A/N: Not gonna lie, I shed one or two tears while writing this, so just take it as a warning! The entire prompt is called "a tearful kiss before battle/something hard occurs". I scratched the battle though because I had this idea instead. Happy reading!
Elphaba stared at the clock on her nightstand, watching the seconds hand as it mercilessly ticked forward, the minutes running by far too quickly.
Half an hour left.
It seemed to surreal, so far away, even though she was already dressed in a hospital gown for surgery and lying in the bed that would carry her away. Half an hour until she would lose consciousness in an anesthesia-induced slumber. Nobody knew if she would wake up from it. Her body was already weak from chemotherapy and the constant vomiting it caused, leaving her without the nourishment she would so desperately need. She couldn't even remember the last time she hadn't woken up with a headache, or had read more than a few sentences of a book before it exhausted her eyes too much, or had eaten and kept in an entire meal. Far too long.
It drained her and she hated it. She loathed it all; the tiredness, the taste of vomit in her mouth, the surgeries. This was her fourth within only a few weeks. Cancer cells were resilient, everyone knew that, but Elphaba's seemed to be indestructible.
The last time she had inhaled something else than the smell of plastic gloves and sanitizer had been a week ago, on the roof of the hospital and in a wheelchair, overlooking the night lights of the city. She hadn't left the hospital grounds in over a month, even though they had told her when she had been diagnosed that she would be able to get outpatient treatment. But her body proved to be weaker than anyone had anticipated. Maybe it had something to do with her strange skin, but no one knew for sure.
Now, she was constantly attached to an IV providing her with the necessary vitamins and calories to keep her body functioning, as well as several monitors to check her heart and lungs. The former had stopped beating on its own three times already, and every time she woke up afterwards, she only felt more miserable.
Sometimes, whenever the nights were lonely and filled with excruciating pain, Elphaba wished she could just fall asleep and never wake up again.
There was only one reason she couldn't, and that reason was huddling close to her in her hospital bed, desperately clinging onto her. Without Glinda, she never would have had the strength to keep on fighting, having surgery after surgery, the breaks in between filled with chemotherapy and all its gruesome side effects.
Glinda had never stopped telling her how beautiful she was, even though her skin was now a pale moss green instead of its normal emerald shade, and her face mostly defined by the heavy bags beneath her eyes. She had kissed her temple when there had been more hair on her pillow than on her head. Elphaba was sure that during the last month, Glinda had spent more time in the hospital than back at their apartment, only leaving her side to get the necessary supplies from home. She had taken an indefinite leave from her job to make the most of the days they had left.
They both refused to say it, but it wouldn't be many. It was evident in the way Elphaba's doctor spoke to them now, the optimism he had exuded in the beginning now replaced by soft and slow talking and sympathetic gazes. He never used words like cure and heal anymore, instead they talked about pain treatment and prolongation of life.
Elphaba barely listened to him by now, leaving it to her wife to endure the endless stream of medical terms and theories. She was being selfish, she knew that, but in her view, there were past the point of no return on her way towards death.
"I don't want to have another surgery," she said more to herself than to Glinda, her eyes still focused on the clock.
Time had never been a particularly interesting concept for her, at least not until she became sick. Before, when their lives had been everything Elphaba ever wanted and more, she had never paid much attention to it. It was flowing by, passing in the wind and never possible to grasp, but until now, Elphaba had never tried to grab it and hold it tight.
When she had been diagnosed with cancer, still mostly free of symptoms, time had stopped for a few days. They had been silent around the apartment, both too caught up in their own emotions to try and talk about them. Then, as if someone had flipped a switch within them, they had shocked themselves into action, suddenly terrified at the thought that time could be running out.
They had married, the circle of only their closest friends and Glinda's family their only company, and travelled around Oz, frantically trying to drink in everything life had to offer within a few weeks. They had danced under the moonlight even though Elphaba had thought it too sappy, spent entire nights making love with only an hour of sleep and simply reveled in each other's company. All to try and live the rest of their lives within the span of the small time they had left.
Despite the circumstances, Elphaba considered herself lucky. Although it had been cut short by a sudden worsening of her sickness, she and Glinda have had the most extraordinary life; one she could have never even dreamt of.
"I know, baby girl, " Glinda replied, drawing little patterns on her arm. Her voice was wavering and Elphaba could hear the tears she tried to hold back for her sake. "But you know it's necessary."
She didn't say any more. She didn't have to. Both of them knew that although the surgery might be necessary, it was also unlikely to be crowned with success. Instead, there was a great chance she would never wake up again.
Twenty-three minutes, her clock told her. That made 1380 seconds her tired brain told her as it did the math. It didn't sound like much.
"I love you," She said because it was the only thing she wanted to fill the remaining time with.
Elphaba averted her gaze from the clock as she noticed the blonde's body shaking against her own, soon followed by muffled sobs into her chest. A familiar wetness began to seep through the fabric of the hospital gown, stinging on her skin, but compared to all the pain she had experienced by now, she barely felt it. Physically, at least.
"Please don't cry, my sweet," Elphaba whispered, stroking her golden curls and pressing a kiss on them. "Please don't cry."
Glinda didn't reply, but the sobs wracking her body never subsided. Perhaps Elphaba should cry too, but her eyes felt strangely void of tears. She had shed so many of them during the last weeks, enough to leave scars from the burns on her cheeks, but now they wouldn't come anymore.
Maybe it was the finality of it all that made it easier, at least for her. If she never woke up from surgery, there would be no more pain. No more nights that never seemed to end, no more morning she woke covered in her own vomit. It would almost seem enticing if that was all it meant.
But it wasn't. No more kisses and quiet assurances of love that got her through the nights. No more understanding gazes and soft hands that cleaned her up in the morning, refusing to let a nurse do it. No more Glinda.
And yet, according to everything she ever believed in about death, the afterlife and immortal souls, or rather, had not believed in, all that wouldn't matter to her once she was dead.
It would matter to Glinda, however, and that was what hurt the most. She didn't want to leave Glinda, not for her own sake, but because she knew it would break the blonde's heart. Or break it further, since the tears she had cried ever since Elphaba's diagnosis were evidence of the fact that some parts of it were already broken.
"Please stop crying, " she whispered once again, lifting her arm with the IV to slip it into Glinda's hair, smoothing it out of her sticky face. It was a little bit difficult to handle, since she couldn't fully bend her arm due to the IV in the crook of her arm, but weeks of experience had made her somewhat of an expert of moving it anyway. "Come on, look at me."
Slowly raising her head, Glinda looked up at her, blinking away the tears stuck in her lashes. Even like this, her nose red and eyes puffy, she was still the most magnificent and beautiful person Elphaba had ever laid eyes on. Of course, it wasn't just her beauty that had made her fall in love with her back when they were roommates at Shiz, and yet it stunned her just the same.
Elphaba drank in the sight, forcing her brain to imprint it into her memory, and from the look in Glinda's eyes, the blonde was doing the same thing.
Doing her best to smile a little, Elphaba caressed her face with her thumb, wiping away the tears in the process. "Tell me something. Anything."
Glinda blinked in confusion. "Like what?"
"I don't care. I just want to hear your voice." The unspoken for the last time hung in the air between them, neither of them brave enough to say it.
Taking a few shaky breaths, Glinda seemed to think for a few seconds before smiling.
"I hated you when we first met."
Elphaba smirked tiredly. "Likewise, blondie."
"And I still hate you for dyeing my favorite dress black."
"That dress was ugly. Besides, you ripped out the last chapter of my book!" Elphaba protested, yet smiled fondly at the memory.
"That book was boring, " Glinda deadpanned in a similar manner.
Trying to imitate the blonde's famous pout, Elphaba looked at her with wide eyes. "I never got to read the ending."
Glinda giggled at the sight and tapped her nose. "Want to hear a confession?"
"That depends."
"I never threw the pages away," Glinda replied with a smile. "I think they are still in one of the boxes in the basement or something."
".. Are you serious?"
"I'll bring them over next time I'm home."
There was a moment of silence until Glinda realized what she had said, and her face fell, the smile crumbling under the reminder of where they were and what was about to be happening. The chances were small that there would ever be a next time.
Fresh tears sparkled in sea blue eyes, and Elphaba couldn't think of anything else to do than pulling Glinda towards her and connecting their lips. She could taste the salt of her tears on their lips together, but she ignored the slight sting that came with it. Somehow that made it more real, because kissing Glinda did sting, and it had only little to do with her tears.
The times they would be able to do this were numbered, but this time Elphaba didn't glance back to the clock to see how much time they had left. Whatever it would tell her, it wouldn't be enough.
"I love you," Glinda whispered against her lips as they parted, barely enough space between them to catch some air. "I love you so much it hurts to breathe sometimes."
Elphaba closed her eyes as she leaned their foreheads together. "Promise me you'll try."
"Try what?"
She opened her eyes again to look Glinda firmly in the eyes, doing her best to stress the next words so she would forever think of their importance. "Breathe, even if it hurts. Try to find a way of being happy."
New tears rolled over Glinda's cheeks but neither of them tried to stop them. Sometimes it was better to express the pain than letting it eat you up inside.
"You're saying that as if-" Her voice cracked and she couldn't continue.
Elphaba let go of the blonde for a moment to find her own left hand and slip her wedding ring off her finger. As she brought it between them, Glinda started to violently shake her head.
"No, Elphie, no! Put that back on! Please!"
Stroking her hair in an attempt to calm her down, her left hand feeling strange without the weight of the ring on it, she brought her hand under Glinda's chin to try and bring her to look at her. "It's not allowed in surgery, Glin. And I need you to have it."
Elphaba reached for the blonde's left hand and slipped the ring on her fourth finger, where it was soon met by her own wedding ring.
"I will put it back on your finger the second I'm allowed to see you," Glinda said as she looked at the joined rings on her finger.
Elphaba smiled sadly. "I wouldn't expect anything else."
A knock on the door made them both jump. Their time was up.
Only when Elphaba was rolled into the operating room – two nurses had to force Glinda to let go as they reached the doors – did she realize that she had been wrong before. The kiss she and Glinda had shared, mixed with tears and unspoken words, hadn't been one of a very limited number they had left like she had thought at the time.
It had been their last.