and sure, like he already knew she’d be waiting.

"Knew I’d find you here," he said, voice warm with amusement. "Hiding from your adoring public?"

She didn’t turn, but her lips quirked. "From your adoring public, maybe. Pfannee nearly swooned when you winked at him earlier."

Fiyero snorted, sidling up beside her. "That was a tic. Glin’s been forcing me to read in dim light." He plucked the parchment from her fingers, scanning it with exaggerated scrutiny. "‘The geopolitical implications of Munchkinland’s corn surplus’? Fae, please tell me you’re not writing this for fun."

She snatched it back, but he caught her wrist, his thumb brushing the ink smudges on her knuckles.

"You’re avoiding Nikidik’s lecture," she observed.

"Astute as ever." He grinned, unrepentant. "But I am here on official business. Glin sent me to retrieve you before you ‘overthink yourself into a coma.’ Her words."

Elphaba rolled her eyes, but her chest tightened with something sweet and unfamiliar—not the old fear of being too much, but the quiet thrill of being known.

Fiyero’s smirk softened. He nudged her shoulder with his. "You’re doing it again."

"What?"

"Worrying that you don’t deserve us." He turned fully toward her, sunlight catching in his dark eyes. "Newsflash, Thropp: we’re ridiculously lucky. Glin gets to brag about the smartest witch at Shiz, and I—" He leaned in, voice dropping to a whisper. "—get to watch you hex anyone who calls my boots ugly."

Elphaba laughed, the sound bright and startled. "They are ugly."

"Treason," he gasped, pressing a hand to his heart. "After all the poppies I’ve picked for you? The stolen pastries? The—"

She kissed him, savoring the slide of his smile against hers, the way his hands found her waist like they belonged there, the shared rhythm of their breathing. When she pulled back, his dazed expression made her preen.

"Still think you’re the lucky one?" she murmured.

Fiyero blinked, then grinned—that reckless, sunlit grin that had once infuriated her. "Oh, absolutely. But I’ll let you keep convincing me otherwise."

Galinda’s voice echoed up the stairwell: "If you two don’t come down right now, I’m eating all the strawberry tarts myself!"

Fiyero groaned. "She’s lying. She’ll save you one and make me watch."

Elphaba laced their fingers together, tugging him toward the stairs. "Then we’d better hurry."

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The dining hall buzzed with its usual midday chaos—clattering silverware, the hum of a hundred conversations, and the ever-present undercurrent of gossip. Today's hot topic? Whether the green-skinned firebrand Elphaba Thropp was secretly involved with both the dazzling Galinda Upland and the infuriatingly handsome Fiyero Tigelaar.

Elphaba, oblivious to the stares burning holes into her back, was mid-rant about Mombi’s latest paper when it happened.

"—and if you actually read the footnotes, it's clear he's misinterpreting the entire—"

Galinda's hand slid over hers on the table, warm and deliberate.

"Darling," she purred, all sugar and mischief, "lean in for a moment."

Elphaba barely had time to frown before Galinda tilted her chin up and kissed her—properly kissed her—right there in the middle of the dining hall, in front of half the student body and three very scandalized professors.

The effect was instantaneous.

A spoon clattered to the floor. Someone gasped so hard they choked on their soup. Another let out a tiny, high-pitched squeak.

Fiyero, the absolute menace, didn't even blink. He just took a deliberate bite of his pie and smirked.

Galinda pulled back, her lips stained purple from Elphaba's berry tea. She licked them slowly, grinning like a cat who'd not only gotten the cream but knocked over the entire dairy for good measure. "There. Now that's settled."

Elphaba's face burned so green she could've powered a lantern. "Galinda—"

"Oh, hush," Galinda said, plucking a slice of pear from Fiyero's plate with her free hand. "They were being ridiculous. Besides—" She winked at a nearby table of gawking students, her voice dropping to a stage whisper. "I always get what I want."

Fiyero stretched lazily, his chair scraping against the stone floor as he stood. The entire room held its breath.

"Well," he drawled, flashing that infamously reckless grin, "can't let you have all the fun."

Before Elphaba could react—before she could so much as blink—Fiyero cradled her face in his hands and kissed her soundly. All slow confidence and lingering intent, his thumb brushing the apple of her cheek as he pulled back just enough to murmur, "There. Now we're even."

The dining hall erupted.

Someone shrieked loud enough to shatter glass (and, in fact, three glasses did shatter as students leaped to their feet).

"TWO OF THEM?!" Boq wailed, clutching his chest like he'd been personally betrayed.

Nessa, wheeling herself through the chaos, clapped her hands in delight. "Oh, this is even better than I imagined!"

Pfannee, pale as milk, fainted clean away into ShenShen's arms.

Elphaba, still trapped between them, looked ready to spontaneously combust. "I hate you both," she hissed, though the way her fingers curled into Fiyero's sleeve betrayed her utterly.

Galinda sighed, draping herself over Elphaba's shoulders. "Honestly, you'd think they'd figure it out by now.”

Elphaba buried her face in her hands. "We're never living this down."

Galinda kissed the top of her head. "Obviously not, darling. That's the point ."

Fiyero winked at the gawking crowd. "Any other questions?"

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Chapter Text

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The dormitory was too quiet—a hush so thick it seemed to hold its breath with them. The muted rustle of Shiz beyond the window felt impossibly far away, like a world they had stepped out of. The only sounds were the faint ticking of the clock on the wall, the whisper of fabric shifting—and Fiyero's steady, grounded breathing as he leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, watching them with dark, unreadable eyes that seemed to see everything.

Galinda’s fingers hesitated at the top button of Elphaba’s dress.

“May I…?” Her voice was almost tentative—so unlike her usual poise that it made Elphaba’s pulse flutter.

Elphaba’s breath caught.

She had spent a lifetime building walls, brick by brick, until no one could touch her—until she was certain no one would even try. 

And yet here they were— still reaching.

Fiyero pushed off from the doorframe, boots soft against the wooden floor. The heat of his presence moved with him, that easy, unshakable confidence tempered now with something gentler, more adoring. “She’s asking nicely, Fae.” His voice was a low rumble, closer now. “Might as well say yes.”

Elphaba didn’t look at him. She couldn’t. Not yet. She focused on Galinda’s fingers instead, still poised, unmoving.

“Yes.”

It wasn’t even a whisper—just breath, shaped into sound. But it was enough.

Galinda’s fingers moved with aching slowness, undoing one button, then another, each one releasing more than fabric—each one peeling away a layer of armor Elphaba hadn’t realized she was still wearing. The bodice parted, just barely, cool air grazing her fevered skin. But it wasn’t the cold that made her shiver.

Galinda’s knuckles brushed along her collarbone. The touch was almost nothing. It still undid her.

Fiyero stepped in behind her, felt him in the warmth of his hands settling low at her waist, in the way he bent to rest his chin at the curve of her shoulder, his breath ruffling the stray wisps of hair at her neck. There was no pressure—only presence. No demand—only a quiet, coiled patience.

“You’re shaking,” Galinda said, so softly it was barely a sound.

Fiyero huffed a low, breathless laugh, but there was no mockery in it. Only awe. “She’s not the only one.”

And it was true. Elphaba could see it now—the tremble in Galinda’s usually precise fingers, the flush creeping up her neck, the soft part of her lips like she couldn’t quite remember how to breathe. Her eyes darted to the way Galinda’s fingers clutched at the loosened fabric of her dress—not to undress her further, but to hold herself steady.

It made something inside Elphaba ache.

When the dress finally slipped from her shoulders, Elphaba instinctively crossed her arms, shielding her chest, her belly, her truth. Old habits, clawing their way to the surface. But Fiyero caught her wrists with impossible gentleness, lifting them one at a time to his lips and pressing a kiss to the fast-beating pulse beneath the skin.

“None of that,” he soothed, his voice brushing her ear like velvet. “Don’t hide from us.”

Galinda’s eyes shone—shimmering, unguarded. She reached out, but didn’t touch yet. Her fingers hovered, trembling, tracing the air just above Elphaba’s sternum like a prayer left unspoken.

“You’re…” Galinda’s breath caught. “Beautiful, my dearest.”

She said it like it was a fact. Like it had always been true. And the reverence in her voice cracked something in Elphaba’s chest, something old and brittle and aching to be seen.

Fiyero’s hands slid upward, mapping the long, lean lines of her sides, his thumbs grazing the subtle inward curve of her waist. His lips brushed the edge of her jaw, then her ear.

“Tell us what you want, love." He murmured.

Elphaba’s throat worked, but no words came. She didn’t need them.

The answer poured out through her body instead—in the way she reached for Galinda, fingers slipping into gold curls like she’d dreamed of it for lifetimes. In the way she pulled, just enough to draw Galinda’s breath into a soft, surprised gasp.

In the way she arched back, giving herself into Fiyero’s gentle hands.

Galinda’s hands slid beneath the cloth now gathered around her hips, and for a moment—a single heartbeat—Elphaba froze.

The old fear coiled tight: I’m not like you.

But Fiyero’s lips were already at her neck, his teeth grazing lightly, his voice nothing but heat. “Exquisite,” he said— growled —as if he could feel the thunder beneath her skin.

And Galinda—Galinda didn’t falter.

“You’re you,” she whispered fiercely, her touch reverent, her eyes never leaving Elphaba’s face. Her fingers mapped every ridge, every hollow Elphaba had once hated, as if memorizing her not to fix her—but to worship her. “And we want you.”

Elphaba’s hands trembled as they found the laces of Galinda’s dress. She hadn’t been taught this. Hadn’t been taught how to undress someone she adored. But then Fiyero’s hands were there again, covering hers, steadying them. His touch was a wordless guide, his fingers coaxing each slow tug of ribbon like a ritual.

Fiyero’s vest hit the floor with a soft thud. His shirt followed with a shrug that made the muscles in his shoulders flex and catch the low lamplight. Elphaba’s throat went dry.

The world contracted. It became the heat between them. The sound of Galinda’s breath catching as Elphaba’s fingers slid lower, fingertips tracing the slope of her waist, the gentle flare of her hips, the living warmth hidden beneath layers of silk and skin.

Galinda’s breath hitched— hitched—and then she swayed toward Elphaba, hair tumbling like golden silk over her shoulders. She looked like a painting half-undone, perfect and unraveled. Her spine arched instinctively as Elphaba’s touch grew bolder.

“Elphie—” Her voice cracked.

Her hands clutched Elphaba’s shoulders with sudden urgency, fingers curling into green skin like she feared she might drift away without something to hold.

And then—

Fiyero’s hands joined the dance, sliding up Elphaba’s sides, his palms rough from riding and sparring and holding on too tightly to things he didn’t want to lose. His thumbs brushed the undersides of her breasts, mirroring the path of Elphaba’s hands along Galinda’s thighs. 

Elphaba thought this must be what longing sounded like—Galinda’s moan: unguarded, trembling, and utterly hers. It echoed through her ribcage and caught fire in her blood.

“Elphie—please—”

Fiyero growled behind her, low and wrecked, as his hands slid down, palms splaying across her belly while she rocked back into him—desperate, instinctive, like a spark chasing tinder.

It undid her.

Not just the words—but the voice. That familiar voice that had once called her “Elphie” in tender defiance. Now broken and breathless—for her.

When Elphaba’s fingers dipped lower, pressing with purpose into Galinda’s heat, Fiyero mirrored her without hesitation. His hand crawled between her thighs, fingers deft and maddening.

The breath whooshed from her lungs.

Every motion between them created a ripple in the others—Galinda’s cry pressed against Elphaba’s lips, Elphaba’s gasp echoed by the press of Fiyero’s mouth against her nape. Her body was a conduit, catching the storm of their need and letting it pass through her like lightning.

“Fiyero—” she choked, head falling back onto his shoulder.

His mouth was at her ear in an instant, teeth dragging gently along the curve. “Mm?” His voice was smoke and sin. “Something wrong, Fae?”

Galinda let out a breathless laugh against Elphaba’s collarbone. Her hips rocked forward, chasing sensation. “She’s overwhelmed,” she said, eyes fluttering. “Can’t blame her.”

Fiyero’s chuckle rumbled through her spine, a sound of pleasure and pride and something softer. “Good.”

And then he matched her—every motion Elphaba gave to Galinda, he echoed into her. Her rhythm became his rhythm. Every curl of her fingers was answered by his. Every gasp Galinda gave was fed back into Elphaba through Fiyero’s touch.

It was madness.

It was home.

Fiyero’s teeth sank into her shoulder, enough to bruise. His voice was unsteady, thick with awe. “Look at you,” he rasped. “Taking her apart like you were made for it.”

Elphaba couldn’t look. She didn’t need to.

She felt Galinda’s body coiled tight against her, the tremble in her thighs, the breath caught in her chest. Elphaba curved her fingers just so, coaxing that tension to snap. Galinda cried out—a beautiful, crystalline sound, half-plea, half-prayer—her body folding forward into Elphaba’s arms like she was collapsing into a blessing.

The scent of lavender oil. The musk of skin. The salt of sweat and tears and want. The air was thick with it.

“Oz,” Fiyero whispered behind her, and his voice was almost reverent. “Look what you did to her.”

Galinda was a vision—debauched and divine. Golden hair clinging to flushed cheeks, lips parted around a breathless moan, her lashes trembling as she tried to blink through the haze. Her body was still quaking, spine bowed, skin luminous in the low light, every inch of her painted in surrender.

"My turn," Fiyero said, and suddenly the floor vanished beneath her as he swept her up, one arm under her knees, the other cradling her back. Elphaba gasped, the sound swallowed instantly by his lips in a searing kiss as he lowered her onto Galinda's bed with care.

Galinda leaned over her, fingers tucking stray strands behind her ear before sliding lower to the tattered remnants of her dress. “Let me—”

“Let us,” Fiyero corrected, covering her hands with his, his voice a silken growl.

Together, they peeled away the final barriers. Every piece of fabric loosened was a tether released—every inch of bare skin exposed to the low lamplight was a soft kind of miracle. Elphaba’s chest rose and fell, breath unsteady, body alight with sensation before they’d even truly begun.

The mattress shifted again as Fiyero settled between her thighs, broad shoulders easing them open with intent. His palms skimmed upward, mapping her like sacred territory. He bowed his head and pressed a kiss to the hollow of her throat, then the delicate inside of her wrist, then the sharp jut of her ribs—each kiss a quiet I see you. I know you. I want you.

Elphaba’s breath stuttered.

From the pillows, Galinda watched with parted lips and hungry eyes, one hand ghosting over her own chest, fingers trailing absently over the rise of her collarbone. Her golden hair spilled like a halo, tousled and radiant. But it was her expression that burned—awed and tender and impossibly fierce as Fiyero dipped his head to Elphaba’s breast.

“Yero—” Elphaba gasped, her spine bowing off the bed, her fingers tangling in his hair.

His laugh was low and warm against her skin, teeth grazing the soft swell. “Patience, love,” he murmured. “We’ve got all night.”

His hands slid down, thumbs pressing into the tender skin of her inner thighs. Each touch was a question—then an answer. Each pass of his lips, a devotion. Her body was alight, strung tight, thrumming with need so sharp it bordered on unbearable.

Galinda shifted closer, her knee brushing Elphaba’s hip, her hand brushing damp hair from Elphaba’s temple. “Our dearest,” she said low and fierce, thick with wonder. “So beautiful like this.”

Elphaba opened her mouth to deny it— I’m not, I’m too much, too green, too wrong —but then Fiyero’s mouth was on her, hot and unrelenting, and the words disintegrated into air.

Her hips jolted. Her hands flew to the sheets, twisting them. Her breath fractured as Galinda’s fingers laced through hers, grounding her, anchoring her, loving her.

Fiyero took his time. He learned her reactions, chased every hitch in her breath, every tremble of her thighs, and chased it again. Pleasure crested inside her like a rising tide, dragging her under again and again, her mind lost somewhere between the space of Galinda’s voice and Fiyero’s mouth.

“Please—” she heard herself gasp. Beg. She didn’t know who she was pleading with—Fiyero, whose tongue had turned her to ash, or Galinda, who looked at her like she was already undone and divine.

Fiyero lifted his head. His lips were glistening, his eyes dark. “Ask properly,” he teased, breathless, his voice wrecked.

Galinda laughed, a low, wicked sound from somewhere deep in her chest, and leaned down. Her kiss was molten, unhurried, and filthy—all tongue and intent, until Elphaba whimpered into her mouth.

Then she pulled back just enough to mouth against Elphaba’s lips: “Tell him what you want, darling.”

Elphaba’s hands found Fiyero’s shoulders. Her nails dug into him—green on gold, grounding herself in their heat, in their want, in the impossibility of being wanted back.

“You,” she gasped. “Both of you. Now.”

Fiyero's grin was all teeth.

And then—

Oh.

The thought scattered like dust in the wind.

The world shrank to sensation: to the delicious, overwhelming press of his body into hers, to the way his weight settled, like dusk falling over the earth. Each inch of him filled her slowly, deliberately, until she could barely breathe, until her body bowed instinctively to meet him. Her mouth parted in a silent gasp, her fingers clawing at the sheets before Galinda’s hand found hers again, grounding her with delicate certainty.

She was surrounded—by heat, by touch, by them. 

Fiyero filled her with an aching slowness, a deliberate, dragging rhythm that stole time, that made her keen and shudder beneath each careful thrust. His hips rolled, molten and measured, a lustful cadence that hollowed her out and filled her all at once. Galinda lay flush along her side, lips brushing her temple, fingers trailing down, down—

When Galinda’s fingers found the slick, aching place where all three of them met, Elphaba’s body seized. The obscene, silken drag of her touch against where Fiyero thrust into her sent lightning straight through her spine. Lips pressed hot to her collarbone, teeth grazing just enough to sting, and the pleasure bloomed hard and fast—deep, searing, relentless—radiating outward in trembling pulses that made her toes curl and her breath stutter. 

Elphaba cried, body arching, hips lifting in instinct and invitation.

“You feel that?” Galinda breathed, honey-thick and adoring. “How perfect you are like this. Ours.”

Fiyero’s groan was low, almost desperate, the rhythm between them quickening, losing its calm. His hand slid beneath her thigh, lifting, opening her further to him, deepening the drag of his thrusts until she was unraveling.

The pressure built, molten and furious, a coiling need in her belly that sparked with every pass of Galinda’s fingers, every grind of Fiyero’s hips. Her heart hammered against her ribs. 

There was no defense left in her, no clever retort to mask the way she came apart in their hands.

She was close— so close. 

“Fuck—” The word tore from her like a sob, pleading and helpless. She clutched at Fiyero’s arm, her body bowstring-tense.

His rhythm stuttered, just once. A curse slipped from his mouth as he pressed into her harder, rougher, like he couldn’t help himself. “I know,” he grit out against her skin. “Gods, I know, Fae.”

“Let it go, darling,” Galinda coaxed, her voice silk and fire at Elphaba’s ear, her breath a kiss, her fingers moving in tight circles. “We’ve got you.”

The orgasm tore through her, white-hot and devastating, a violent bloom of ecstasy that had her crying out, caught helpless in the grip of it. Fiyero followed with a strangled groan, burying himself in her, spilling warmth into her depths as his body convulsed. 

Galinda cradled them both as they came down—whispering soft nonsense and sweet praise, kisses like stardust across Elphaba’s shoulder, Fiyero’s temple, their damp, tangled hair.

“That’s it,” Galinda murmured. “Just like that. You’re safe.”

Elphaba’s eyes fluttered shut, her pulse still galloping beneath her skin. Every inch of her felt flooded—sensitized, weightless.

But that wasn’t the end. Not even close.

There was a pause, a breathless lull.

Then—

Elphaba turned to Galinda, still flushed, still trembling, something sharp and hungry in her eyes—and kissed her. Hard.

Galinda barely had time to breathe before Elphaba parted her legs and devoured.

Galinda came apart fast, violently, head tossed back, breath breaking into shattered, high-pitched cries. Elphaba’s mouth and hands drove her higher with ruthless precision, pulling sound after sound from her throat until Galinda was gasping her name like a prayer.

Until the room was filled with music—their music.

And still, the night stretched on, broken only by laughter and moans and the damp percussion of skin against skin.

They took turns—sometimes playful, sometimes reverent, sometimes urgent to the point of delirium. Galinda riding Elphaba’s thigh until her legs gave out; Fiyero lifting Elphaba into his lap and whispering filth into her braided hair; Elphaba on her knees, gasping against Galinda’s breasts while Fiyero took her from behind.

Finding each other again and again in a tangle of limbs and breath and desire, until their bodies were spent, their mouths sore, their pulses threadbare and wild.

Only after the final sigh, the last shudder, the kiss that dissolved into laughter, did stillness finally settle—slow and sweet and warm.

Moonlight cut across the room, painting their tangled bodies in silver and shadow. Galinda nestled closer, her cheek resting against Elphaba’s shoulder, her golden hair a silken veil over both their chests.

“Well,” she murmured, voice raw with wonder, “that was…”

“Adequate?” Elphaba offered, dryly, though her fingers were already tracing soft lines over Fiyero’s forearm, betraying her affection.

Galinda gasped in mock offense and nipped at her shoulder. “Revolutionary, you impossible woman.” Her hand spread over Elphaba’s sternum, over the wild thrum of her heart. “Admit it.”

Fiyero chuckled low against her back, the sound deep and sated. “Don’t waste your breath, Glin. She’ll just claim we’re tolerable again.”

His arm tightened around Elphaba’s waist, protective even in his exhaustion. “Fortunately, we’re stubborn.”

Elphaba didn’t answer. She only smiled into Galinda’s golden hair, Fiyero’s heartbeat steady and real against her spine, and let herself be loved—held, claimed, chosen. And for once, without fear, she stayed.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Chapter Text

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Nessa cornered Galinda and Fiyero in the empty lecture hall, her wheelchair angled between them and the only exit like a glittering battering ram. Her posture was impeccable, her expression politely terrifying. In one hand she balanced a teacup with absurd grace; in the other, she held a small, corked vial brimming with what looked suspiciously like enchanted pink glitter.

“So,” she said, sipping her tea with slow, surgical precision. “You’re both dating my sister.”

Galinda drew herself up, spine straight and chin high, like she was preparing to give a press statement. “Yes, and we’re excellent at it—”

“I wasn’t asking,” Nessa cut in coolly, setting the cup down with a soft click. “Let’s make one thing clear—if either of you hurts her, the consequences will be… creative.”

Fiyero, lounging in his chair like a painting of casual indifference, raised a brow. “Let me guess—you’ll dye my hair pink?”

“Please.” Nessa rolled her eyes. “Galinda, if you break her heart, I’ll tell everyone the truth about your so-called natural blonde hair.”

Galinda gasped, both hands flying to her curls as if shielding them from scandal. “You monster! That secret dies with me!”

Fiyero blinked. “Wait, it’s not—?”

“Not. Another. Word,” Galinda hissed, her cheeks flushing a delicate rose.

Nessa turned her cool gaze to him, holding the vial up like a sacred threat. “And you. One wrong move, and your entire wardrobe—including those boots you love so much—will sparkle for the next decade. Magically. Permanently.”

Fiyero blanched. “…That’s evil.”

“I know.” She smiled sweetly, like a cat eyeing a canary. “But here’s the good news—if you don’t mess this up?” She plucked a small velvet box from her lap and flipped it open to reveal several beautiful antique rings, a bit scuffed with age but gleaming nonetheless. “These belonged to our mother. Elphaba doesn’t know I have them.”

Galinda’s breath caught. “Are those—?”

Nessa gave an elegant shrug. “Maybe. If you prove yourselves.”

Fiyero and Galinda exchanged a glance—a rare, synchronized moment of solemnity.

“Deal,” they said together.

Nessa snapped the box shut with a satisfying click. “Good. Now get out of my sight before I change my mind.”

As they half-tripped over each other leaving, she called after them, almost lazily: “And Fiyero? Yes, she likes the poppies. Keep bringing them.”

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

"Even Doctor Dillamond has noticed the decline, Miss Thropp. A tragedy, really, for such a promising student to..."

She hadn't meant to break—not like this, not where anyone might see—but the dam had cracked the moment Morrible's polished nails tapped that damning report.

Elphaba wasn’t in their dorm when Fiyero and Galinda returned.

That was the first sign something was wrong.

The second was the half-drunk cup of tea gone cold on her desk, her inkwell uncapped, her notes scattered in a way that spoke of frustration rather than carelessness.

Galinda’s fingers tightened around Fiyero’s sleeve. "She never leaves ink uncapped."

They found her on the roof—knees drawn to her chest, face hidden in her arms, shoulders shaking with silent sobs. The sight made Fiyero’s stomach drop.

Galinda sank beside her without ceremony, her pink skirts pooling like spilled paint. "Darling," she breathed, the nickname unusually quiet, stripped of its usual sparkle.

“I’m fine,” Elphaba rasped, not looking up. “Just—I don’t…”

Fiyero knelt before her, hands hovering just shy of touching hers. “Talk to us, Fae.”

What came out was disjointed and brittle—the missed assignments, the gnawing fatigue, the way her thoughts refused to line up no matter how hard she tried. Her voice cracked. “Morrible pulled me aside today. My grades are slipping. The professors are concerned.” She gave a hollow, angry little laugh. “The great Elphaba Thropp, finally crumbling under the weight of her own—”

Galinda didn’t let her finish. She pressed a folded handkerchief into her hands, the embroidered initials faint from repeated washing. “Oh, darling. Why didn’t you say something?”

“I didn’t want you to think it’s because of this ,” Elphaba choked out, gripping Galinda’s sleeve like a lifeline. “I don’t regret you. Either of you. But I—”

“Breathe,” Fiyero murmured. He leaned in, resting his forehead gently against their joined hands. His voice was steady, grounding. “We’re not going anywhere.”

Elphaba wiped her eyes on the handkerchief. “I love spending time with you both. Even when you’re ridiculous. Even when it throws everything off-kilter. But I—I can’t fail. I’ve worked too hard.”

Fiyero took her hands again, thumbs brushing across her knuckles with a kind of reverence. “Then we make sure you don’t.”

Galinda nodded, her usual dramatics replaced by steely resolve. "We’ll help you. Proper study schedules. Quiet hours. No more dragging you to parties when you have essays due."

“Speak for yourself,” Fiyero muttered. “My party attendance is practically a civic duty.”

But he squeezed Elphaba’s hand all the same. “We’ll make it work.”

“You’d do that?” she asked, barely above a whisper.

Galinda grinned, that sparkle returning just a little. “Please. Do you know how many flashcards I can make in an hour?"

Fiyero smirked. “And I’m great at bribing you with snacks while you study.”

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Later, in their dorm:

Galinda had already commandeered Elphaba's desk, her manicured fingers flying through parchment as she organized notes by color and urgency. 

Fiyero lay sprawled on the floor nearby, elbows propped on a cushion, grumbling about trade tariffs while flipping through the densest economics text Elphaba owned.

And Elphaba—

She drifted behind Galinda first, wrapping her arms around her waist, resting her chin on Galinda’s shoulder. “Thank you,” she whispered, the words warm and private. Elphaba followed it with a tender kiss just behind her ear.

Galinda froze, ink pooling into a doomed footnote as her hand stilled.

Then Elphaba turned to Fiyero, catching his face between her palms. The kiss she pressed to his mouth was chaste but deliberate. 

Fiyero blinked at her, momentarily speechless.

"...Who are you," Galinda breathed, "and what have you done with our scowling bookworm?"

Elphaba smirked, swiping the pen from her slack grip. "She realized something." A glance at Fiyero's dazed expression, at Galinda's ink-stained fingers. "You're worth failing a few papers for."

Galinda's shriek of protest dissolved into laughter as Elphaba tugged them both toward the bed—not for distraction, but for this: her head in Galinda's lap, Fiyero's hand carding through her hair, and the world quiet for a little while.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The first sign something had changed came when Doctor Dillamond looked up from his grading to find Fiyero Tigelaar—that Fiyero Tigelaar—raising his hand in a discussion about Quadling cultural practices. With citations.

The second sign came when Professor Nikidik returned a linguification essay to Galinda Upland and found no glitter, no perfume, and—may the Unnamed God preserve them—thorough research.

Over the next few weeks, Shiz fell into mild academic chaos.

Where once there were only kisses behind library shelves, now there were regular study sessions that made the most hardened upperclassmen blink and slowly back away. Elphaba sat at the center like a general, hair piled in a crooked bun, assigning essays and readings like missions on a battlefield. (Madame Mirthless wept with joy.)

Galinda, for her part, had invented an entirely new organizational system involving color-coded ribbons and scented markers ("Lavender for history, citrus for economics— it stimulates the brain, darling!" ). 

Her once-pristine notebooks now brimmed with margin notes in three distinct handwritings—her looping cursive, Fiyero's messy scrawl, and Elphaba's sharp, efficient script.

Fiyero, meanwhile, had become an unexpected asset in the sciences. "Who knew he could calculate chemical ratios?" Avaric muttered after their last practical, watching in dismay as Fiyero— Fiyero! —demonstrated the proper stirring technique to glowing reviews by several teaching assistants.

When term grades were posted, the trio stood at the top of nearly every class list.

Galinda burst into tears. "We're smart!" she wailed, clinging to Elphaba. "I didn't know we could be smart!"

Fiyero, ever the poet, summed it up best: "Huh. Who'd have thought studying actually works?"

Elphaba, sandwiched between them, allowed herself a rare, unguarded smile. "Told you so."

And if later that night, their celebratory "studying" involved significantly less clothing and significantly more laughter echoing through the dorm halls—well. Well.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Nessa's spoon froze halfway to her mouth as the realization struck.

Across the dining hall, Galinda was hand-feeding Elphaba a bite of dessert, giggling as frosting smudged her sister's cheek. Fiyero leaned in to lick it off—earning twin shoves that only made him laugh louder.

Oh.

Oh no.

They weren’t just her sister's... whatever-they-were. 

They were her future in-laws.

Galinda Upland—endlessly loud, perpetually glittery—at family gatherings. Fiyero Tigelaar—all careless charm and muddy boots—unironically calling their father sir .

Then Elphaba smiled—really smiled—as Galinda kissed her temple, and something in Nessa's chest settled.

She sighed, stabbing her pudding with unnecessary force.  

Fine. She'd suffer through it. For Fabala.

(But she was absolutely invoicing them for emotional damages. With interest.)

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Chapter Text

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Nessarose’s trunk sat neatly packed near the steps, its worn leather corners polished to a shine. A bouquet of parting poppies peeked out from her satchel—courtesy of Fiyero—though they’d already begun to wilt in the summer heat. Beside the trunk, Galinda crouched, delicately rearranging the contents for the third time, determined that Nessa’s hairbrush not touch her books.

Fiyero lounged nearby on the courtyard wall, legs swinging lazily. “You’ll have to write her letters,” he drawled.

Nessa rolled her eyes but didn’t argue. She turned her chair slightly to better face the others. “Thank you,” she said suddenly, soft and sincere. “For making this year… bearable. Even wonderful. I thought it would just be me and Elphaba and textbooks for company, but you two—”

“You mean your delightful future in-laws?” Fiyero cut in, grinning.

Nessa groaned. “Ugh. Don’t remind me.”

Galinda laughed and leaned down to kiss the top of her head. “You love us. Secretly.”

“You’re lucky I like you,” Nessa replied, then paused. “Wait. I don’t.”

“A lie,” Fiyero said solemnly, placing a hand over his heart, “but an honor nonetheless.”

Elphaba stood a little apart, watching them quietly from the shade of the ivy-covered archway. Her arms were crossed. Her eyes, normally sharp and assessing, were faraway.

Fiyero noticed first. 

He wandered over, plucked a daisy from the edge of the path, and held it out like a peace offering. “We’re ridiculous, aren’t we?”

Elphaba didn’t take the flower. “A little.”

He nudged her shoulder with his. “But charming.”

“Painfully.”

Galinda joined them, slipping her hand into Elphaba’s. “He’ll be civil,” she said gently. “He knows we’re here.”

Elphaba didn’t reply at first. Her fingers were cold in Galinda’s hand.

“I always tense up,” she said finally, so quiet it was nearly lost in the breeze. “Before he arrives. Like instinct. My back straightens before I even see the carriage.”

Galinda's fingers tightened around hers. “You don’t have to be ready for him. Not like that. Not anymore.”

Elphaba’s shoulders twitched, but didn’t relax.

She turned her head slightly, watching Nessa laugh—probably at something idiotic Fiyero had said. Galinda pressed in closer, warm and grounding.

“You’re not alone,” she whispered.

Fiyero returned, draping an arm around Elphaba’s shoulders despite her half-hearted glare. “You don’t have to talk to him if you don’t want to.”

“He’s here for Nessa.”

“Which doesn’t give him rights over you,” Galinda said, voice clipped and sudden.

Nessa wheeled toward them, raising a brow. “Still here?”

“Unfortunately,” Elphaba muttered.

They lapsed into a gentle quiet: Nessa checking her watch, Galinda adjusting a ribbon for the third time, Fiyero tossing and catching the drooping poppies, and Elphaba staring toward the gates as if sheer will might keep them closed.

The moment was warm and still, wrapped in sunlight and the soft rustle of trees.

Then the distant clatter of hooves echoed down the drive.

Elphaba’s entire body went rigid.

Nessa tilted her head toward the sound and sighed. “That’s him.”

The carriage gleamed like a warning as it crested the drive. Deep navy lacquer, silver trim, the Thropp family crest emblazoned on the door—an image that had once filled Elphaba with hope. Now it only made her want to vanish.

Frexpar Togue-Thropp hadn’t changed much: still tall and spare, every line of his black clerical robes pressed to perfection. His beard had gone more grey, but his eyes were just as sharp, just as calculating—the look of a man who weighed everything and found most of it wanting.

His face lit up when he saw Nessarose.

“My darling girl,” he said, arms open. “How you’ve grown.”

Nessa wheeled forward, hesitating only slightly before letting him kiss the top of her head. “Father.”

“You look radiant.” He brushed at her sleeve unnecessarily. “I have missed you terribly.”

Then his eyes flicked toward Elphaba.

“Daughter.”

“Governor,” Elphaba said coolly.

He turned to Galinda and Fiyero with smooth, false cordiality. “You must be Miss Upland.”

Galinda smiled brightly, all glittering teeth and blade-edged grace. “Charmed. You may also know me as Elphie’s beloved, fashion consultant, and emotional support glitterbomb.”

Frex blinked once. “Pardon?”

“She’s her girlfriend,” Fiyero said, appearing at Galinda’s side. “And I’m the other one.”

Frex looked between them. “The... other one.”

“Triple threat,” Galinda said brightly.

“A situation requiring stamina,” Fiyero said with a grin. “Prince Fiyero Tigelaar.”

Nessa made a strangled sound. “Why do I know you?”

Frex’s gaze sharpened, but he said nothing. He turned back to Elphaba. “And this doesn’t interfere with your studies?”

Elphaba’s mouth twitched. “I’m staying on for the summer. I was awarded a research internship with the History department. I’ll be compiling oral records from—”

“I see,” he said, cutting her off, polite as a knife. “Well. Good that you’ve found something to keep you occupied.”

Then, to Nessa: “Your things are ready?”

“They are,” she said slowly. “But before we go, maybe we could all—”

“Wonderful, darling. Before we leave, I’d like a private word with your sister,” Frex interrupted.

Galinda’s smile evaporated. “I don’t think—”

“It’s alright,” Elphaba cut in before she could finish. Her eyes never left his.

They watched as father and daughter walked into the maze of hedges, her black dress a flicker of shadow that vanished into green.

Fiyero’s jaw was tight. Galinda’s gloved hands twisted in front of her, pale with pressure. Neither said a word, but the tension between them was thick and inevitable.

“They’ll be fine,” Nessa said, trying for lightness. “Papa just wants a word. He’s not… that bad.”

Her voice wobbled slightly. She knew better. But part of her still wanted to believe it.

No one replied.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Frex walked a step ahead, hands behind his back, surveying the hedges like they offended him. Elphaba followed, arms crossed tight. Neither wanted to be here.

“I suppose congratulations are in order,” he said without looking at her. “You’ve made quite a name for yourself.”

“Is that what you call it?” she muttered.

He glanced back. “Parading around with a prince and that blonde girl. It’s bold, I’ll give you that.””

“I’m not hiding,” she said. “I never was.”

They walked a few more steps in silence. Gravel crunched beneath their shoes. A bee hovered near a tulip. Frex waved it away like a nuisance.

“I can see the appeal,” he said. “They’re beautiful. Popular. A step up, socially. Clever of you.”

Elphaba’s mouth twitched. “You think I’m using them?”

“Don’t flatter yourself. I think they’re using you.”

She stopped walking. “You don’t know them.”

Frex turned, very slowly. “I don’t have to. You’re a novelty, Elphaba. A scandal to spice up their schooling. Do you really think someone like them could love someone like you?”

Elphaba’s throat worked around nothing.

“Careful,” she said. “You’re almost being honest.”

He stepped forward, his voice dropping. “You think they’ll still want you when the act wears off? When it’s no longer charming that you flinch at kindness? When the magic slips out and someone gets hurt?”

Her hands curled at her sides.

“They know who I am.”

“No.” His smile was thin and cold. “They know who they think you are.”

A beat.

“You’ve always confused attention for affection.”

Her voice cracked, but she didn’t waver. “You don’t get to talk to me like this.”

“But I do,” he said smoothly. “You’re still my daughter. Whether I asked for you or not.”

 “I’m not doing this—” She turned, trying to leave—but he caught her arm and yanked her back hard enough that her breath hitched.

“You don’t get to walk away from your shame.”

She twisted free with a hiss. “They love me.”

The slap came so fast she didn’t register it until the snap echoed through the hedges.

Her world tilted. A clean, stunning pain bloomed across her cheek. Blood welled instantly from the corner of her mouth, fed by a thin, ugly cut where his ring had split her skin.

Frex didn’t blink.

He just reached into his coat pocket, drew out a pressed white handkerchief, and tossed it at her feet.

“Clean yourself up,” he said coldly.

Elphaba didn’t move.

He adjusted the cuffs of his robe. “Don’t you dare invoke love.”

Then, quieter—closer:

“If your mother could see what you’ve become… she would be ashamed.”

That struck deeper than the slap ever could.

Frex exhaled slowly. 

“Don’t humiliate your sister while we’re gone.”

Then he walked away.

The wind passed gently through the trees. Somewhere, a sparrow trilled.

She touched her cheek. Blood came away on her fingers—dark against green. 

The air buzzed around her, thick with buried magic and something darker still. Rage. Shame. Grief.

She sank to the ground.

And for a long, shattering moment—

She didn’t think at all.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The carriage driver had only just shut the trunk when Frexpar emerged from the garden path, robes pristine, expression unbothered. There wasn’t a crease out of place.

He approached like nothing had happened, resting a hand on Nessarose’s shoulder with gentle gravity.

“Apologies for the delay,” he said. “Just a few parting words.”

Galinda and Fiyero didn’t answer. Their eyes had already locked on the hedges behind him.

Galinda stepped forward. “Where is she?”

“She stayed behind,” Frex replied, turning smoothly toward the carriage. “She needed a moment.”

“A moment for what?” Fiyero asked, voice low.

Frex didn’t answer. He smiled instead—the kind of smile that closed a door without slamming it—and kept walking.

Galinda and Fiyero turned without another word and headed into the garden, swift and sure.

Nessarose lingered. Her gaze flicked between them and her father.

“I should probably—”

“Leave them,” Frex said gently. “You know how Elphaba gets.”

His tone was calm. Almost indulgent. Almost kind.

But something in it made her stomach twist.

She hesitated, her father’s hand still resting warm and steady on her shoulder. Familiar. Comforting. Heavy.

And yet—wrong.

She looked again toward the hedges. Toward the sister who hadn’t come back.

Then she nodded. Quiet. Heavy.

Better to leave than risk Elphaba being near him any longer.

Frex helped her into the carriage without a word. The door shut behind them with a soft, final click.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

They found her kneeling in the grass, facing nothing.

The wind tugged at strands of her hair, tangling them across her face. She didn’t brush them away.

Galinda got there first.

“Elphie?”

Elphaba blinked slowly, like she hadn’t heard her.

“Elphaba,” Fiyero said, stepping in from the other side.

Still nothing.

Then Galinda reached out, brushing the hair from Elphaba’s cheek—and saw it.

The cut. The swelling. The blood smeared on her green skin—vivid, angry, fresh.

Galinda recoiled, just for a breath. 

Then something in her snapped .

“What did he do,” she said—not a question, but a demand. Her voice went sharp, hot, and dangerous. “What. Did. He. Do.”

Elphaba stared straight ahead.

“Did he—?” Fiyero knelt in front of her. “Fae. Please. Say something.”

Her voice was quiet. Flat. “It wasn’t that hard.”

“He hit you.” Galinda’s voice was shaking now—not with fear, but with fury. “He laid a hand on you.”

“I didn’t think he would,” Elphaba murmured. “Not here. Not in public.”

Galinda stood up abruptly, turning like she might run back toward the road. “I’ll kill him. I will. I don’t care who he is—Governor, father—he doesn’t get to— he doesn’t get to— ”

Fiyero reached up and caught her wrist. “Galinda.”

She looked down—wild-eyed, shaking.

“Later,” he said quietly. “ Later . But right now—she needs us.”

Galinda dropped to her knees beside Elphaba, fast and graceless.

“Elphie.” Her voice cracked. The fury melted into heartbreak. “Elphie, my darling, please…”

Finally, Elphaba looked at her.

“He said you’d leave,” she whispered. “That I was just something to show off until you got tired.”

Not angry. Not wounded. Just repeating what she’d been told, like a fact. 

“He said I wasn’t meant to be loved.”

“No—” Galinda’s voice cracked. “No, no, no—don’t say that—”

Fiyero leaned in. Didn’t touch her yet. “That’s not true. You hear me? It’s not true.”

She didn’t answer.

“We’re not going anywhere,” he said. “We choose you. Every day. No matter what.”

Galinda edged closer on her knees. Her voice shook with the weight of what she couldn’t protect her from. “Everything is brighter because I love you. Do you understand? Oz is beautiful because you’re in it. I’d jump off a rooftop in heels if that’s what it took to make you believe that.”

Elphaba blinked. Once.

Then again.

Then—slowly, like something inside her had been pulled too far—she broke.

She let out a sound that was almost a laugh, but crumpled halfway into a sob.

And then she folded forward, slowly, and the tears finally came.

Galinda caught her. Fiyero moved in behind, arms around both of them.

Elphaba shook in Galinda’s arms, sobbing into the hollow of her throat. Galinda held her like she was trying to knit her back together.

Fiyero pressed his forehead to Elphaba’s spine. “We’ve got you,” he said. “We’ve got you. He doesn’t get to take this from you.”

They stayed like that, the three of them on the grass, the garden warm and still around them.

And Elphaba, finally, let herself be held.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Chapter Text

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Fiyero’s bags were already secured behind Feldspur’s saddle, the golden gelding pawing at the earth, impatient to be off. The stablehand gave them space with a carefully blank expression—close enough for assistance, far enough for privacy.

Elphaba stood just outside the stable doors, arms folded tightly across her chest—not defensive, but holding herself still. Holding herself together. The warmth of Galinda’s hand, looped easily through her elbow, grounded her more than she let on.

“I still think you should come,” Fiyero said, brushing hair from his brow for the third time. “Even for a few days. There’s room. And I promise to intercept any spontaneous engagement contracts.”

Elphaba’s lips twitched, though her gaze remained flinty. “If we show up now, your parents will throw a masquerade and start naming our future children.”

“They’d be honored,” he said with an exaggerated bow. “And probably commission matching clothes.”

Elphaba raised an eyebrow. “A solid deterrent.”

Fiyero grinned, but it softened quickly as he looked at Elphaba again. 

The sunlight caught the hollows under her eyes, the shadows that still lingered from the encounter she hadn’t spoken of since. But her stance was firmer now. Her chin was lifted. She was healing, if slowly—by inches, by hours, by each morning she got out of bed and chose to try again.

“I can’t leave,” she said gently. “I’ve barely started my internship. If I vanish now, I’ll spend the rest of the summer playing catch-up.”

Fiyero nodded. “I figured.” Then, teasing again: “But I had to ask. For the thrill of rejection, if nothing else.”

She allowed herself a smile. A real one, small and crooked. He stepped forward and took her hands, warm and calloused, anchoring.

“Just… promise you’ll think of me,” he said, his voice dipping quieter. “When you’re being brilliant without me.”

“I suppose,” she murmured. “If you insist.”

“And I’ll write,” he said, eyes twinkling. “Letters so dramatic you’ll think I’ve taken ill.”

“You’ll hear from me too,” Galinda said, fluffing her curls. “Scented and sealed, naturally.”

Fiyero turned to her with a wink. “I’ll cherish them as I drown in conversation about hedge maintenance and noble bloodlines.”

He pulled Galinda into a hug—tight, swaying slightly. She let out a dramatic sigh.

“You’re leaving her in three days,” Fiyero reminded her. “I expect a report.”

“I’m not abandoning her,” Galinda corrected, mock-haughty. “I’m being forcibly summoned by tea and maternal guilt.”

“An intermission,” Elphaba offered.

“Exactly!” Galinda said, eyes sparkling. “And then I return for act two.”

Fiyero looked between them—his people, his heart—and gave a half-smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Take care of each other?”

“Always,” Galinda said, voice soft now, and certain.

Elphaba didn’t speak. But her hands came up to hold him back, one on his shoulder, the other on Galinda’s waist. Her chin dipped, just slightly, and for a long moment the three of them simply breathed—shoulders touching, arms tangled, quiet and whole.

“I’ll see you both soon,” Fiyero said, pressing a kiss to Galinda’s cheek, then another—tender, grounding—to Elphaba’s brow.

He mounted Feldspur with the easy grace of someone born in the saddle. The horse stamped once, eager, then obeyed as Fiyero turned toward the gate.

They stood there as he rode off, the dust stirring behind him in golden swirls. 

Elphaba didn’t move until he was out of sight.

She didn’t sigh. But Galinda, watching closely, saw the way her hand curled into a fist—just for a second—then relaxed.

“Three days,” Galinda said, a little too brightly. “Just us girls. No boys, no horses, no royal dramatics. I say we celebrate.”

Elphaba’s brow twitched. “Celebrate?”

“Of course,” Galinda beamed, looping her arm through Elphaba’s and starting to walk them toward the dorms. “With something scandalous. Like breakfast in bed. Or breakfast not in bed. Or! You can finally let me organize your books by color. It’ll be healing.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Fine. Reverse chronological order, but only if I get to label them with glitter ink.”

Elphaba gave her a sideways look. “You own glitter ink?”

“I am glitter ink.”

Elphaba huffed something that might have been a laugh. They rounded the corner of the familiar brick path, feet falling into sync, and the ache in her chest dulled a little—replaced by something warmer, lighter.

Galinda grinned, triumphant. “See? You’re already forgetting that someone else just stole away on a dramatic horse like a tragic poem.”

“I am not forgetting.”

“Oh good. That means I have time to seduce you before you remember again.”

Elphaba finally smiled, slow and sidelong. “Three days, you said?”

“Three glorious, uninterrupted, emotionally manipulative days,” Galinda said, lifting her chin. “And I intend to make every minute count.”

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The dorm room was quiet, bathed in amber evening light.

Elphaba crouched over her desk, still in her work clothes—ink-stained blouse, the sleeves rolled halfway up her arms, hair pinned back in a loose twist. Galinda lounged across the bed, golden curls tumbling down her back, one slipper dangling off her foot, a book open on her lap (but long since forgotten).

“Elphie,” she said, propping herself up on an elbow. “You’re brooding again.”

“I’m thinking.”

“You’re brooding while thinking.”

Elphaba’s lips twitched. “I had a long day.”

“Then let’s make the evening longer,” Galinda said, her voice softer now, the teasing giving way to something else. She sat up fully, legs folding beneath her, eyes never leaving Elphaba’s face. 

“Come here.”

Elphaba hesitated, fingers loosening at the hem of her sleeve. But the look Galinda gave her—open, affectionate, sure—was enough. She crossed the room slowly, and Galinda took her hands as if Elphaba were something precious she’d been waiting to unwrap.

“You’ve been so strong,” Galinda murmured, brushing her fingers along Elphaba’s wrist with the faintest, featherlight touch—enough to make her shiver. “But you don’t have to be with me.”

Elphaba exhaled, slow and shaky. “I know.”

Galinda kissed the center of her palm, lips soft and lingering. “Then let me take care of you.”

It started with fingers undoing buttons—slowly, reverently. Each kiss she pressed to newly bare skin was soft as breath, lingering like a question answered.

Elphaba’s breath stuttered when Galinda’s hands found her waist—slow, sure, possessive—and pulled her down into the blankets, into her warmth. The world narrowed to the press of bodies, the scrape of breath against breath, the thrilling contrast of Galinda’s silk-smooth thighs and Elphaba’s long, trembling limbs.

They moved together with an unhurried tenderness, laughter blooming between moans, sighs caught in the space between heartbeats. Clothes slipped to the floor. The covers folded around them. Elphaba’s fingers threaded through Galinda’s hair, and Galinda guided her gently down like a prayer.

It was a different kind of heat—lush, lazy, drowning.

There was no rush. No urgency. Just exploration. Reverence. A kind of aching sweetness in how Elphaba shivered when Galinda's mouth skimmed the curve of her ribs, the gasp she earned with her tongue at the hollow of her throat, the helpless arch of her spine when Galinda’s hands slid lower with wicked purpose.

They lost themselves in each other—again, and again.

By the time they stilled, they were tangled together in a mess of golden curls and green limbs, breaths slowing, the sheets a chaotic cocoon of pleasure-drunk exhaustion. Galinda was sprawled across Elphaba like a satisfied cat, humming softly against her skin.

“Well,” Galinda sighed contentedly, “that was positively life-affirming.”

Elphaba let out a breathless sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a moan. “You’re trouble.”

“The best kind,” Galinda said without apology, propping her chin atop Elphaba’s chest and twirling a curl around her finger.

“We should do this again tomorrow,” she added, all coy innocence despite the wicked gleam in her eyes.

“We are doing this again tomorrow,” Elphaba said, her voice wrecked and low. “And the next day.”

Galinda lit up. “Three-day honeymoon, unofficial but passionately observed?”

Elphaba chuckled, utterly undone. “That can be arranged.”

Galinda grinned wide, delighted and entirely self-satisfied. “Excellent. I have a full itinerary of sinful indulgence and scandalous books to read to you in bed.”

Elphaba blinked, already dreading—and loving—where this was going. “What kind of books?”

“The kind with shirtless dukes, hidden passageways, and emotionally repressed governesses who faint into strategically placed haystacks.”

“I regret this already.”

Galinda kissed the tip of her nose. “You won’t. Trust me, darling. I know exactly where to put my… efforts.”

Elphaba buried her face in the pillow, laughing helplessly.

And Galinda, smug and glowing, curled in beside her—absolutely victorious.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

My Dazzling, Brilliant, Entirely Irreplaceable Loves,

I’ve arrived at the palace in one piece—though only just. Feldspur, ever the noble idiot, decided to race the wind (and a cart of apples) through the village gates. A gardener screamed, a dog howled, Feldspur neighed triumphantly. Who won? Unclear. But I stayed in the saddle, so I’m claiming victory.

Home is exactly as I left it: too polished, too quiet, and absolutely infested with formal dinners. Last night featured four courses of asparagus-based cuisine and an extended discussion of the barley yield. I believe I mastered the ancient art of nodding off with my eyes open. A new skill.

Mother has already begun her “casual” inquiries into your favorite colors, shoe sizes, and furniture preferences. Galinda, she may try to match your gowns to the dining room. Elphaba, she wants to know if you prefer red or white wine, and whether you own a fencing uniform (don’t ask).

Truly though—I miss you both more than I can possibly say. Every hallway echoes wrong without the sound of your voices. I miss your bickering over tea flavors and who stole the last pastry. I miss falling asleep between you, warm and safe and absolutely smothered, as any sensible man should be.

Counting the minutes until I’m home again, where I belong.

With entirely too much affection,

Your Fiyero

P.S. Mother sends her greetings and would very much like to know your favorite meals. This is not a trap, but it might become one. Proceed with caution.

P.P.S. Please kiss each other for me. Then write back and tell me everything—what you’re doing, what you’re reading, whether you, Fae, finally let Galinda paint your toenails. (You promised. I remember.)

P.P.P.S. Galinda, please be careful when you go home to Frottica. Elphaba, love, remember to eat more than once a day. Tea and spite are not nutrients, no matter how determined you are.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The train hissed to a stop with a polite burst of steam, and before Galinda could even step fully onto the platform, a delighted voice rang out across the crowd:

“There she is! My sunshine!”

“Popsicle!” Galinda squealed, abandoning any attempt at a dignified descent as she launched herself into her father’s waiting arms.

Highmuster Upland—distinguished, silver-templed, and currently wearing a linen waistcoat dotted with pastry crumbs—caught her with a huff and a booming laugh. “Stars above, Galinda, you’re going to knock me straight into the tracks one of these days!”

“You’d land gracefully,” she teased, squeezing him tightly. “Has Momsie come too?”

“She insisted on staying home to supervise the welcome feast,” Highmuster said, eyes twinkling. “I believe she threatened the chef with light treason if the quiche was soggy.”

Galinda gasped, delighted. “My hero.”

“Come, darling,” Highmuster said, offering his arm. “If we dawdle, your mother will plate us both for dinner.”

The carriage ride through Frottica’s countryside was sun-dappled and fragrant with summer blooms. Galinda chatted the whole way—about Shiz, about tea-related disasters, about Fiyero’s scandalous antics and Elphaba’s tragic lunch choices. 

“She eats a single piece of dry toast and pure sarcasm, Popsicle. That’s her entire diet.”

Highmuster hummed in sympathy. “Sounds efficient.”

They crested the final hill just as the family estate came into view, all ivy-clad stone and overflowing window boxes. The doors flew open before the carriage stopped.

“My baby!” Larena Upland cried, arms wide and tiara slightly askew. “You look thin!”

“It’s the corset,” Galinda said, but Larena was already cupping her cheeks and inspecting her like a prized melon.

“Do you need a pastry? A roast? I made three. The soufflé collapsed but we’re pretending it didn’t.”

“I’ll take one of everything,” Galinda said, laughing as she linked arms with her. “I missed you so much.”

“Good,” Larena said triumphantly. “Because we missed you more.”

Inside, the house was dressed like a fairytale—candlelight flickering, crystal glinting, flowers on every surface. Music drifted in from the piano room. Her bedroom smelled like roses and familiarity.

It was perfect.

And yet, as she unpacked that night, folding her dresses with care, she found her fingers brushing the edge of a certain letter tucked into the lining of her trunk.

She smiled to herself. The kind of smile that curved softly, privately.

She hugged the letter to her chest.

Sixteen days.

Then she’d be home again.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Dearest Galinda,

You’ll be pleased to know I have not yet spontaneously combusted from a combination of loneliness and poor nutrition. (Though the bread situation at Shiz is dire. I fear I may have to start bartering with my soul for decent crust.)

I’ve been keeping busy. The library remains intact, despite my attempts to move in permanently. 

Fiyero wrote. He sounds well. Which is to say: mildly tormented, extremely dramatic, and utterly, stupidly in love with both of us. I miss him. I miss you. A ridiculous amount.

I’ve taken to sleeping on your side of the bed some nights. It smells like your perfume. I can’t decide if it comforts me or makes everything worse.

The internship is fine. I’m fine. Except when I’m not, which is usually right after dinner when everything is too quiet and I remember how you hum when you brush your hair. And how I hated it. Until you left.

Come back soon.

Yours, with more affection than I know what to do with,

Elphaba

P.S. I stole your sweater. I may never return it. Consider this fair warning.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Elphaba didn’t notice him at first.

She was half a ghost herself, trailing home from another long day spent sorting fragile documents in the History Department’s archives. Her hands were smudged with dust and graphite from old lecture notes. Her boots scuffed softly over the cobblestones as she trudged through the dim courtyard, the late summer breeze tugging at her coat hem and loosening strands of hair from her bun.

Then—

She stopped mid-step.

Her pulse stuttered.

She turned.

And there he was.

Fiyero, leaning against a lamppost, grinning like he’d planned this moment for days, possibly weeks, and was just waiting for her to swoon.

“You’re early,” she said, guarded. Not moving.

“And you’re severely underwhelmed. Which hurts me, Fae. I raced two trains and a very territorial goose to be here today.”

Still, she didn’t run to him. Her gaze swept over him sharply—checking, confirming. Every inch of him was real. Every inch of her was reeling.

He raised an eyebrow. “What, no tearful reunion? No historical reenactment of our first kiss? Tragic.”

“I’m tired,” she muttered. “And you look like a smug idiot.”

He clutched his chest. “Thank you. You have no idea how long I’ve waited to hear you insult me in person again.”

That startled a breath of laughter from her, almost unwilling. She rolled her eyes. “Still dramatic.”

“Still in love.”

That shut her up.

He softened. “I missed you, Fae.”

She walked into his arms without fanfare, without words, like gravity had simply given up pretending they didn’t belong in the same orbit. Her cheek pressed into his shoulder. His hands settled on her waist like they’d never left.

“I missed you so much,” she mumbled. “I was going to write back today.”

“I figured. So I came early to ruin your productivity.”

For a while, they just stood like that, under the soft flicker of lamplight and the echo of cicadas in the trees. 

Then Elphaba tilted her head up.

“Don’t tell Galinda I cried,” she said.

“Your secret’s safe,” Fiyero whispered. “But I’m telling her you called me handsome.”

“I said you looked smug.”

“Same thing.”

And when he kissed her, slow and steady and warm.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Elphaba’s back hit the wall hard enough to rattle the picture frame above them. She didn’t care. Couldn’t. Her breath came in short bursts, chest rising fast, as Fiyero pressed in like a sinful wave.

Her fingers scrabbled at his shirt, pulling, twisting, desperate to anchor herself to something. To him. To the moment. She didn’t remember letting him close the door. Didn’t remember backing into the room. Only the slam of her heart, the shaking in her limbs, the way his hands slid under her blouse like he’d been starving and she was the only thing left in the world.

“Elphaba—” His voice cracked, low and reverent, ruined by wanting.

She dragged him back to her mouth, silencing everything but the pulse roaring in her ears. Her knees buckled; he caught her. She gasped something against his neck—half a curse, half a prayer—as he lifted her like she weighed nothing at all.

They didn’t make it to the bed. Not right away.

The desk caught them first. Then the rug. Then the windowsill, briefly, before they finally collapsed onto the mattress, breathless and laughing like fugitives caught mid-crime.

It felt like falling. Like flying. Like both.

She bit his shoulder. He swore, grinned, held her tighter.

The moment he entered her—deep and all at once—she arched, her mouth falling open in a breathless gasp she barely recognized as her own. It was too much and not enough, bright pressure and dizzying weight, something primal that bloomed under her skin like wildfire.

She clenched around him, arms trembling, fingers curling tight into his shoulders as he surged again, deeper this time, finding a rhythm that made the whole world feel off-balance.

They moved together with no grace at all—bodies slick, limbs tangled, gasping, laughing breathlessly when they hit the edge of the mattress sideways and nearly tumbled off. But then he caught her again, always catching her, and the bed creaked beneath them as they found their pace once more.

It was everything they’d been holding back, burning through them in frantic pulses, louder and messier than she would ever admit out loud.

His name burst from her lips when she came—torn and wild, teeth gritted, body locking tight before unraveling completely. Fiyero followed soon after, collapsing onto her with a groan so low and wrecked it vibrated through her bones.

Their skin stuck together with sweat. Her legs ached. His hand found hers and didn’t let go.

Eventually, he shifted just enough to press a kiss to her shoulder—lazy, open-mouthed, reverent.

“Still alive?” he murmured, voice rough and grinning.

“Barely,” Elphaba rasped, unable to hide her smile.

“You should see your face right now,” he said, propping himself on one elbow, gaze gentle and utterly in love. “Absolutely undone. Gorgeous.”

She swatted his chest half-heartedly. “Sleep before I regret this.”

He chuckled, satisfied, and curled around her like he meant to stay. Within minutes, their breathing slowed, tangled in each other’s warmth.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The sun shimmered over the lake, turning the water to gold as the boat glided toward the Shiz dock.

“Is she—?” Elphaba squinted, shielding her eyes.

“There.” Fiyero pointed. “At the front. Waving like a small, overly excited pink flag.”

Sure enough, Galinda stood at the bow, a flurry of curls and pastel chiffon. As soon as she spotted them waiting at the end of the dock, she let out a high, delighted squeal that echoed across the water.

“Elphie! Fifi!” she cried, bouncing in place. “Oh, I missed your faces!”

Her hat nearly took flight. Her trunk teetered dangerously as she waved both arms with wild abandon, her feet kicking behind her like she couldn’t quite stay grounded.

Fiyero chuckled. “Do we catch her, or does she launch herself?”

“I vote we dodge,” Elphaba said, dry as ever. But her mouth was twitching.

The moment the boat bumped gently into place, Galinda sprinted down the gangplank. She flung herself straight at Elphaba, who barely had time to open her arms.

“Elphieeeee—!”

Elphaba caught her and spun her in a wild, giddy circle, dark hair flying, coat flaring behind her. The momentum pulled a squeal of surprised laughter from Galinda’s chest as her legs lifted off the ground.

Her curls bounced. Her hat flew off completely. Her whole world narrowed to the sound of Elphaba laughing—real, unguarded, breathtakingly warm—and holding her like something impossible and precious.

“Oh my stars,” Galinda gasped as her feet finally touched the ground. “You twirled me.”

Elphaba, a little breathless herself, lifted a brow. “I had to do something. You were coming in like a cannonball.”

Fiyero, standing nearby with her hat now perched on his head, gave a low, impressed whistle. “I’ve seen a lot in my travels, but Elphaba Thropp executing a full twirl? History was made today.”

“You hush, Yero,” Galinda said, still clinging to Elphaba’s sleeves. She turned back to her, positively glowing. “Do it again.”

Elphaba’s lips quirked. “Maybe.”

Galinda leaned in, eyes twinkling. “You missed me.”

“Of course I did,” Elphaba said, simple and certain.

Galinda blinked, stunned for just a second—then smiled so hard her cheeks dimpled. She kissed her, deep and tender, on the mouth, right there on the dock.

Fiyero finally strolled over and looped an arm around both of them. “Okay. That was sweet. Now can we go home? I’ve been emotionally third-wheeling for about twelve minutes and I’m starting to wilt.”

Galinda laughed and pulled him into a three-way hug, her head tucked between them. “I missed you both terribly. Let’s never be apart again. Or at least not without a multi-course goodbye brunch.”

Together, the three of them turned toward Shiz, Fiyero towing Galinda’s trunk behind them as it bounced cheerfully over the boards.

Fiyero tilted her hat rakishly on his head. “By the way, I’m keeping this. It looks better on me.”

“I will end you,” Galinda said sweetly, attempting to snatch it back.

“Fae, defend me!” Fiyero cried, darting behind her.

“Nope,” Elphaba said, folding her arms with mock indifference. “Hat crimes are between you two.”

Galinda huffed, lacing her fingers through Elphaba’s as they continued walking. “You’re supposed to be my girlfriend.”

“Our girlfriend,” Fiyero corrected, reaching for her other arm with an exaggerated pout.

Elphaba glanced down at their intertwined hands, and murmured soft and amused, “I am.”

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Chapter Text

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The carriage hadn’t even rolled to a full stop before Fiyero leapt out, coat flaring behind him like a banner. He turned back with a grin so wide it could only mean trouble—or something dangerously close to it.

“Close your eyes.”

Galinda tilted her head, curls bouncing, instantly suspicious. “What for?”

“Just trust me,” he said, bouncing on his heels with boyish impatience. “Both of you. Humor me.”

Elphaba arched a skeptical brow. “This better not involve livestock.”

“No livestock,” he said solemnly, extending his hands to help them down. “Just joy. Pure joy. Now come on.”

Galinda gave a delighted shiver, slipping her hand into his arm. “Ooooh, I do love joy.”

Elphaba rolled her eyes but, with the faintest twitch of her lips, complied, slipping her fingers into his other hand. “Fine. But if I trip and break my nose, I’m suing.”

Eyes squeezed shut, they let him lead them down a narrow cobblestone street. The clatter of the departing carriage faded behind them, replaced by the distant hum of city life: a bell tolling, children calling out in play, the faint aroma of roasting coffee mingling with warm summer stone.

“Careful here,” Fiyero murmured, guiding them over a bump in the street. “And here. Perfect. Almost there.”

Galinda giggled, clearly relishing the mystery. Elphaba muttered something about trusting men with surprises being the root of most tragedies.

Finally, Fiyero slowed to a halt. His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “Alright. Now open.”

They did.

In front of them rose a graceful brick townhouse—modest in size, but almost achingly charming. Ivy curled up one side, framing a second-floor balcony like it belonged in a painting. The wooden shutters were painted a deep, rich green—Elphaba’s exact shade—and sunlight danced across the brass doorknob, polished to a shine. Wind chimes hung from the eaves, chiming softly in the late summer breeze.

Galinda gasped so loudly a passerby turned to look. “Ohhh my goodness.”

Elphaba squinted. “What is this place?”

Fiyero beamed. “Our new home.”

Galinda’s jaw dropped, clutching her skirts. “What?”

“My parents got it for me,” he explained, practically buzzing with contained excitement. “Or… technically for us. It’s a reward for passing all my exams and not getting kicked out of Shiz.” He grinned sheepishly. “Which, let’s face it, would never have happened without the two of you.”

He glanced between them, suddenly almost shy. “They’ve been so curious about you both. They’re hoping I stay serious. Settle down. With the two smartest, most magnificent people I know.”

Galinda’s hand flew to her mouth, misty-eyed. “Oh, Yero, you—ohhh.”

“Wait,” Elphaba cut in slowly, narrowing her eyes. “You’re saying this house is… ours?”

“Three bedrooms,” Fiyero said quickly, nodding. “Kitchen with actual counter space. Big tub for Galinda. Reading nook for you. Fireplace. Closets. Privacy. And it’s only fifteen minutes to campus.”

He pushed open the door, nearly vibrating with eagerness. “Come on. Let me show you.”

The entryway was bright, sunlight filtering down from an arched window above. A wide carved-wood mirror hung above a low bench—perfect, Galinda realized instantly, for checking one’s outfit before stepping out.

“The moment I saw the mirror, I knew,” Fiyero said, catching her delighted smile. “It had your name written all over it.”

The sitting room followed: an emerald-and-cream velvet settee beneath towering bookshelves that reached nearly to the ceiling. The windows were tall and arched, with deep sills already lined with fresh-cut flowers.

“For Fae,” Fiyero said, tapping the shelves. “I know you wanted to start your own library.”

Elphaba blinked hard, clearly trying not to look too pleased.

The kitchen was next—sunlit, tiled in soft blue, copper pans gleaming on the walls. A breakfast table sat tucked in the corner by a window, looking out into a shared courtyard where flowers bloomed in mismatched pots.

Galinda squealed. “I can make my lemon tea here every morning!”

“And my famous scones,” Fiyero added quickly. “I told the landlord we’d need extra pantry space for our experiments.”

Galinda clutched her chest, mock-swooning. “Stop, I’m going to cry.”

The bathroom drew another theatrical gasp from her—the claw-foot tub was practically the size of a pond. Elphaba eyed it with suspicion. “That thing could drown you.”

“That thing,” Galinda declared reverently, “is where I shall live.”

Upstairs, each bedroom held its own charm: one painted in warm ochre tones, one lined with tall bookcases and a skylight, and the third with soft lilac walls and a faint view over the city rooftops.

“You can swap rooms whenever,” Fiyero said. “Or make one a study. Or knock down the walls and make one enormous bed, I don’t care. As long as you’re both here.”

They ended on the balcony, overlooking a flowering tree alive with bees.

Elphaba stood quiet, gaze roaming the little home. “This is… a lot.”

“I know,” Fiyero said gently. “But you both deserve softness. Space to breathe. To rest.”

Galinda took his hand, then reached for Elphaba’s, tugging her close. “This is—oh, it’s more than anything I could’ve imagined.”

Elphaba hesitated, then admitted, almost shyly, “I’ve never had a place that felt like… mine.”

Fiyero’s expression softened. “Now you do.”

The three of them lingered there in the sunlight, their hands entwined, the wind chimes singing faintly above.

Eventually, Galinda clapped her hands. “Alright. Rugs. Curtains. At least twenty pillows.”

“And a kettle,” Elphaba added firmly.

“And a shoe rack,” Fiyero put in solemnly. “For Galinda’s collection.”

Galinda sniffed. “For our collection, darling. You’re both getting fashion makeovers.”

“I didn’t agree to this,” Elphaba muttered, though her smile gave her away.

Fiyero slung an arm around each of them, drawing them close, pressing his forehead against Elphaba’s and then Galinda’s in turn. His voice was soft but steady.

“Home sweet chaos.”

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Stacks of books and scattered notes covered every surface of their apartment, quills tucked behind ears, ink smudges on hands, and at least three empty teapots abandoned by the window.

“I’m going to die.” Galinda declared dramatically from the couch, draping herself across a pile of textbooks as if they were her deathbed. “I can’t remember anything I’ve read, and if I fail, I’ll have to drop out, and if I drop out, my mother will never forgive me, and then—”

“—you’ll still be gorgeous, adored, and infuriatingly dramatic,” Elphaba interrupted, not even glancing up from her notes.

“That’s not helpful!” Galinda wailed, kicking her heels.

Across the table, Fiyero groaned, tugging at his hair. “I think I just rewrote the same sentence three times and it still makes no sense.”

Finally, Elphaba put down her quill. She took in the scene—Galinda with her wide eyes and messy curls, Fiyero slouched and overwhelmed, both of them looking like a pair of overcooked vegetables.

“Listen to me,” she said firmly. “You’re both brilliant. You’ve put in the work. And no exam committee in all of Oz could possibly withstand the combined force of Galinda Upland’s charm and Fiyero Tigelaar’s… well, stubbornness.”

“Hey,” Fiyero protested, though he perked up.

Elphaba’s gaze softened. “You’ll conquer this. Together. We all will.”

Something in the steadiness of her voice—so certain, so unshakable—worked better than any tea or last-minute revision. Galinda brightened, reaching to squeeze Elphaba’s hand with a grateful little sigh, while Fiyero leaned back with a grin.

And, as always, Elphaba was right.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

By the time Galinda and Fiyero stumbled through the front door, still buzzing from the last round of exams and running on little more than adrenaline and caffeine, the smell hit them first.

Warm, savory, unmistakable.

Fiyero froze mid-step, blinking. “Is that—?”

“—roast with rosemary,” Galinda finished breathlessly, her heels clicking faster as she rushed in.

The kitchen was glowing, lit with lamplight and steam. Elphaba stood at the stove, sleeves rolled to her elbows, hair tied back, a wooden spoon in hand. Pans simmered, the oven ticked faintly, and the little breakfast table was already set—candles lit, mismatched plates laid out, and a basket of fresh bread in the center.

“Surprise,” Elphaba said without turning, though her ears had flicked at the sound of the door. Her voice carried that dry calm that barely concealed nerves. “I thought maybe you’d want something… nice. After the week you’ve had.”

Fiyero was already grinning like a fool. “Nice? Fae, this is better than nice. This is—this is history in the making. Our girl in an apron!”

Elphaba shot him a sharp look over her shoulder, but her lips betrayed her, tugging upward. “Careful, Your Highness. I can still throw you out.”

Galinda darted forward, practically bouncing. “Elphie, this looks perfect! Oh, you darling, wonderful, secretive thing!” She flung her arms around Elphaba from behind, nearly upsetting the spoon. “You never said a word!”

“It was meant to be a gesture, not a parade,” Elphaba muttered, though she leaned slightly into the hug.

The dishes came out one by one—Fiyero’s favorite roasted potatoes with herbs, Galinda’s beloved lemon tarts cooling on the counter, and a vegetable stew so fragrant it made both of them swoon. When the roast emerged, glistening and golden, Fiyero actually groaned.

They ate like they hadn’t in weeks, laughter spilling as freely as the wine. Fiyero teased Elphaba mercilessly about being “domesticated,” earning a playful kick under the table. Galinda declared she was going to write a thank-you note to the gods, the stars, and every cookbook author in existence.

But beneath all the banter, there was a quiet thread weaving the evening together—gratitude. The kind that pressed warm against the chest.

At one point, when Galinda got up to fetch more bread, Elphaba found Fiyero watching her, softer than usual.

“You didn’t have to do this,” he said lowly.

“I wanted to,” she answered simply, eyes steady on him. “You both work so hard. You deserved to come home to something special.”

Something in him flickered—deep, earnest. He didn’t answer, just reached over to cover her hand with his.

When Galinda returned, cheeks flushed with wine and happiness, she clasped their hands together without asking, completing the circle.

By the end of the night, the plates were a wreck, the candles were low, and all three of them had collapsed in the sitting room, limbs tangled, full and content.

“Best dinner ever,” Galinda mumbled sleepily into Elphaba’s shoulder.

“Speak for yourself,” Elphaba muttered, though she smiled into Galinda’s hair. “You two owe me dish duty for a week.”

“Done,” Fiyero yawned. “As long as you promise to cook again.”

Elphaba huffed, already drifting off too. “We’ll see.”

But secretly—she would.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Elphaba sat wedged between the stacks, hunched over a heavy book. Her quill tapped irritably against the margin as she muttered under her breath—half rebuttals, half notes.

“I thought the same thing,” came a low, lilting voice.

She looked up. It was the new exchange student— Florian, she recalled, tall and flame-haired, with an easy smile that didn’t quite match the stiffness of his uniform.

Now, he pulled the same book from the shelf, flipping to the exact page she had been scowling at.

“The author’s premise collapses by the second chapter,” he said matter-of-factly. “Did you notice the contradiction in his citations?”

Elphaba blinked. Most people dismissed her muttering—or avoided her altogether. “Yes,” she said carefully. “Most people don’t.”

“Most people don’t try,” Florian countered, his tone light but his eyes steady. “But you clearly do.”

A debate sparked instantly—pages flipping, arguments volleyed, the rhythm of two minds who relished the puzzle as much as the answer. And though Elphaba would never admit it aloud, she realized she was leaning forward, almost smiling.

From the far end of the library, a pair of first-years whispered, giggling behind their books:

“Look! She’s actually smiling.”

“She almost never does that!”

“Careful —Galinda might actually riot if she sees them.”

“Well, it looks like she finally met her match.”

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The dining hall was its usual midday chaos. 

Galinda sat perched at the end of one of the longer tables, her tray untouched, curls shining just so. She was waiting, as she often did, for her two favorite people to arrive.

Instead, Shenshen came skipping over first, plopping herself down opposite Galinda with a grin.

“You missed it!” she blurted, eyes bright. “Nikidik tried one of his thorn-questions again today—you know the sort where even breathing wrong counts as failing?”

Galinda made a delicate sound of acknowledgement, twirling her spoon between her fingers.

“Well, Florian spoke up,” Shenshen went on breathlessly. “And then Elphaba jumped in, and before anyone knew it they were—oh, Galinda, it was like watching a sparring match! Every answer sharper than the last, until Nikidik just gave up and dismissed class.”

Galinda smiled, the sort of smile that glowed like polished crystal. “Mm. How very impressive.”

Shenshen leaned forward conspiratorially. “Honestly, people were staring. You should have seen Elphaba—she was actually laughing. The whole thing was dazzling.”

That twinge in her chest again. Galinda tilted her chin, voice chiming like a bell: “Well, he’ll just have to get in line, won’t he?” She tossed her curls with studied grace, and Shenshen giggled, cowed enough to change the subject to shoes.

But Galinda’s gaze was already drifting toward the door.

And there they were. Elphaba, tall and striking even as she ducked her head, holding a stack of books under one arm. Beside her, Florian walked with his whole body angled toward her, listening with a look that could only be called besotted. He laughed at something she said, too loud, too eager, as though Elphaba herself were the punchline and the treasure both.

The sight landed heavier than Galinda expected. Of course Elphaba was radiant—she always was, especially when her mind was in motion. And of course Florian, being clever enough to keep up, had noticed.

Galinda pressed her fork into the mash on her tray, bright smile pinned in place. She was proud—truly, she was—that others finally saw what she had always known. But pride came laced with an ache she didn’t want to name.

Elphaba spotted her at once and excused herself mid-sentence. In three long strides she was beside Galinda, leaning down to kiss her in greeting—quick, familiar, unthinking.

“You wouldn’t believe it,” Elphaba said, sliding into the seat beside her and launching into a lively retelling of the class with hands moving in sharp arcs. “Nikidik thought he had us trapped—oh, Galinda, it was glorious.”

Her whole face was lit, her green eyes alight with energy, but her attention was fixed entirely on her girlfriend. Florian lingered behind, forgotten, as Elphaba nudged Galinda’s shoulder with hers and insisted, “You’d have loved it.”

Galinda let out a bright, practiced laugh, softer than usual. “Well, next time, you’ll simply have to save me a seat.”

Elphaba grinned, leaning closer. “Done.”

And just like that, some of the ache loosened.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The weekend began like it always did—sunlight slanting through the windows of their little house on the edge of town, the smell of tea and ink and whatever Galinda had decided to perfume the place with that week.

Galinda was fussing over her shoe stand, Fiyero sprawled across the sofa, and Elphaba sat cross-legged in the armchair with a book balanced on her knees. Their version of domestic peace.

Until the knock came at the door.

“Elphaba?” Florian’s voice carried in, warm and hopeful.

Elphaba glanced up, startled, then slid a ribbon into her book to mark the page. “Oh, he’s early.” She rose with a certain briskness, brushing at her sleeve though it needed no dusting. 

Fiyero’s head lifted from the cushions, his brows drawing in. “Off again?”

“Yes.” Elphaba hefted her satchel from the hook by the door. “Florian’s helping me track down some Quadling folklore texts in the bookshop.”

“Of course.” Fiyero’s smile thinned as he flopped back dramatically, one arm slung over his eyes. “Nothing says weekend relaxation like trudging off to dig through moldy archives with another bookworm. How exciting.”

That earned him a soft snort. Elphaba crossed the room to where he sprawled, tugged his arm away, and bent to press a quick, deliberate kiss. “Don’t sulk. I’ll bring you back a tale about Quadling princes turning into frogs, if that sweetens it.”

Fiyero blinked, momentarily disarmed.

Then she turned to Galinda, who had abandoned her shoe fussing to watch intently. Elphaba brushed a curl from her forehead and kissed her properly, lingering, murmuring low enough that Florian couldn’t possibly hear through the door: “I’ll be back before supper.”

Galinda’s eyes softened despite herself.

And then Elphaba was gone, the latch clicking shut.

Silence pooled in the room.

“You’re pouting,” Galinda declared, hands on her hips.

“I don’t pout,” Fiyero muttered from behind his arm.

“That’s literally pouting.” She perched beside him, tapping his shoulder with a manicured finger.

He dropped his arm, stared at the ceiling. “Don’t you think they’re spending a lot of time together?”

Galinda bit her lip. She had thought it. She’d seen them in the dining hall, bent over notebooks, Elphaba smiling in that bright, rare way that made Galinda’s chest squeeze. And Florian—utterly besotted, hanging on every word.

“Oh, Fiyero,” she said with airy cheer, settling onto the arm of the sofa. “It’s nothing. Florian’s dazzled. Who wouldn’t be? Our Elphie is—well, she’s remarkable.”

“That’s exactly what worries me,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair.

Galinda’s fingers curled over his, a reassuring squeeze. “Elphie loves us. She’s not going to run off with some starry-eyed Quadling just because he can chatter about folklore with her.”

Fiyero turned his head, narrowing his eyes. “But you see it too, right? The way he looks at her?”

Galinda hesitated, then let out a tinkling laugh that landed just a little too high-pitched. “Of course I do. He’s practically carving her initials into his schoolbooks already. But that’s his problem, not ours.”

Still, when she leaned her head against Fiyero’s shoulder, she pressed closer than usual—bright voice covering what her silence admitted.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The smell hit her first—garlic, onions, something faintly scorched. Elphaba paused in the doorway, setting her satchel down with a suspicious look.

From the kitchen came the unmistakable sound of clattering pans and Galinda’s shrill: “Stir, Fiyero, stir!”

“I am stirring!” he barked back, followed by a hissed curse as something sizzled too loud.

Inside, chaos reigned.

Elphaba leaned on the doorframe, arms crossed, watching as the two of them hovered over a pot like conspirators. Galinda’s curls were half-frizzed from the steam, Fiyero’s shirt dotted with flour and what looked like sauce.

“What,” Elphaba asked dryly, “are you doing?”

They both whirled around.

“Dinner!” Galinda declared, too quickly, brandishing a wooden spoon. “For you. Because we love you. Obviously.”

Fiyero coughed. “And not because we were—uh—maybe overthinking about how much time you’ve been spending with—”

“Fiyero!” Galinda hissed, elbowing him sharply in the ribs.

Elphaba only arched a brow, stepping inside. She kissed Galinda’s cheek in greeting, then tugged Fiyero down by his messy collar for another, slower one on the lips.

“You two are transparent,” she murmured.

“We are not,” Galinda insisted, going pink.

“Utterly opaque,” Fiyero added solemnly, though his hand tightened on hers.

Elphaba sighed, amused, and let herself be steered to the table. They hovered, fussing over her as though she hadn’t fed herself for days, setting down bread, ladling stew that was more char than savory.

Only when the clatter had quieted did Elphaba’s shoulders tense. Her fingers twisted together in her lap.

“There’s… something I should tell you,” she began, voice thinner than usual. Her gaze darted between them, then dropped to the table. “I don’t want you to misunderstand. Or to think that I—” She stopped, swallowed. “Florian said something to me today.”

That froze them both.

“Oh no,” Galinda whispered, spoon clattering.

“Don’t tell me he—” Fiyero began, eyes narrowing.

Elphaba’s throat worked. “He told me that he admires me. That he… wished for something more than friendship.”

The reaction was immediate. 

Galinda gasped, hand to her heart. “The audacity!”

Fiyero groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “I knew it. He looks at you like you’re a star he’s planning to chase forever—”

“Or worse!” Galinda cut in. “Like you’re a library and he wants a lifetime membership—”

“I told him no,” Elphaba blurted, her voice suddenly urgent, almost desperate to be heard. “I told him my heart already belongs to you both, and all I could offer was friendship. That was the only answer I could give.”

That quieted the storm.

Fiyero let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, rubbing the back of his neck with sheepish relief. Galinda pressed her fingers to her lips, eyes shining.

“You… really said that?” Fiyero asked quietly.

“I did,” Elphaba said, steady now. She forced herself to meet their eyes, green gaze burning with sincerity. “Because it’s the truth.”

Galinda slipped onto her lap, curling into her shoulder with a laugh that was half-sob. “Elphie, you silly goose, you nearly gave us a heart attack.”

Fiyero dropped into the chair opposite them with a groan. “He’s got good taste, I’ll give him that. But he’ll have to live with disappointment.”

Elphaba looked between them, her chest aching with something she didn’t have a word for. Love seemed too small. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I only… I needed you to know. Because you are the only ones I want to belong to.”

Galinda kissed her—quick at first, then again, slower, as though sealing the promise into her mouth. Fiyero leaned across, cupping the back of Elphaba’s head, pressing his forehead against hers. Three uneven breaths tangled together until they steadied as one.

Dinner went cold. None of them cared.

They drifted from the kitchen in a kind of orbit—Fiyero tugging off Elphaba’s jacket, Galinda catching her hand, Elphaba laughing low and startled when Fiyero scooped her up halfway down the hall just because he could.

By the time they reached their room, the air was thick with relief melting into longing. Words gave way to touches—soft at first, reverent, as though rediscovering each other all over again. A kiss at the wrist. Fingers smoothing hair from a flushed cheek. Laughter muffled against skin.

They spent the night that way—reminding, rediscovering, proving in every tender brush and whispered vow that there was no room for doubt. Elphaba’s worries unraveled in their arms. Fiyero’s restlessness eased in her steady touch. Galinda’s insecurity dissolved in kisses that left her breathless and sure.

When at last they lay tangled together, the lamp guttering low, Elphaba found herself murmuring into the quiet: “This is all I want. All I’ll ever want.”

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Chapter Text

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The first time Nessa came by the house, it was practical: she needed a quiet place to study away from the Shiz dorm chatter.

The second time, it was because Galinda had sent her a note that simply read: Come. We’ve made cake.

By the fifth time, Fiyero was greeting her with a bellowed, “Baby sister!” the moment she crossed the threshold, sweeping her wheelchair over the little front step like it was nothing.

“Let go this instant, you ridiculous oaf!” she snapped, smacking at his shoulder with her bookbag.

“Never,” Fiyero declared grandly, depositing her at the table like royalty.

Galinda swooped in immediately, clasping Nessa’s hands and pressing a kiss to her cheek. “Darling, you must let me try that new braid on you.”

Nessa wrinkled her nose, trying valiantly to hold onto her dignity. “You two are intolerable. How Elphaba puts up with you—”

“Because they’re stubborn,” Elphaba said dryly from the doorway, fighting a smile as she watched her sister glow despite her protests.

Nessa sniffed, feigning great suffering, but her hands lingered in Galinda’s and she didn’t actually stop Fiyero from draping a blanket over her lap. “Well, I suppose it’s nice that someone besides me bothers to look after you, Elphaba. Saints know you won’t take care of yourself.”

Galinda giggled. Fiyero pressed an exaggerated kiss to the crown of Nessa’s head, and she swatted him away with a scowl that didn’t quite hide her laugh.

It startled Elphaba sometimes, seeing it — her fiercely proud, prickly sister being pulled effortlessly into orbit by the same two people who had pulled her.

Elphaba loved them all the more for it.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The dining table was too small.

What had once been a cozy table for four was now hopelessly overwhelmed—Pfannee and Shenshen perched elbow-to-elbow, Crope talking with his hands and knocking over cups, Tibbett balancing a plate on his knee because no space remained. Even Nessarose, wheeled neatly into the corner Galinda had cleared for her, looked bemused at the sheer crush of bodies.

“You’ll have to start using the floor if you insist on feeding half of Shiz,” Elphaba muttered, trying to carve another slice of roast without smirking.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Galinda said, her curls bouncing as she leaned across the table to press a basket of rolls into Nessa’s lap. “We’re a proper family now. Families eat together.”

“A proper family doesn’t shout over each other,” Nessa shot back, sharp as ever—but her eyes shone.

The storm rolled in just as dessert arrived, the sky cracking open with a boom that rattled the windows. Shenshen squealed, Pfannee clutched his sleeve dramatically, and Crope immediately suggested ghost stories in the candlelight.

By the time plates were cleared, the little house hummed with noise. Crope thundered away on the piano in the parlor, playing so wildly that Galinda declared he was hexed. Shenshen and Pfannee raided their wardrobe and were soon parading through the hallway in gowns two sizes too small. Tibbett spun a “terrifying” tale about a phantom library book that forgot to return itself, which somehow still made Shenshen cower behind Nessa’s chair.

Elphaba retreated to her corner with a book, lifting it like a shield. Fiyero immediately dropped beside her, sprawling with practiced laziness.

“What are you doing?” she asked, not glancing up.

“Being adorable.”

Even Nessa laughed, a soft, surprised sound that she quickly hid behind her hand. Elphaba groaned, but something warm rose in her chest all the same.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

By the next week the storm had passed, replaced with sunshine and the bustle of the Saturday market. The whole little family spilled into town in their usual noisy way.

Fiyero dragged Elphaba from stall to stall, insisting she try roasted chestnuts, candied plums, and fried dumplings. She muttered the entire time but ate everything he handed her.

Galinda bartered shamelessly for armfuls of flowers, charming every vendor in a five-stall radius. Pfannee and Shenshen found matching bracelets and declared themselves soul sisters on the spot.

Crope darted between booths until he appeared before Nessa with a triumphant grin, holding a skewer of sugar-glazed fruit. “For you.”

She sniffed. “I don’t like sweets.”

But she accepted it anyway, her smile lingering longer than she intended.

By noon, their arms were full of flowers, ribbons, food, and trinkets, their laughter rising over the market clamor. The group sprawled on the grass at the edge of the square, sun on their faces, their chatter looping over one another in the way of people who no longer worried about being overheard.

Elphaba sat a little apart, knees drawn up, watching. Galinda leaned against Fiyero, blossoms braided into his hair, Pfannee and Shenshen fussing with theirs, Crope and Tibbett teaching Nessa some ridiculous rhyme until she was doubled over with laughter.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The snow had only just begun to dust the rooftops of Shiz when their front door swung open to reveal Nessa, cloaked and bright-eyed despite the early chill. The last week of term always brought a particular energy to the halls—students rushing to catch trains, exchanging gifts, laughing a little louder than usual.

Galinda ushered her in at once, the soft swish of her skirts bright against the firelit warmth. Fiyero set aside the luggage he’d been closing and grinned. “Visiting us before the big adventure? You know we’re kidnapping your sister for the holidays, right?”

Nessa’s mouth curved, though the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “She told me. And I’m glad. She deserves this.”

They settled in the sitting room—Galinda perched elegantly, Fiyero leaning forward with elbows on his knees, and Nessa calm and composed in her chair. Outside, the wind played against the windows.

“I know she’s not coming home,” Nessa said after a moment. “Not to Colwen Grounds. I know why. And I agree.” Her hands folded neatly in her lap, white knuckles betraying the tension beneath. “After what happened last time, I can’t blame her. I just…sometimes I find it hard to believe that we even have the same father.”

The words hung heavy in the air. Galinda’s breath caught; Fiyero’s brows drew together, anger flaring quick and bright.

“There were other times,” Nessa continued softly. “When we were younger. He had expectations—too many, too harsh. And when Elphaba couldn’t meet them, he…” She paused, eyes flicking between them. “It wasn’t just words. And it wasn’t fair.”

Galinda’s hands twisted in her skirts. “Nessa, I—”

“You don’t need to say anything,” Nessa interrupted gently. “I’m not telling you this to make you pity her. I just want you to understand why she sometimes was so… closed. Why she doesn’t trust easily. And why you—both of you—matter so much.”

She reached into her bag then, pulling out a small velvet box. The movement was deliberate, almost ceremonial. “These,” she said, setting it on the table, “are some of the only pieces of our mother we have left. I already have her shoes. But this one…”

She opened the box to reveal three rings glimmered in the firelight: a simple but elegant wedding band, a more intricate engagement ring with a faded gemstone, and one heavier piece—old, ornate, clearly crafted for someone of status. “This last one belonged to our grandfather. Mother wore it sometimes, at least from what they told us.”

Nessa’s gaze softened. “Father gifted them with the shoes, but Elphaba deserves them more. It’s only fair—these pieces belong to her as much as they belong to me. She needs to remember that she came from love, even if our father forgot how to show it.”

Fiyero took the box gently, Galinda covering his hand with hers. Their expressions mirrored the same vow: steadfast and unbreakable.

“Promise me,” Nessa said, her voice finally trembling, “that you’ll always take care of her. That you’ll give her what our father—what I never could.”

“And more,” Fiyero promised, then smiled—soft but certain. “And while we’re at it, you should know something: you’re ours, too. Consider yourself adopted. Little sister privileges included.”

Nessa blinked, startled—and then laughed, the sound bright and unguarded. “Adopted?”

Galinda reached over and squeezed her hand, eyes warm. “Darling, you’ve always been part of this. You’re Elphaba’s, so you’re ours too. Family isn’t just blood—it’s who you choose. And we choose you.”

Something in Nessa’s shoulders eased then, the weight of years lifting if only slightly. She smiled fully this time, the kind that reached her eyes. “Good. Then go spoil her, wherever you take her. Frottica, Winkie Country—just make her know she’s loved.”

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Their carriage rolled steadily away from Shiz, its wheels cutting paths through new snow. Inside, the air was warm with anticipation and the faint scent of cinnamon tea.

Galinda was nearly vibrating with excitement, her gloved hands gesturing wildly as she spoke. “You’ll adore Frottica! My parents can’t wait to meet you both, and Momsie has already planned three dinners. And the shops—oh, Elphie, the shops! There’s this little bakery that makes the most divine custard tarts, and a gallery that shows the best winter blooms. We’ll go everywhere.”

Fiyero leaned back against the cushions, grinning. “Glin, you might frighten her before we even arrive.”

“Oh, hush,” Galinda said, though her eyes sparkled. “They’ll love her. And you. They already do, from what I’ve told them.”

Elphaba, sandwiched between them, looked out at the white landscape rushing by. “It’s a lot. Meeting parents. I’m not exactly… charming.”

Fiyero nudged her shoulder. “You’re plenty charming. You just don’t know it. And besides, my parents can’t wait either. They’ve heard so much about you they practically think you defy gravity.”

Galinda squeezed Elphaba’s gloved hand. “Darling, there’s nothing to worry about. Our families already approve. They’re eager. They want to know the person who’s made us so happy.”

Elphaba’s throat tightened, but some of the tension eased under their warmth. “You two make it sound so simple.”

“It is,” Fiyero said firmly. “They’ll see you the way we do. We promise.”

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The Upland estate rose like something out of a winter fairytale: gleaming white stone crowned with spires, every window glowing gold against the gray of winter. Even from the carriage, the warmth and energy seemed to radiate outward.

Galinda was practically bouncing on the seat, her gloves pressed against the glass. “Home! Oh, it’s perfect with the snow, don’t you think? Look at the icicles—they sparkle! And wait until you see the ballroom, and the tea parlor, and the winter garden—oh, you’re going to fall in love!”

Fiyero chuckled. “I’m starting to think your parents are going to be even more excited than you.”

“They will be,” Galinda said without a trace of doubt. “Momsie’s probably halfway down the stairs already. And Popsicle will try to look dignified but he’s secretly just as bad. It’s genetic, darling.”

Elphaba’s smile was small but nervous. “I’m not exactly… the sort of person families expect to meet.”

“You’re exactly the sort of person mine will adore,” Galinda promised, squeezing her hand. “Trust me.”

When the carriage pulled up, the doors of the estate flew open like a scene out of a musical. Larena Upland swept down the steps, her cloak trailing behind her like a pink-and-gold comet. “Galinda!” she sang, every syllable a melody, arms already outstretched. Behind her came Highmuster, beaming, his stride quick despite the snow, calling, “There’s my princess!”

The courtyard filled instantly with brightness—Larena laughing as she hugged Galinda tightly, Highmuster leaning down to kiss his daughter’s cheek, both of them talking at once.

“We redecorated the east wing—”

“The gardener finally trimmed those dreadful hedges—”

“There’s a new pâtisserie in town; you’ll simply die—”

“Momsie, Popsicle,” Galinda interrupted, cheeks pink with delight, “I have someone very important to introduce to you.” She stepped aside, presenting her companions like precious treasures. “This is Fiyero Tigelaar—”

“Charmed!” Larena cried before Galinda could finish, seizing Fiyero’s arms and clutching them enthusiastically. “My, what a handsome young man. And that coat! Oh, you’re a vision. Highmuster, look at him!”

“Excellent posture,” Highmuster agreed solemnly, before grinning. “Welcome, son. Anyone who can keep up with our Galinda has my respect.”

“And this,” Galinda said with pride swelling in her voice, “is Elphaba Thropp—our partner.”

There was no hesitation, no flicker of surprise. Larena glided forward, hands outstretched. “Oh, thank goodness! Finally, we meet! My daughter’s letters could barely contain her adoration. And that skin—darling, it’s beautiful. Such color! You’ll have to give me tips; mine just fades in winter.”

Elphaba blinked, caught off guard by the effusive praise, but Larena was already cupping her hands warmly. “We’re so happy you’re here. Please don’t be shy—we are terribly loud but very loving.”

Highmuster bowed slightly. “Our Galinda has impeccable taste. And anyone who makes her this happy is family the moment they step inside.”

Galinda’s grin could have powered the lamps. “See? I told you. Now come inside! I must show you the ballroom before supper. And tomorrow, the town tour!”

They swept into the estate on a tide of laughter and chatter, Larena already asking Fiyero about Winkie fashions, Highmuster insisting Elphaba sit by the fire. And though Elphaba still felt the nervous flutter of being new and seen, the warmth was undeniable. These were Galinda’s people, bright and unstoppable—and in the echo of their welcome, Elphaba found herself almost, almost at ease.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Frottica unfolded like a ribbon of color and sound, and Galinda took it upon herself to be the most dazzling tour guide imaginable. From the moment they stepped out each morning, she pulled them down bright streets and up polished lanes, pointing out every detail as though she’d been waiting years for this moment.

“Here—look! This is the bakery I told you about. The custard tarts are practically famous, and the owner adores me; he’ll give us the best ones.”

Fiyero grinned, leaning down to murmur to Elphaba, “I think the owner might adore everyone. But she’s certainly convinced.”

Elphaba smirked. “I’ll believe it when I taste one.”

They sampled sweets until their fingers were sticky with sugar, browsed markets overflowing with silks and winter flowers, and stopped for steaming cups of spiced cider in tiny, jewel-like cafés. 

Larena and Highmuster occasionally joined them, and their chatter added to the whirlwind—Larena fussing over scarves and gloves, Highmuster teasing Galinda about her dramatic storytelling, which only made her more animated.

One afternoon, Galinda led them through wrought-iron gates into her favorite garden, a tucked-away corner of the estate that even the household staff rarely visited. Winter blooms clung stubbornly to their stems, and the air was sharp and clean. “I used to come here when I was little,” she said, eyes shining. “It’s always been mine. Now it’s ours.”

She spun once, cheeks pink with the cold. Fiyero caught her mid-twirl. “Careful, Glin, you’ll slip.”

“Oh, nonsense. I’m graceful.” She winked, pulling him closer. “Aren’t I, Elphie?”

Elphaba stood back at first, arms folded, smiling faintly. “You’re something.”

“Something lovely,” Fiyero corrected, grinning as he tugged her toward them. “Come here, you.”

Their kiss started soft, tentative against the winter chill, but deepened quickly as warmth sparked between them. Galinda’s gloved fingers brushed Elphaba’s cheek, Fiyero’s laughter hummed low in his chest. Hidden by hedges and the hush of snow, the three of them melted together for a moment, the world outside forgotten.

Lurlinemas arrived with lights strung along every corridor of the estate, Larena insisting on fresh garlands and a table that seemed to bend under the weight of sweets and gifts. The evening was a cheerful chaos of music, crackling fires, and too many glasses of sparkling wine.

Galinda presented her parents with an oversized, glittering frame filled with sketches and notes from her year. Fiyero gave a set of delicate carvings from Winkie craftsmen, each piece a miniature of a Frottican landmark, which Highmuster declared “absurdly thoughtful.” Elphaba, hesitant but resolute, handed Larena and Highmuster a slim book of poetry she’d annotated herself, pressed flowers marking each favorite line. They accepted it with such warmth that her throat tightened.

Later, when the house grew quiet and the lights dimmed, the three of them slipped away from the festivities and retreated to Galinda’s room. Conversation turned to whispers, kisses lingered longer, and the world beyond the door ceased to exist. 

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The ride to Winkie Country was quieter than their journey to Frottica, though no less warm. Galinda rested her head on Fiyero’s shoulder, humming tunelessly as Elphaba traced patterns in the window fog.

“Still nervous?” Fiyero asked, his voice low. His arm curved naturally around Elphaba’s shoulders. “Because I promise, you have nothing to fear. My parents are… well, they’re ridiculous in their own way. You’ll see.”

Galinda nudged Elphaba’s knee playfully. “Which means we’ll be spoiled. Prepare yourself.”

Elphaba’s lips curved slightly. “If you say so.”

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Lanterns swung from every terrace and balcony, casting golden light across the snow. The rooms were alive with music and laughter, guests moving in and out with glasses of wine and plates of sweets. 

Galinda shone like she belonged on a stage, telling stories that made everyone laugh; Fiyero was a familiar shadow at her side, greeting cousins and old family friends with easy charm. King Marillot, his father, could often be heard booming with laughter in the dining room, telling old hunting stories and bragging about his son to anyone who would listen.

Elphaba, though warmed by it all, eventually felt the noise pressing in. She slipped away from the glow, stepping out onto a quieter terrace where the cold air bit at her cheeks. It was a relief—just the hush of winter and the distant echo of music behind her. She leaned against the railing, sipping cider, letting herself breathe.

The door creaked softly, and another figure joined her. Fiyero’s mother, Queen Cyrilla, moved with a kind of unhurried grace, a shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She didn’t seem surprised to find Elphaba there. “A little overwhelming, isn’t it?” she said, her voice gentle.

Elphaba offered a small smile. “It’s beautiful. Just… a lot.”

“She’s a lot, too,” Cyrilla said, nodding toward the room where Galinda’s laughter carried even here. “And so is he. My boy was born loud and golden. Marillot and I learned early on to give him a wide field to run in.”

Elphaba’s smile deepened just slightly. “It suits him.”

Cyrilla stepped closer, resting her hands lightly on the railing. “He’s happy. Happier than I’ve seen him in years. Whatever it is you three have, it’s steadied him. And I can’t thank you enough for that.”

Elphaba glanced away, embarrassed by the weight of the words. “It’s not just me.”

“I know,” Cyrilla said warmly. “But I know the work behind it. I see it. The way he talks about you—about how you’ve helped him with his studies, about the things you’ve taught him—it’s something we didn’t expect. When he was younger, we wondered if he’d ever sit still. He turned lessons into games, ran his tutors ragged, tried to make his horse jump hedges just to see if he could. Marillot and I thought maybe he’d grow out of it. He did—but I think he only learned to run in a different direction. And now, here you are, keeping pace with him.”

Elphaba couldn’t quite suppress a quiet laugh. “He hasn’t slowed much.”

“No, and I wouldn’t want him to,” Cyrilla said. “But seeing him with you—and with Galinda—it’s like seeing him finally find the people who match his stride.”

Her tone softened as she continued, “We always wanted a bigger family. Tried for years. But the winds don’t always blow the way you hope. So we had one boy, and he filled our world. And now, to see him with you both… it’s like the family we dreamed of has found us anyway. I’ve always wanted a daughter. Maybe two. And I think—if you’ll let us—we can claim that wish tonight.”

Elphaba’s throat tightened unexpectedly. She swallowed before saying, “I… thank you. That means more than I can say.”

Cyrilla reached out, covering Elphaba’s hand with her own. “Take care of him. And let him take care of you. That’s all we ask.”

From inside, laughter rose again—Galinda’s unmistakable trill, Fiyero’s voice mingling with it. Cyrilla’s eyes softened. “Go on. They’ll be looking for you. It’s a new year, after all.”

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Chapter Text

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The snow had long since melted into slush by the time they returned to Shiz, but the chill in the air still bit at their cheeks. The festive glow of Frottica and Winkie Country was a fond memory now, tucked between books and trunks as the three of them fell back into the familiar rhythm of campus life. 

Classes resumed, the green of the lawns muted under winter skies, and Shiz seemed at once the same and subtly changed. Perhaps it was them who had shifted, carrying with them the warmth of holidays spent as a family.

In a quiet corner of the library, sunlight turning the dust in the air to gold, Elphaba finally spoke the words she had been circling for months. Notes scattered across her desk, texts opened and read outside her usual scope, she set her quill down and met Galinda’s curious gaze. Fiyero leaned back, relaxed but alert.

“I think,” she began slowly, “I’d like to take law. As a second major. Alongside sorcery.”

Galinda froze mid-trace across her page, then broke into a wide smile. “Elphie! That’s brilliant. And so very you. You’ll be magnificent.”

Fiyero tilted his head. “Law? I mean, I’m not surprised. You’ve practically been giving lectures at the community centre every weekend. But why now?”

Elphaba hesitated. “Because it feels necessary. Sorcery can do much, but it can’t protect those who need it most—not the way I want. I’ve been thinking about the Animals we’ve met, the ones at the centre and in Frottica. What happens to them isn’t just magic. It’s politics, policy, power. I… I want to understand that. To change it.”

Fiyero reached across the table, covering her hand with his. “Then you should. You’d be incredible at it.”

Galinda nodded, eyes shining with pride. “If anyone can argue a law into being, it’s you. Even if I barely understand a word you say half the time. Honestly, it’s like you’re casting spells with sentences.”

Elphaba snorted softly, but some of the tension in her shoulders eased.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Dr. Dillamond was perhaps the easiest to tell. They met in his office, the walls lined with books and soft ticking of a clock marking the quiet. When Elphaba explained, his ears twitched slightly and his mouth curved in approval.

“It’s a wise choice,” he said. “Knowledge of the law will give you tools beyond any spellbook. And Animals could use more voices who understand the systems stacked against them.” His tone sobered. “But be warned: Madame Morrible has her own expectations. She may see this as… disloyalty. Or distraction.”

Elphaba’s jaw tightened. “I expected as much.”

“Don’t let that deter you,” Dillamond said kindly. “Your mind is too keen to be caged. Do it. And do it well.”

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

That night, she told Galinda and Fiyero again, in the familiar comfort of their room. The fire hissed softly, the scent of ink and paper thick around them. “Dillamond warned me Morrible won’t like it,” she admitted. “I don’t… I don’t want to give her another reason to push back.”

Galinda set her hairbrush down firmly. “Let her push. You’ve faced worse.”

Fiyero’s arm looped easily around her shoulders. “She’s not the one who’s going to change anything. You are. And you’ve already been doing it. This is just the next step.”

Elphaba looked between them, their faces open and sure. They had seen her—the work, the fears, the unspoken dreams—and loved her anyway.

“Alright,” she said softly, a hint of steel underneath. “Then law it is.”

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Balancing sorcery and law felt less like juggling and more like standing on two separate stages at once, each demanding precision, each claiming her attention. One required incantations and ritual precision, the other arguments sharpened to a fine point. Somehow, she thrived in both. Professors in both faculties noted her clarity and relentless drive.

Morrible’s influence, however, lingered like a shadow. 

Lectures shifted, seminars were rescheduled without warning, and Elphaba often sprinted across campus to keep pace. No accusations came—only the quiet sense that her resolve was under careful observation. She refused to bend; if anything, it sharpened her determination.

What truly steadied Elphaba were the nights that weren’t about classes at all. 

Late evenings in their living room, where Galinda would pretend to study only to whisper jokes until Fiyero had to bury his face in a book to keep from laughing aloud. 

Study sessions that ended in drowsy piles of limbs and parchment, Elphaba waking with ink smudges on her cheek and Galinda’s latest batch of biscuits carefully stacked by her elbow.

It was chaotic and imperfect, but it kept her tethered.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

One afternoon, a Gazelle carrying a precarious tower of books approached the library entrance. She wasn’t a student, but a delivery clerk from a local press. Two human students barred her way, mocking her accent and insisting she leave the books outside.

Elphaba cut across the path before she had time to think. “She’s delivering coursework, not contraband. Let her pass.”

One student scoffed. “It’s not proper, Thropp. Animals don’t belong in the library.”

“Then perhaps it’s the library that’s improper,” Elphaba said, her voice like ice. She took the books from the Gazelle’s saddle and swept past the boys, holding the door open until she followed. Inside, she put the stack gently on the table. “Here. No one should have to beg to do their job.”

The Gazelle dipped her head gratefully. “Thank you, Miss. I only wish I could stay and read a while. But the rules were never written with us in mind.”

Her words lingered long after she left.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The next day, she lingered after her law lecture. 

“You looked troubled,” Florian said, falling into step beside her. “Not the sort of troubled a casebook can solve.”

Elphaba gave him a sidelong glance. “An Animal was almost barred from the library yesterday. A clerk, not even a student. It shouldn’t have happened.”

Florian studied her for a moment, then offered a small smile. “Then perhaps it’s time we write something that says so.”

She stopped. “You’d help me?”

He shrugged lightly. “Why wouldn’t I? We’re friends. You’ve got a mind that could split stone, and I’d rather be at your side than in your way.”

His expression softened, almost sheepish. “I know I put you in an uncomfortable position last time, when I… well, when I tried to say more than I should have. You were clear, and I respect that. I don’t carry a grudge, Elphaba. Truly. What matters to me now is that I can still stand with you. And if standing with you means helping Animals find their rightful place here, then all the better.”

Elphaba’s throat tightened. “Thank you, Florian.”

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The first petition was simple: to guarantee Animals employed on campus equal access to facilities while performing their duties. The path was not smooth. The moment the draft hit the administration’s desk, it was met with raised eyebrows and skeptical murmurs.

Elphaba and Florian wrote essay upon essay to argue their cause. Galinda smoothed the phrasing with touches of elegance (even if she kept asking what words like “heretofore” meant). Fiyero charmed students into signing with his grin and good humor.

Within weeks, their persistence paid off. A modest win, yes—but a shift nonetheless. The clerk returned a fortnight later, walking into the library without a single protest. Elphaba felt the victory down to her bones.

They didn’t stop there. They drafted another petition: weekend classes for Animals who wished to study while maintaining work. This one encountered even more pushback. In the dining hall, debates spilled over trays of unfinished lunch, while in the dormitories, whispered arguments spread across corridors.

When the weekend classes were approved, they pressed further—an appeal for full-time admission for qualified Animals. It was bold, almost unthinkable, yet it put the words on parchment, made the possibility visible where before it was unspoken.

More students joined the effort, sharing notes, explaining casework, refining arguments. Evenings in the library became strategy circles: pages spread across tables, Galinda fussing over trays of snacks, Fiyero keeping spirits high with jokes, and Elphaba coordinating every detail.

Soon, whispers drifted through campus. Admiration, mischief, and curiosity accompanied it. By the third petition, students across disciplines stopped them in corridors, eager to see what came next.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Dearest Elphaba,

News of your work at Shiz has reached us, and we could not be more proud. It takes uncommon strength to see the world’s cruelty, and rarer still to answer it with resolve rather than despair.

We have set our ministers to draft provisions for fairer access to education and services for Animals within our country—policies sparked by the work you and your companions have begun. You may not see it yet, but the circle of your influence is already wider than Shiz.

Know that if you ever find yourself in need—be it counsel, resources, or simply a reminder that you are not alone—you need only write. You are part of our family now, and our support is yours as surely as if you had been born to it.

With admiration and affection,

Marillot & Cyrilla Tigelaar

King and Queen of the Vinkus

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

When Elphaba passed her first major law exam—top marks, no less—Galinda and Fiyero refused to let it pass quietly. 

Under the guise of a “mandatory study review,” they corralled her into the community centre. Lights flared, confetti rained, and a crowd erupted in cheers. A lopsided cake—Fiyero claimed credit, though scorch marks suggested a blonde accomplice—sat proudly in the center.

“This is ridiculous. It was—just—an exam,” Elphaba protested, cheeks flushed.

Galinda clasped her hands dramatically. “One brilliantly conquered exam! Do you know how many students tremble at the mere thought of you in a courtroom?”

Fiyero slid an arm around her waist, leaning close. “Exactly. And we are here to celebrate, not rationalize. We’re proud of you, Fae. That’s what this is about.”

Florian, standing at the edge of the crowd with a cup raised, added, “To Elphaba Thropp: may the statutes of Oz quake and quiver in her righteous presence.”

Elphaba rolled her eyes, but the warmth of their laughter and chaotic decorations tugged at her heart. She let herself sink into it—the candlelight, the teasing, the dizzying affection—and thought maybe—just maybe—they could actually change Oz for good.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Morrible swept through the corridors with a rare, sharp urgency, the hem of her cloak flicking against the polished stone as she moved. The letters she normally relied upon would not do—she needed him in person.

By nightfall, she had arrived at the Emerald City, the glow of its towers casting eerie reflections across her green-tinted visage. She strode into the palace unannounced, skirts whispering over marble, and found the Wizard in his private chambers.

“Ah,” he said, rising with a courteous smile that did little to hide his curiosity. “Morrible, this is… unexpected.”

She cut him off with a sharp gesture. “Nothing about this can wait. Elphaba Thropp—my most promising protégé—is slipping from our grasp. The girl is devouring law texts, rallying petitions, charming every mind that matters… and I am powerless to bend her as I once could.”

The Wizard frowned, leaning against the desk. “You wish me to intervene?”

“Not merely intervene,” Morrible snapped, her voice low and dangerous. “We must turn her, Oscar. Entice her with the palace, with honors, with prestige—the trappings that appeal to ambition—but above all, make her feel the pull of power at our side. She must believe that the future we offer her is hers to command.”

She paced a step closer, eyes gleaming with manic precision. “Do you understand? The longer she walks this path—law, justice, advocacy—the less influence we retain. She is brilliant, dangerous, unstoppable if left unchecked. And I… we cannot risk losing her.”

Oscar’s gaze darkened. “And you want me to… persuade her?”

Morrible’s smile was thin, almost serpentine. “Not persuade. Allure. Wrap her in opportunity, make her believe she chose us of her own accord. Only then will she return to her proper place: our corner, our cause.”

He hesitated, sensing the fire behind her demand. Morrible leaned in slightly, lowering her voice, her dark eyes glittering like shards of obsidian.

“Swiftly, Oscar. I will not have our prodigy turn into a champion for everyone else when she belongs to us.”

A long silence followed, broken only by the soft hum of the city outside.

The game was moving—and the pieces were already in motion.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Chapter Text

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Elphaba had barely stepped into the courtyard before Galinda looped her arm through hers, tugging her along with a flurry of curls and perfume. Fiyero trailed on her other side, grinning at something only he found amusing, one hand stuffed lazily in his pocket as if strolling between classes with them was the most natural thing in the world.

The usual stares followed, but Galinda ignored them, chattering brightly about the weekend, while Fiyero deflected with smirks sharp enough to cut. Elphaba, as always, kept her eyes straight ahead.

Then Morrible’s voice sliced through the hum of the courtyard. “Miss Elphaba! Come quickly!”

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

For Miss Elphaba Thropp,

His Royal Ozness, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz,

summons you most ceremony-ishly

to his personal Palace in the Emerald City.

This invitation is nontransferable.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The school erupted the moment the invitation landed, a bright green envelope carried by a miniature hot air balloon.

“This is your chance,” Morrible cooed, her tone rich with satisfaction. “To make good. To prove yourself.”

Elphaba stiffened. “Prove myself?”

“Prove yourself worthy, dearie. This is the Wizard of Oz! If he is to grant your heart’s desire—”

“But how?” The words tumbled out before Elphaba could stop them. Her pulse thudded against her throat. “It’s too soon, I’m not ready—”

Morrible’s smile was indulgent. “Don’t be so pessi-mystical. You’ll be wonderful, my dear.”

“Of course she will.” Galinda chin tipped up, all glittering defiance. “She’s Elphaba.”

Fiyero, less formal but just as fierce, slung an arm around Elphaba’s shoulders. “Ready or not, she’s already more worthy than half of this school.”

Elphaba wanted to nudge them for drawing attention, but Nessa was already wheeling forward, eyes shining. 

“Fabala, this is everything!” She cried, and in moments they were surrounded—Crope, Tibbett, Florian, Pfannee, and ShenShen, all buzzing with excitement.

The chorus of wishes began—pastries, libraries, eternal youth, tiaras—and laughter rippled through the group. Fiyero leaned against the fountain, drawling about boots and pardons, which earned him Galinda’s scandalized gasp and dramatic rebuttal about wardrobes and couture.

The noise swelled until Pfannee, with a mischievous smile, turned back to Elphaba. “And you, Elphaba? What would you ask?”

The courtyard hushed, expectant eyes burning.

Elphaba’s lips parted, the old dream aching on her tongue, then faltered—

But Galinda’s fingers tightened around hers, grounding her. Fiyero tilted his head, meeting her gaze with an ease that steadied the frantic beat of her heart. Nessa’s small hand pressed hers from the other side, proud and certain.

Elphaba swallowed. “I… I’m not sure,” she said quietly.

The crowd groaned in disappointment and moved on to more fantastical wishes, but Galinda didn’t let go of her hand. She only leaned in closer, her curls brushing Elphaba’s shoulder, her voice pitched for Elphaba alone. “You don’t have to tell us or anyone, dearest.”

Fiyero added, just as softly, “you’ll figure it out. You always do.”

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

That night, their little apartment was a mess of champagne corks, candlelight, and chaos. Galinda had insisted they celebrate properly—“One doesn’t simply get summoned by the Wizard without bubbles, darling!”—and had bullied Crope and Tibbett into sneaking bottles out of the kitchens. By the time the door shut behind the last lingering guest, the air was thick with laughter and the sweet tang of fizz on their tongues.

Elphaba tried to tidy, of course—ever the one to fuss with cups and clear space—but Fiyero caught her wrist and tugged her down onto the couch, grinning like a wolf. “No you don’t. Tonight you’re the guest of honor.”

Galinda was already curled up on her other side, curls tumbling loose, her cheeks flushed from too much giggling and too much wine. She leaned close, voice sticky-sweet. “You don’t even realize how dazzling you are, do you?”

The protest caught in Elphaba’s throat as Galinda’s lips brushed her collarbone at the same moment Fiyero’s hands skimmed her waist. The sensation was too much—soft and sharp, warmth pressing in from both sides. The sound that escaped her was raw, unguarded, nothing she could disguise.

Galinda’s skirts tangled around Elphaba’s hips as she straddled her, pressing kisses along her jaw in messy, breathless bursts. Fiyero crowded close behind, his lips dragging along the slope of her shoulder, his teeth catching at her ear. Their hands overlapped, tugging laces loose, peeling away layers with eager reverence.

“You’re ours,” Galinda whispered fiercely, fingers tracing green skin like a devotion.

“Ours,” Fiyero echoed, his voice rough, his palm sliding lower.

Elphaba’s fears—too sharp, too strange, too much—burned away beneath their touch. She was laughter and gasps and desperate clutching hands, the three of them tipping from playful to hungry in heartbeats. Their kisses grew bolder, their bodies tangling until she couldn’t tell whose hand was where, only that she was surrounded—by heat, by love, by them.

It was dizzying. It was overwhelming. It was too much and not nearly enough.

It was Galinda shrieking in delight when Elphaba pushed her down onto the bed, Fiyero groaning as her nails raked his back, Elphaba herself unraveling under the assault of mouths and hands that knew her better than she knew herself. They teased, they coaxed, they drove each other higher until the night blurred into waves of moans and laughter, kisses and curses, pleasure that left them shaking and breathless.

And yet, beneath the raunch and sweat, there was tenderness: Galinda brushing damp hair from Elphaba’s temple, whispering my dearest against her lips; Fiyero murmuring we’ve got you into her shoulder as he held her through the shudders of release.

By the time the candles guttered low, they were a knot of limbs and blankets. Elphaba lay between them, dazed and warm.

She didn’t think about the world beyond their door, or about the Wizard waiting in Emerald City.

All that existed was this: Galinda’s curls against her cheek, Fiyero’s heartbeat at her back, and the quiet certainty that she had already found what she wanted.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Their little home near Shiz was unusually quiet without Elphaba’s voice filling the air. She had gone out for a late walk to steady her nerves before the journey to Emerald City, leaving Galinda and Fiyero alone together in the flicker of lamplight.

For a long time, neither spoke. 

“It’s silly, isn’t it? To be worried.” Galinda curled up on the settee, her skirts spilling like a pool of silk, and absently traced circles on the armrest with one finger. “Do you ever think,” she said softly, “that we might not be enough for her?”

Fiyero looked up from the chair opposite, where he sat slouched with his long legs stretched out, a book balanced on his knee he hadn’t really been reading. “Enough?”

“She’ll be meeting the Wizard.” Galinda’s voice was steady, but her eyes betrayed her worry. “He can promise her things we never could. The whole of Oz might bend if he wished it. And us…” She gestured helplessly to their cozy little home, to the warmth of the fire, and the simplicity of their shared life.

Fiyero leaned forward, his voice steadying, hand reaching for hers. “Maybe the Wizard can promise her the world. But he’ll never give her what we do. We don’t love her for what she could be. We love her for exactly who she is.”

“I know that—of course, I know. Still…” Galinda’s grip tightened around his fingers. “I hate the thought of letting her walk through those doors alone. As if she might come out different, or worse, not come back to us at all.”

Neither spoke again, but the fear lingered in the quiet crackle of the fire.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

“Come with me!”

Elphaba’s voice rang out over the hiss of steam and the churning wheels. She had been leaning from the train door, her heart pounding, watching her found family shrink on the platform—their faces shining with pride and a touch of melancholy. Then, at the last possible moment, the words burst from her like a spell.

For a breath, everyone froze. Galinda blinked up, curls askew, as if she couldn’t possibly have heard correctly. Fiyero dropped the lazy grin he’d been wearing, his eyes going wide.

And then they moved.

“What! But Elphie, this is your moment!” Galinda shrieked, gathering her skirts in both hands as she sprinted down the platform.

Fiyero bolted after her, laughter bubbling from his chest even as the train gained speed. “This is madness!”

“We’re coming!” Galinda cried out, without slowing.

Gasps and cheers rose from the crowd as the two of them charged alongside the train. Galinda’s slipper nearly caught on a loose plank, Fiyero hauled her upright mid-stride, and together they launched for the nearest carriage step. Fiyero caught the rail with one arm, pulling Galinda tight against him as she squealed in both terror and delight.

Elphaba reached out, heart in her throat. Their fingers caught—and with a final, desperate yank, she pulled them aboard.

The three of them collapsed into a heap just inside the doorway, breathless and laughing, the train carrying them forward into the unknown. 

Galinda clutched Elphaba’s face with both hands, kissing her cheeks in rapid-fire bursts. “Never, ever, scare me like that again!”

Fiyero sprawled across the floor, still laughing, his hair a windswept mess. “Best chase I’ve had in years. Ten out of ten, would run again.”

Elphaba pressed quick kisses against their lips, dazed and giddy all at once. “You two are ridiculous.”

“You say that,” Fiyero drawled, “but if I hadn’t caught Galinda when she nearly tripped, this train would be one passenger short.”

“I did not nearly trip!” Galinda gasped, scandalized. “That plank leapt at me. Entirely unfair.” She smoothed her skirts with exaggerated dignity, then added, “And besides, you both would’ve perished of heartbreak without me, so it’s a good thing I made it.”

Elphaba couldn’t help it—she laughed, the sound bubbling out before she could smother it.

“Do you realize,” Galinda said dreamily, “we’re on our way to the Emerald City together? To the very heart of Oz!”

The laughter softened into something quieter. Galinda shifted to lean against Elphaba’s side, her curls tickling Elphaba’s chin, while Fiyero sprawled closer on the other bench, propping his chin in his palm as he watched them with an easy smile.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said quietly, her voice almost lost beneath the rattle of the train. “I don’t think I could do this without you.”

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The train hissed to a halt at Emerald City Station, clouds of steam rising into the glass canopy above. Elphaba stepped down first, her boots clattering on the polished platform, Galinda and Fiyero close behind her. She had just enough time to take in the crush of travelers and the glittering emerald banners before a familiar voice rang out.

“Darling!”

Galinda froze. “Momsie?”

Larena Upland swept forward in a cloud of silk and perfume, Highmuster following more stiffly but with a rare smile tugging at his mouth. She threw her arms around her daughter, laughing as Galinda squealed in surprise.

“What—what are you doing here?” Galinda gasped.

“We came to welcome Elphaba, of course!” Larena cried. “When we heard of the Wizard’s invitation from your letters, we thought it only proper that she arrive with family waiting for her. But this! This is even better than we hoped.”

Highmuster nodded gravely, though his eyes shone with quiet amusement. “We expected to greet one, not three. A most delightful surprise.”

Elphaba, caught off guard, stumbled through a reply. “I—well—they weren’t supposed to come, but—I wasn’t expecting—”

“We couldn’t let her go alone!” Galinda cut in, still glowing with joy. 

Fiyero shrugged easily, adding, “Besides, trains are much more fun when you have someone to share it with.”

Larena laughed, clapping her hands together. “Then it’s settled! A surprise celebration before the big day. Thank goodness I’ve already reserved a big table for us at the Gilded Griffin.”

“The Gilded Griffin?” Fiyero raised his brows. “The most prestigious restaurant in all of Emerald City?”

“Only the best,” Larena said, looping her arm through Elphaba’s, “for those who make my daughter so very happy.”

“You deserve nothing less, Miss Elphaba.” Highmuster smiled. 

For a moment, Elphaba could only stare. She had grown used to Larena’s warmth toward Galinda, to Highmuster’s stiff but steady approval—but pride directed at her? It pressed against her ribs like something she didn’t know how to carry.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Morning sunlight poured into their hotel room, catching the black satin trim of the new clothes gifted by Larena—fine fabrics in deep hues, chosen with the care of parents who wanted her to shine as brightly as anyone ever could.

Elphaba stood stiffly as Galinda smoothed the fall of her sleeves. Her lithe hands lingered gently, adjusting a cuff, brushing back a strand of hair, all the while keeping her voice light. “You look magnificent, Elphie. The Wizard won’t know what to do with himself.”

Elphaba gave a soft snort, though her chest was tight. “He’ll know exactly what to do. He’ll see through me in an instant.”

“Nonsense,” Galinda said, eyes bright but tender. “He’ll see brilliance. And if he doesn’t, well, that’s his fault.” She tugged Elphaba’s collar one last time, then pressed a quick kiss to her cheek.

Across the room, Fiyero lounged with deliberate ease, rolling his cuffs as if preparing for a festival rather than a royal audience. “You two worry too much. The Wizard wouldn’t have invited you for no reason, Fae.” His grin softened. “And besides, no one looks better in black than you.”

Elphaba’s lips twitched despite herself, her nerves tempered by their warmth.

When they finally stepped outside, Larena and Highmuster were waiting, radiant and composed. Larena clasped her hands together in delight at the sight of them. “Oh, how splendid you all look! Positively regal.”

Highmuster gave a curt but approving nod. “The Wizard will see you for who you are, Miss Elphaba. Today, you walk into history.”

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The closer they drew to the palace, the more the streets glittered. Crowds bustled past—merchants, soldiers, travelers—yet the path seemed to clear instinctively as Elphaba and her companions approached the gleaming emerald gates.

The palace itself loomed like a dream: tall spires of glass and green stone, windows sparkling, doors carved high enough to swallow giants whole. Elphaba’s breath caught despite herself.

Larena squealed in excitement. “Oh, my dears, what a sight. Elphaba, you will do splendidly.”

Highmuster placed a steady hand on Elphaba’s shoulder. “No need to fear. We will be here when you return.”

At the great gates, two guards in gleaming armor stepped forward, halberds crossed to block the path.

Elphaba fumbled for the envelope, the Wizard’s emerald seal catching the light as she held it up. “I have an invitation,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “For a private audience.”

One guard inspected the parchment, then nodded. “You may enter, Miss Thropp. Your companions must remain outside.”

Elphaba’s heart lurched. “But—they’re here to support me. They came all this way—surely they can—”

The other guard’s voice was flat, rehearsed. “Invitation holder only.”

She turned, wide-eyed, to Galinda and Fiyero. Panic flared in her chest.  “I don’t want to do this without you—”

Galinda caught her hands quickly, her touch warm and steady. “Elphaba Thropp, listen to me. You’re extraordinary. You can do this.” Her voice wavered, but her smile stayed bright. “You can do anything.”

Fiyero leaned close, pressing their foreheads together in a gesture more intimate than any kiss. “We’ll be right here. You go in, you dazzle him, and when you walk back out, we’ll be waiting. We promise.”

Elphaba’s throat tightened. She wanted to cling, to beg them to follow, to pretend she could keep the three of them tied together forever. But the emerald doors loomed above her, and she knew this part of the journey had to be hers alone.

Slowly, she let their hands slip from hers. She held Galinda’s gaze, then Fiyero’s, then Larena and Highmuster’s proud, expectant faces. And she nodded.

With her shoulders squared and her heart pounding, Elphaba turned and walked forward. The massive doors creaked open, spilling golden light across the steps, and swallowed her whole.

Behind her, the gates closed with a final, echoing thud.

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Chapter Text

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Elphaba had never felt so small. 

The throne room swallowed her whole—its ceilings vaulted higher than she could crane her neck, its emerald windows casting fractured light across polished marble floors. The air was sharp, tinged with the metallic tang of gears and the sweet, acrid smoke that drifted from the monstrous construct at the far end of the hall.

A mechanical head dominated the chamber, monstrous and gleaming, carved from bronze and jade. Its glass eyes glowed with shifting fire, gears clanked somewhere deep inside, and every exhale of steam rattled her ribs. The silence stretched until even the beat of her own pulse seemed too loud.

Then it came.

“I. AM. OZ! The Great and Terrible. Who are you and why do you seek me?”

Elphaba’s throat locked. The sound was so immense she felt it in her bones, as though the very air pressed down on her shoulders. Her palms were damp against her dress. 

“I—I am Elphaba. Thropp. Your Oz-ness.”

The head roared again, smoke curling toward the rafters, then faltered with a hiss. A curtain twitched, and the illusion collapsed.

“Oh, is that you, Elphaba?”

A man stepped through—soft-bellied, slightly rumpled, spectacles perched on his nose. His grin was warm, even apologetic, as he spread his arms. “Hope I didn’t startle you. It’s devilishly hard to see out there.”

Elphaba blinked, her pulse still racing. “You’re—”

“The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” he supplied cheerfully, winking. “At your service. And so very glad to finally meet you, Elphaba.”

He swept forward, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “I know, I know—the head, the smoke, the whole performance. It’s a bit much. But people expect spectacle, and you’ve gotta give the people what they want!”

Her lips twitched, uncertain.

“And if you thought that was big—wait till you see this.” He gestured eagerly, ushering her toward a blank wall, which then slid open to reveal a sprawling map, glittering with uncanny precision. 

Tiny emerald hills curved into golden plains, rivers shimmered like threads of glass, and a delicate brick road wound its way through it all. At its center, a perfect replica of the Emerald Palace rose, so detailed she could peer through a window and glimpse a miniature throne room inside—where a figurine of the Wizard stood, hat tipped in his signature pose.

“The Oz of Tomorrow!” he declared, puffing his chest with pride. “Bridges built, walls torn down—every corner of our great land joined by this magnificent road.”

He reached into his pocket and produced another figurine. To her amazement, it was her—green skin, black cloak, every detail painstakingly carved. “And here you’ll stand, right at my side. Call it your home.”

Elphaba’s breath hitched as the Wizard gently placed the doll in her hand. She stared at the tiny self, the painted green cloak. The word slipped out before she could catch it. 

“It’s green.”

Heat flared in her cheeks. She shoved the figurine into her pocket, as if to hide the foolishness of her admission.

“Well, it doesn’t have to be.” The Wizard’s tone softened, just for her. “Is that your heart’s desire?”

For a flicker of a moment, her chest ached with the temptation to say yes. But then Galinda’s bright laughter flashed in her memory, Fiyero’s steady hand at her back, the image of Nessa. And Crope. And Tibbett. Florian. Doctor Dillamond. She shook herself. 

“No. What I want—what I need—is help for the Animals. That is my heart’s desire.”

The Wizard studied her for a moment. Then his smile returned, gentler this time. “I thought you might say that. Strange, isn’t it? It’s almost as though I already know you.” He tilted his head, eyes narrowing with a flicker of recognition. “As though we’ve met before.”

Elphaba’s chest fluttered with an odd relief. “Oh, Your Ozness, I knew you’d understand. That makes me so happy.”

He blinked, as if shaking himself from a trance. “Well! That’s what I love best—making people happy.”

Before she could reply, the throne room doors opened.

Madame Morrible swept inside, her golden robes whispering against the floor, her smile gleaming like a polished blade.

“Madame Morrible!” Elphaba cried, her face lighting with genuine relief. “You’re here!”

“Of course, my dear,” Morrible purred, gliding closer. Her eyes flicked to the miniature Oz, then to the Wizard. “I wouldn’t miss your big moment.”

She gestured, and a pedestal was suddenly lit from above. A heavy tome rested upon it, its leather cover shifting with symbols that seemed to writhe and shimmer.

“The Grimmerie,” the Wizard announced proudly.

“Indeed,” Morrible added, her voice reverent. “Our ancient book of wisdom, thaumaturgy, and enchantments.”

The Wizard hesitated, half-turning to Elphaba. “Careful now. Casting a spell from the Grimmerie is no small thing. It’s a tall order—I should know!”

Elphaba froze. Cast a spell? She had no idea where to begin.

Morrible tutted. “You’re right. Perhaps today has been overwhelming enough. We mustn’t rush her.”

But Elphaba stepped forward, heart pounding. “No. Let me prove myself. Please—let me try.”

The Wizard and Morrible exchanged a look, then nodded.

Elphaba laid her hand upon the cover. The book opened like a living thing, pages whispering against one another, and the words blazed up at her—bright, clear, alive.

The Wizard’s breath caught. “So. Which spell will you start with?”

“Levitation, perhaps,” Morrible murmured, her gaze never leaving Elphaba. “We’ve been… working on it.”

The Wizard chuckled. “Have you now? You know, Chistery here—” He gestured toward a guard at the side. “Leader of my Emerald Guards. You’ve met him?”

Elphaba glanced at the Monkey, his eyes strangely luminous. She opened her mouth, but the Wizard leaned close, whispering: “He’d never admit it—hates to talk about himself—but he watches the birds every morning.”

Her heart faltered. “Oh, but—how could I ever—”

“Look!” Morrible cried, pointing at the book.

The Grimmerie’s pages turned on their own, a flurry of symbols settling at last upon a single spell.

Elphaba stepped closer, fingertips brushing the glowing script. The letters curved like flames, a language she had never learned yet somehow knew.

“Are these… words?” she whispered.

“A lost language,” Morrible confirmed breathlessly. “Our lost language of spells.”

Elphaba bent closer, transfixed.

“Don’t be discouraged if you can’t read it,” Morrible continued, smoothing her hands over her robes. “It took me years to unravel a single word—”

But Elphaba’s lips were already moving, her voice halting at first, then stronger. Symbols lifted from the parchment, unfurling into the air like fireflies, orbiting her in a slow spiral.

The Wizard’s eyes went wide; Morrible’s mouth fell open.

“She can read it!” he cried, seizing Morrible’s hand in giddy triumph.

Elphaba chanted fluently now, feverishly, spilling brilliance across the throne room.

“What did I tell you!” Morrible whispered, awe-struck. “She can—”

But then the air shifted. 

The glow deepened to a piercing white-gold, something rawer, stranger. The miniature Oz rattled; its tiny buildings trembled as if caught in a quake.

Elphaba’s chant broke, but the words kept echoing, repeating themselves in her own voice, circling the chamber.

“What—what’s happening?” She gasped. 

The Wizard’s smile faltered. “That… wasn’t a levitation spell.”

The symbols coalesced above them into mirrored shards of light, like a dozen floating panes of glass. Each one reflected something different—memories, scraps of faces, fragments of truth. Elphaba’s reflection warped and shifted: sometimes herself, sometimes her…mother, sometimes a blur of both.

The light seemed to search, flickering across the room, then narrowed suddenly—piercing into Elphaba’s satchel. Heat pulsed against her hip. With a startled gasp, she tugged out the little green glass bottle she always carried, her mother’s keepsake. The liquid inside shimmered, catching the same golden glow, swelling until the bottle itself seemed to shine.

Across from her, the Wizard staggered, pressing a hand to his breast pocket. A faint glow bled through the fabric. Confused, he reached inside and pulled free… another glass bottle, near identical, its liquid now thrumming with the same uncanny light.

The two bottles pulsed in unison, their glow deepening until the throne room itself seemed to breathe with them.

The Wizard stared at Elphaba’s relic. His own hand trembled as he lifted the twin bottle, its light thrumming in time with hers. “Where—where did you get that?”

Elphaba’s grip tightened. “It was my mother’s. The only thing of hers I kept.”

His voice cracked, urgent now. “Your mother. Who was she? Tell me.”

Elphaba blinked, thrown. “Melena—Melena Thropp. From Munchkinland—”

He reeled back as though struck. “Melena. Mel—ena. Ena.” He whispered the name like a prayer. “Yes, yes, I knew her—briefly, years ago. She had… I gave her the very same—” He held up his glowing bottle, almost pleading. “And if that was hers, then you—Elphaba—you must be mine.”

Elphaba froze. The word echoed inside her skull. Mine.

The chamber seemed to tilt around her. In a rush came memories—her father’s–no, not her father’s—sharp sermons, his disgust whenever he saw her skin, the endless shame drilled into her bones. 

Morrible’s eyes glittered, her smile sharp. “There it is,” she breathed, voice silk over steel. “The Grimmerie showed us what was hidden. The truth.”

“No,” she said, voice cracking. She shook her head, violently. “No, that’s not—I can’t—”

The sconces along the walls flickered wildly, shadows jerking in all directions. The miniature Oz rattled again—tiny trees shivering, rivers spilling from their grooves.

The Wizard’s hand shook as he lifted his bottle, its glow pulsing in rhythm with hers. “Do you see? Elphaba—this is proof. I didn’t imagine it, I didn’t dream it. You are mine.” His voice cracked, and he tried again, softer, coaxing. “My daughter.”

Elphaba’s breath hitched. The word scraped raw inside her. “Stop—”

“I didn’t know,” he said quickly, stumbling over his own words. “If I had—if I’d known—you would have been here from the beginning. You would have had a place beside me, at the very heart of Oz. A home where no one could question you, no one could sneer.” His spectacles slipped as he leaned closer, his eyes wet with desperate light. “I could have given you everything. I still can.”

“Stop!” Elphaba snapped, panic lacing her voice. “Stop saying that, like it’s—like it’s simple—like—”

The Wizard gave a weak chuckle, shaking his head. “Simple? Nothing’s ever simple. Believe me, if it were, I’d have had a quiet little house, a child to tuck in, maybe even someone to bring me tea instead of endless ministers with agendas. Instead, I built… this—” he gestured grandly at the gleaming hall, his voice dipping to something almost bitter. “Crowds cheer, they bow, they call me Wonderful—capital W! But applause fades, Elphaba. It fades quicker than smoke.”

He dropped his arms. “But you—you don’t fade. You are the one piece I’ve been missing.”

For an instant she swayed, teetering between longing and defiance. But then Galinda’s laughter sparked in her memory, Fiyero’s steady hand, Nessa’s quiet faith. That was real, too—and it was hers.

Her breath stuttered, magic crackling uncontrolled across her skin. She shook her head, clutching her mother’s bottle to her chest. “I can’t—” Her voice broke, frantic and raw. “I can’t think in here. I need—I need air.”

Her skirts as she strode toward the doors, too quickly to be graceful. Her shoulders were rigid, her breaths ragged, but her step did not falter.

“Elphaba, wait—” the Wizard called, anguished, but still with that pleading cadence, as though pitching hope itself. 

She didn’t look back. She shoved the doors open, nearly stumbling, and vanished into the corridor.

The Wizard made to follow, but Morrible’s hand caught his sleeve. Her smile was velvet and steel. “Let her go. She is overwhelmed. Give her time, and she will see reason. She will see you.”

Oscar stood torn, bottle trembling in his hand, his eyes fixed on the doors. The word daughter lingered unspoken, heavy as the smoke still curling in the chamber.

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Chapter Text

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The café was all glass and gilt, tucked just across the square from the palace gates. Sunlight spilled across polished tables where Larena fluttered delightedly over the menu, Highmuster sipped his tea with quiet approval, and Galinda tried—unsuccessfully—to laugh at one of Fiyero’s jokes.

She stirred her cup too quickly, porcelain clinking. “Something feels… off.”

Fiyero glanced at her, the grin slipping from his face. He had felt it too, though he hadn’t wanted to say it—an unease humming beneath the city’s bustle, the faintest tremor in the stones. “Yeah. Like the air’s gone sharp.”

Larena waved them off. “Darlings, you’re worrying for nothing. Elphaba is in the hands of the Wizard himself. What could possibly go wrong?”

But Galinda’s curls bounced with the sharp shake of her head. “Everything.” She pushed back from the table. “I just—just to be sure.”

Fiyero was already on his feet. “Two minutes.”

They crossed the square, the great gates looming taller with each step. Guards stood impassive, the palace as serene as ever. 

For a moment, Galinda let herself breathe. “See? She’s fine. We’re just being ridiculous.”

“Maybe,” Fiyero said, though unease lingered in his eyes.

They’d just turned back when the palace doors thundered open.

Elphaba stumbled through, breath ragged. The square’s light looked too sharp against her wide eyes. Sparks skittered along her fingertips—nervous flares that winked and died—and the marble underfoot shivered, hairline cracks spidering outward. She spun, scanning the square with a frantic, hunted intensity that made Galinda’s chest seize.

Galinda reached her first and caught her about the waist. Elphaba flinched at the static jolt but didn’t try to break free. Galinda pressed her cheek to Elphaba’s shoulder. “We’ve got you,” she whispered, steady and insistent.

Fiyero folded around them, weight and warmth. His voice was low at her ear. “You’re safe. Whatever happened in there— you’re safe now.”

Elphaba shook, words tumbling out broken. “I—it wasn’t—he said—I can’t—” Her throat closed; the rest dissolved into ragged gasps. Sparks leapt again, guttering lanterns. A hot breath of air whipped Galinda’s curls free.

“Don’t explain yet,” Galinda soothed, hands moving in calm circles along Elphaba’s back. “Just breathe. Feel us here.”

Fiyero took her hands—firm despite the sting—and leaned until his forehead touched hers, anchoring her with his steady gaze. “With me, Fae. In and out. Nothing else matters.”

Her chest hitched, uneven. “That’s it. Again.”

Galinda’s voice joined his, soft and coaxing. “You’re not alone. We’re right here. Always.”

The breath that followed was hard, then softer. The sparks dulled, the cracks stilled. Elphaba’s shoulders sagged between them, trembling but no longer shaking the square.

When she finally spoke it was small and raw. “I couldn’t stop it.”

“You don’t have to,” Fiyero murmured, thumb brushing her knuckles. “We’ll hold it with you.”

Galinda drew back just enough to cup Elphaba’s face, brushing damp hair from her temple. “Whatever he said, whatever he did—you don’t have to carry it by yourself.”

Her eyes darted toward the palace doors as if expecting them to reopen. “I don’t want to go back. Not yet—”

“Then you won’t,” Galinda said at once, fierce despite the tremble in her voice. She brushed her thumb along Elphaba’s cheek. “Not if you don’t want to.”

Fiyero glanced at the gates, then back to her, jaw set. “We’re not dragging you anywhere you don’t choose. You say the word, and we’re gone.”

Her shoulders eased a fraction. For the first time she looked like she might take them up on it.

Then the palace doors creaked open again.

Chistery emerged, descending the steps with stiff precision. No fanfare, no guards. Just him. He bowed before Elphaba and held out a plain envelope—the paper ordinary, the seal pressed quickly, as if someone had written and sealed it in haste.

Elphaba hesitated, then broke the wax and unfolded the parchment. Her eyes slid across the lines; her face tightened, softened, broke into something private. She folded the letter with care, as though the paper itself might splinter.

“Later,” she said when Galinda tipped forward, urgent. “Later.” She tucked the letter into her pocket, looked to Chistery. “Thank you.”

He bowed once more and retreated into the palace shadow.

Elphaba pulled Galinda close with one arm, reached for Fiyero with the other, clutching them as if they were the only steady ground left. “Please… I just want to go home.”

Galinda kissed her temple. “Then home is where we’ll go.”

Fiyero’s hand covered hers, warm and sure. “Wherever you need it to be.”

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The train shuddered into motion, the rails droning beneath their private carriage. Shadows slid past the window, fields bleeding into night. The lamplight inside was low; Elphaba’s face caught it and held, still as a coin.

She hadn’t spoken since the square. Galinda sat close enough that her skirts pooled around them both; her fingers twitched at the hem of Elphaba’s sleeve. Fiyero leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his look unusually solemn.

A long, careful silence stretched.

At last Elphaba’s voice broke the hush, hoarse and small. “I met him.”

The words tasted foreign on her tongue. She faltered, then drew a crumpled envelope from her satchel and pressed it into Fiyero’s hand.

He broke the seal and read, passing the letter to Galinda:

Elphaba,

I fear I frightened you today. That was never my wish. I have waited so long for something like this — for you — and I let my excitement get the better of me.

I will not press you. Not now. I will wait as long as I must. What matters is that you know this: you deserved better than the life you were given, and I want to be the father you should have had.

We will see each other again.

- W

Galinda’s breath hitched. “Father? Elphie—what is he—?”

Elphaba’s voice cracked. “He showed me the Grimmerie. It opened for me. The words lifted off the page—I could read them as if I’d always known. Every symbol. Every spell.” Her hands twisted in her lap. “Then the magic revealed things. Things I didn’t ask for. It said that the Wizard—”

She stopped. She stared at her knuckles, the color of a life she’d learned to carry. “All my life I’ve known myself one way. A Thropp. The mistake. The shame. I hated it, but at least it was mine.” Her fingers clenched until sparks pricked. “And now—now I don’t even know who I am.”

She turned to the window as the night blurred by, searching the dark for a reflection she no longer recognized. “If he’s my… father, then everything I thought I knew—every piece I clung to, even the parts that hurt—gone. What does that leave me with? Who does that leave me as?”

The train’s rhythm filled the quiet. 

Galinda couldn’t hold back. She closed Elphaba’s hand in both of hers, her curls brushing the other woman’s temple. “You are still you. None of that—none of him—can take that from you. You’re my Elphie. My dearest. Not a mistake. Never a mistake.”

Elphaba pressed her free hand to her face as though to hide. Fiyero moved his hand over theirs, solid and warm. “This is a piece of your story you didn’t have,” he said, the uncharacteristic gravity in his voice like rope thrown across the gap. You’re the same woman I fell in love with. That hasn’t changed.”

Elphaba laughed once, strangled. “You make it sound so simple.”

Fiyero squeezed her hand. “Because it is.”

Galinda cupped her cheek. Her thumb brushed dampness away. “It’s simple because we love you. Just you. Always you.”

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The days that followed blurred—heavy and off-kilter.

Elphaba had never passed unnoticed at Shiz. Her green skin and sharper tongue made sure of that. Some admired her brilliance, others mocked her mercilessly, most kept their distance. 

But after the Emerald City, everything changed.

Now she was no longer just the odd Thropp sister or the fearsome sorcery prodigy—she was the girl who met the Wizard.

Students leaned out of doorways when she walked the corridors, calling her name with too-bright voices. Classmates crowded her desk before lectures, eager to hear what he looked like, what he said, what he gave her. Even some professors lingered at the edges of conversations, smiling with a new, calculating respect.

“You must tell us everything!” one girl gushed, her friends nodding vigorously. “What did he smell like? I imagine incense, don’t you think?” Laughter rippled through the group.

Elphaba gave them the thinnest smile. “Incense. Yes.” She turned back to her notes, her quill scratching too hard against the paper.

It was the same everywhere. Congratulations pressed on her shoulders like weights. Whispers trailed her in every hall. Their admiration felt suffocating, a costume they had draped over her shoulders without asking.

Galinda intercepted the eager, glittering with distraction; her hand would slip into Elphaba’s beneath the desk. Fiyero placed himself between her and intrusive questions, and in the evenings he handed her tea without fuss—each small gesture a ballast against the pull in her chest.

But the fracture deepened. The letter in her satchel throbbed like a wound. On the second night after their return, she woke with sparks crawling across her palms; Galinda curled around her while Fiyero held them both until the ember-light faded.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Elphaba lingered at the door to Nessa’s dorm before knocking, the green glass bottle cool in her pocket, heavy as a stone.

The little room was warm with lamplight, hymnals stacked in neat piles on the desk. Nessa turned eagerly, her face brightening. “Fabala! Finally. Everyone’s been talking! I’ve wanted to hear it directly from you—what was it like? Meeting the Wizard himself?”

Elphaba sat on the edge of the bed, her posture too stiff, her hands knotted in her lap. She drew in a breath. “It was… as people said. He was larger than life. He showed me the Grimmerie, and for a while, it felt—remarkable. As if the book had been waiting for me all along.”

Nessa leaned forward, eyes shining. “I knew it. You’ve always been special, Fabala.”

Elphaba’s stomach twisted. She looked away, her voice faltering. “That’s what I told everyone else. That it was remarkable. That it was an honor.” Her fingers dug into the coverlet, tight. “But, Nessa… that wasn’t the whole story.”

Her sister blinked, taken aback.

Elphaba’s throat worked. “I should have told you sooner, but I couldn’t. I needed time to… to understand it myself. To even find the words.” She forced herself to meet Nessa’s gaze. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t hiding it from you to be cruel. I just—couldn’t speak it until now.”

Nessa’s expression softened, confusion shading into concern. “Fabala… what are you saying?”

With trembling hands, Elphaba drew out the green bottle. It gleamed faintly in the lamplight, familiar yet strange. “You remember this. Mother’s. She kept it close, always.”

Nessa frowned. “Of course.”

Elphaba’s breath shuddered. “The Wizard had one too. The same bottle. He told me he gave it to her once, long ago. Before she…before you or I.”

The words seemed to hang heavy in the air.

Nessa’s brow furrowed, her lips pressed tight. “That doesn’t mean anything. Anyone could have such a bottle.”

Elphaba shook her head, voice low but firm. “I thought so too. But in the Emerald City… the Grimmerie opened for me. It showed me things—things I didn’t ask to see. And it revealed him. Revealed…he’s my father, Nessa.”

Nessa’s hands jerked against the arms of her chair. “No. No, that isn’t possible. You’re Father’s daughter. You’re a Thropp. That’s the truth.”

Elphaba’s chest constricted. She clutched the bottle harder, as though it might steady her. “I wanted to believe that too. I still do.”

She pulled the letter from her pocket and placed it gently on Nessa’s lap.

Nessa hesitated, then unfolded the parchment. The handwriting was quick, uneven. By the end, her fingers trembled, the letter slipping onto the bedspread. She shook her head again, weaker now. “Why would he…? Why would Mother…?”

“I don’t know.” Elphaba’s voice cracked. “And I don’t know what it makes me.”

Nessa was quiet for a long time, staring at the bottle in Elphaba’s lap, at the letter lying between them. Her breathing slowed, steadied. 

Finally, she reached forward, her small hand resting over Elphaba’s.

Her voice was softer now, rough with the weight of it. “Maybe I can’t understand it all. Maybe I don’t want to. But none of that changes this: you’re my sister. That’s the only truth I care about.”

Elphaba blinked hard, her vision blurring. “Even if it’s true?”

Nessa squeezed her hand tighter. “Especially then. It doesn’t matter, Fabala. You’ll always be mine.”

Elphaba bowed her head, pressing her forehead against Nessa’s hands. “You're still my Nessa. That’s one thing that hasn’t changed. The one thing that never will.”

And in the quiet of the room, the world remained complicated, but their bond stayed simple.

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Chapter Text

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The little house near Shiz was unusually quiet for a spring afternoon. Books and papers cluttered every surface, ink pots balanced dangerously close to the edge of the table, and a single lamp burned despite the sunlight streaming in through the windows.

Elphaba sat hunched at one end, hair falling forward as she flipped between a tome of case law and the court notes she wasn’t supposed to have brought home. “If statutes contradict precedent, which holds more weight?” she muttered, scribbling furiously.

Galinda sprawled across from her, parchment covered in neat sketches of columns and arches. She tapped her pencil against her lip with a sigh. “None of this looks grand enough.”

“Galinda, you’re supposed to be designing a civic hall, not a cathedral,” Elphaba said without looking up.

“Details,” Galinda chirped.

At the far corner, Fiyero had his sleeves rolled to the elbow, his biology text propped open beside a tray of pressed leaves and vials. “If either of you spill anything on my specimen slides again, I swear I’ll—” He caught Galinda’s smirk and groaned. “Don’t say it.”

“I wasn’t going to say a thing,” she said sweetly.

“You were,” Elphaba said flatly, still annotating.

Nessa, perched beside Galinda with a stack of political treatises, sighed as she corrected her sister’s margin notes. “And here I thought studying with family would be productive.”

“It is productive,” Fiyero said, leaning back in his chair. “We’re all learning something. Like how Galinda will one day design an opera house with no doors, or how Elphaba can quote a statute faster than she eats breakfast.”

“Which she skipped,” Nessa added pointedly.

Elphaba opened her mouth to retort—then a sharp rap at the door cut across the chatter.

Fiyero was the first to move, dragging himself up with theatrical reluctance. “If that’s Crope and Tibbett with another invitation to cheat off their notes, I’m throwing them out.”

But when he opened the door, the air shifted. A palace courier stood rigid in emerald livery, a sealed envelope and a small parcel balanced in his gloved hands.

“For Miss Elphaba Thropp,” he intoned, “a parcel from His Ozness.”

The room stilled.

Elphaba rose slowly, pulse quickening. She accepted the bundle, murmured thanks, and closed the door firmly before anyone could peer inside.

They gathered around the table again, the parcel lying prim and proper in the middle of their chaos.

Elphaba hesitated, staring at the emerald wax seal. “It feels… strange. To accept anything from him.”

“Then let us do it for you,” Galinda said, half-joking as she reached. Elphaba swatted her hand away, earning a huff. 

Carefully, she cracked the seal and unfolded the letter. The handwriting was surprisingly plain—round, careful, almost hesitant.

Nothing like the flamboyant signatures that adorned public decrees.

My dear Elphaba,

I do not know how to write as a father, only as a man too used to speeches. Forgive me if this sounds stiff. But I wished to ask after your studies—what you’re learning, whether you’ve found joy in it.

I know the law is demanding, but it is a noble pursuit. Your mother once told me she admired those who could argue truth into light.

Enclosed is a small gift. Nothing grand. Merely something I thought you might find useful.

Yours sincerely,

The Wizard of Oz

Nessa broke the silence first, her voice soft. “He sounds… like he’s trying.”

Elphaba’s hands trembled slightly as she lowered the page. “Or like he knows exactly what to say.”

“Both can be true,” Fiyero said, gentler than usual. He gestured toward the parcel. “Go on. Might as well see what else he’s sent.”

Elphaba untied the ribbon. Inside was a stack of slim blue-bound books, their silver-lettered titles glinting in the lamplight. She sucked in a breath. Rare legal texts—ones she’d searched the Shiz archives for without luck.

“You’ve complained about these forever!” Galinda squealed, hugging one to her chest. “He knew exactly what you needed!”

Elphaba touched the cover, her thumb brushing the spine. “Or Morrible told him.” The words came out flat, but her voice wavered.

“Maybe,” Fiyero said, leaning back in his chair, “but if Morrible picked it, she would’ve slipped in a few self-published essays on why she's always right.”

That earned a snort from Galinda and, against her will, a tiny laugh from Elphaba.

“See?” Galinda said brightly, leaning across to touch Elphaba’s wrist. “It doesn’t have to mean anything more than what it is—a thoughtful gift. You don’t have to decide tonight what it means.”

Nessa stacked the books neatly. “At the very least, they’ll save you time in the library.”

Elphaba looked between them—Galinda’s teasing grin, Fiyero’s easy humor, Nessa’s steady practicality. A lump rose in her throat, but she swallowed it down.

“You’re all ridiculous,” she muttered.

“Maybe,” Galinda said, still beaming, “but we’re ridiculous with you.”

The heaviness in the air lifted just enough for Elphaba to breathe again. 

That night, when the house was asleep, Elphaba gathered the books into her arms and slid them onto the shelf beside her other texts, adjusting their spines until they stood evenly in line.

The letter she refolded with care, then placed in the top drawer of her desk. Her hand lingered on the wood for a moment before she closed it.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Over the next few weeks, more parcels came. Always the same courier, always discreet.

The first was a length of soft wool, dyed a deep maroon, folded carefully inside tissue. A short note rested on top: Your mother once told me this was her favorite color. I thought you might like it too.

Elphaba touched the fabric with cautious fingers. “It’s too fine. I’ll ruin it.”

“Nonsense,” Galinda declared, already sweeping it from the box and draping it around her shoulders. “Maroon is so dramatic against green—it’s practically destiny.”

Fiyero tilted his head. “Looks like something a judge would wear. Suits you.”

Elphaba rolled her eyes but didn’t take it off, not even when the room grew too warm.

Another week, another parcel: a brass puzzle-box etched with clean lines. She worked at it for an hour before it finally clicked open, revealing a tiny inscription inside the lid: Melena loved these.

“Do you think he had this made just for you?” Nessa asked softly, watching her trace the letters.

Elphaba shut the box too quickly. “Or it was sitting in his collection and he wanted to get rid of it.”

But she set it carefully on her desk, right beside her ink pot, where her hand could reach it when she paused between notes.

Books followed—treatises on law, thick tomes on the governance of Oz, even annotated case studies she hadn’t been able to find anywhere else.

“Perfect,” Elphaba muttered, already leafing through one.

“Perfectly heavy,” Fiyero groaned, trying to shove another onto the shelf. “If this keeps up, I’m moving out before the house collapses.”

“Then more space for the rest of us,” Galinda chirped, earning a laugh from Nessa.

Once, it was candied ginger. Galinda spat her piece back into a napkin with a shriek, Nessa nodded politely and declared it “interesting,” and Fiyero claimed three at once, only to cough until tears ran down his face. Elphaba said nothing, just took the box back to her desk. Later, when the house was quiet, she ate them one by one until her tongue burned pleasantly.

The letters came most often—slim envelopes in the same plain, round hand. Elphaba never read them aloud. Sometimes she slipped one between the pages of her textbooks, pressed as thin as a leaf. Sometimes she tucked them into the drawer with the first.

Then, one evening, another envelope arrived. She broke the seal, expecting more gentle inquiries after her studies, but the lines stopped her:

I wonder if you sit by the lamplight when you work. Your mother always said she thought best when the world was quiet. I remember her once telling me that silence can be its own kind of company. Do you feel that too?

Elphaba read the words twice, then folded the letter neatly and set it on her desk. She stared at it for a long while, the lamp sputtering low beside her, before finally reaching for her pen.

Your Ozness,

I don’t know how to begin. I’m still uncertain what place you mean to have in my life—or what place I’m willing to give. But I can tell you who I am now, as best I can.

The words came slowly, measured and spare. She told him about her studies—how she was balancing sorcery with law, and how she hoped one day to practice, not for prestige but to argue for those who could not. She mentioned Doctor Dillamond, her professors, even the way her classmates teased her at the start.

She wrote of Nessa, steady and sharp, who could out-debate most of her tutors. And of Galinda and Fiyero—her partners, though she didn’t spell it plain, only let their names sit side by side in a way that left no doubt.

At the bottom, she paused, pen hovering. The space for her signature seemed to wait, expectant. Slowly she wrote:

Yours sincerely,

Elphaba—

The nib lingered after the last letter, the faintest smear of ink where she had hesitated. She considered adding Thropp, the name that bound her to Nessa, to Frex, to everything that had come before. But the thought of offering that name to him felt wrong.

She let the line end there. 

She folded the letter cleanly, slid it into the envelope, and pressed the wax seal closed. Then she set it on the edge of her desk where the morning light would find it, a slim slip of paper among all her books and notes.

When she finally blew out the lamp, the scarf glowed faintly in the dark, and the puzzle-box clicked once, as though settling.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Chapter Text

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The Wizard’s chambers were hushed, the curtains drawn against the morning clamor of Emerald City. For once, there was no audience, no advisers, no need for smoke or spectacle. Only a single desk lamp glowed, catching on the gold rim of his spectacles as he bent over a page.

Elphaba’s letter lay open in front of him. The ink had already begun to fade into the fibers of the paper. Her words were steady, deliberate, but to him they were nothing short of miraculous.

He read them again.

I can tell you who I am now, as best I can.

His lips curved into a smile that didn’t feel rehearsed. She had told him about her studies, her professors, her hopes for the law. About her sister. About two names—Galinda and Fiyero—written side by side, unadorned, unashamed. 

And then the end. Yours sincerely, Elphaba— and nothing more. No Thropp. The absence struck him as much as the words themselves.

It wasn’t a renunciation, not yet, but it was space. Room for something new. For him.

He folded the page with great care and slid it into the inner pocket of his coat, close to his heart. Then, with uncharacteristic restraint, he reached for his pen. No flourishes, no pomp. Just the outline of a reply, rough and earnest, written as a man hoping to be known.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The Wizard poured himself a drink and swirled it idly, the amber catching the lamplight. “Funny thing, Morrible,” he said, half a grin tugging at his mouth. “I spend years dazzling crowds, puffing smoke, promising them emerald futures. They cheer, they bow, they believe every word until the curtain falls. Then it’s just me again, back here, alone with the gears.”

He tapped the letter in his pocket, his grin softening. “But Elphaba doesn’t need the curtain. She doesn’t even ask for it. She just wants… real things. Books. Truth. Her studies. For once, I find myself thinking, maybe I don’t need the fireworks to matter to someone.”

He chuckled, pleased with the thought, and took a long swallow. To him it was progress, a father’s victory. 

He didn’t see the way Morrible’s fingers tightened around the folds of her robe, the small flick of her gaze to the letter tucked close to his heart.

“Very sweet, Your Ozness,” she said smoothly, her smile polished, sharp. “But we had other matters to discuss. The Animal unrest, for instance. You know as well as I how quickly rumors can turn into riot.”

“Ah, yes, yes,” the Wizard said, waving a hand as though brushing smoke from the air. He leaned back, eyes unfocused, still warmed by the letter. “Of course. The Animals.”

Morrible waited, expectant.

“Yes, dreadful business,” he went on, though his tone was absentminded. “We’ll keep watch. Quiet surveillance, keep the narrative in line, the usual. But Elphaba—” His gaze drifted, softening again. “She wants to help them, Morrible. She believes in their cause. Imagine that. All this hope, still intact.”

His laugh was rueful, almost tender. “Part of me wants to believe it too, for her sake.”

Morrible’s smile thinned, though she kept it in place. “Belief doesn’t keep power steady, Your Ozness. Control does.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” He waved again, distracted, already drawing a sheet of parchment toward him. “But you see… if I can show her I’m listening—just listening, mind you—then perhaps she’ll trust me. That’s worth more than any decree we could issue.”

Morrible watched, her eyes cold in the lamplight. The Wizard’s heart was drifting, from the throne room to the study desk of a girl in Shiz, and with it, her influence slipped further from reach.

She dipped her head in feigned deference. “As you wish, Your Ozness.”

But even as she spoke, her thoughts had hardened. If the Wizard would not guard himself, she would. Elphaba’s influence had to be checked, contained—before it unraveled everything they had built.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Spring rain tapped against the shutters, steady and soft, but inside the three of them were tangled in the warmth of their bed.

Galinda lay curled against Elphaba’s side, her hair damp with sweat and sticking in golden spirals to Elphaba’s shoulder. Fiyero stretched along her back, his arm heavy around her waist, his breath slow and even as though sleep had already claimed him.

For a while, none of them spoke. The silence was full, content, broken only by the sound of their breathing. Elphaba stared up at the ceiling beams, her fingers absently tracing patterns against Galinda’s arm.

At last she said, quietly, “I think… he might mean it.”

Galinda stirred, lifting her head just enough to look at her. “Who?”

“The Wizard.” The word still felt strange in her mouth. “I’ve been trying to decide if it’s all an illusion. But—” Her throat tightened. “It doesn’t feel like one.”

Fiyero’s voice rumbled drowsily from behind her. “You’re saying you trust him?”

“No,” Elphaba said quickly. “Not yet. Not like that. I just… I think he’s trying. And for the first time I want to try, too.”

Galinda shifted closer, pressing a kiss against her temple. “You don’t have to give him anything you’re not ready for,” she whispered.

Elphaba nodded, eyes fixed on the shadows above. “I’m not ready to call him father. Maybe I never will. But if he truly wants to know me…” She exhaled, a long, unsteady breath. “Then I want to let him.”

For a moment the rain filled the silence again. Then Fiyero pressed a lazy kiss between her shoulder blades. “As long as he knows you’re not alone.”

Galinda’s hand found Elphaba’s, twining their fingers together. Elphaba closed her eyes, letting herself sink into the warmth of them both. For now, it was enough.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The morning sun fell bright over the Shiz courtyard, catching on the pale stone and the bustle of students hurrying between lectures. Galinda walked at Elphaba’s side, her arms full of sketches.

“I’ve decided,” she declared, “that my civic hall will have a skylight in the shape of an emerald.”

“That’s structurally unsound,” Elphaba muttered, juggling her notes.

“It’s art, Elphie.”

Fiyero loped up behind them, carrying a box of plant cuttings. “I’d like to point out that while you two argue about roofs, I’m carrying an entire forest.”

“Those are weeds,” Elphaba said flatly.

“Specimens,” Fiyero corrected, wounded. He stumbled slightly, nearly spilling the box, and Galinda squealed before steadying it with one finger.

“Darling, you’re hopeless,” she said sweetly.

“Hopelessly handsome,” he corrected, grinning at her.

Nessa rolled up beside them. “If you three spent half as much time on your studies as you do on each other, you’d all be top of the class.”

“We are top of the class,” Elphaba said automatically, flipping through her notes.

“Not in comportment,” Nessa sniffed.

They bickered all the way across the courtyard, drawing indulgent smiles. Crope and Tibbett waved from the steps.

“Elphaba! You simply must let us crib off your notes,” Crope begged, draping himself dramatically against the balustrade.

“No,” Elphaba said without looking up.

“Not even a peek?” 

“Not even a word.”

Florian sighed behind them. “You two beggars wouldn’t understand her notes anyway.”

Crope gasped in mock offense while Tibbett fanned himself, and Galinda dissolved into giggles. Even Elphaba let the corner of her mouth twitch before she shook her head.

Later, in the library, the group scattered to their corners. Elphaba lingered a moment in the aisle, remembering her growing collection of books at home. For just an instant, she allowed herself a small smile, private and unguarded, before slipping into her usual focus.

Elphaba had almost convinced herself that ordinary days like this could last.

Until the shouting started.

The quad buzzed with sudden noise, students rushing together, voices rising with shock and glee. Elphaba, Galinda, and Fiyero stepped outside just as a knot of undergraduates came tearing across the flagstones, waving newspapers fresh from the presses.

“Have you seen this?” one cried, shoving the front page toward them.

Bold black letters sprawled across the emerald-stamped paper:

WONDERFUL WIZARD’S SECRET DAUGHTER FOUND—A STUDENT AT SHIZ!

THE GREEN HEIR OF OZ? EMERALD BLOOD REVEALED!

MYSTERY PRINCESS HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT!

THE WIZARD’S LEGACY: BEAUTY, BRAINS, AND A TOUCH OF MAGIC!

The world seemed to tilt.

Dozens of heads turned at once, eyes fastening on Elphaba. Whispers shot like sparks through the crowd—her name, her skin, her every step suddenly magnified. And then the press of bodies surged forward.

—“Is it true?”

—“Did he really call you his heir?”

—“What’s he like—does he visit you?”

—“Can you introduce us?”

—“Are you moving to Emerald City?”

—“Will there be a coronation?”

—“Can you make things float?”

Galinda reacted first, all poise and fury. She swept forward like a queen in silk and indignation, planting herself between Elphaba and the crowd. “Step back! She is not a spectacle,” she snapped.

Fiyero dropped his box of plants and shouldered through the throng, carving space until he reached Elphaba’s side. “Alright, everyone, that’s enough! Back off!” He caught her hand, grounding her. “Breathe, Fae. We’ve got you.”

Nessa wheeled forward with surprising ferocity, her chair rattling against the cobblestones as she barked, “Clear the way! All of you!”

Crope and Tibbett leapt down from the steps, arms out, shouting half-serious threats, while Florian planted himself like a wall at Elphaba’s back.

But the tide pressed closer, some bowing, some gawking, some shouting questions until the noise became a wall.

One overeager student clasped her hands and squealed, “You must tell us everything! Were you raised as the governor’s daughter in secret?”

Another breathless voice added, “They say you were hidden for your own safety! Like a prophecy!”

“Prophecy?” Fiyero growled. “What is this, a tabloid?”

“Apparently,” Galinda hissed, shoving the paper back into the nearest hand. “And an idiotic one.”

Elphaba stood frozen, the headlines flashing again and again in her mind. Her chest was tight, her thoughts scattered, her breath shallow. This was the thing she had feared: her life turned inside out, her choices stripped from her hands.

Galinda’s grip on her wrist tightened. Fiyero leaned close, voice fierce in her ear. “We’ve got you. Don’t let them pull you under.”

Still, the questions roared until Elphaba thought she might drown in the sound of her own name.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The newspaper landed on the Wizard’s desk with a slap that echoed through the chamber.

He read the words once. Then again. Then again, until the ink blurred and the headlines seemed to pulse off the page.

For a moment, he could only stare. Then he shoved the paper aside, pacing hard enough to make the floorboards groan. “How—how in Oz’s name did this get out?” His voice cracked with fury and fear. “Who told them? Who?”

Elphaba’s face flashed in his mind—the careful letter, her unguarded words, the line that had ended with just Elphaba. That fragile trust. The one thing he hadn’t wanted to break.

And now the entire world knew.

He slammed his fist against the desk. “She’ll think I did this. She’ll think I—” His words faltered. “I’ve made her a target.”

The captain of the guard appeared in the doorway, helm under his arm. “Your Ozness?”

The Wizard snapped his head up. “You’ve seen it?”

“Yes, Your Ozness. It’s everywhere. The press won’t stop reprinting it.”

He laughed once, brittle. “Of course they won’t. Why waste ink when they can print fantasy instead?”

The captain waited. “Your orders, sir?”

The Wizard’s hands tightened into fists, then opened again. “Send Chistery. And a full detail of guards. No more half measures.”

“Sir?”

“She’s my daughter,” he said, and his voice shook. “Half of Oz knows it now. Every fanatic, every critic, every fool who ever thought they could earn my favor will look at her and see opportunity. She’ll be surrounded, hounded.”

He drew a deep, ragged breath. “I want her protected. And find out who leaked this. Every name that touched it—I want them here by morning.”

The captain bowed and left.

When the door closed, the Wizard sank heavily into his chair. The newspaper lay crumpled in his hands, its headline cracked down the middle. He smoothed it once, staring at the word daughter until the ink smudged beneath his thumb.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Far away, at Shiz, the first rumble of thunder rolled over the hills as Elphaba sat in their little house, the newspaper trembling in her hands. 

Galinda and Fiyero flanked her in silence, their fingers threaded through hers.

Tomorrow, nothing would be the same.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚