Disclaimer: I own nothing; for fun, not profit; etc.

Setting/Spoilers: Just after "I'm Not That Girl" and before "One Short Day." Foreshadows "Defying Gravity."

Notes: I can try to write musicalverse, but the characters will still insist on speaking to me bookverse-style.

"I've been summoned to the Emerald City," Elphaba announced without preamble when she entered the room.

Galinda had been poring over her sorcery book and attempting charms for the past hour, and her concentration had been wearing low as it was. Any hope of mastering the levitation spell was shattered with her roommate's words.

"What?" she said dumbly.

"My train leaves the central station in Shiz a week from tomorrow at one o'clock," Elphaba continued, sitting down and immediately rising again with as much giddiness as Galinda had ever seen her emanate.

"No!" Galinda exclaimed, dropping her book on her bed. "Why? Whatever shall I do without you? You can't simply leave me!"

Elphaba chuckled at that. "I would think you should do exactly as you had before I came along and wreaked havoc on your pretty life that had been, until then, devoid of strange and outspoken green girls."

"Elphie," her friend admonished.

"I won't even be gone a full week," Elphaba continued, still pacing in excitement. "I have enough faith in your ability to entertain yourself in lieu of my presence for that amount of time."

"But why, Elphie? Why and wherefore?" Galinda pressed, teasing. "This is obviously not news that has distressed you. You say you've been summoned – by whom?"

At this, Elphaba took out the summons Morrible had pressed into her hands twenty minutes before, and passed it to Galinda. "The Wizard, my sweet."

Her jaw dropped. "The Wizard?"

"There's none other," Elphaba remarked. "Madame Morrible evidently has connections I don't know about. She's spread word of my… abilities… and high praise it must have been, too, as she claims the Wizard himself has taken notice of it, which is corroborated by the official summons I received."

Galinda was looking at her with starry eyes, pleased beyond words for her roomie. "And what does Nessa have to say about this?"

Elphie shrugged, a little carelessly. "You're the first I've told."

"I am?"

"I thought it was perhaps best to have your reaction out of the way before I progress any further," Elphaba said drily, grinning. "Use it as a standard against which to hold everyone else's. Do you think it foolish of me to want to go?"

Galinda looked at her askance. "You've wanted this for as long as I've known you, and deserved it at least as long, Elphie. Why ever should I think it foolish?"

Elphaba looked away and shrugged again, a little more uneasily than she had before. "Perhaps I am too used to someone needing me."

Galinda frowned, having easily read into her last two statements. "Nessarose will get over it," she stated bluntly. "And I shall miss you desperately, of course – the room will be positively barren without your scowl to liven it up. But far be it from me to prevent you from doing something so wonderful as this. I only wish I were coming with you."

"Why?" Elphaba asked, equally directly. There never had been any room for equivocating in their relationship in any of its forms.

"Elphaba," Galinda said wearily, for she had sensed this coming a long while. "We both have other friends and allegiances outside of each other, and this will likely always be the case. But I promise you this – I will never demand anything of you, and certainly not more than you are willing to give of yourself."

It was an unlikely thing to come out of her mouth, and Elphaba was struck momentarily speechless at her perception.

"Why?" she asked again, quietly, causing her roommate to sigh in something like sadness.

"Because," Galinda said sweetly, leaning over to peck her friend's cheek girlishly, "if no one else does, I see who you truly are."

Elphaba became rigid at her admission, and fixed her eyes on some indiscernible spot somewhere past the horizon outside the window. These were not the circumstances under which she had imagined that statement being made, nor was Galinda the person she had hoped would give it; but Elphaba was forced to admit nonetheless that she would not have it another way, and she clung to it fiercely, as she already suspected she would do for a long time after.

"I promise you the same," she finally said softly, pulling Galinda close to her side, feeling the blonde's head fall comfortably on her shoulder. "If I can promise you nothing else."