Spoilers: Um, don't read if you haven't seen the play.
Disclaimer: I don't own the hat, the incredibly moving gestures, or the play, let alone the actors. I don't own the Wicked, be it book or musical, or anything pertaining to Wicked.
Notes: This is just a shortie inspired by a few simple gestures and a hat. Really, one of the shortest things I've ever written. Set at the end of the play, second to last scene. Might be a little confusing and/or a little bit OOC. I was tired and overly emotional when I wrote this out. I finally decided to get it up, since I haven't had time to finish anything else I've been working on. It's hardly more than thoughts linked loosely together. This is not femslash - friends love each other too.
Elphaba loved her hat.
She's been through a lot with that hat. If anyone ever happened to ask about the hat, she'd probably give some catty remark about it being her style. It's her trademark, after all - aside from rather defining green skin, of course. Sharp and spiky, black and ugly, harsh and morbid – that was her now. Isn't it, my pretties?
No one asks why a wicked witch does the things she does, or why she's wicked. Why should anyone ask about a hat, of all things? Hah – in Elphaba's whole disappointing experience, people only believed what they were told. The reason a person wears a hat certainly wasn't planted in their minds any more than the reason wickedness exists was. No one wonders why a wicked witch is wicked. No one wonders why she isn't mourned, or wonders if she is in fact secretly mourned.
And no one wonders where she acquires her accessories.
A girl Elphaba knew what seems so long ago had once called it smart. Like her. They deserved each other.
And, Elphaba had mused, therein lies the question, wrapped up in pronouns and antecedents and bad grammar. Who deserves whom? She and the hat? She and the girl?
You deserve each other, this hat and you…
That girl had given her the hat. Elphaba had hated that girl. Elphaba had loved that girl.
It wasn't the hat itself she loved so much, but she was coming around to that. It was what the hat meant to her, what it represented. After all, she also hated her hat. Throughout life, there are some things that people have love-hate relationships with. Elphaba's hat was one.
Glinda loved her hat, too. She'd never said as much, but Elphaba could tell. The way she'd affectionately tapped its brim when they were younger; how she'd given a warm chuckle when Elphaba had continued to wear it. How she'd possessively clutched it to her chest the last time they'd met, and how her hands had clenched desperately around it. She hated it too, Elphaba knew. The way she'd torn it off Elphie's head, the way she'd viciously hurled it at her as she escaped, head bowed, mere inches away from Glinda herself.
Elphaba had caught it then instinctively without having to look back, strangely relieved to still have it. She didn't want to lose it. Glinda couldn't stand to bear its burden; Elphaba could. They were both of them outcasts, her and the hat. Another thing they had in common.
Elphaba had not been expecting Glinda to come tonight. Glinda, who hated her, who couldn't bear her. But she was here. Heart beating wildly, Elphaba had turned away sharply as Glinda seemed to fly down the stone stairway. Her own anger mixed with her fear for her friend, and she hated how it came out angry and cutting.
She was still wearing the hat. She remembered soaring above the ground, and an overwhelming sense of relief and euphoria. She remembered hovering and looking back, reaching toward Glinda. She remembered Glinda reaching back, smiling bittersweetly, and she remembered what it meant to her to see her doing so. A sudden crash broke the silence and brought her back to reality.
She just wanted to leave Glinda something to remember her by, a final gesture, a final reach across an uncrossable expanse. The western sky may have been enough before; she doubted it would be now. The hat seemed too terrible an icon of their differences and anger to leave behind. It could be misinterpreted, seen as a final spite: I loathe you. I never loved you. It could hurt more than heal, and Elphaba didn't want that. Could never want that.
Elphaba had more faith in Glinda than that. Glinda, who she loved, who loved her. She didn't expect her to bear it any more than Glinda would have expected her to bear her diamond studded tiara. She had made up her mind as she turned. She walked away from Glinda, and away from her life. She left her behind, and tried not to ache when she heard her frightened voice softly call out her name.
She left the hat behind, and tried not to care when she heard Glinda's guttural, heartbroken, out of control sobs. Glinda understood what was meant for her to understand, and it was good enough for Elphie, who couldn't expect her and didn't want her to understand everything. For her own good, for her own safety.
It had come full circle now, from Glinda to Elphaba and back. Elphaba was only doing what, in her mind, had to be done. The final gesture of friendship. She knew it could easily be disguised as a trophy, as a symbol of good conquering evil; she supposed she had to grudgingly admit to both. Just not in the way it meant to others, because the others didn't know about so deep, weary, and scarred a friendship. She almost gave in to the overwhelming urge to reclaim her hat and tenderly cradle her broken friend, but she couldn't do that either.
She tried not to listen, and looked down, and saw nothing.