A/N: Here it is, another chapter. Shorter than the previous ones but the content wouldn't mesh with a lengthy read. Remember friends, reviews are food for the soul—and without soul, people die. Very good people.

Disclaimer: I do have a whole lot of stuff, you could say a mess instead...but I can't find Wicked anywhere in the trash under my bed.


It was extremely unpleasant, Elphaba mused, to wake up to the sound of a voice that high-pitched. Her ears felt as though a woodpecker was ravaging them in search of insects. Brain still foggy, she turned away from the wall she had been trying to cuddle with in her sleep and set her bleary eyes on her roommate, who was muttering to herself in the mirror.

"Surely you're not homesick enough to have gone mad yet," Elphaba commented, yawning on the last word. Galinda jerked in surprise and whirled around sharply, narrowing her eyes.

"I see the sea monster has risen from her slumber. What have I done to deserve such a fate?"

"Let me just count all your evil deeds, it might take a whi—" Elphaba drawled, but was cut off.

"You have no idea what you're talking about!" Galinda yelled shrilly, making Elphaba wince. "I suggest you keep your mouth shut or—"

"Hm, I would...but there would be no fun in that," Elphaba said in mock seriousness, sitting up in interest now that Galinda's smooth facade of a personality seemed to crack the tiniest bit. Or perhaps she had really gone mad. Either way, amusement abounded.

"I knew it. I knew you were born to try your hand at ruining my life—and everyone else's eyes, of course, with that horrific—"

"God, it's just the same record playing over and over again, isn't it?" Elphaba scowled, jovial mood dampened. "In case you haven't noticed, I can't help it!" She gestured wildly at herself. Honestly, where was the originality? She had passed sick and tired of the topic of her skin color about ten years ago.

"Well, neither can my disgust! Really, you—"

"I suppose you think I should just chop my skin off—"

"—a little more respectful to your superiors, that might get you somewhere."

"What? Superiors?" Elphaba let out a derisive laugh. "You couldn't be less superior to me if you were a frog fetus with an inferiority complex."

'Well, I suppose something green would make you feel better—"

"The only thing that would make me feel better is if you fell in a ditch and—"

"I am completely uninterested in any crude remark you have—" Galinda put on an impassive face, raising her nose in the air and apparently trying to pretend she was above the entire conversation.

"I know the truth hurts, but facing it is the first step to recovery from brain damage—"

"—most likely a result of the clearly visible bad breeding you so pride yourself on despite the amount of—" Galinda stopped abruptly, hands flying to her mouth and cheeks puffing out as she dashed to the small bathroom in their dorm and slammed the door behind her. The muffled sound of dry heaving echoed in the room and Elphaba cringed in disgust before her thoughts turned to surprise and then, inexplicably and terribly, worry and shame. Had she caused that with a few simple words?

No, that's impossible, she thought, not completely convincing herself. Either the girl was an excellent actress or she had really felt that repulsed...or, logically, she was sick. Elphaba tried to think back to when she had just woken up, when Galinda had turned to fling an insult of her own, but she couldn't see her face in her mind's eye. She noticed that she didn't look closely at Galinda, never seemed to pay much attention to what exactly she looked like. She was more of an idea to her than a person; someone who encompassed everything she had come to hate about Oz's most exclusive society girls, who lived and died in luxury and love without having had a care in the world, except perhaps looking pretty. Impossible as she was, it wasn't worthwhile even speaking to her, she knew, but it was difficult to refrain when the mere sight of her was so infuriating.

This is what she drives me to, Elphaba mused, Starting absolutely pointless arguments. I never would have spoken first if she hadn't been so insufferably...so...hm. She wasn't sure how to describe whatever it was that she hated about the girl, but she knew it was something positively horrid and dreadful and more disgusting than her own skin color seemed to be. Her entire being reeked of it. Perhaps "blonde" was the right word, but that didn't seem to cover it.

She huffed a sigh. Despite her immense loathing for her roommate, Elphaba wasn't cruel enough to leave her there when she might have been severely ill. Truthfully, she was a little furious with herself for starting the tiff in the first place, when she had had nothing to prove. The undeniably human action—uncontrollable bodily function or not—stirred her into remembering that Galinda was a person under all those elaborate frills, and had her standing still, trapped in indecision. The disgusting sound had stopped but she could hear sniffling; she hadn't thought of the possibility that Galinda had really lost it, but an unusual show like this was surely a sign. Had she been anyone else, she would have taken to alerting Shiz's human rumor mills about this development immediately, but she resented them as much as they did her.

Shutting her eyes in resignation, Elphaba forced herself to snap out of it and rapped on the bathroom door sharply. No answer came, save for perhaps a few extra sniffles; she knocked again, rapidly several times.

"LEAVE ME ALONE!" The reply came, shrill as ever, making Elphaba jump and wince simultaneously as she realized that perhaps Galinda wasn't apt at showing humanity at all, save for an apparent nervous breakdown. Exhaling sharply, she shut her mouth and decided not to press any further. It was a moot point.

xxx

Thoroughly humiliated, Galinda crouched in the bathroom and bit back tears instinctively, sniffling. How had she ever sunk so low? Perhaps dieting so extremely was steadily chipping away at her core instead of replenishing it like she had intended. Never had she broken down so obviously, betrayed by her body, which had chosen the worst person possible to witness the display. She knew without a doubt that the whole university would be blabbing about this within the span of an hour, twisting elaborate stories of stomach flus and illegitimate pregnancies and whatnot. Perhaps she should just give up.

It was obvious that letting go of herself and everything she was entrenched in was not an option, but occasionally she let herself entertain the thought of simply stopping and letting the stress roll off her shoulders. It was as though everyone was constantly right beside her, watching her, pushing their demands and requirements on her without the option to say no. Then again, she wouldn't have if she could. It was all she knew, and she loved too much about it to let it go.

xxx

On the long trek to Sorcery, Elphaba had some time to ponder. Trampling through piles of leaves with a satisfying series of crunches, her book bag bumping into her with every step, she thought about the odd occurrence earlier that day. Bickering with her roommate wasn't unusual in the slightest, but for her to show a bit of the soft skin underneath her armor, much like an alligator's underbelly, was quite insane. It still stunned her, even several hours later, to have witnessed such a display.

When Galinda's body had chosen to betray her, as bodies often did, something had shifted in Elphaba. Any health problem the girl had was most likely minute and wholly uninteresting, but the event had served to remind her that there were traces of humanity beneath the exterior. After all, Galinda hadn't easily recovered from the simple bodily function, which would have been quite easy. It was a small shift, nothing monumental; the tectonic plates of her mindset did not move and the tides did not change direction, but it was more like a small chip in the persona tacked on to her roommate and stored away in her mind.

She had noticed, first and foremost when walking out that morning and having been unable to get it off her mind, that they never managed to argue about anything vital. Despite their age, these were primary school squabbles, with no purpose but perhaps to prove each other wrong about themselves. That purpose was heavily cloaked, however, in childish taunts that made Elphaba's skin squirm with discomfort as she thought of them coming out of her own mouth. How could she have ever sunk so low? It was a talent to bring out the immaturity she had worked so hard to beat down, especially when it came to her skin, which it inevitably did. It bothered her that someone could dislodge a part of herself that she had believed to be firmly buried away.

The truth of the matter, and one she would only admit to herself, was that she didn't know enough about Galinda to form such conclusive opinions about her. All she had to go on was that she was blonde and shallow, which she commented on continuously much like her skin was focused on. Galinda had concluded that she was green and repulsive as such, but both of them had, with such startling finality, immediately decided upon hating one another. There must have been more, though. Each person had their faults and virtues. Galinda must have had some as well, hard as they were to spot. It was humanly impossible to be inhuman, after all.

It was a hellish miracle for her thoughts to be traveling that path, but Elphaba had always been an avid thinker. She would give the girl a chance; try to see what she was made of. If she found a redeeming trait or two in the girl—that was really the highest amount she could hope for—perhaps things would change and they could be at least civil to one another. If not…at least she would have new material for insults.

Childish as it was, Elphaba dearly wished to be let down.

xxx

"Greetings, darlings!" Madame Morrible boomed, extending her huge arms to beckon the girls into the classroom behind her. Galinda smiled past the wonderment she had felt when she had seen Cathareen standing there with Elphaba, both girls resolutely ignoring each other. "Come in!"

The trio traipsed into the pseudo classroom, which was more a sitting room than anything, and Galinda perched on a lush divan with Cathareen beside her. Elphaba grudgingly followed to sit beside Cathareen, looking wholly uncomfortable. Good. Galinda hoped the entire experience would be terrible for her. She was the one who deserved to be there, not that artichoke. It was ridiculous that she, with so much magic in her lineage, had to fight tooth and nail to even attend the lesson when bottom-barrel trash was welcomed with open arms.

"Thank you, Madame, for having us here," Galinda trilled sweetly, becoming visibly miffed when the woman waved her away, more in dismissiveness than generosity. She took a sip of her tea to hide her grimace, glancing at Elphaba out of the corner of her eye and averting her gaze when she looked back at her. They hadn't spoken at all since that morning, and Galinda preferred it that way. She had been so tired all day. Taking another sip of her tea, she wished for biscuits despite herself.

They appeared on the table.

Galinda's jaw dropped, and she saw Madame Morrible wink at her, completely ignoring Elphaba's tentative question.

"Oh yes, this room does that," she smiled, seeming to relish Galinda's surprise, "Feel free to serve yourselves." She gestured to the bowl of biscuits.

Galinda hesitated, torn. That one biscuit could ruin her diet...but it would be despicably rude to refuse. She plucked a round cookie from the heap and bit into it, her taste buds savoring the first morsel of any kind of nourishment she had eaten all day. Swallowing, she felt as though the biscuit was falling into endless abyss, impossibly small in the dried up lake of her stomach. She took another one, telling herself it wouldn't make any difference.

"This meeting—or lesson, shall we say—is merely to get ourselves acquainted," Morrible said, producing three identical books from the shelves flocking the walls, "And for you to receive your textbooks."

Galinda took one of the books, appraising its black leather cover, which was embossed with the words, An Introduction to the Basics of Magic. She suppressed a roll of her eyes. Not merely an introduction—an introduction to basics. The practical part of the course seemed millenniums away.

"It is imperative that one knows what magic is before one magic does," Morrible smiled knowingly, "Now, please enjoy each others' company as much as possible in these moments, because I will be working individually with each of you more often as time progresses."

Enjoyment; as if. Galinda saw Cathareen scoff silently, and the two exchanged a meaningful glance.

Galinda froze.

The difference was small enough to have been completely unnoticeable, had she not been sitting so close to the girl. While Galinda had been expecting to see frosty blue orbs staring back at her, Cathareen's eyes were an undeniable shade of light green.

Galinda attributed it to a trick of the light; the cushioned divans in the room were a rich deep green. It could even have been her own misjudgment; Cathareen's eyes were light enough for the color to be questionable. It was the only plausible explanation, and the only sane one, so Galinda decided on that.

The three girls sat in tense silence for ten more minutes before Madame Morrible graciously ended the ordeal. Elphaba, who had been uncharacteristically silent for most of that hour, left just as silently in the opposite direction she had come in. Galinda had been about to ask Cathareen to go have coffee with her, but stopped herself when she heard the girl ask to speak with Morrible in private. Galinda strode away, her heavy textbook weighing on her thin arm like a burden.