No sooner had the family set foot in the hall back at Ty Sant than Elphaba retired to bed. She was halfway up the stairs as she made her good nights but not before giving Glinda's hand a quick squeeze. Highmuster also said good night but Glinda was still gazing up the stairs when her mother said, "What a lovely evening."

"Yes," Glinda agreed, not entirely convinced it was not all a dream.

There was a quiet, comfortable haze. Glinda fancied she could still hear the music from the party.

"It's been a lovely weekend," her mother continued.

"Yes." Glinda's attention was drawn now by her mother's nervous demeanour.

"Shall we sit?" Larena gestured to the parlour. "I'm so glad you could come - and your father too - that you could come."

Glinda took a seat, finding herself unfazed that a Conversation of Importance was gathering quickly on the horizon.

"I am sorry that you did not come before. I feared after you left that I had lost you."

"No, Mama."

Larena twisted her hands in her lap. "It would only have been my own fault."

Glinda frowned. She had been a different person when she left. And no longer knew how that person fitted in here. She had believed herself destined for great things and it excited her. Now the responsibility of knowing the great things that must be done terrified her. But Glinda stayed quiet, allowing this to unfold.

"My own fault if - after experiencing more of the world - you realised how limited you were here. So that you no longer wanted to return."

"This is my home," Glinda said gently.

"You have to understand, I only wanted the best for you."

Well, that didn't sound good at all.

Half of Glinda's mind was still located upstairs following Elphaba through her bedtime routine. Glinda knew it so well after all. She was just beginning to regret not having followed Elphaba upstairs - in equal parts to be out of this increasingly uncomfortable situation, and to just be in Elphaba's company some more.

Now, finally, it seemed her mother was ready to begin dismantling her daughter's romance. It was a pity, Glinda had genuinely believed - hoped, dared to dream - that there might be some real compassion there.

"I have made so many mistakes," Larena continued.

Glinda shut her eyes and allowed herself a little laugh. At her own trusting stupidity.

Larena continued, fumbling through her words. "I thought, when you were younger, that if we did not talk about it we could avoid it somehow. I was worried about how it might impact your life. How it might make things difficult for you. But that was wrong of me. Made you think it was something shameful. I thought I only wanted the best for you. But perhaps it was what was best for me, more preferable at least. Until I realised we might lose you. And that this - Elphaba - is best for you."

Glinda's eyes opened. They nearly popped from her skull.

"I am so happy for you sweetheart."

"Thank you," she managed to say.

She sat there, waiting it seemed. All this time, all this pretence. Mismatched fears and concerns. All for what? For a lie. To have to rescind it all. But she would still have this - an openness she could never have dreamt of. Too bad it was doomed, that Glinda had extracted it on a falsehood.

Glinda collected herself as much as she could. Which was not very much at all. "You knew when I was younger?"

"Well, I suspected."

"I didn't," Glinda said simply. "I didn't know."

"I'm sorry. It must have all been very difficult and I should have been here for you. You have my and your father's support, always. We are so very proud of you, of everything you do. And I am so sorry for how I must have made you feel that wasn't so."

Glinda's mind darted through her memories, testing each one for some sign of what her mother thought she saw. There was only ignorance.


The train rocked gently and Glinda flicked idly through her newspaper, wrestling with the armful of cheap paper and smearing ink on her hands. Until she allowed it to crumple and deflate into her lap.

Elphaba, watching her from over the top of her own copy: "Everything all right?"

"Yes," Glinda sighed with enough drama to ensure even Elphaba would continue to probe.

Elphaba accordingly put down her paper. "Are you concerned about something? Did the weekend not go as planned?"

"It went well, don't you think?"

"I thought it went well."

"Did you enjoy it?"

Elphaba glanced back to the safety of her paper. "Enjoy is perhaps a strong word."

"You survived."

"Indeed." Then, "I did enjoy it. I liked seeing your home and seeing you with your family."

"It's different to spend time away from Shiz." The only time they had done was the disastrous visit to Caprice in the Pines their first summer. That hardly counted. "It's a pity we won't be able to do it again."

"Oh?" Elphaba was being deliberately innocuous in a way that seemed transparent now that Glinda knew precisely how much guile she possessed.

"I mean, how much longer would we keep this up?"

"You are right of course. It must be drawn to a close at some point."

"Do you think now? Would now be the time to do that?" It was as though Glinda were picking at a healing wound. Deliberately to cause herself pain.

"I wouldn't want your parents to feel any burden of it having been due to the weekend."

Glinda considered this. "No, you are quite right. They might worry. So… after a little while?"

"I suppose the right time will come to us."

"Yes. You don't have any particular feelings as to when?"

"No," Elphaba said, the picture of unconcerned innocence.

"And in the meantime?"

"I am happy to continue as we were in Shiz. Only your family know, it concerns no-one else."

"No, you are right. As long as you are happy. I realise what an imposition I have put you under."

"Not at all," Elphaba demurred. "It has has been a very educational experience."

"Hasn't it just," Glinda exhaled. "Who knew the Pertha Hills were a hotbed of such sympathies. Why does no-one talk about this?"

"Deny women their power and autonomy. Why do you do you think do you think they shut maunts away in those dusty old buildings, away from view and out of earshot?"

"Maunteries are hotbeds of sympathetic tendencies too?"

"No, no, I mean women's power. Although, maybe, who knows?"

Glinda was slightly alarmed by this prospect. Maybe the initial instinct to run away to a mauntery had been more accurate than she knew.

How did Elphaba feel about it all though?

"Did you know of it, growing up? My mother talked to me about it last night. She apologised - for keeping knowledge of such things from me as a child."

"Did she? That was nice. Misplaced, but nice."

"The point still stands," Glinda dared. "She ought to have told me. Did you know?"

Elphaba looked at her for a steady clock tick.

"I have told you before about my mother's lover, Nessa's real father, the Quadling Turtle Heart?"

"Yes." One time, late at night, when Elphaba was stewing about her father's favoritism.

"We all knew Turtle Heart was Nessa's father. But my father adored her."

Yes, that had seemed odd.

"Because my father loved Turtle Heart too. It wasn't an affair, as such. They all lived together."

Oh. "Why didn't you ever say?"

"It never seemed relevant."

"If it happened to you it is relevant to me," Glinda assured her. "Did they ever talk about it?"

"Not in so many words. But it was real and I know it was not so exceptional. Then once Turtle Heart was killed and my mother died there was no asking Father about any of it."

"That's awful."

Elphaba shrugged. "No more awful than happens to people all over Oz every day."

"Well, I don't care as much about all the unnamed people as I do about you."

"It's not my tragedy, it's theirs. They are dead. It taught me…"

"What?" Glinda held her breath.

"That there are no happy endings, I suppose." The practicality with which Elphaba delivered the line was chillingly impersonal.

"No, Elphaba, that's terrible."

"Never mind it."

Glinda did not want her to get away with so abruptly abandoning such an important conversation. Not out of prurient interest, she would have you know, but genuine affection.

It seemed clear to Glinda that their weekend had bonded them. Some of the residual emotion lingered around them in a cloud. Would Elphaba ever have revealed so much in any other situation? Maybe she felt it as well. A layer had been shed, a wall removed from between them, a distance closed, first by the weekend and now by this.

And Elphaba did not want to end their performance immediately. She was content for whatever reasons to have it continue apparently indefinitely. What did that mean? What did that reveal of her thinking? Very little, for Elphaba's line of thought was likely to be too incomprehensibly advanced for Glinda to make the slightest attempt at guessing.

"I'm sorry if it seemed I was trivialising these things," Glinda managed to say.

Elphaba raised an eyebrow.

"You know, making it up and subjecting myself to this sort of scrutiny - and yourself. Like I thought it was a joke. I don't think it is a joke."

"Noted," Elphaba said. Rebuffing any attempt Glinda would try to make it personal somehow.

They discussed deep subjects but in many respects they knew very little of each other's lives. Glinda had not known that rather central insight into the family structure Elphaba had grown up with. How open-minded that seemed. And yet they had still been unable to be open about so many things. A gulf that Elphaba still suffered from.

Glinda wanted to be able to prove that wrong, but what happy ending did she have to offer Elphaba? The world had dashed most of Glinda's expectations since being at Shiz.

Elphaba expected nothing but dashed hopes so did not dare to hope them.

"It's all very complicated," Glinda grumbled instead.

Elphaba managed to look a little bit sympathetic about it, as though Glinda was only now cottoning onto a truth Elphaba had comprehended since birth.