Galinda pushed open the door, sniffling back a running nose. Elphaba dove beneath the covers of her bed and hid. Galinda frowned at the pile of covers.

"Miss Elphaba, please." Galinda still wished for the informality of the rainstorm, but propriety really demanded that she address her as Miss. "I am not going to chew off your legs, you may come out."

"Don't scream." Galinda would have laughed if not for the timbre of Elphaba's voice. She agreed that she would not scream and Elphaba climbed out from beneath the covers. She was half-naked, wearing only a pair of underwear and a small bra. Her skin was speckled with red spots above her neck and generally rash-colored where Galinda could imagine she was covered with the wet dress material.

"Oz!" Galinda let out a whisper. It was not until she noticed Elphaba blushing that she realized her eyes had been transfixed on Elphaba's lean body. She blushed furiously and turned away, preparing to shake out her hair.

"Don't shake!" Elphaba warned her. Galinda sighed and grabbed the nearest blanket, from under her own bed, and wrung out her hair.

"Goodness, Miss Elphaba really. What has gotten into you? And onto you?" Galinda was almost talking to herself, but she was speaking just a decibel too loud for the words to be anything but conversational.

"Water, water." Elphaba muttered back, smoothing something over her skin and making it glisten pearlescent emerald in the light. Galinda longed to touch the skin that glowed in front of her. Pfannee and Shenshen had giggled and suggested that dear Miss Elphaba had skin like a snake: soft and glimmering to look at, but rough when touched. Galinda decided that nothing that looked that soft and inviting could be scaly.

'Wait a minute...' Galinda's subconscious waited a minute. 'Inviting? Since when is the greenbean inviting?' As she mulled this, she became aware that she was, yet again, staring in ernest at Elphaba's smooth skin.

"Miss Galinda?" Elphaba's tone, for the second time that day she reminded herself, was soft and curious. She would have to stop asking these questions and being soft and nice. She had a reputation to uphold. But now Galinda was talking again.

"I'm sorry, Elphie, er--!" Galinda jerked and spun on the spot, dropping the wet blanket and coughing hastily into her hand. "M-Miss Elphaba." Elphaba sighed inaudibly, her thin chest rising and falling dramatically despite the lack of noise.

"Go to bed, Miss Galinda. And take off those freezing clothes, you really will catch cold." Elphaba slipped into a very thin nightgown, wincing as it made its slow progress down her body and finally settled onto her shoulders.

"Fresh dreams, Miss Elphaba." Galinda pulled off her sopping dress and slip and grabbed a warm nightgown from her closet, yanking it over her head and smiling to herself, feeling that she had won a small personal triumph that day, even if Elphaba didn't realize it yet.