Elphaba scowled as she stepped around the crowd of shrieking girls blocking the corridor. A thorn from one of Pfannee's ridiculously oversized roses scraped her hand, putting her in an even fouler mood.

She slammed the door of her dorm room open, startling Glinda, who almost dropped the huge, pink bouquet she was attempting to force into a vase.

"Elphie! What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Elphaba snarled, flopping onto her bed. Glinda sighed.

"No one got you a Valentine, did they?"

"I don't want a damn Valentine," Elphaba muttered. "The whole thing is a stupid, overblown, commercialised sham."

"No it's not!" Glinda shrieked, indignant. "It's a very important holiday!"

"Sure it is. It's not even a real holiday, it's just an excuse for card shops and florists to put their prices up."

Glinda pouted.

"Well, I think it's nice. And besides - "

She cut herself off, dropping her bouquet with a squeal. Elphaba rolled her eyes, got up and knelt next to her roommate to clean up the mess. Glinda leaned forward, giving Elphaba a view of her cleavage most Shiz boys had only dreamed of.

Elphaba swallowed hard, and forced herself to look away.

"Elphie? Are you okay?"

"Yes. Yes, I'm fine," she muttered.

Eventually, Glinda's mess had been cleaned up, and homes had been found for what seemed like hundreds of flowers, mostly pink. Elphaba sat sulking on her bed, nose buried in a book, and Glinda had disappeared – probably off to compare her Valentines haul with Shennee and Pfanpfan, or whatever their names were, Elphaba thought. She sighed, and huddled further into her corner.

Glinda walked through the door of one of the most expensive flower shops in the city, and ran straight into Fiyero.

"Glinda! Oh, good, I want to ask you something."

"Yes?"

The Winkie started to speak, then stopped, embarrassed. He stared at the floor for a second, until Glinda ran out of patience.

"Well, what?"

Fiyero took a deep breath, and decided to get it out as quickly as possible.

"What sort of flowers does Elphaba like?"

Glinda burst into delighted giggles, then stopped abruptly.

"Darn you Fiyero, I was going to ask you the same question!"

The pair laughed for a second, then simultaneously realised they were rivals.

Awkwardly, Fiyero turned and left, going to find a different flower shop – preferably one that didn't contain Glinda Upland buying flowers for his crush.

"Well, that was awkward," Glinda muttered to herself, but she shrugged it off and set about searching for the perfect Elphie flowers. She'd just found them – a small bouquet of dark red roses – when a hand grabbed them out from in front of her.

"Tibbett! Those are mine!"

Tibbett shrugged apologetically.

"Sorry," he said. "I just thought Elph – I mean, a girl who shall remain nameless – would like them."

Glinda stared at him in disbelief.

"You mean you were buying flowers for her too?"

She giggled.

"This is getting ridiculous."

Tibbett sighed, handed the flowers to Glinda, and went off in search of another bouquet.

That night, once Glinda had locked herself in the bathroom, Elphaba finally allowed herself to look at her Valentines. Three. She'd never gotten one Valentine before. Oz, she'd never even considered the possibility.

She picked up them up in turn, re-reading each card.

The one addressed to "the Emerald Princess of Shiz" was from either Crope or Tibbett, she was fairly certain – no one else would come up with something like that.

The one that simply said, "From your secret admirer" she wasn't sure about, but decided it was probably some boy who'd sent them to the entire hall. The flowers were nice though – she liked lilies.

And the last one – well, she knew who that was from, without a doubt.

"My dearest Elphaba,

Have a very happy commercialised scam.

Love, your not particularly secret admirer."

The green girl smiled.

"And the same to you, my sweet," she murmured.

Distracted by her Valentines, Elphaba hadn't noticed the bathroom door open, so she didn't see Glinda's satisfied smile.