A/N: We promised this in April, so this is an obvious fail on my part. We neglected to factor in the chaos that AP testing and graduation would bring to my life, and therefore miscalculated by, well, a lot. I finally sat down and finished the first chapter, though, so here it is. You wouldn't believe how much prep work has gone into this story over the past four months, so we're incredibly psyched to finally post it.

Disclaimer: Two years and a new fic later, I still don't own Wicked.

Chapter 1

"Oh, honey, how about this one?" Madame Upland gushed, pulling yet another dress out of the deep depths of her closet.

"No, Momsy," Glinda said, boredom and distraction etching their way into her voice. She had ceased paying attention long ago in favor of working on her speech. She frowned and scratched out a line, pushing so hard as to tear a small hole in the parchment.

"You didn't even look at the dress," her mother said in exasperation.

Glinda sighed. "Momsy, I'm sorry, really, but I have to give this speech tomorrow in front of the entire school, and it's just not right yet."

"Oh, I'm sure it's fine," Madame Upland said breezily. "No one really listens to those things, anyway. They will, however, be looking at your dress, and it's important to be remembered well."

"I'll be wearing the same graduation robe as everyone else, and you've already approved my shoe choice. Also, I'd like to think that they will be listening to the speech I've worked on for a month, thank you very much."

Madame Upland sighed and sat down on the empty bed across from her daughter's. "Honestly, Galinda, what's gotten into you?"

There it was again: her mother's determined ignorance, her blatant disregard for the past, her unwillingness to accept this new creature masquerading as her darling little girl. Glinda couldn't even begin to count the times she had corrected her mother on the matter of her name ("It's Glinda, Momsy. The 'Ga' is silent.") and even on the reason behind it, but the stubborn older woman always managed to forget by the next time she said it. Glinda's old name was like a slap to the face to her now; "Galinda" was a sharp reminder of the girl she used to be, of the hurtful things she'd said and done, and of the person she wanted to forget had ever existed. The name Glinda was no longer just an homage to her favorite professor; it was now a symbol of the change within her, and a memorial to the woman who'd sparked it. That was probably the worst part of her mother's behavior, actually—her pronounced disrespect for the memory that lingered within the dorm room.

"Please get off of that bed, mother," Glinda said icily. "Haven't I asked you not to sit on it?"

Madame Upland pursed her lips and rose crisply to your feet. "I like to think I can recognize when I'm not wanted," she said. "I'll leave you to your little speech, now."


The six months after her return from the Emerald City were a fuzzy, painful blur that Glinda preferred not to think about. She could recall only the constant and obsessive studying, the fact that she had only been left alone when she was supposed to be sleeping, and the act of crying herself to sleep every night. She remembered a lot of quiet on her part and a lot of whispering behind her back, but her friends had been protective to the point of smothering her and she'd experienced very little actual confrontation. She'd felt secluded, though, and somehow shut off from the entire world; she'd unconsciously constructed some sort of invisible bubble around her that had separated her from everyone around her. She was different, now, after all. No one could understand the hell she had been through--no one but the person who had created it.

One day, though, she'd merely woken up and resolved to live again. There was only a certain point to which she could excuse herself of that kind of visible suffering, and that point had long passed. There had been too much to do and too many inherited responsibilities to carry out to stay huddled in her empty room for any longer.

That hadn't made the ache go away, though, and certainly didn't make her feel any more like a complete person. She still wondered each and every day how a person could function without their other half, how a person could actually live under those conditions. Every day, her conclusion was the same: necessity. It was amazing what a person could do when they had no other options.

On the morning of her graduation, Glinda locked her door and ignored the insistent knocking at it. She didn't want her mother to fuss over her, she didn't want her classmates' congratulations, and she certainly didn't want her friends' hovering. She just wanted some time by herself to mentally readjust.

It had been some time since she had dressed with such care. She had long resorted to haphazard ponytails in the morning and her more comfortable dresses, so pulling out the curlers and the frillier half of her wardrobe felt more than a little odd. She knew that it was expected, though, so she carefully styled every hair and picked out the pale pink gown that used to be her favorite. Then, continuing to be skeptical of the importance of her dress, she slipped her blue graduation robe on and carefully pinned her cap on top of her curls. Her stoles and medals completed the picture, setting her apart from her original crowd and distinguishing her above all the others.

Glinda studied her image in the mirror for a long moment, unable to push her stubborn thoughts out of the way.

"You should've been here," she said to the empty room, before giving her hat a final adjustment and walking out of the door.


"Just remember, Miss Glinda, you need to keep your speech under five minutes. I read over your speech last night and made some minor adjustments, so why don't you look over that before we start."

Madame Morrible held out a piece of paper to her, but Glinda merely narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean, 'minor adjustments?'"

"Oh, nothing, dear. I merely had to take out one or two things to make it more agreeable to the common audience. It makes very little difference in the overall integrity of the piece, I assure you."

Glinda warily took the paper and gave Morrible one last glare before she unfolded it. Minor adjustments, indeed! Half of her speech was crossed out with angry red lines, and some were even rewritten for her. Glinda lividly crumpled up the paper into a tiny red-lined ball and hurled it against the wall. The first strains of "Pomp and Circumstance" could be heard through the heavy oak doors at that moment, so Glinda decisively gripped the note cards in her hands and led her class into the auditorium with her head held abnormally high. She sat impatiently through the processional and the administrators' speeches, and practically leapt to her feet when her name was called. Once at the podium, she stood there and stared at the crowd silently for so long that the people started to nervously shift under her gaze and twitter amongst themselves. Then, without warning, Glinda started to speak.

"I walked into Shiz University three years ago as a naive seventeen year-old girl who believed that the world was filled with immense opportunity just waiting to be claimed. Today, I stand before you as a graduate who realizes that opportunity, though available to all, can only be obtained by those willing to fight for it, and to give up everything they have.

"I am older and wiser now than I was those long years ago, and can only hope that my fellow graduates can say the same. Though we sat in class for more hours than we care to remember and studied until we wanted to cry, the actual educational programs in place here taught us very little in comparison to the repeated intrusions of the world on our safe little campus. If there is one thing I hope that we all walk away with today, it is the ability to doubt and to question, for without this, our future is doomed to contain the same darkness as our past and present."

Glinda paused and looked significantly around the auditorium. "Don't hesitate," she said firmly, "and don't just sit back and accept anything. Nothing is absolute, and nothing is guaranteed. You never know what tomorrow will bring or take away, so you can never just sit back and expect the world to hand you justice."

She glanced briefly at Morrible and smiled slightly at the horrified expression on her face before opening her mouth to continue.


"A- a job?" Glinda stuttered incredulously, believing at once that the heat from her heavy robe had finally gotten to her head.

"Yes, dear, a job. Now, after the little stunt you pulled during the ceremony, I am fully inclined to extend the offer to someone more deserving, but the Wizard is insistent on you for reasons I cannot even begin to comprehend. 'She's the top of her class!' he's always exclaiming, 'The most promising mind in her generation!' I think, however, that the aspect of your person that is the most appealing to him is your previous show of loyalty. I do think that he finds that very attractive indeed."

Glinda's entire body stiffened. "No," she said firmly, and turned on her heel to walk away.

"I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the Wizard like that, dearie," Morrible called after her almost gleefully. "Your previous act of allegiance may have been what interested him in you in the first place, but that would only make a sudden act of infidelity that much more upsetting to him. Remember, dear, that you've seen what the Wizard is like when he is upset."

Glinda stopped cold, torn between the frigid knife of fear and the burning fire of fury. Her heart pounded as she slowly turned back to face the cruel, fish-like woman. A thousand emotions flitted through her head as she stared blankly: the fresh feeling of promise that a new connection with another person brings; the strange high of giggling at three in the morning when you have a class in four hours; the elation of being chosen above all others; the quiet comfort of a shaking hand slipping tightly into yours; the feeling of your heart being torn in two; the dull ache of separation.

"What do you want?" she demanded, hating herself for the slight tremor in her voice.

"We want a pretty face," Morrible said bluntly, "a public visage to cue the public and to represent the Wizard's policy. The people are growing more restless and anxious as witch-sightings grow more frequent, and since increased public appearances of the Wizard would greatly hurt his image, we need someone to do it for him. He thinks that the pretty, blonde valedictorian of Shiz will be perfect."

Glinda squeezed her eyes shut, willing Morrible to disappear. "How long do I have to decide?"

"Now would be nice."

Glinda opened her eyes. "Now is impossible. I need time to think." At Morrible's glower, Glinda added, "Madame," as an afterthought.

"Then tonight," Morrible said crisply. She turned to walk back to the formless mass of graduates. "My office, eight o'clock. Don't be late!"

Glinda stood dumbly for several minutes, watching Morrible disappear into the crowd, unsure of what to do next. Telling anybody of the offer would be unspeakably stupid; no one, not even Fiyero or Boq, actually knew what had happened in the Emerald City, and everyone would undoubtedly urge her to accept the offer. She didn't need encouragement, though; she needed advice. She needed a rational mind to walk through her options with. She needed her best friend.

She wasn't quite sure how she ended up by the canal, but there she was, slipping her shoes off and hiking up her skirts to wade into the water. She remembered when she used to protest to getting wet and sandy, when she would literally have to be dragged in with arms flailing and threats flying.

"Well," Glinda said loudly, "I'm in the canal, and you didn't even have to force me."

She was met with only the muted sounds of the celebrating going on behind her. Glinda sighed; it's not like she ever expected anything different.

"You know, I don't even know why I come here to talk to you. It's not like you're dead, or--you know, you could be dead and I wouldn't even know it. Does that seem unfair to you at all? Because I, of all people, deserve to be the first person to know if you get a paper cut."

Suddenly hit with an overwhelming, paralyzing fear, Glinda whimpered. "I'd know, wouldn't I, Elphie? Somehow, I'd know. I'd just feel it. I'd have to. You couldn't die and me not know. We're just...we're too connected...aren't we?"

She paused for a minute, using every ounce of her energy to rein in her emotions. She hadn't cried since the day she crawled out of bed almost a year ago, and she wasn't about to start now. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she had this idea that Elphaba could see her; even if she knew this wasn't true, she still wanted to live her life in a way that would have made Elphaba proud, and that kind of life did not involve crying.

"I don't know what to do," she whispered, her eyes squeezed shut to dam the threatening waterworks. "He thinks I was loyal when I didn't go with you. Loyal, of all things! How do I even respond to that? I want to march to the Emerald City and tell him to his face to go find some other pretty, blonde valedictorian to do his dirty work. I want to scream it at him, and while I'm at it, I want to tell him what a thick, ignorant, despicable ass he is and to go hang himself behind one of his fancy green curtains."

Glinda let her robe drop into the water as she reached up to cover her face with her hands. "I wasn't loyal," she said quietly, more to convince herself than anything. "If anything, I was as disloyal as I could possibly be. I abandoned my best friend when she needed me most, and I'll never forgive myself for it. I know that I wasn't--I mean, that you didn't actually ask me to stay with you but...I should have insisted on it. I shouldn't have let you go by yourself. I shouldn't have let you leave me."

Glinda shook her head slightly to bring herself back into the present. "But if I don't do it, then I'm essentially doomed. You saw how quickly he turned all of Oz against you, and I heard everything that you heard that day. I simply know too much, and the only thing I have going for me is my continuing compliance. If I thought that this was a second chance, I'd take it in a heartbeat, but you're long gone. There's no finding you now--Lurline knows I've tried. For some reason, I thought that you'd want me to find you, that you would've left me some sort of trail to follow. I'm such a fool."

Glinda cleared her throat, annoyed with herself. "So anyway, I'm stuck in a corner over here. If I reject the job, I'm as good as dead. If I take the job, I'll be knowingly working for the man who ruined my life, your life, and so many others'. There's no good side to this! Even if I was free to walk away from the offer, it's not like I have any other plans for my future. I hate to admit it, but I have no idea where I'm going after today. My parents' estate would be the obvious first stop, I suppose, but after that?"

"Who are you talking to?" a voice suddenly demanded behind her.

Glinda jumped so badly that she almost fell into the water. She looked behind her to see Boq, Fiyero, and Nessarose standing behind her, Fiyero's steadying hand resting on Nessa's back. "No one," she said too quickly. "Myself."

Boq and Fiyero looked unconvinced, and Nessa looked suspicious. Glinda sighed theatrically and switched tactics. "Look, it's been a really big day. Everyone up there wanted to talk to me and I couldn't even hear myself think. Can you blame me for just wanting some time to myself?"

She flashed them a small, tired smile and she knew that they wouldn't argue any further. Boq and Fiyero had long taken it upon themselves to be Nessa and Glinda's protectors, and if talking to herself made Glinda happy, they would take it. Considering their long record of failures, they grabbed onto whatever successes they could.

"Just give me a few more minutes, okay? I'll meet you at the Peach and Kidney's at about eight thirty and we can celebrate together properly. I promise."

They agreed, albeit unhappily, and turned to walk back up the hill. Glinda waited until they faded back into the crowd before she turned back to the canal and the darkening horizon behind it.

"All I want to do is good," she whispered. "I want to help you in whatever fight you've joined, but I don't know how to do that if I'm just sitting at home doing nothing. I also don't know how I'm going to do that as the Wizard's pawn."

Glinda suddenly knew what she had to do in a way that made her feel like it had been staring her in the face the entire time. She hated it with every fiber of her being, but she knew there was no way around it.

She took a deep breath. "You may hate me for it, but there's no other way," she said firmly. "Besides," she said, somewhat less convincingly, "I know what I'm doing."

She waded out of the canal and wiped her feet off before slipping her shoes back on. The clock tower rang out a single bell, telling her it was 7:30. She had a half hour to walk across campus and give Morrible her grateful acceptance.

A/N: For a while, at least, this will have the same alternating chapters posting pattern and the same bold/italics contrast as Delusions of Grandeur. But look! Plot! That's definitely different. Anyway, please review. We're still trying to figure out this whole cohesive-plot thing, so any feedback will help.