Okay, so, summer's here, and I finally got to edit this chapter to give it a little more…substance. It's the same in the beginning, but there's a lot about Glinda that's been added in the middle before she goes into Elphaba's room, because I just wanted to explore her emotions and the way she dealt with the situation. It's a little…different, at least some of the writing and dialogue is. I have another short chapter I've finished and I'll put it up in a little while.

"My son," Elphaba said, and looked away. Her eyes burned with shame—even Glinda could see it.

"Elphie…" Glinda said. "What happened? Elphie, no, look at you, you're—you look sick, you look—oh, Elphie, I thought when I left you—"

Elphaba shook her head, painfully. "I just need a bed. For a few nights, and then we'll find something. Just until I'm strong enough to work."

Glinda looked faint. She watched in astonishment as Elphaba unwound the cloth from the bundle in her arms to reveal an infant, visibly weak and emaciated. He had a dusting of black hair on his head and piercing, saucer-sized blue eyes. Elphaba rocked the child a little and helped him push his thumb into his mouth, so he could suck; he tried to right himself in her arms and curled his toes in frustration when he could not find the strength to lift himself.

"Take them upstairs, Meena," Glinda choked, stunned. "Give her milk, give her whatever she needs—" Glinda couldn't bear to look at Elphaba any longer. She turned and fled up the stairs, hobbling comically in the tight constraints of her gown, tears of utter disbelief streaming down her face.

Elphaba and Azure were led to the attic of the mansion on Gordon Place, a large, sloping room decorated with vases of flowers and imitation portraits of long-ago Emerald City diplomats. There was a large steel-framed bed in the center of the room, piled high with throw pillows and quilts, a claw-footed bath behind a curtain, a carved table next to a grated bay window and a potbellied stove near the wall. The Munchkin maid gave Elphaba a jug of milk, and the green woman accepted it wordlessly, her head bowed in shame. When mother and son were left alone, Elphaba laid Azure on the bed, freed him from his tight bindings and put him on a folded cloth in front of the fireplace, to keep his thin body warm.

Azure laid limply on the bed his mother had made for him, and she helped him roll onto his side so he could watch the orange flames licking in the fireplace. He couldn't hold himself there, so she put her hand on the small of his naked back as support and watched the fire with him.

In the parlor adjoining the master bedchambers, Glinda sunk onto a lemon-colored chaise lounge, dizzy and overwhelmed. The lace-trimmed room slid in and out of focus, her vision blurred with tears of anger and disbelief. She curled up on the carefully upholstered cushions and put her head in her hands, and her small frame was racked with uncontrollable and inexplicable sobbing.

When Lady Glinda finally regained her composure, she rolled off the lounge and onto her shaky feet, wiping the last powdery makeup from her tear-stained cheeks. Her hair, carefully done up for a political luncheon of Sir Chuffrey's earlier in the day, had fallen from its crown above her head and framed her face in a knotted, frizzy mane. Hazily, Glinda padded across the room to an elegant bronze mirror by the southern wall; she looked tearfully at her dismal reflection and began to rip the jeweled pins and tiara from her tangled locks, grimacing in pain. Her face set, Glinda attempted to work an ivory comb through her hair, but moments later, with an anguished cry, she hurled it against the opposite wall and collapsed into angry sobs once more.

She had so much. Elphie was going to go so far. She was going to expose the Wizard, and avenge poor Doctor Dillamond's death. She was going to fight, and fight, for the Animals, for the underdogs—she was going to be my voice, my inspiration. Glinda tore another jeweled pin from her head and stared at it, her breath coming heavily. A clump of pale blond hair was caught in its clasp; the warm torchlight reflected off of the hundreds of tiny, gleaming emerald surfaces. "Damnit, Elphie!" she said, throwing the thing to the ground. Elphie—what happened?

Dusk settled on the mansion on Gordon Place, and with it Glinda's tears dried. She undressed in a daze and put on a cream-colored night slip, and sat at the tall windows of the parlor, watching her watery reflection in the glass. It seemed only moments ago that she had stood behind sharp, wiry Elphaba in their dorm room at Shiz, both of them staring at the green specter reflected in the scratched pane. Glinda blinked back tears again.

Elphie. Elphie has a son. Elphaba has a…the thought was too large for her to wrap herself around.

Elphie…

For the first time, Glinda thought of the child. Though her eyes had been clouded with tears when she saw him, his face, in her mind's eye, was clear. He had looked far too old to be an infant; his face was wizened and his mouth thin and unsmiling. The boy's unmistakable azure eyes, deep, brooding and thoughtful, were only part of him that showed any life. His little legs were limp, she remembered, his body too weak to lift them. Elphie, your son…you have a son.

Later that night, there was a timid knock on the parlor door. "Lady Glinda?" came a soft voice with an accent distinctly Glikkun; one of the maids, Glinda thought, dismissively—she couldn't remember the girl's name.

"Yes, what is it? Come inside, if you must." She wiped tears furiously from her eyes, and attempted futilely tountangle her once regal-looking hairdo. "Go on, don't be afraid," Glinda said when the door remained steadfastly closed, aware her voice was still unstable and shaky with crying.

The Glikkun maid pushed the door open slowly and cautiously. She wore a traditional maid's costume—an ankle-length black dress and green-fringed apron—with the crest of the Chuffrey family embroidered on her sleeve, and the greasy brown hair above her plain face had been tucked into a lacy green cap. "Supper, Lady Glinda," the girl said, making her way into the room with a silver tray in her arms. She set the dishes on a coffee table near the chaise lounge where Glinda had collapsed only a few hours earlier, and began to edge her way out of the parlor, eyes wide with fear.

"Wait," Glinda interjected, quickly. "Wait, wait, you…I've forgotten your name."

The Glikkun girl looked startled. She didn't think the Lady Glinda had ever asked her name; it was not a matter of forgetting. Adjusting her lopsided cap, as though it were a nervous tic, the maid whispered, "Sira. Sira of the…" she trailed off and turned beet red, and seemed to forget.

"Sira," Lady Glinda said, distantly. "Did you see the woman who came here? Elphie? Did you see her, just a little while ago? Her and the baby?"

Sira nodded, her eyes still the size of saucers. "The green one," she offered.

Glinda laughed, emptily. "Oh, Elphie would have hated that. People always only see the green with Elphie, they always did. They do. You know she's still alive? I thought—I thought for sure she was dead, she must be, or else why would she—why—why would she have abandoned Nessa and Nanny and Boq and Crope…and me? Why else if she wasn't dead?" Tears were in her eyes again. The Glikkun maid backed away from her dazed mistress in terror and confusion, and Glinda continued obliviously. "Turns out…she's not," Glinda said, with a hollow chuckle. "Turns out, she has a baby. A little boy. A little—" she choked, "—a little boy who loves her. Turns out she fell in love. Elphie in love! Can you imagine that? Elphie in love, and now with a little baby. And me all alone, in a cold house, with a cold husband. Isn't it funny how things turn out?"

Glinda had forgotten Sira altogether by now, and the Glikkun girl took the opportunity to flee back to the comfort of the kitchens, and regain her composure there.

"It's funny," Glinda continued, eyes blank. "You know, at first when I saw Elphie, I was happy? I thought, at last she's come back for me. I thought, it will be like at Shiz, we'll be friends, we'll laugh—and then I saw…I saw that little hand! That little hand…things change so fast. People change so fast. That little hand."

Realizing at last that the maid had slipped away, Glinda sighed and lapsed off into silence. She went and locked the door of the parlor, then wrapped herself in a warm fur and sat by the fireplace with her knees pulled up to her chest and a single tear sliding slowly down her cheek. She picked a little at the food Sira had brought her—roast duck in a sauce of caramelized onions and red wine—but she was hardly hungry.

When it had grown dark, Glinda found the house's master key in one of Sir Chuffrey's drawers and slipped out of her parlor. Her anger at Elphaba—for forsaking her so many years ago, for her starving child and her lifeless eyes—had dissolved into sadness and curiosity.

In her fashionable night slip, Glinda mounted the stairs into the attic and gently jiggled the key in its lock until the door creaked open. There was moonlight streaming into the gabled room from the big bay window by the bed, and she could see Elphaba's sleeping form, curled in a fetal position around the body of her infant son.

In the moonlight, Elphaba's deep green skin was almost translucent. Her hard, lined face had softened into something more resembling the form of the spunky Shiz girl that Glinda had loved, but there was no denying it—Elphie was transformed. Every movement she made seemed to be centered around her child. Even in sleep, Elphaba's long green fingers lay gently on his scalp, one hand on the small of his back to assure the boy's even breathing.

Her son. Elphaba has a son, Glinda told herself. She bent closer over her friend's sleeping figure to see the child, to make sure he was real. He slept curled in a U shape, his tiny legs tucked up underneath him, gently sucking his thumb. Glinda could see his labored breathing was matched with Elphaba's. In and out…in and out…Where could the child possibly be from? Was he really Elphaba's, her flesh and blood? He was beautiful…

"Oh, Elphie," Glinda whispered, her lips barely moving. There were silent tears on her cheeks again. She hadn't cried like this since the day Elphaba left, almost six years ago. How somebody could change in the space of that time, she thought.

Glinda tore her eyes away from the sleeping Elphaba and turned to leave. She thought of facing Elphie in the morning, and she could hardly bear it.