A/N: So, I am very new to the Wickef fandom. Extremely new. Embarrassingly new. Which means my character study has only been...a couple of days. But I had to write something, or I'd have gone mad.
In short, this may not be the most accurate. It might even be the LEAST accurate. So if there are some corrections to be made, please tell me. Also, if the characterization is off, I want to know. I write fanfiction to learn and to improve, so any feedback, even and especially negative feedback, is helpful.
The few seconds Elphaba stood there, a hundred eyes on her and nowhere to hide, dancing by herself and trying not to let her head bow, had felt an eternity. Every movement she made felt impossibly sluggish. Every step she took felt heavy. She thought it would never end, the punishment she had brought upon herself. Punishment for allowing herself to believe, only for a night, that someone had tried to do something kind for her.
That was before Galinda stepped in, however, and time sped up. Elphaba watched the tiny blonde imitate her, half-heartedly at first, then resolutely as if to prove a point. As if to apologize. Instinctively, Elphaba moved again, and blessedly, time moved again as well.
But time moved too quickly. Kind-hearted as Galinda was, she could not stay at Elphaba's side the entire night. The song ended, another began, and Galinda lingered, but her attentions wandered. She had a date, a group of friends, a thousand reasons to shift her focus. Elphaba understood. Begrudging her nothing, Elphaba gave her a way out.
"You should find Fiyero," she found herself saying, much more kindly than she had intended.
Galinda eyed her warily. Her expression was not so much mistrustful as it was doubtful. Her perfect brow furrowed in concern, or something like it, and Elphaba found herself embarrassed.
"I'm going to- to find something to drink," her voice was more firm, more detached, allowing Galinda to believe she was doing her no favors.
Galinda gave an emphatic nod, brilliant smile, before turning away and all but bouncing off to find the handsome prince. Elphaba stood, no longer dancing. Without the more popular, more beautiful girl by her side, her classmates moved away, leaving her trapped in an empty circle under heavy glances once again.
She had nothing to prove, she told herself. Nothing to lose by walking away. And yet, she was not entirely positive it was true. Despite the night's false start, it had blossomed into one of the better evenings of her life. Galinda had been kind, friendly even, giving her a fearless smile and standing by her side. It was the closest thing to friendship she had ever been shown, and Elphaba clung to it despite herself. To leave would be to leave it behind, to let the night end and hope the following day would hold similar promise, and Elphaba didn't hold much faith in hope, nor yet was she ready to let go of the fragile happiness she'd found. So reluctantly, she stayed, keeping to a corner by herself and enjoying the music, the lights, and the commotion she could fade into and arm herself with.
With Galinda off and far away, she did not expect another person to approach her, not even Nessa who was so busy whirling and turning and grinning as she never had before. She certainly did not expect anyone to come behind her and take her wrist, already beginning to pull her away before she even thought to react.
When she snapped out of her reverie, Elphaba jerked her arm away, stumbling backwards in flustered anxiousness and surprise.
"What do you think you're doing?" she hissed.
She was met with a raised eyebrow and a nonchalant smirk, but more strangely, with familiar eyes that seemed taken aback, if not hurt, at her reaction. Fiyero Tiggular, standing tall, uncomfortable, and much too close, staring down at her as if he regretted ever touching her in the first place. Most likely, he did.
"You were standing alone," he said simply.
"Did you consider that might have been by choice?"
His eyebrow shot up even further, as if he meant to ask whose choice it had been, but something in the gesture must have given him pause for his expression quickly melted into feigned disinterest.
"No," he said.
In truth, he had. It was why he found himself walking over to her in the first place. As he spun Sasha or Shooshoo or whomever, he had looked up, laughing, and seen her all alone. And remembered how it felt to watch her dancing, alone. And wondered why every time he saw her she seemed so unhappy. So alone. He needed only glance around the room and see that no one else seemed to notice her to understand that she was alone because she had been given no other option, and despite himself, it scared him. The thought of aloneness, or loneliness, or simply of having nothing and no one to distract a person from their fears and doubts and worries. Seeing her alone made him feel alone, so it had only seemed natural to resolve the issue by joining her.
She, of course, did not see it the same way. Galinda had been kind because she felt responsible, Elphaba knew all too well, and though it did not lessen the meaning of her roommate's gesture, it did explain it. Fiyero, on the other hand, had no reason to reach out to her. In showing kindness to the green girl, the prince had nothing to gain and, quite possibly, much to lose. Yet there he stood, looking at her and frowning.
"What are you looking at?" she snapped, her confusion making her irritable, her irritation making her blunt.
And her bluntness making her embarrassed.
She realized even as she said it how stupid a question it was. He was looking at her, sharp and harsh and, above all,green. It was reason enough to stare and to glare. Her face flushed and her frown deepened, making her look both severe and uncertain.
He seemed to ignore her question, and continued looking at her, curiously and intently. "You're the only girl in the room I haven't danced with."
She let out a snort before pressing her mouth once again into a grim, thin line. But her eyes were alight with something he could not quite name and it struck him that the glimmer brightened her expression and made her somehow…more human. Less fire, less steel, less wildness. It made her look like an uncertain girl in a room full of people she did not know and something stuck in his throat to see it.
"Would you do me the favor of fixing that?" he asked.
"What is there to fix?" Her tone was not accusing, nor did it hold any pity for herself. Her question was almost a statement, as it expected no answer, or at least, no honest one.
"Dance with me," he said simply.
She looked up at him, searching his eyes for any traces of cruelty, any indication he meant to make fun of her. She found none, but then again, she had found none in Galinda's earlier either. She opened her mouth to say no, but the sinking feeling in her stomach stopped her. She found, unfortunately, that she did not want to say no. She wanted naively, desperately, to continue believing she had found some semblance of normally. She wanted to push her luck to see if she could make a friend and dance with a boy and wake in the morning to find it had not been a dream. She wanted to take his hand and dance and laugh and for once, for once, allow herself the happiness of easy youth without questioning and doubting and criticizing. So she did.
To her surprise, he did not flinch as her hand slid into his. He smiled easily, airily. To her surprise, she smiled a small, secret smile in return. He spun her once, twice, three times and the room swirled in her vision so she could not see the confusion in her classmates' eyes.
After a moment, she let out a small, tentative laugh. The sound was light and lyrical, gracious and gentle, surprising and pleasing. The warmness of it broadened his smile, but it tightened hers. She looked at him warily and wearily, and something in her air changed.
"Fiyero," she said, and he shuddered.
"Fiyero," she said again, and he spun her once more in an attempt to redirect the tone, the energy, the sudden seriousness that had slipped in and made him so suddenly confused.
"Fiyero," she said, and her tone was final.
Her hand slipped out of his, her eyebrows furrowed, and a dark green flush colored her cheeks.
"I don't feel like dancing anymore," she said, and she was gone.
He watched her walk away for only a moment before shaking his head and taking the hand of another girl, and another girl, and another girl, dancing so that he would not think, so that he would not question, so that he would not remember how happy she sounded when she laughed. How unhappy she sounded every other time she spoke, by comparison. How it mattered to him and he knew not why.
But it did matter. Inexplicably, inarguably, incomprehensibly, it mattered to him, and the thought of it filled his stomach with an uneasy, fluttering fear.