"You'll remember me when the west wind moves upon the fields of barley
You'll forget the sun in his jealous sky as we walk in fields of gold..."
Glinda the Good didn't feel so wonderful. Nessarose Thropp, the Wicked Witch of the East, was dead. It would break Elphaba, and so it broke her. Crouched in front of the farmhouse from Kansas, Glinda let herself grieve. It was short-lived, however, as the green-skinned goddess from Glinda's past appeared.
"What a touching display of grief." Oz, how her voice was bitter.
"I don't think we have anything further to say to one another," Glinda said, standing and moving away from her former friend. She was so betrayed, felt so awful. Watching Elphaba and Fiyero run away together hand in hand had broken something in her, and she wasn't sure how to begin repairing it.
"I wanted something to remember her by, and all that is left were those shoes, and now that wretched little farm girl has walked off with them. So I'd appreciate some time, alone, to say goodbye to my sister." Glinda couldn't deny Elphaba that, no matter how her heart ached. The ache was only compounded when Elphaba dropped to her knees and, mournfully, pleaded with her sister's ghost. "Nessa, please, please, please forgive me..."
"Elphie... you mustn't blame yourself. It's dreadful, it is, to have a house fall on you, but..." What could she say? "Accidents will happen."
"You call this an accident?" Elphaba's eyes glinted with rage.
Did Elphie really think she was this stupid? "Yes!" Perhaps she was. "Well, maybe not an accident..."
"Well, what do you call it?"
Glinda had very few words, and they were all choked in her throat. "Well... a regime change. Caused by a bizarre and unexpected twister of fate."
"You think cyclones just appear out of the blue?"
Glinda's heart was pounding. "I don't know, I never really..."
"No, of course you never! You're too busy telling everyone how wonderful everything is!"
How was there such disdain in her voice? What had Glinda ever done to her? "I'm a public figure, now. People expect me to - "
"To lie?"
"To be encouraging! And what exactly have you been doing besides riding around on that filthy, old thing?" Fire with fire, right? That would work.
"Well, we can't all come and go by bubble. Whose invention was that, the Wizard's? Of course, even if it wasn't I'm sure he'd still take credit for it."
In her mind, Glinda saw Elphaba and Fiyero fleeing once more, though the image was beyond unwelcome. "Yes, well, a lot of us are taking things that don't belong to us, aren't we?"
"Now wait just a clock tick! I know it may be difficult for that blissful, blonde brain of yours to comprehend that someone like him could actually choose someone like me! But it's happened... it's real. And you can wave that ridiculous wand all you want, you can't change it! He never belonged to you, he doesn't love you, and he never did! He loves me!"
Glinda slapped her, before she could help it. Was that was Elphaba thought, that she was jealous of her? Didn't she know what Glinda had thought back at Shiz? Elphaba had never shown an interest in boys like most girls did, and Glinda had started to suspect... The way Elphaba blushed, the way she ran off when Glinda said she was beautiful. Inviting her to the Emerald City, and then asking her to come with her after she'd fled the Wizard...
All these years, Glinda had haraboured a secret hope that Elphaba, in fact, loved her. She'd even thought that, maybe, she'd only run off with Fiyero as a convenient escape. But after that speech...
Glinda was in love with Elphaba, and Elphaba was in love with someone else.
Elphaba cackled, a much harsher version of the laugh Glinda had fallen in love with. "Feel better now?"
She knew the truth. There was no denying her love for Elphaba, and there was no pretending Elphaba could and would love her back. It was a relief, really. "Yes, I do."
"Good," Elphaba said, slapping her back. "So do I."
Glinda wanted to kiss her. They backed away from each other, each wielding her own special weapon. Glinda's, a sparkly wand, and Elphaba's, an old broom, magicked on that fateful night in the Emerald City. They fought, like children, Glinda eventually ripping Elphaba's hat off of her, that hat that she had given in a moment of thoughtless cruelty, until Gale Force Guards arrived to rip the two apart. They grabbed Elphaba, and Glinda felt the girl wrenched away from her.
"Stop! Let me go," Elphaba barked.
"Let me go, I almost had her," Glinda cried.
"Sorry it took us so long to get here, Miss," one of the guards said to Glinda, who felt her stomach sink.
"I can't believe you would sink this low! To use my sister's death as a trap to capture me?"
How could she think that? "I never meant for this to happen! Elphie!"
The next moments were a blur - Fiyero's entrance, his plea to Elphaba to run, to save herself. Glinda's realization that she'd been dating someone, Oz, become engaged to someone who was in love with the same woman she was, felt pure in its hopelessness. She saw in him the same beauty and strength that she'd fallen for, and knew that Elphaba loved that and more, needed that and more. When the Witch said she wouldn't go without him, Glinda begged Fiyero to drop his weapon, the gun he had trained on her. She was his hostage, now. She was both their hostage; they both had a hold on her in that moment.
They both wanted simply to hold the other.
When Fiyero said to go once more and Elphaba hesitated, Glinda found her voice. "Do it!"
Elphaba ran, fled because she was told to by the only two people in the world who had ever cared for her without expecting anything in return, and Fiyero dropped his weapon immediately, resigned. If she had to lose Elphaba to someone, it might as well be someone who truly loved her, and Fiyero definitely did.
When he was seized by the guards, to be taken to a nearby field and tortured for information, Glinda panicked. Elphaba wouldn't survive the loss of him...
"Wait, what?! What are you doing? Stop it! In the name of goodness, stop! Don't you see? He wasn't going to harm me, he just... he just... he loves her."
And she loved him back. They loved each other; they deserved each other. Fiyero loved Elphaba, the Artichoke, the Wicked Witch of the West.
Glinda understood.
There's an episode of "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" where Sting performs "Fields of Gold" acoustic, and it's so beautiful. It made me think of Elphaba and Fiyero, so I might write a songfic for them. But I also thought it was fitting, given the cornfield location, to use a line or two for this, and well as the title. Also, the Harriet Hayes character on "Studio 60" is based on Cheno, so it's like a big circle of life! Please review...