Title: Ribbon (I/V)
Author: Angel Leviathan
Disclaimer: Wicked, the characters, concept, etc, aren't mine.
Word count: 3,918
Summary: As Elphaba vanishes into the Underground life of the Emerald City, Glinda's years of hell are just beginning.
Notes: Bookverse. Set directly after Glinda and Elphaba's parting.

-

Glinda sat frozen in place, tears streaming down her face and muscles protesting abuse. Eyes glazed over, she stared, unseeing, at the passenger opposite, and barely registered that such behaviour was making the person uncomfortable. It didn't matter. She didn't care.

Just what was going on? How had her safe, perfect little life been reduced to this? How had she learned so much only to have it destroyed in a few short moments, a brush of lips against her own, and a retreating figure swathed from head to toe in black vanishing into a rush of emerald?

Oh Unnamed God. Oh Lurline, Ozma, whatever gods or goddesses existed. What was happening? She was just a pampered little girl from the Pertha Hills. Born to money and not to thinking, not to this. Not to such disasters. She was supposed to be able to fix anything with a smile and a laugh. Living was supposed to be effortless to her.

Glinda dragged air into her lungs and heard a choking sob escape from somewhere. She knew she had made the sound, but it didn't register as she finally broke from her awkward posture and sagged against the back of the carriage. All eyes were on her. Something she would have liked just short of two years ago. These eyes weren't admiring her. Some were pitying, some condemning. Others declaring that such behaviour wasn't appropriate between two women and that the green one couldn't have been the blonde's sister.

She was being sent back to Shiz. Sent back. She hadn't chosen, she hadn't asked to go. When had Elphaba decided she was sending her alone and they weren't returning, by choice, together? She had no way of knowing. Glinda contemplated demanding to be let from the carriage. Galinda would never have stood for being abandoned in a carriage and sent on her way. But then, Galinda wouldn't have contemplated chasing after Elphaba either. Glinda was too afraid. She would never find Elphaba, not knowing her way round the Emerald City, and certainly because Elphaba didn't want to be found. She must have prepared for every eventuality and Glinda following must have been one of them.

She didn't have the courage to jump from the carriage. At least Glinda was honest with herself. She didn't like uncertainties. No money and no connections would bring nothing of worth in the Emerald City. She didn't want to live each day wondering where her next meal would come from. Leaving the carriage meant leaving Shiz and leaving her family, even if it meant possibly getting Elphaba back. Elphaba was risking nothing. There was nothing she desperately wanted or needed that she would go without. She was gaining her freedom. Glinda would lose everything.

Elphaba knew this. That was why she was sending her back. Giving her no choice. Making the decision for her, like Glinda would have wanted. She could never have made the choice on her own. Money and social status gave her her freedom, but she, just like the rest of her class, still needed to be told what to do by somebody. How to behave, how to be seen…how to live.

Glinda just wasn't strong enough. She hadn't been brought up to know where she could pull strength from.

Not one of her companions offered comfort. When her eyes flickered back into focus, they all looked away from her. She supposed she would have done the same, if she had seen a dishevelled blonde in a dirty dress, gulping back tears and grieving the loss of such an extraordinary looking girl.

She didn't straighten or rearrange her skirts, stop her tears or try to draw her hair back into some orderly arrangement. She would see none of these people again, and so revelled in her grief, sniffing and sobbing for the whole journey, until she fell into an exhausted sleep and almost missed her stop for the train.

-

Wasn't she such a sight trying to creep back to Shiz as inconspicuously as she could, looking completely haggard, dishevelled, and clutching the small parcel she had managed to pack (also full of dirty skirts and blouses) before leaving? Students in town who knew her (only by sight, not by association) stopped to stare as she traipsed slowly through, eyes on the ground. Glinda tried to ignore them. The stares she could, the whispers were harder to shut out. On reaching the gates of Crage Hall, she paused, wondering if she should take that final step. She could beg for passage to Frottica, say her family would pay, and cry and cry when she got home until her parents let her leave Shiz. That would be childish, she thought, however appealing the idea seemed. Yet if she just-

"Miss Glinda of the Arduennas!"

She jumped and nearly dropped her parcel. Taking a step back in fright, the heel of her right shoe snapped and sent her crashing to the floor. The whispers of a couple of nearby students became laughter as she yanked her skirts down to protect her modesty.

"Miss Glinda!"

Glinda cringed. There was no escaping now. The voice of the Headmistress reached her again; there was no way she could ignore the summons a second time. No time to run, no time to pretend she never returned. At least her current state and her washed out features would work in her favour. She would recite what Elphaba had told her to say; that she had been kidnapped and taken against her will. She would not say that she had been sent back against her will.

She snapped the heel of the shoe off completely so she could clamber back to her feet, Madame Morrible now before her, yet offering no assistance. She clutched her parcel to her chest, "Madame Headmistress," she bobbed her head.

"Where have you been and to what do you owe the state in which you now appear?" Morrible questioned, in clipped tones, torn between outrage and curiosity.

Glinda blinked. "…I…she…" her vision blurred as tears threatened to fall again.

"She?"

"But she…and I…"

Morrible removed the parcel from Glinda's grasp and wrapped a condescending arm around her shoulders, guiding her through the open gates and towards the main entrance, "Now, now, Miss Glinda. You are an educated lady and such scenes will not do. What would your parents think?"

Glinda thought that she cared not for what her parents would think, nor what anyone else thought, the Headmistress included.

"I'll have some tea prepared and then you must tell me every detail of your disappearance. I must also know where Miss Elphaba finds herself at this moment."

She sniffed. "M-May I change first?"

"No dear, I believe a cup of tea is in order, then we shall go from there."

The large, quoxwood, door banged shut behind them with a echoing clarity and finality that Glinda wasn't sure she liked.

-

Glinda sat awkwardly on the very edge of a wooden chair, parcel by her feet, hands in her lap. She hadn't been permitted to sit on one of the more expensive sofas, for fear of dirtying them, a choice she would have made herself anyway. She stared down at her hands as Morrible busied herself with the tea tray, taking far longer than she should have to place it down on the table.

"Now." the Headmistress took one of the cups and motioned for Glinda to take the other. It seemed that the arm around the shoulder had been more than enough contact between her and the mussed up child-woman before her. "Start from the beginning. Miss Nessarose was most concerned that neither yourself or her sister could be found."

Glinda did not reach for the tea. "She…she, that is…Miss Elphaba…she wanted to see the Emerald City…she wouldn't go alone and she wouldn't wait…she…she threatened that if I didn't go with her, she would…say that she had been writing my essays all along and that I didn't deserve to be here…" She wrung her hands in her lap and finally reached for the ridiculously small cup to stop herself shaking.

"The Emerald City?"

"Yes, Madame."

"Continue."

"I said…I said I wouldn't go with her, but she bound my hands and forced me along. She took my purse to make sure I had no means of getting anywhere without her… She said she needed a person of my status, with connections, to make enquiries in the City…"

"Yet you are here and she is…?" Morrible pressed.

"I don't know." Glinda replied. "She…Miss Elphaba didn't know the way, she made us travel for days and days and she wouldn't let me go back. I escaped yesterday morning when she was arguing with a carriage master."

The Headmistress frowned and sipped her tea. "If you were taken by force, why, my dear Miss Glinda, do you have several changes of clothes with you?"

She stared, knowing she had been caught out. Glinda lowered her gaze and sipped at her own tea, before setting it down on the table and reaching for her parcel. "She made sure we were prepared, you see. She made me pack and lug our things from place to place." She was suddenly glad that one of Elphaba's shapeless dresses had worked its way in with her belongings, which she dragged out, "She treated me no better than a servant…" Glinda faked a second breakdown and threw the dress on the floor.

"So…she is in the Emerald City?" Morrible asked, ignoring the tears.

She paused. "…I…I don't know, perhaps…she found her way without me…maybe she finally managed to make it to the City… Not many would offer her passage, you see, with her…affliction. I can see I had my uses…"

"If she is in the City, then she is almost certainly lost by now…"

"Oh yes, Miss Elphaba has a terrible sense of direction, as I told you…" Glinda agreed.

"No, I mean that the City is very large and there is a multitude of places that she might hide away in." The Headmistress narrowed her eyes, studying her pupil.

"Madame, I am sure a person such as Miss Elphaba would not have any great skill at hiding. Her colour, for one, makes her stand out a great deal in a crowd," the girl murmured, in a reassuring tone, just about managing to hide her embarrassed blush.

"She has committed a great crime, you understand? Taking you against your will and treating you in such a manner? She must be apprehended."

"Oh yes…it was such an ordeal…so very terrible… I trusted her so very much, you see, and now I understand she was only using me for my family name…" Glinda hung her head and wrung her hands some more.

Madame Morrible sighed, in no mood to cater to the distress of a girl who thought she was society itself and actually only had relatively good blood on one side of her lineage. She had to know where the green Thropp daughter had vanished to, and exactly why. It was too suspicious that she had chosen such a time to disappear. What with the death of the old minder and the little discussion she herself had had with the three roommates. There was no way to tell how each of the young women had, and would, react to not only the suggestions planted, but also the binding spell. She had, so far, seen no adverse affect on Nessarose. She had yet to witness Elphaba and Glinda's behaviour, only their excursion spoke volumes. So did the fact that only one had returned. Circumstances aside, Morrible was glad that she had another of the girls back under power. One renegade she could deal with. Two would have been much more difficult. She could wait. She would see exactly what Elphaba was up to, in time.

Which was why it was much easier to let Glinda think she believed every word of her story and had no doubts whatsoever. With one gone, there was a greater chance of the others taking flight. Weak as she was, Morrible didn't put an escape attempt past Glinda of the Arduennas. She had returned once…there was no guarantee she would do so again.

"If you don't mind…Madame Head, I would very much like to go and change my clothes…I have been in this same dress for a good two days or more…" Glinda snatched up the bundle of clothes tumbling from her parcel out onto the floor, including Elphaba's dress.

"Yes…of course," Morrible mumbled, a little absently, with a wave of her hand.

Glinda jumped up from the chair and tried to flee.

"You will be in classes tomorrow morning?"

She halted by the door. "…Yes, Madame Morrible," she promised.

"Very well."

The door banged shut behind Glinda as she ran all the way back to her room, ignoring the startled cries and questions of Nessarose and Nanny as she entered, and simply locked herself in the bathroom without another word.

-

She was thankful that, due to her bathing at an unusual time of the day, there was enough hot water to fill the small tub in the bathroom. Glinda forced herself to relax and sank down in the water, now that Nanny had finally stopped banging her fists on the door and demanding answers, and that Nessa had ceased to scream bloody murder.

Her dress lay in a heap on the floor, next to her just as ruined shoes and stockings. Glinda remembered a time when her main concern would have been getting the mud - or whatever stains she had inflicted upon the material - out of such a beautiful day-dress, but she just couldn't bring herself to care. She had peered at the heap for a while, over the rim of the bath, but all she saw was a bundle of material and shoes that certainly hadn't been suitable for the journey she had undertaken. The dress had cost a fair amount, that much she knew, and now it was reduced to rags. There had been a time when she would have cried over it, back when she hadn't had anything else to cry about.

How could she…? How could she!?

How could Elphaba leave her to deal with everything on her own!? With what she knew and what she wasn't supposed to know, with Morrible and Nessa and dear devoted Nanny losing one of her beloved girls without even a letter of explanation? She wasn't a talker. She was perfectly content to be parked somewhere to look pretty! She couldn't do it! She couldn't! She would be caught in a lie, panic as to what to do, pull the whole world down around her! Glinda sat up before she inhaled too sharply and accidentally choked on the bathwater and her own anger. What did she have now? Pretty perfect life: gone! Drifting through university without a care, making the best of social connections: gone! Fantasy world where the real troubles of Oz couldn't reach her: gone! Best…friend…gone…

Did she think it was brave? Did Elphaba think she was being brave and noble and oh so grown up by running off like that? However adult Elphaba liked to behave, Glinda knew the green girl didn't know the Emerald City any better than she did. Which was not at all. Elphaba had no money, no accommodation, no food, and no friends in the City. What did she think she was going to accomplish in a state like that? A twenty year old girl, a twenty year old green girl alone and with no means to support herself. Really, really, smart for someone who claimed to be learned. More like really, really, stupid. Admirable. …But stupid.

Glinda knew anger was clouding her judgement, but still. Maybe she was bitter. Just a little bit bitter that Elphaba hadn't trusted her to stay with her. Perhaps it was being aware that her friend didn't have that much faith in her…and was right not to…that stung.

She forced heavy limbs to co-operate as she repeatedly shampooed her hair in an attempt to feel more human. She felt anything but human at that moment. Like a shadow, a ghost. Maybe the real Glinda was waiting somewhere to wake up again one day. Maybe she had run off with Elphaba and all that was left was a shell.

Stupid, stupid girl…how could she just abandon her, wake her up inside and leave her? It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair. It wasn't her fault she was so easily broken…was it? Why did Elphaba have to believe in something so much? Couldn't she just be content to muddle through life like the rest of them? Why did she have to think she was better than-

Glinda froze. She sounded positively like Nessarose.

Elphaba had the right to choose. She never had the right to anything else. She could be first class in her belief in her versions of right and wrong because she had been made to be so second class all her life.

How could she…? How? How in the hell could she start her on the path to being a better person and not stick around to see it through? How could she leave her with all this…in such a…mess?

Glinda stepped from the bath and towelled herself dry, leaving her hair a tangled mess for once. It quite suited how she felt, she decided. She reached for the dressing gown she always left hung on the bathroom door and wrapped it round herself, tying the cord. She had to be angry. She had to be as bitter and twisted as Nessa or she was never going to survive. If she wasn't angry, she would surely cry. Now Elphaba was gone, she had to be the strong one. She didn't have a choice. Just like Elphaba didn't for all those years.

Glinda took a deep breath and unlocked the bathroom door, ready to face the music.

-

"What do you mean she's gone?" Nessarose repeated, for what must have been the fifth time. She was glaring at the heap of a blonde who sat hunched over on her bed, knees drawn to her chest, eyes downcast. "What do you mean?" she continued, determined to get a better answer than the one she had received.

"Nessie-" Nanny began.

"No!" Nessa shouted. "She left with Elphaba and returns alone – she must have answers."

"…She's gone," Glinda said, again, voice low and controlled. "She sent me back here. She stayed… She didn't like what she heard and she stayed…"

"You chose to go-"

"She kidnapped me," she said.

"She no more kidnapped you than she did me!" Nessarose exclaimed.

"Miss Glinda has a mind of her own these days," Nanny agreed. "Our Elphie would not have led you astray had you not wanted it."

"Elphaba wouldn't just abandon me…" Nessa uttered, expression tinged with a sudden fear.

She wanted to snap that she wasn't the only one to have been abandoned. The fact that she had been graced with a goodbye somehow made it all the more painful. She was suddenly jealous of all the years Nanny and Nessarose had spent with Elphaba. Glinda had seen all too often the way Nessa spoke to her sister. She had taken her for granted. Well, no more.

"Well, she has…" Glinda answered, hoarsely.

"Glinda!"

"Now that's not nice," Nanny stepped in.

She got up from the bed. "She has!" she repeated, voice growing stronger. "She has chosen her path and she has abandoned us," she stressed. Glinda glared at Nessa. "You, me, Nanny, everyone. Elphaba chose. She didn't do it to spite you, Nessa, but she is gone. She didn't want to return and she doesn't want to be found."

"How could she!? She's always been so selfish-"

"Selfish!?" Now Glinda did shout. "How can you say that when she has taken care of you all her life? She loves you. Maybe this is her one selfish act, doing something for herself. I can't explain it, and I don't know why she did it, but I'll defend her right to have done it!"

"She abandoned you too!" Nessa shot back.

"I know!" she screamed, shaking. Glinda clamped a hand over her mouth, taken aback by the force her of reaction. "I know…" her voice hitched and her tears fell. Genuine anger just wasn't her talent. Mock surprise, fake disgust, theatrical displeasure she could pull off. Not anger she really, truly, felt. Not when it was so closely mixed with such despair. She exhaled slowly, trying to regain her composure. "But Elphaba's gone. It's just us now. She's said her farewells. If anyone can take care of themselves, it's her."

Nanny wiped the tears from Nessarose's eyes and took her by the shoulders. "Elphie will make herself known to you again at a time of her choosing. Not before. You know that as well as any of us. Until then, you have Nanny…and," she glanced across at the blonde, "…you have Glinda."

Glinda sank back down onto her bed, determined not to look at the empty one across from her. When she looked back, she would look upon this moment as one that defined the others, that led to what was to come. If she had rejected Nessa, if she had asked to sleep in the dorms…if she had refused there and then at the first hint of becoming a surrogate sister…perhaps everything would have been easier. Maybe things would have been different. Less difficult. She could have conveniently forgotten everything she had learned from Elphaba and become the young lady of society she had been. Oh, it would have been easy…blissfully so…she could have returned to being a marginally intelligent young woman more interested in what an 'education' could do for her rather than knowing what that education was. She could have been Galinda again. It would have been so, so easy…

But that didn't make it right.

Glinda nodded. "I'm not going anywhere, Nessa," she said softly.

And wasn't that just the truth? Elphaba was beginning a whole new stage of her life, standing up for whatever it was she believed in (Glinda still wasn't sure she quite understood any of it) and she was stuck at Shiz. She had nowhere to go but home. Back to a home full of the correct way to speak and what was acceptable conversation and how she should walk in certain types of heel. Nothing was going to change for her. She had lost the one person that had made her life remotely interesting, if only because she was forced to think and find other topics to speak about beyond the drawbacks of satin dresses and who was now officially betrothed to who. Glinda was terrified. It would certainly be easier to flee back to her old behaviour patterns…but what if she did? What if she became that girl again and forgot what it was like to actually have meaning in her life?

'Hold out, if you can.'

Elphaba knew. Elphaba knew just how difficult it was going to be. Elphaba had her grand war to fight…and Glinda had her own, much more personal…much more frightening…battle to wage against all she knew and all she had ever wanted.

The silence was shattered by a wail of a sob from Nessarose.

Glinda stood up and crossed the room to embrace her, sealing her fate there and then.