A/N: Trigger warning for mentions of an eating disorder, though I tried to keep it light. Happy reading!

Galinda noticed her own steps growing slower the closer she came to Room 22 and cursed herself for it. She wasn't afraid. More than that, she refused to be afraid. This room had been meant to be her own; one place where she could let her guard down and just be herself at least for a few hours. Pretending to be the perfect little socialite her parents expected her to be left her exhausted every day, by the time classes ended and she said goodbye to her so-called friends her, head suffered from a vicious headache and all she wanted was to be left in peace.

As long as that socially awkward, annoying know-it-all and always reading green parasite inhabited the other side of the room, none of that was possible.

If she was honest to herself, it wasn't even the strange green skin that disturbed her the most, though she pretended otherwise to everyone else. It was that even when the green girl was reading, she could feel her eyes on her like nails piercing through her skin. The short, sarcastic comments she made whenever Galinda stretched her burning feet after a day in high heels, or when she stood in front of her closet not knowing what to wear, or asked her to switch off her light so she could finally sleep.

After a day spent with people who had nothing better to do than gossip and talk about boys, handling her irritating roommate was the last thing Galinda needed. Her head and her feet were killing her and she could barely decide which one was worse, and all she wanted to do was take a nice long bath, snuggle up beneath her covers and hide until morning light forced her to do it all again.

Maybe her roommate was in the library, she thought to herself, mentally keeping her fingers crossed as she turned her key in the lock and opened the door.

Next thing she knew her heavy designer handbag slipped through her fingers and fell to the floor, her headphones, various tampons, a forgotten chocolate bar and several other belongings spilling all over the room and hallway.

"Elphaba!" She screamed as she hurried over to her roommate lying on the floor next to her bed. The green girl didn't react and for a short, terrifying second she thought she was dead.

When she fell to her knees next to her body, grabbing her shoulders and shaking them, a gigantic wave of relief crashed through her entire body as she noticed that Elphaba was breathing.

Still, she got no reaction and in blind panic of not knowing what to do, she looked around the room, trying to make sense of what might have happened. Had someone attacked her? But the room had been locked and there were no signs of bruises whatsoever on her skin.

As she took a closer look to her roommate, however, she noticed that while it didn't seem like someone had physically hurt her, something about her was off. Elphaba's t-shirt must have slid up during the fall, leaving the emerald skin of her stomach exposed, but the color was not what had Galinda's eyes glued to the sight.

Had her roommate's ribs always been that visible? They protruded out of her skin as if she was nothing more than a skeleton, and Galinda desperately tried to think of a time she had noticed it before. Elphaba barely changed in front of her, always using the bathroom or hurrying to cover herself if the blonde walked in on her. Galinda had barely payed enough attention to her to ruminate about her reasons, and if she had, she would have just assumed it was due to the fact that she was embarrassed about her skin color.

Before she could think about the action, she reached out her hand to gently touch the green girl's stomach, which was rather concave than anything else. Tracing one of her protruding ribs, she noted how soft Elphaba's skin was. She didn't know what she had expected, perhaps a slick and cool surface that would remind her of the frog she had been forced to dissect during life sciences. But then, she wasn't supposed to have expected anything at all. After all, she had never thought about touching Elphaba before and as soon as she realized what she was doing, she drew her hand back as if it had been burned.

"Elphaba!" She called her again, the name strangely tingling on her lips as she realized how rarely she actually called her by her name. "Elphaba, can you hear me?"

She shook the green girl's shoulders again, doing her best not to notice how bony and fragile they felt beneath her fingers. Elphaba was still breathing, the blonde could feel as much as she leaned over her face, her roommate's breath tickling on her skin. Now that she was this close, she couldn't help but see her sharp jawline and protruding cheekbones, covered by a thin light green layer of skin that couldn't be healthy. Yes, Elphaba was always green, but usually it was darker, glowing like an emerald in the right light.

Her gaze fell upon thin green lips which were usually either drawn into an amused smirk or formed in a scowl. Now they were dry and chapped, as if they hadn't been in contact with water for days.

Galinda had only once visited a first aid course and she had spent it in the back giggling with her friends, only ever paying attention for five minutes whenever the teacher warned them to listen. Therefore, she had absolutely no idea what to do. Elphaba surely would, as always, she had sat in the front seat and probably even kept the handouts they had been given, but that did not help her.

"Elphaba!" She yelled in her roommate's ear in desperation, her voice cracking on the last syllable. "Elphaba, please!"

She was about to cry, the tears already clouding her vision, as the green girl's eyelids began to flutter open.

"Elphaba?" She asked with wide eyes, hands frantically hovering all over the green girl's body because she couldn't decide where to put them. During the last few minutes, she had probably said her roommate's name more often than in all the weeks they knew one another, the sound becoming more familiar every time.

"What in Oz-" Elphaba blinked a couple times in confusion, before her eyes fell on Galinda leaning over her, tears glistening in blue eyes and a hesitant smile on her face. "Galinda?"

"Oh, sweet Oz", the blonde exclaimed, her hands finally deciding on Elphaba's shoulders, her fingers grabbing onto the black cotton of her t-shirt. "What happened?"

Elphaba looked down to where her roommate was firmly holding onto her, carefully beginning to wriggle free from the grip. As her eyes wandered further downwards, noticing how exposed the green skin of her stomach and ribs was, she quickly pulled it down to the waistband of her jeans.

The blonde pretended not to notice and drew her hands back instead. From what she had gathered during the last weeks, Elphaba did not appreciate being touched against her will, and this was not the situation to fight her on this.

Her features relaxed a little as Galinda was no longer gripping her shoulders, and she began to sit up a little, her back leaning against the bed. By the time she was done her eyes were screwed shut, and Galinda knew from experience that her head probably felt like the entire room was spinning. While she had never been as skeletal as Elphaba was, there had been a time in her life when she refused to eat in order to become skinnier, like so many of the girls her age had. When her mother found out, however, she had slapped her cheek for the first time in years since Galinda had hit puberty. Ladies do not starve themselves, she had said while fourteen year old Galinda had held her stinging cheek with tears in her eyes, men don't want skeletons.

But the blonde doubted that Elphaba was starving herself for a man.

"Do you need anything? Some water?"

Elphaba violently shook her head, but immediately seemed to regret the decision, pressing her palm against her head as if she could force the spinning to stop. "No water. There's juice. In my backpack."

Any other time Galinda would have questioned her request, but now she only hurried to Elphaba's backpack next to her desk to retrieve the juice she asked for. She handed her the bottle and the green girl took a few sips with shaking fingers, though she screwed the lid up again way too soon.

"No, you need more", she said as Elphaba tried to give the bottle back to her.

Her roommate shook her head again, yet a little more careful this time, her eyes still closed. "I can't."

Galinda raised up a perfectly manicured eyebrow until she realized that the green girl couldn't even see it. "What do you mean?"

Elphaba sighed, her cheeks darkening a little. When she spoke, her voice was barely audible.

"That's all I have."

Incredulously, the blonde looked at the bottle that was barely half-full. "I don't understand."

Slowly opening her eyes, Elphaba looked down at the ground, fixating a small stain on the wooden floor. "This juice … it has to last until next Monday."

Galinda's jaw fell open at that. It was true, she barely saw her roommate drinking or eating anything, but until now she had either thought nothing of it, or assumed, for the last few minutes, that she did so on purpose. But what Elphaba had just suggested didn't sound like she wanted to lose weight or anything like that – instead, she seemed to tell her that she was forced to refrain from ingesting any kind of nourishment.

"But it's Thursday! Is this why you were lying here unconscious?" She pointed to the one-liter bottle again. "Is that all you've been drinking since Monday?"

Elphaba still avoided looking her in the eyes. "Yes. I got up to drink something, but I suppose I moved too fast or something."

"Damnit, Elphaba, you can't just-" She paused as she saw the defensive look on Elphaba's face, deeply exhaling to regain some of her composure. "I still don't understand. Why are you drinking so little? And now that we're at it, I haven't seen you eating anything lately either."

"Well, we can't all have parents who strive to fulfill your every wish", she replied so quietly that Galinda had to lean in closer in order to hear her properly.

When she did understand what Elphaba was suggesting, her eyes widened in realization.

"You mean … your parents don't send you enough money for food?"

"My father", Elphaba corrected with a bitter tone of her voice. "And it's not that he doesn't send enough, he doesn't send anything at all."

The room was silent for a few moments after at, while Galinda tried to comprehend what she had just been told. She couldn't believe it, and yet her roommate's state was proof enough. While her own parents were disappointed in her more often than not, always telling her that going to university was a waste of time and anyone else would have found a suitable husband by now, they would never even think of cutting her allowance. Let alone send absolutely nothing, leaving her to care for herself.

Suddenly, as if a switch had been flipped inside her head, she saw Elphaba in a completely different light. The green girl had it more difficult than most, not only due to her skin color and the ridicule she faced because of it every day, but also because she had to worry about fulfilling her most basic needs, all while being a student with straight A's. Galinda had always known that her roommate was strong, but this made her realize that she had no idea how strong she actually had to be.

"Why didn't you say something?" She asked softly, though she knew the reason even before Elphaba replied.

Elphaba huffed, fumbling with her fingers in her lap. "We're not exactly friends. Actually, I'm surprised you're still talking to me."

"What? Why?"

"You managed to wake me up and I'm fine. Yet you're still here asking all these questions as if you actually care."

This time Galinda didn't care how much her roommate detested physical contact. The girl in front of her looked so small, so vulnerable and she didn't know any other way of comfort than reaching for her hand and squeezing it tight.

"I do", she said with all the sincerity she could muster. "When you were unconscious, and I saw how skinny you actually were … I felt so guilty because I didn't know."

Elphaba looked down at their joined hands before she met Galinda's eyes again. A part of the blonde expected her to draw her hand back, but she didn't.

"You couldn't have. I mean it, we're not even friends, and just because we're roommates doesn't mean that you need to look after me."

The blonde squeezed her hand once again. "Maybe not, but I want to."

"What are you doing?" Elphaba asked as Galinda opened the lid of her bottle and forced it to her lips.

"Drink up", she said with a timid smile, before reaching across the floor to the chocolate bar she had lost as her handbag had fallen to the floor. "Then you'll eat this, and when I think that you look strong enough to get up, we're going to the canteen."

Elphaba hesitantly took a small sip from the juice, before taking the chocolate bar Galinda offered her. "Why are you doing this?"

The timid smile on Galinda's face became a little brighter.

"Because I care."