AN: Thank you so much for the reviews. It really helped to have some encouragement.
Glinda turned the shower on the hottest setting, letting the water scald her skin. Shivering despite the heat, she felt broken, empty, so drained of life. Her tears washed over her with the burning water until it was freezing, but she didn't feel any cleaner. Fiyero was dead. Elphaba hated her. And last night she had…she had…
Leaping from the shower, she made it just in time to vomit in the sink. After retching, she fell to her knees and curled up on the ground, letting the cool tiles press against her skin. Perhaps she would always feel this dirty, this used up and thrown away. She didn't have any more tears to cry, so she simply lay there, closing her eyes to the day.
She finally awoke on the bathroom floor, uncertain what time it was. Disoriented, she cleaned the mess left behind and rinsed her mouth out. A protective numbness took over, guiding her through her morning routine until she found herself fully dressed and outside the palace. She still felt so detached, the world reacting around her while she merely stood still. Moving in slow motion, she met citizens who offered their congratulations on her engagement.
She felt sick again - her engagement. They wouldn't know yet.
Her fiancé was dead, having betrayed her with another. The vision of Fiyero filled her mind in startlingly realistic clarity. He met her stare with dead eyes, accusing her of not doing more to save him, accusing her of killing Nessa, accusing her of the Wizard. Darkness, then the ground as she fainted.
She couldn't keep doing this. Drawing on all her inner strength, she forced herself to stay on top of things. Faking a sweet smile to attempt to fight the weariness, she shook off the concerns of those nearby. Blaming her embarrassing fainting on a dress tightened a little too much, she was able to charm the others into letting her alone. Calm their qualms. That had always been her mission and her talent.
Then she saw the Wizard and had to suppress an odd sensation to run. Consciously she hadn't avoided the Wizard, but she realized that she had managed to steer away from any business that might bring her in contact with him. She felt so strangely about seeing him. Last night was still lost to her, her memory covered in a mist that made details unclear. She couldn't think of anything he had done wrong, and yet she felt sick that he was approaching her. She resolved not to run away like a child, refusing to let her ridiculous paranoia get the better of her.
He reached her, and with a soft smile, kissed her hand. "How are you my dear?"
She didn't have an answer for him right away, but he didn't seem to notice. "Walk with me?" He tucked her arm around his, leading her away from the public areas of the palace. She followed him willingly enough, fighting the silly fears of shadowy areas. That green elixir must have really encouraged her imagination. She wished she had Elphie's strength, knowing Elphaba would never have been this weak and cowardly, frightened of nothing. How she missed her friend. Plagued with regrets at their last meeting, Glinda let herself fall into a reverie of unspoken words and unheard apologies. If only she had known the terrible price they would all pay, perhaps she would have had sufficient sense to put aside her pride and envy long enough to at least make everything right between them all.
The Wizard brought her attention back to him, though not in enough time to catch what he had asked. She smiled politely, "I'm sorry, I was lost in my thoughts. How rude of me. What did you ask?"
He stopped, turning to face her. "No, I'm sorry. Of course you would have more pressing concerns with everything you've faced, you poor dear. I shouldn't have bothered you with my worries." He chivalrously brushed his lips across her fingers, and she felt an odd shiver quite unlike the pleasant one she had felt yesterday at the same gesture.
She met his eyes kindly, seeing that he was indeed trying to be thoughtful of her needs. "Please. I insist."
"I was simply wondering if you would have dinner with me tonight. I had worried that you might be…upset by last night, and I want to assure you that I have the utmost respect for you my dear. In fact I find you quite alluring. So pretty and sweet a girl as you is very rare to find." His charismatic grin seemed shallower than normal somehow, but he seemed very sincere.
She could think of no polite reason to decline. Agreeing to meet him at seven, she dodged a kiss deftly, uncertain how she felt about this unusual development. He bid her farewell, telling her Madame Morrible was looking for her to start a press conference. Another one? She was growing weary of pretending to hate her dear friend publicly while mourning for her in private. Sighing, she went in searching of the woman, contemplating the situation she had gotten herself into
She felt uneasy around the Wizard now, though she remembered responding to his advances. Perhaps intoxicated by the elixir she had acted on some rebellious attraction, hidden impulse of feeling, or even out of desperate loneliness, but it hadn't been his fault. So why did she feel so manipulated by him? At face value, he seemed so kind and earnest, but she imagined she saw hints of impatience and ambition behind his polite exterior. Surely they were simply her own invention, but she could not change the way she felt. Whatever interest she might have cultivated, she had to be honest that she was no longer seeking comfort in any form from the Wizard. She would tell him so at dinner tonight.
She found Madame Morrible right as the conference was starting, pulled unknowingly into the spotlight without a word as to what was happening. She plastered her most convincing fake smile on her face, nervously wondering what tragedy she was smiling at this time. Chancing a glance at Madame Morrible, an ominous excitement lighting her eyes, Glinda was suddenly terrified of the turn things were taking. She felt the world whirling around her, determined to pull her and everyone she loved into some terrible catastrophe.
A ferocious, rabid mob had assembled, and as they shrieked their evil war cries, Glinda's eyes were wide with terror. Unable to distinguish much of their violent screeching, she did catch, overlapping with other vicious threats, the words "witch hunters" "evil…eliminated" "wickedness … punished" and "kill the witch." The mob's cry for blood was inhuman, and she found her false smile slipping from her face, backing toward Madame Morrible subconsciously for protection.
She watched Boq (sweet, adorable Boq who used to follow her around Shiz) leap up to address the mob and scream heartless vengeance against Elphaba, reduced to The Witch. Boq cruelly blamed Elphie for his condition among other crimes, claiming how much he would enjoying killing her. Glinda felt her blood run cold. How could this be happening?
They had to do something! This brutal mob was going to do something foolish, and Elphaba was going to get hurt. Glinda cried out desperately to refute Boq's hateful words, "That's not the way it happened!" Seeing she was having no effect, probably not even heard by the senseless horde, she frantically turned to the only authority nearby. "Madame, you've got to stop this, it's gone too far!"
The woman only gave her a superior look, answering her coolly. "Oh, I think Elphaba can take care of herself."
Connecting the cruel light in Morrible's face with her icy dismissal of Elphaba's danger, Glinda wondered how she could have missed the obvious evil in the other woman. Elphie had been right all along. Finally, she threw caution to the wind and confronted Morrible, feeling reckless and terrified at once. "Madame, something's been troubling me about Nessarose and that cyclone."
"Oh yes... well, I guess it was just her time."
Yeah right. Surprised at her braverism, Glinda continued with her obvious implications. "Was it? Or did you..."
Morrible's head turned slowly to stare at her penetratingly for a moment. Then dropping all pretense, her harsh words were angry as she hissed like a viper ready to strike. "Now, you listen to me, Missy, you may have fooled the rest of Oz with this "aren't I good" routine, but you know better. You've wanted this since the beginning... and now you're getting what you wanted. So just smile and wave and shut up!" With that she turned to face the crowd again, calling out to cheer on the murderers, "Good fortune witch hunters!"
Glinda was overwhelmed with fear for her friend. She could scream Elphie's innocence, but no one would listen. All they wanted now was blood, and Elphie had no one to protect her now that they had already killed Fiyero. Desperate and terrified, she considered asking the Wizard to intervene, but he hadn't been able to save Fiyero. Besides, she wasn't sure she trusted him or anyone with the life of her friend now. She saw the inevitable solution, and gathering the tatters of her bravery, she left in search of Elphie immediately with no thoughts but for her friend's safety.
Racing to gather her wand, she smacked face first into the Wizard coming to pick her up. "Oh, I'm so sorry," she was breathless from running. She continued gathering everything frantically as she spoke. "I've had an emergency. I won't be able to make dinner. Please forgive me. Some other time perhaps." She was secretly a little grateful for this excuse to avoid him, though it made her feel guilty that she could be even the tiniest bit happy about something that put her friend in danger.
The Wizard looked alarmed. "Is everything alright? Is there anything I can do to help?"
"No, no. I just need to leave at once. You understand. I'm terribly sorry, but I have to go right away." She was now halfway down the hall and out the door, calling her apologies and thanks for his understanding behind her shoulder as she half ran to get outside. Left behind, the Wizard looked very confused, but he had not fought her or demanded explanations, for which she was very grateful. Focusing on the task at hand, she managed to produce her bubble spell adequately and floated off to rescue Elphie. How she hoped she wasn't too late!