Come Undone
After it was done the shrill and terrifying scream from her best friend still rang loud in Glinda's ears, as she stayed hidden in the corner of the castle. She could see the silhouette of Dorothy and her friends in the next room and she covered her mouth with her hands in order to muffle her sobs. So it was true; a silly little farm girl from Can-zis had just murdered Elphaba. Glinda watched as Dorothy and the other witch hunters leave the room to tell the villagers the good news; who were waiting down below, and then she emerged from the shadows.
"Oh Elphie!" cried out Glinda, sobbing as she saw all that was left of Elphaba. A puddle of green lay before her eyes on the ground and a black witch's hat.
Glinda continued to sob for a while longer and didn't realize the shadow of a little girl that was hidden away in the doorway.
"Glinda? What are you doing here?" asked the voice of the little girl who had now revealed herself.
Glinda looked up and saw Dorothy standing in front of her with her pigtails and everything.
"Dorothy I-I-" stuttered Glinda as she tried to muster up a reasonable answer in her current state of mind.
The little girl looked innocently back at her waiting for answer, batting her eyelashes.
"I really didn't meant to kill her," half-cried half sobbed Dorothy as tears started to fall from her face, "It was an accident, really Glinda it was!"
Glinda wiped the tears from the little girl's face gently, and grimly looked back at the puddle of what used to be her best friend.
"It's alright Dorothy. Really, I promise it is. Besides no one mourns the wicked!" fake laughed Glinda trying to conceal her pain from Dorothy by putting on that façade of happiness.
Apparently that did not help, for Dorothy started to cry harder the tears running faster down her face, "But that's just it! I heard what you and the witch- Elphaba-Elphie whatever her name was, were talking about before she came downstairs. She wasn't wicked, or at least from what you said she wasn't! I feel oh so horrible about everything; I wish I could just wake up like this is some sort of horrible nightmare that Auntie Em always tells me about when the devil comes after you!"
Dorothy looked at Glinda evenly in the eye, for Glinda was not that much taller than her even though she was only ten maybe eleven? And she batted those eyelashes against those big brown eyes, "Does anyone else know?"
"Know what?" asked Glinda her mouth getting dry as she talked about Elphaba with Dorothy.
"Know that she wasn't wicked? Is it just you?"
Glinda took a breath, and straightened herself up to her full height in her blue bubble like dress. She fixed her tiara which was falling slightly to the left on her head of blonde curls, and without a word walked over to the remains of Elphaba and hugged the hat to her chest, tears flowing down her cheeks.
"It's just me now, yes. No one else knows, or now no one cares! Dorothy, she was never intended to be this way, she was never wicked! It- it was me who is the wickedest one of them all," admitted Glinda as she turned to face Dorothy all the while sobbing and her voice breaking with grief.
"You? Why, Ms. Glinda you're a good witch how can you be wicked?" asked Dorothy, frowning in confusion as she took Glinda's hands in her own, "You are the one who helped me get to the Wizard and he's going to take me home now!"
"Elphie helped so many more people though. All she wanted was to help people. I was the horrible one. I conspired against her with Morrible and The Wizard even though I knew that all they were saying was lies. I didn't go with her that night, and I chose to stay to hug the limelight and look where that got me! I'm a hopeless wreck and a fake!" sobbed Glinda as she hugged the hat tighter, and collapsed on the ground in a phase of utter grief.
Glinda couldn't stop crying even if she wanted to; the pain, hurt, lies, and the façade all swarmed her thoughts at once and she wished that she was the one that had been murdered, not Elphaba.
"Ms. Glinda, I don't know much about Oz, but I know that you are one of the loveliest people here, and it may be that Elphaba was too but she's gone now. Excuse me for using what she said, but now it's up to you Glinda. And I know that you can do it, she believed in you and so do I," encouraged Dorothy with a smile, holding out a hand to Glinda.
"She did have a lot of faith in me, didn't she?" laughed Glinda softly wiping the tears from her face. She took Dorothy's hand and stood up and looked back at the green mess on the floor with a heavy heart.
In the moonlight she could faintly see something standing up against the puddle and she walked closer to it, entranced.
It was the little green bottle that Elphaba had shown Glinda or Galinda, as she was known then when they had first become friends at Shiz.
Glinda picked it up gently and held it up to the light, and she clasped one hand over her mouth in shock.
"What? What is it?" asked Dorothy coming closer to Glinda and looked at the bottle with a puzzled expression on her face.
"This was Elphaba's mother's, she told me about it back at college…" Glinda trailed off the final pieces falling into place, and she gasped in horror, "Oh Oz! Oh, Elphie, oh no, no, no!"
"What?" asked Dorothy not understanding why Glinda was acting so horrified.
"This was her mother's, and I've seen this green bottle only once before… The Wizard offered me a drink from it… Oh Oz!" cried out Glinda as she nearly dropped the bottle from shock.
"I still don't understand this," said Dorothy, but Glinda hushed her by putting one hand over the girl's mouth.
"It means… it means that the Wizard was," Glinda knew she had to say it out loud, it would confirm it to hear it out loud from her own lips, " her father…"
"The Wizard was the Wicked Witch Of The West's father! Oh dear, that is… that is so-" Dorothy stopped there, stunned.
"Shocking, I know," answered Glinda grimly playing with the bottle in her hands as she thought of what to do.
Suddenly voices arose from down below of Dorothy's friends calling her name, "Dorothy! Come down, we need to leave now if we want to get to the Emerald City by morning!"
Dorothy looked to Glinda with worried eyes, "What do I do when I see the Wizard again? Do I tell him that I know? Should I tell the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and the Lion?"
Glinda shook her head, "No, dearie. Let me handle this, you go on with your friends and I will see you when you leave."
Glinda embraced the little girl, and kissed the top of her head gently, "Go on now, go!" Just then the Scarecrow came in through the doorway, and looked at Glinda.
"Why Ms. Ga- Glinda, what a surprise! What are you doing here with Dorothy?"
Glinda smiled at him, hiding the bottle behind her back, "Oh, hello Scarecrow. I just got word of the Witch's death and came to see if it was true. And so it is… how wonderful for all of us, really!"
Dorothy looked at her with a firm look, the little girl now knew that Glinda was faking her happiness and she bit her lip.
"Thank you, Ms. Glinda… and I know that Elphie and I are right about you. You really are a good witch," said Dorothy hugging Glinda again, and then she turned to the Scarecrow who remained silent.
"Elphie?" he repeated with a look that no one could quite read on his face.
"Just a friend, Scarecrow! No need to be suspicious!" laughed Glinda with a somber tone to her voice.
He nodded, and took Dorothy's hand and walked off taking one last look at the puddle and turning away.
Glinda was all by herself in the room, and she knew that she had no more tears to cry. So she was surprised when she could hear soft sobbing coming faintly from somewhere. Glinda was puzzled but figured that maybe it was one of the flying monkeys or just a leaky pipe.
She summoned up her bubble into the room, and took one last glance at the remains of Elphaba. She knew that in the morning she would have to declare to all of Oz that the Wicked Witch Of The West was dead, and she was dreading that. But she was Glinda The Good after all, and that was her duty.
"I'll make things right, Elphie. I promise you that I will. All the lies will come undone, and I will make Oz a better place, a place that we would have created together if we had worked in tandem…"
She turned to leave when a whisper of a voice stopped her in her tracks.
"Just you and I defying gravity, with you and I defying gravity they'll never bring us down…"
Glinda paused as the voice faded away like the wind, and shook her head.
She turned again towards the window, looking out to the landscape and more importantly to the sky.
"I guess there will be no more looking towards the Western sky now, Elphie," whispered Glinda tearfully as she descended into the sky in her bubble.
"Oh Glinda," sobbed the voice from underneath the trapdoor as soon as she was gone. Elphaba wanted to tell her everything, but she knew she couldn't. It was too dangerous.
Glinda would never know the truth…
A very sad and angsty fanfic. I needed to get something out for my fans! I went home sick today and felt compelled to write.
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