Chapter 17: Beautiful


"Come on! Push!" Madame Morrible yelled.

Oz, Elphaba was tired. Nine weeks had flown by. The group had a hip-hop routine this week, and apparently not up to her dance instructor's standards. This was probably the tenth time she told them to do the routine. How did she expect them to display the stamina she wanted when they were completely exhausted.

"That needs to be sharper!"

Five, six, seven, eight. Finish. She breathed heavily, the strand of hair in her face flowing due to her breathing on it. Please let that have been decent enough, Elphaba thought.

"Everyone needs to get their act together," Morrible shook her head. Elphaba couldn't help but think she was really living up to her 'Horrible Morrible' nickname right now. "Our competition is tomorrow and this is nowhere near ready. And some of you, this is the only routine you're doing this week, there's no reason why you shouldn't know this dance by now."

Yeah, know a dance they had just learned yesterday like the palm of their hand. Elphaba fought back the urge to roll her eyes. She was glad this was her only routine this week. Though apparently, now that meant Morrible expected her to dance better than the ones who had a duet. Morrible sighed.

"Practice this on your own for tonight, we'll run it in full costume in the dressing room tomorrow. You're dismissed," she left and everyone ran for a much needed drink of water.

"Not a word," Elphaba pointed her finger at Fiyero, who was smirking at her.

"You're cute when you're pissed."

She did roll her eyes then. "Glad my anger amuses you. Let's see if it brings you joy when it's directed at you."

"You love me too much to ever be this angry at me."

Damn him.

"You're doing great. I'm almost certain Morrible's statement wasn't directed at you," he told her as they walked to her room together. "But would you really want her to call you guys out by name? It's better that she addresses all of you as a whole."

She was frustrated, and Fiyero wanted to do what he could to get her to relax some. She put way too much pressure on herself and worried more than she should. Honestly, she didn't have any reason to worry this week. She was only in one dance, and she was dominating the dance floor. Everyone was in the group this week, but his eye always went to her. And it wasn't because of her skin. He'd told her so during their walk.

"I need a break," she let her head hang from the bed after she let herself fall.

Now he was worried. She looked close to having a breakdown. "Hey," he knelt down on the ground, leveling her upside down face with his. "What's wrong?"

"I'm just tired," Elphaba closed her eyes, "I feel like I'm getting worse every week. I don't particularly enjoy my instructor yelling at us. I'm not sleeping well, and I just need a break! I'm sick of everything, I don't want to dance anymore. I-"

"Sh," he cut her off. Her speech got faster towards the end and she was hyperventilating. Fiyero quickly sat on the bed and pulled her to sit up straight. It broke his heart to see the tears in her eyes. "Breathe," he pulled her hair away from her face.

She started hiccuping, and he held one of her hands. "Hey, look at me." He dried her tears, tried to do at least something to try and get her to breath normally. But he felt helpless. He'd never seen her like this. Not even when she was stressing out about her high school finals, and she'd been very stressed out then.

"Elphaba, please breathe," he whispered, cupping her face to get her to look up and straightened her posture. Her hands tightened around his wrists, and she finally took a deep breath, her eyes never leaving his. He wiped away the last of her tears with his thumbs and let out a breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding

"Listen." He let her lay on his lap. He placed his hand on her neck, cooling her skin slightly. "I get where you're coming from. Believe me, I do. But understand this: being on a competition team is hard." She scoffed, but he didn't give her time to say anything. "It's very different than just taking classes and going to an occasional audition. You're learning something new every week, doing difficult choreography, not to mention you're away from home. And you want to know a secret? You guys were actually not as sloppy as Morrible said. But how else do you think she gets you to work harder? Directors don't mess around during the season."

Her breathing seemed to steady a little more, but he hoped she wasn't falling asleep, he wasn't done talking.

"Trust me when I say you're one of the best dancers in the group. Hell, better than some of the veterans." He could feel her smile. "And you're one of if not the youngest of the bunch. You've been doing amazing every week, it's beautiful to watch really." It seemed as if he wasn't even talking directly to her anymore. "It's a beautiful thing to watch, seeing you blossom and so confident on the stage, seeing you getting along so well with your teammates. And the best part of each week for me is when I hug you right after you get a medal or trophy or when I comfort you when you feel disappointed in your placement. I get the feeling of wanting to quit, but you love to dance. You just need to clear your head tonight."

He took her breath away; she honestly didn't know how to respond to that. How was it that he always knew what to say to make her feel better? For a while, Elphaba didn't say anything. She let him keep playing with her hair and fingers. She was too comfortable to move.

"Oz Fiyero, I'm sorry."

"Why?"

"That you had to see that." She thought she would've been able to hold back her tears until he left. But when he asked her if she was ok, she just couldn't hold it in.

"Don't be sorry." He leaned down to press a kiss to her hair and she giggled. "Well." He patted her back. "As I said, you need to relax tonight. How about you take a nice shower while I go and buy us some dinner?"

"Mm, that sounds great."

"Good." He was about to stand up when he realized she still hadn't moved from his lap, "Elphaba?" He rubbed her shoulder.

"Oh, sorry." She blushed.


That was just what she'd needed. Elphaba exhaled deeply as she removed the towel from her hair. She groaned when she realized she'd forgotten to bring in her clothes.

She exited the bathroom and opened her bag. What the hell? Shoes, sweatpants, deodorant, and…boxers. She quickly shoved them back inside. She laughed. This was Fiyero's dance bag. Just as she was about to zip it back up, brown leather caught her eye. His notebook.

Curiosity got the best of her. She slowly picked it up. It couldn't be anything bad, she reasoned, this was just the place where he wrote down his choreography and ideas. And it's not like she was going to skip ahead to other weeks. Elphaba carefully opened it to where the bookmark was.

'Week 9 - Gasoline (hip-hop)'

The page contained mostly lyrics and a small description of their dance moves. She recognized some of them like 'push, head whip, knee, knee', but how the hell did Fiyero remember this? It was all so vague. Not to mention his handwriting so messy as hell.

Flipping over to some earlier pages, there was even more choreography written down. Some things scratched out and replaced with something else. At the top of the page was the number of points they had gotten at that competition. She flipped over to week two, when she'd had her ballet solo and only solo so far. She'd been in more trios and duets. She found it amazing that she still remembered some of this choreography.

'Leg thing.'

Leg thing? It was a penché arabesque turn, she laughed. Wow. There were so many memories she could associate with each page.

Her brows furrowed at seeing a whole page dedicated to 'Guy with long hair #2, white shirt'. What?

'Ballroom - great stage presence, decent technique, worked well with partner. Excellent musicality and emotion. Good improvisation when forgetting choreography.

'Hip-hop - seems to be their strongest genre. Very sharp, full of energy, fun to watch. Stands out from the rest. Not afraid to put their own style into the choreography.

'Modern - great core strength and control. Nice fluidity.

'Ballet - great technique, very aware of their body. Worked well with partner, excellent musicality.

'Tumbling - not very flexible, tried extremely hard. May work well with helping others do tricks.'

The more she read, the more Elphaba realized what exactly she was reading. These were his notes at the auditions. Here he was describing one of the twins. Jerol, she concluded. He was not a tumbler by any means and Jojo had awful ballet technique. A small smile touched her lips.

She flipped a couple more pages. 'Pinky', one of them read. She bursted out laughing. This was Glinda's page. She was so tempted to take a picture of his ballet notes and send them to her.

'Ballet - SO MUCH SICKLING'

I told you so, Elphaba thought. Some names she didn't even recognize, others were people she knew of at the studio, and of course her teammates. There were all kinds of things written down, from compliments to critiques to 'didn't stand out'. Her heart sped up when she saw what was written on one page. 'Green Girl'.

'Ballroom - gorgeous lines and posture. Great technique and facials. Always on beat with the music. Beautiful to look at.

'Hip-hop - Sharp, stays strong throughout the entire routine. In control of her movements. Stands out, very very fun to watch.

'Modern - great fluidity, strong core and control. Has great spatial awareness, beautiful lines.

'Ballet - strong technical dancer. Excellent musicality. Very elegant, graceful, beautiful. Makes it look effortless.

'Tumbling - great flexibility, graceful movements, strong upper and lower body.

'Couldn't take my eyes off her.'

Oz. Did he like her from day one? And was it wrong that she suddenly felt a huge ego boost?

She heard the card slide into the door. Elphaba quickly put everything back into his bag and zipped it up.

"They didn't have mild so-" Fiyero froze.

"I was looking for my clothes and thought this was mine, sorry." She chuckled.

He didn't say anything. Her eyes widened. She was wearing nothing but her towel.

"Um." She held the towel at her chest. "It's ok, it's not like you can see anything." Really? She winced.

He laughed awkwardly and averted his gaze. For a split second she thought he was disgusted. But seeing his blush and remembering the way he felt about her, the way they felt about each other, she figured he must be anything but. And he'd also seen her in a costume that was practically a swimsuit a couple weeks ago. What was going through his head right now?

"Let me just get my clothes quickly and I'll change in the bathroom," Elphaba turned away and walked to her bag to get her pajamas.

Feeling confident, she walked towards him and closed his mouth. She whispered in his ear, "you'll catch flies," then bopped his cheek with her nose.

Elphaba closed the bathroom door and held back her giggles.

Fiyero swallowed. What just happened? Oz, he didn't know how much longer he could wait. He wanted to wait until the competition was over to officially ask her to go out with him. But damn, this woman. He hoped she would be out of there quickly. He needed a shower too.


-Sickling: foot is curved inwards.

Fun facts no one asked for: A friend of mine actually had a breakdown during musical rehearsal. She's a freshman and this whole thing is so new to her, the long hours of commitment and having our weekends taken away. I kind of felt like Fiyero, a little helpless, when helping her calm down. She's fine now and still doing musical. Guess she just needed some reassurance that everything was going to be ok and that we were all here for her.

And my guy cousin walked in on me once when I was only wearing a towel, except that ended up with me yelling 'get out' a bunch a times and then us throwing every single insult you could ever think off at each other. We're cool though :)

So that was the inspiration for this chapter haha.