Chapter 14: You Love Me?

"Pause. See this right here Leiha?" Madame Morrible pointed to the girl's foot on the screen. "You're sickling. And you do it many more times throughout the dance. You need to fix that." Leiha nodded, a slight look of fear in her eyes at Morrible's harsh tone.

She resumed the video. After stretching for 30 minutes, Madame Morrible had pulled out her laptop and all of them had sat down to watch the routines they'd performed a couple days ago. Elphaba couldn't help but cringe at watching herself dance. She was a good dancer, but seeing the small mistakes she made such as not fully finishing her extensions or not keeping her shoulders down made her scold herself. At this point, she should not be doing that! Ugh.

"Pause again. Jessy, your relevé is very low. Get off the ground more. Also, all three of you have different hand positions. You should be cleaning your routine to avoid these little mishaps when you have the time."

Overall, Elphaba's trio had minimal mistakes that could be easily fixed by going over choreography and basic technique. They had less harsher critiques than the other routines.

Fiyero took over after they'd finished watching films. "Alright, for this week, we are staying in the same city. We'll be performing in the theater right across the university we danced at." He glanced at his notes to make sure he was giving them the right assignments. "For this competition, all of you will have solos and there will be two group dances. One for the girls and one for the guys. Madame Morrible will choreograph the groups and I will take each one of you individually for 45 minutes at a time to get started on your solos. Jerol, you're first," Fiyero motioned Jerol to follow him into another room.

"Since he's gone, ladies, we'll start choreographing your dance first. Get your jazz shoes on; this dance is a jazz funk routine. Guys, work on some of the things I pointed out from your routines. Make sure to keep your muscles moving."

All five girls stood up, got their shoes on, and moved to the center of the room.

"All right. Your routine is called 'Stomp The Yard'. You are all prisoners however, it is your prison. You demand attention and command those around you." Everyone nodded. "Ok, you guys are going to enter from stage right." Morrible pushed all the girls to the right of the room. "Now. Tati, you'll be first, then…Jessy, Penelope, stand next to each other." After seeing their height, Morrible continued placing them in a line in order to have the shortest girl, Penelope, in the middle and have the height increase towards both ends. This put Elphaba at the end of the line.

"Everyone place your left arm on the shoulder of the girl in front of you. Except you, Tati, obviously. Now listen," Morrible played the first 12 counts of their songs. Then vaguely demonstrated what she wanted from them as she spoke. "Walk heavily, with your head down, for 10 counts to the center of the stage. That's eight, one, two; stand straight, left arm back on three; head on four. Think you can do that?" All the girls nodded. "Let's try it then.

She played their music and they executed what they were given. "Yes! One more time and we'll keep going."

For the rest of today's rehearsal, Fiyero switched back and forth between guys and girls for their solos every 45 minutes and so did Morrible. Whichever group had all members in the room, their dance would get worked on since the other group would have a missing member working on their solo with Fiyero.

While Madame Morrible worked with the guys, the girls went over the choreography they already knew, making sure they were in sync and fixing any small technical errors. They played the music softly in the corner of the room, and each girl performed the dance by herself to make sure they knew the choreography and counts. Jessy went the most out of all of them since she had a turn sequence she needed to time perfectly with the music.

"Damn it!" She screamed when she was late.

"Jessy!" Morrible scolded.

"Sorry!" All the girls laughed.

"You should sit down for a bit," Elphaba suggested. "You don't wanna get too dizzy."

Jessy breathed out heavily. "One more time and if I don't hit it, then I guess I'll just work on it later."

"Alright. Maybe if you slow down your turns a little bit, it'll make it easier for you to land them on time," Penelope said and reluctantly played the music again.

Elphaba watched intently and listened to the music as Jessy danced. Her turns came up. One, two, three, four, "Down!"

Jessy stopped spinning right at the beat of the music. Perfect timing. "Yes!" she was so happy she threw her arms up, stopped dancing, and all the girls clapped for her.

"Robin!" Leiha yelled coming in the door. "You're up."

"Girls, let's go! Boys, practice." They switched places and the girls got into their starting position to do their dance again while Morrible switched the music CD's.

"How did it go Leiha?" Penelope asked.

"Really well. Fiyero is so freaking talented; his choreography is amazing! And I think he may have a crush on me."

Elphaba's stomach dropped. "What?"

"I mean, I could be wrong, but he made so many excuses to touch me and smiled at me a lot. I think he's attracted to me."

Is this what jealousy felt like? A burning sensation in her chest at imaging Fiyero with someone else. He technically wasn't hers, but she wanted him to be. She was sure that at least in heart he was hers. Did he get over this crush like she feared he would? After all, Lehia was a gorgeous girl, extremely talented, and really nice.

But, if his feelings were as deep as hers as Glinda had said they were and as she'd assumed when she looked into his eyes, he couldn't have gotten over it just like that. Right? She felt really sad all of the sudden.

Elphaba was not a girl that a guy would just cling to. She just wasn't. Especially not a guy like Fiyero. She had been willing to wait, but if he'd changed his mind and found someone better, which wasn't hard to do anyways, then she'd be happy for him.

Oz, she couldn't believe she'd actually thought that Fiyero and her could've…one day-

The music started and her mind flipped a switch. She focused on the choreography and the choreography only. But tears formed in her eyes anyways.

"My feet hurt so much." Fiyero laid on his stomach on the bed.

They were in his room this time. Elphaba had showered and changed into her pajamas already, knowing she would feel too lazy if she waited until bedtime to do so. She was quiet when she laid down on the other bed, looking up at the ceiling.

She was too quiet. Without even looking at her, Fiyero could feel that something was up with her. "What's on your mind, green girl?"

"Why do they hurt so much?"

He let the fact that she'd avoided his question slide and answered her.

"I had to demonstrate more choreography than I thought I would. Dress shoes are awful to dance in. Especially hip hop. Leiha couldn't seem to figure out what her body was doing. I had to physically fix and show her so many times."

He heard her move in the bed. "Say that again?"

Fiyero heard a tone in her voice that he couldn't quite place. He turned to look at her. "I demonstrated more choreography than I thou-"

"No." She cut him off. "The part about Leiha."

He furrowed his brows. "That I had to physically fix her and show her the choreography because she didn't know what she was doing? Don't tell her I said that," he added.

"She…she said that it seemed you had a crush on her because you kept finding excuses to touch her and smiled at her a lot."

He sat up straight. "What? I was touching her a lot because I had to fix her angles and smiled at her when she finally got it right," he shook his head and chuckled. Wow, he couldn't help but laugh at Leiha believing he liked her because she'd misread his actions.

"Really?"

"Yes." He tried to read her facial expressions. Why had she sounded and seemed so worried?

"Well that's a relief. I felt offended that you'd probably had a crush on someone and kept it from me." She sat in front of him and her bright smile and proximity made him forget what he'd been thinking about.

"No that's not it at all." He smiled back. As if he could ever like, love, anyone else but her.

"I have a question for you." She crossed her legs and faced him completely. "How do you come up with and remember so much choreography?"

"Come up with; I've done and watched so many routines in my life, and it's just a matter of what feels natural to do with the music and your body. Remembering them; I just write everything down as detailed as I can, but I am letting you guys add a bit of your own stuff in your solos since sometimes I look back and realize some choreography either doesn't fit or I left a count open." He couldn't help but feel good at how impressed she looked at his answer.

"That's amazing. I don't think I could do it."

"It gets easier with time. I do have more years of experience than you do," he reminded her. He didn't like it when she doubted herself. She'd come so far considering she hadn't received actual dance training until she was 14. She would get there in time. She was talented and passionate. Part of him hoped to be by her side when she did get there.

"I guess you're right," she sighed.

"By the way, I'm starting with you first thing tomorrow." He hadn't had time to get everybody's solo's started today and by the time it was Elphaba's turn, rehearsal was over.

"Yay." She clapped lightly. "I'm excited."

"Here. Listen to this," he pulled his phone out and placed it in front of her. A soft song began to play.

He couldn't exactly pinpoint why this song had made him think of Elphaba the minute he'd heard it. But once she was in his head, he had beautiful images of her moving gracefully to this song. He had no doubt she would exceed expectations once she learned the dance he'd created for her.

He watched her eyes close and her finger twitch. He smiled. She was picturing a dance to it already.

The song ended and her eyes opened. "I like it," she whispered.

"That's you music."

She gasped. "Really?" He nodded. "Oh my gosh!" She gasped again. "Am I doing a ballet?"

He shrugged, not wanting to give away that she'd hit the nail on the head.

They just spent time together. Fiyero swore he could spend an entire day handcuffed to this girl, and he still wouldn't get tired of her. She wasn't very hungry, and frankly, he wasn't either. Dinner for both of them was just a bag of potato chips and water.

"I better go, we have to get up pretty early tomorrow." Elphaba threw her trash away.

"You're right." He turned off the TV. "Goodnight, Elphaba."

She stood in front of him. "Night. You love me?"

Why was that even a question? "Yes. You love me?"

"Mhm." She hugged him tightly and he wrapped his arms around her, breathing in her scent. "I'll see you tomorrow," she closed the door behind her.

Now that she was gone, he couldn't get distracted by her eyes and smile anymore, and he went back to her earlier sudden mood change.

She had seemed down, sad even, when she came into his room for the evening. When had that turned around? It was when he'd cleared up that he wasn't attracted to Leiha. He could remember her face now. It had gone from worried to relieved and happy. And then that smile he loved so much completely threw him off course. She seemed lighter after that.

And then, she'd asked if he loved her. Asked. There was this glimmer in her eye, almost as if she needed to be reassured that he loved her.

A thought suddenly came to him. Did she…did she love him like he loved her?

Elphaba felt so much lighter. Fiyero didn't like somebody else. He still liked her. He still loved her. He was still hers. And she was doing a ballet tomorrow.

Yay, it's done! Hope y'all liked it!