Strength

A.N. Thanks for the reviews!

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters

Elphaba spent the rest of the afternoon and evening taking care of Glinda. The medicine helped her to some degree, but it was beginning to become quite clear to Elphaba that Glinda most likely had much more than a simple cold. So she spent the remainder of the day playing nurse, all while ignoring her own growing headache and the cough that kept becoming more and more frequent.

It shouldn't have been a surprise to her, then, when she woke up the next morning feeling just as bad as Glinda. Still, she attempted to get up and get through her day. She couldn't allow herself to be sick. She had things to do. She had to take care of Glinda. She had to get stuff ready for the Lurlinemas party in four days. She had to go shopping for gifts. She had to…

A sudden wave of dizziness sent Elphaba falling back to her bed. As she lay there, she changed her goals for the day. The new goal was to simply make it to Fiyero's room and inform him that both she and Glinda were sick and to ask him to come over, and then to make it back. She stood up again and slowly made her way to the door.

Before she could leave, however, she heard Glinda's voice. "Elphie? Where are you going?"

Elphaba went and knelt by Glinda's bed. "I'm going over to Fiyero's for a little bit. I'll be right back, ok?"

Glinda sat up and studied Elphaba's face for a minute. "Elphie…you look terrible. I don't think you should be going out. You might be getting this too."

"Well I'm no more sick than you are, Glinda. That's why I'm going over to Fiyero's. I'm going to ask him to come over here. And don't try to stop me; you know we need him here. Now go back to sleep. I'll be back soon."

Glinda nodded, and Elphaba once again headed out the door. The walk between her building and Fiyero's building had never seemed longer to her. She could feel herself swaying and had to stop several times to fight off dizziness and coughing fits. She had never been more thankful that Fiyero lived on the ground floor of his building. Stairs just were not going to be an option today.

When Fiyero opened his door, it was all Elphaba could do not to faint dead away into his arms. Instead, she managed a weak smile and said, "Hey, Yero."

"Elphie, you don't look so good. Are you alright?" Fiyero moved closer to her, fearing that she would collapse on him any second.

"Yeah…OK, fine, I'm not alright at all. I guess I caught whatever Glinda had yesterday. Glinda's still sick too, so I was wondering if you could…"

Fiyero had a sense of what Elphaba was going to ask him before she said it. "Of course I'll come and take care of you guys. Now, let's get you back to your room." He put his arm around her shoulder and walked her back to her own building. As they walked, he felt her sway and held her tighter to keep her from falling. It was going to be a long day.

Once they arrived back at Elphaba and Glinda's room, Fiyero didn't waste any time in assuming the "doctor" role. He looked over at Glinda and saw that she was still asleep. After sitting Elphaba down on her bed, Fiyero walked over and put his hand on Glinda's forehead. He then did the same with Elphaba.

"Ok, from what I can tell you are both running pretty high fevers. I'm going to go get a thermometer just to be sure, and when I get back I want you in bed. Not on the bed, not next to the bed, in the bed." He kissed Elphaba on the forehead. "I love you."

As Fiyero went to go rummage through the girls' bathroom for a thermometer, Elphaba used every ounce of energy she had left to get into her nightgown again and to get into bed. She only made it about halfway, though. When Fiyero came out holding the thermometer, he found her slumped over on the side of the bed.

"Man, you're worse off than I thought. Come on, let's get you lying down," he said. He lifted her into the bed and pulled the blankets up around her. "Ok, since Glinda's still asleep I'm going to take your temperature first."

They waited for five minutes for the thermometer to finish. When the liquid inside had finally stopped climbing, Fiyero removed the thermometer from Elphaba's mouth. He stared at it for a moment, and then said "Wow, 102. That's a lot higher than I thought. You should try and sleep now, ok?"

Elphaba nodded, though only slightly. Fiyero reached over and began rubbing her back. He hummed the lullaby that he had hummed to her a few weeks before until he was convinced that she actually was asleep. Then he turned his attention to Glinda.

"Glinda…Glinda, honey, I need to take your temperature, ok?"

Glinda blinked her eyes a few times and then allowed the thermometer to be inserted into her mouth. Five minutes later, Fiyero declared Glinda the winner of the "fever race".

"103. Well, you beat Elphie by a degree. I'm going to go run to the store and get some supplies. You go back to sleep. You both need it."

Glinda closed her eyes and nodded. Fiyero went back over to Elphaba and gently stroked the side of her face. He hated to leave her alone like this, even if it was just for a little while.

Fiyero practically ran the three blocks to the grocery store. Once he reached his destination, he wandered around the store gathering up several varieties of juice, cold and flu medicines, and about ten boxes of tissues. He considered buying some cans of soup, but decided against it seeing as how they would have nowhere to cook it.

The journey back to Shiz was much slower, for the bottles of juice made it difficult for Fiyero to run as fast as he had on the way to the store. As he walked past a jewelry store, a necklace in the window caught his attention. It was obviously meant as a Lurlinemas necklace. The chain was gold, and the stones hanging from it were a bright green. This, he decided, was Elphaba's Lurlinemas gift.

As much as Fiyero would have liked to go into the jewelry store and barter with the owner for the necklace right then and there, he knew that would take too much time. He had other things to worry about right now.

Fiyero went back to Elphaba and Glinda's room and smiled upon seeing the clock. He had completed the trips to and from the store in only 25 minutes. He placed the bags from the store on the desk as quietly as he could and sat down in a chair next to Elphaba's bed. Without realizing it, he began to gently stroke her hair. There was just something about seeing her so sick that made him not want to leave her side.

Glinda coughing on the other side of the room pulled Fiyero out of his trance. He quickly moved the chair to beside Glinda's bed and poured her a glass of juice.

"Here, this should help" he said as he handed her the glass.

Glinda smiled in appreciation, her voice weakened from the constant coughing.

"Did you two sleep while I was out?" Fiyero asked.

Glinda cleared her throat a bit before speaking. "Well, Elphie's been out like a light since you left. But I've been coughing too much to sleep."

Just then they heard Elphaba stirring on the other side of the room. At first is was a gentle murmuring, but it quickly turned into a violent coughing fit. Glinda soon chimed in with a coughing fit of her own, leaving Fiyero stuck in the middle.

"This is going to be a long day," he thought to himself.