Strength
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters.
Elphaba stayed in Fiyero's room for several hours. It was only when she noticed the sun going down that she decided to go back to her own.
"I should probably get going. Glinda's probably getting worried. Either that or she's passed out from exhaustion on the floor. I think I should be there either way." She stood off of Fiyero's lap and put her gift for Glinda back in the bag.
"Yeah, you're right. Just make sure that you two rest tomorrow, ok?" Fiyero said.
"Sure, Yero. I'll see you soon." Elphaba kissed him and left.
Fiyero stood at his window and watched the tiny green figure race across the snow-covered courtyard. Because of her severe contrast to the snow, he was able to track her all the way back to her building. It wasn't until she was safely inside the building that he took his eyes away from the window.
Elphaba returned to her room to find that the latter of her predictions was about to come true. Glinda was slumped on the floor by her bed, her head resting on the side. She looked up at Elphaba and offered a weak smile.
"Oh, hi Elphie. Did you get your…" Glinda's sentence was interrupted by a coughing fit. "…present wrapped?"
Suddenly, Elphaba saw the reason behind Fiyero's request that they rest. Somehow, the symptoms appeared more severe coming from another person than they had coming from herself. She knelt down next to Glinda and put her hand on her forehead. Feeling that Glinda still had the fever, she then moved her hand to her friend's shoulder. "Yeah, I did. It's right in that bag over there. Why don't you lie down for a bit, ok?" Elphaba helped Glinda stand up and lie down on the bed. Only when Glinda was settled did Elphaba pay any notice to the sudden dizziness that she was feeling. She was only able to make it back to her own bed before passing out herself.
Lurlinemas Eve was rather uneventful. Fiyero spent the day playing the doctor role, throwing in more than a few "I told you so" comments about the girls going shopping the day before. Both girls spent most of the day asleep, drifting in and out of conciousness to the sounds of the Lurlinemas carolers outside their windows.
Against his better judgement, Fiyero decided to spend the night in the girl's room. Most of the staff and other students had gone home for the holiday break, so there was less of a risk of being caught. He also didn't want to walk back to his own room in the dark.
He noticed that Elphaba was off to one side of her bed. He took advantage of this and climbed in next to her, the movement causing her to stir a bit.
"Yero…it's getting late, you should get back to your…"
"Shh, I'm going to stay here tonight. I want to make sure you're both ok. You go back to sleep."
Elphaba nodded and began to drift off again. Fiyero attempted to do the same, but found it much more difficult. At about midnight, he got up to go to the bathroom. However, he never made it there as halfway he was whacked on the back of the head with a pillow. He turned on the closest lamp and turned to see Glinda standing behind him, weapon in hand. She was breathing heavily and he could tell she was scared.
"Fiyero….what are you still doing here? I thought you were a murderer or something." Glinda said, still trying to even out her breathing.
"And you decided that a pillow would stop me?" Fiyero whispered, trying not to wake Elphaba.
"Well…it was the only thing I had next to me at the time. Anyway, have you been here all night?"
"Yeah, I decided it would be easier to just stay here than to go back to my room and then come back for the party tomorrow. Plus I wanted to make sure you two were ok. Which reminds me…" Fiyero put his hand to Glinda's forehead. "Your fever seems to be going down, but you still feel warm. Why don't you go get some rest? Battling would-be murderers with pillows must take a lot out of you."
Glinda gave him a sarcastic smile before going back to her bed. Fiyero, who had forgotten the reason he had gotten up in the first place, turned off the lamp and headed back to Elphaba's bed.
Fiyero didn't end up getting much more sleep. At about seven the next morning, he pulled himself out of bed to get the room ready for the party. They had decided (actually, Fiyero had decided) to open gifts in the girls' room before eating breakfast in the main dining hall with all of the other students who had not been able to go home for the holiday break. Fiyero could sense that although Elphaba had grown very close to himself and Glinda, she still wasn't entirely secure with the rest of Shiz's student population. Therefore he thought it would be best if the three of them kept to themselves for most of the day.
Around seven-thirty, all of the movement and noise finally woke up Glinda. "Fiyero, what are you doing this early?" she half-whined, only to be "Shhh"-ed at by Fiyero. He pointed to Elphaba, still asleep on the other half of the room. "I want everything to be ready when she wakes up. Now come on, get up and help me."
Glinda's desire to give her friend a nice holiday won over her grogginess as she assisted Fiyero in setting out the gifts that had been wrapped two days earlier. Fiyero had taken the liberty of buying Elphaba and Glinda a few extra gifts, to make the scene underneath the girls' tiny tree a little more robust looking. This was his girlfriend's first real Lurlinemas celebration, after all.
By eight, everything was all set up and Fiyero was contemplating the best way to wake up Elphaba. As it turned out, Glinda had the best method. She simply threw herself on top of her friend and bounced up and down, all the while chanting "Wake up! Wake up!"
"Ok, ok, I'm awake! How are you so hyper this early in the morning?" Elphaba said, swatting at Glinda to get her friend off of her. Fiyero sat down next to her on the bed and kissed her forehead. "Happy Lurlinemas, Fabala. How are you feeling?"
Elphaba suddenly remembered the day's significance and a pang of excitement began to well up inside her. "Fine. I think I'm getting better" she answered, trying to hide the excitement.
Fiyero, however, saw right through this. "Well then, come on. Let's go open some presents, shall we?" Fiyero and Glinda started for the tree, but Elphaba looked a little confused.
"Now? I'm not even dressed yet. Shouldn't I…"
"No. You shouldn't do anything. Just get up and open the presents." Glinda said with a twinge of impatience. She was just as excited about this day as Elphaba was.
"Elphie, trust me. It's fine. This is something that every Ozian family does. They wake up, they open presents in their pajamas, then they get ready for the day" said Fiyero.
"Oh, I get it. This is another one of those childhood rites of passage that I never experienced, right? Right up there with the birthday party? Are we going to re-do every part of my childhood that was not up to your standards of excellence?"
"Now you're getting the plan! Come on, let's open some presents, shall we?"
Fiyero quickly took the one desk chair, and Glinda knelt down on the floor. Elphaba quickly did the same, glad to have an example to follow.
"Ok, let's see what we have here…" Fiyero immediately began to distribute the various gifts. Glinda quickly opened each one and, after a hurried "thank you" put it in a pile next to her. Elphaba soon followed suit.
As Elphaba opened one of her gifts, she noticed Fiyero had been staring at her for awhile.
"What, am I doing something wrong?"
"No…it's just…I haven't seen you this happy in a long time. Look at yourself. You're relaxed, you're smiling, you're laughing…"
Elphaba then realized that he was right. This was the happiest she had been in a long, long time. She wasn't scared, she wasn't worried, there was no concern in the back of her mind. Just pure and simple happiness. She took a moment to savor the emotion.
"You know, I think things are finally starting to get back to normal around here." Fiyero said.
Elphaba thought for a moment. Normal. She hadn't had a normal day in so long that she had started to forget what one was like. What had "normal" been for her before her mother's death? Getting stared at everywhere she went? Having people avoid her because of her skin? How could she ever have accepted that as normal?
"No, things aren't going back to normal." Elphaba said. "They're getting a whole lot better."
A.N. OK, I know at the end of the last chapter I said "Hope this one won't take so long" and then it took over a month. I was in my school musical and the rehearsal schedule got pretty intense over the last few weeks. We just had our performance weekend, though, so now I'm going to have a lot more free time. This is probably the last real chapter of this story; there will be an epilogue after this chapter and then I think it's time to end this one. I can't drag this out forever. Thank you for indulging me over the past month or so; I promise I won't keep you waiting again.