Strength

A.N. Well, here it is, folks. The last installment. As far as a sequel goes…yeah, I might write one eventually. I'm defiantly going to be doing some more in the Wicked area, though.

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters.

Two and a Half Years Later

"And as our students leave our fine institution, the faculty here at Shiz wish them the best in whatever field they choose. And if we here at Shiz have had some tiny part in their decisions, then we have accomplished our goal…"

Elphaba, Glinda, and Fiyero sat underneath the burning early summer sun, all dressed in identical black robes. Although Elphaba was quite used to this type of attire, both Glinda and Fiyero were constantly using the paper programs that had been handed out to all attending the Shiz University graduation ceremony as fans. Elphaba, who was sitting in the middle of the two of them, didn't really have to. Not only did her preference for black clothing prepare her for these types of situations, but the breezes from both Glinda and Fiyero's makeshift fans kept her more than comfortable.

As Madame Morrible droned on and on about how proud she was of the students and how she wished them the best in the future and how the past three years had been marked with challenges that all the students had been able to meet, typical graduation speech fare, Elphaba took to gazing around at the stands filled with proud families and friends of the graduates, and any younger students who hadn't been able to make it home yet and needed something to do. She knew that she had nobody up there watching her. She had some occasional contact with Nessa over the past two years, but nothing more than a reassurance that the other was still alive. Nessa would also describe, in great detail, the affairs of Munchkinland, and Elphaba would write back with advice on how to best handle the situation. Elphaba could sense that Nessa was beginning to have second thoughts about taking the governor's job at such a young age, but wasn't ready to admit it yet.

Elphaba felt a sudden pang of sadness for her sister. Although Nessa was a year younger, the two were enrolled in the same class. This would have been Nessa's graduation day as well, had she been able to stay at Shiz. "Funny, she was the only reason I was here and she didn't end up graduating" she thought to herself. Although Elphaba knew that it wasn't her fault that her sister dropped out, it still made her sad to think about how Nessa should have been there with her.

She went back to gazing into the stands. Apparently, it was a pastime of many a bored graduate, because many parents were waving from the stands to their children. She also saw what must have been the "bored siblings" club, a group of younger children congregated under the bleachers playing a game of some sort. She then glanced up at the stage again, to make sure Madame Morrible was still talking. Sure enough, the commencement speech (this was only the commencement speech? It was long enough to be the entire ceremony) was still going on.

As soon as Elphaba broke her distraction of looking at the stands, she felt herself get very, very tired. Well, not really tired. None of her felt tired except for her eyes and her neck. Gently, she rested her head on Fiyero's shoulder. She didn't close her eyes or attempt to sleep. She just rested there.

Fiyero, who had been amusing himself by seeing how many different origami formations he could turn his program into and still get it back to it's original shape, looked up at the sudden touch on his shoulder. He smiled at Elphaba, who in turn smiled back at him. While so many other couples in Shiz's graduating class were spending this day crying over how they would never see each other again, Fiyero and Elphaba could not stop smiling. They knew that they would see each other every day after graduating. After all they had been through, nothing was going to keep them apart.

"And with that being said, I present to you the graduating class of Shiz University!" Madame Morrible's speech was finally done. The students filed up onstage, accepted diplomas for whatever field they had studied or pretended to study, smiled, waved, and walked into the crowd of cheering, crying, and hugging graduates and parents. The actual graduation ceremony had taken only twenty-five minutes. Madame Morrible's speech had taken close to an hour.

After the ceremony was over, graduates were instructed to finish moving out of their dorms. Fiyero's room was pretty much done-the three of them had worked on packing it up the day and night before. Now they turned their attention to Glinda and Elphaba's room. While Fiyero went off in search of more cardboard boxes, Glinda and Elphaba sat down on their beds, now stripped of any linens, and looked around at the almost empty room.

"Now, see? Living with the green girl wasn't so bad, now was it?" Elphaba said sarcastically. She noticed Glinda wiping her eyes with her hands, and quickly moved over to Glinda's bed.

"Oh, Glinda don't cry. We're just leaving the room behind, not each other. Everything is going to be ok."

"I know…it's just…well, Elphie, this school was our lives! Everything happened in here. We met here, we became friends here, we met Fiyero and Boq here…"

"Hey, you actually got his name right!" Elphaba's voice filled with genuine excitement. "Well, better late than never I guess. Anyway, I know what you mean, Glinda. It's kind of like….I know I had 18 years of a life before I came here, but the past 3 have been more important to me than the 18 before them combined. Everything that I have, I got here. But you know what? I'm taking everything I have with me, too. And so are you. Look…" Elphaba reached over and grabbed a picture frame off the nightstand. The photo inside showed a confident young Galinda standing with her parents at a train station the day she left for Shiz. Dressed in a cream suit with more luggage than all the other students combined, she was the poster child for wealthy families of the Upper Uplands. "This is you just 3 years ago. When I first met you, you were spoiled, snobby, conceited, you had never done anything for yourself…"

"Is this going somewhere?" Glinda didn't really see the point of her friend's so called "pep talk".

"Yes. The point is, you're not any of that now. Glinda, you sat up with me all night when I didn't even ask. You went with me on three separate trips in one year. You got shot on one of them and never even gave it a second thought. I could never have pictured this girl" Elphaba said, motioning to the photo, "doing any of that. But you did. Glinda, I never would have made it through the past three years without you. So, yeah, you're leaving behind a room and a building and some teachers you never want to see again, but you're taking two very good friends with you."

"Two best friends." Glinda said, her voice starting to steady out. Just then Fiyero came back with the boxes, and the three set to work on packing the girl's room. It took them a grand total of two hours to get the room packed and emptied into the cab that would take them into the next chapter of their lives. Once the room was emptied, the three of them stood in the empty room. Fiyero had his arm around Elphaba's shoulder. Elphaba suddenly understood the reason for Glinda's crying earlier. It was hard to say goodybye. Not that saying goodbye was new to her.

Fiyero and Glinda started down to the cab. Elphaba remained in the room for just another minute, to glance around and check for any forgotten items that might have been under beds or under the desk. She looked out the window and felt something that she had not felt in quite a long time, at least not completely. Sure, she had felt brushes of it here or there. She had had moments of it. Even whole days of it. But she hadn't felt it this completely in a very, very long time.

She felt strong.

A.N. Ok, that's it! I would like to thank all the people that supported this story. 79 reviews at this time…that's quite a lot. Like I said, I will have more Wicked fics in the future. And, with the glory that is summer coming up, you nice people probably won't have to wait a month or more for updates on those like you did on this story.