9. Care
"I don't," Nessa said.
"Your father would receive monthly—"
"My father was on better terms with the Wizard," Nessa interjected. "Maybe he did receive monthly reports on her whereabouts, but I don't. Now, if you're quite finished wasting my time…"
This was Melena's first attempt at lobbying for Elphaba's sake, not three weeks ago, and since then there has been no improvement on either side of the desk. Nessa, as ever, is obstinate and unamenable and Melena's arguments lose their thrust as soon as she launches them against the stone foundations. It is not long before the cracks begin to show through her veneer of careful deference, but she persists until her arms are sore from the effort and her hands bloody from the shards. Elphaba is a menace to society, they say, she is a witch, she is a traitor, she is in Ovvels, in Traum, in the Vinkun Grasslands, everywhere at once and nowhere to be seen. Melena knows when she incorporates these scant bits of information into the scripts for these sessions that she will be shouting the words at closed shutters.
Each day grows a little darker, a little bleaker, and so much lonelier, but it all becomes irrelevant when she visits the study to supplicate for the fourth time and there is a dull thump in the wardrobe behind Nessa. The doors swing open and Elphaba steps into the room, gaunt and cagey and weary, but alive, thankfully alive, and warm if only temporarily, and for the briefest moment Melena is impervious to the fears that have accumulated across her heart like open sores.
Below the absurdly wide brim of an entirely absurd hat, Elphaba's shrewd eyes dart about the room. She gleans the terms of her reception from their faces, finding more than she bargained for in Melena's presence, but the surprise that twitches over her lips is not disapproving. Melena is certain that it is the beginning of a smile.
It promptly fades when Elphaba registers the dismay that has robbed Nessa of all colour. "Nessa—"
"I will not hear it."
"I'm so sorry, Nessa."
Nessa shakes her head fervently, training her eyes into her lap. The apology has a convincing ring, but the three of them know – and Nessa most of all – that Elphaba has not had the luxury of reflecting on her actions with anything reminiscent of depth. She can't afford to. There is the weight of thousands of lives balancing on her shoulders and Nessa, who is so heavy for all her slightness, could very well be her undoing.
Elphaba says, "I need your support—"
"As if you deserve it!" Nessa cries.
"The reforms are driving Animals out of their homes, out of their jobs, out of Oz as a whole – if they can make it that far. And, Nessa, they can't. They're ending up in cages and in prison." Elphaba's eyes are round and keen, imploring, but Nessa meets her with all the liveliness of a statue. "We've been—"
"We?" Nessa scoffs.
"Yes, we, have been setting up outposts in the Vinkus to shelter them for the time being, but there are no resources in the grasslands or the mountains. We need the support of Munchkinland. We need your support." Elphaba drives her teeth into her bottom lip and peers at Nessa once more, as if into a blinding light. "You do understand that I had to leave, don't you? I know I was absent when you needed me, Nessa, and I know about the burden of association—"
Nessa has been smarting all along, but this causes her to recoil and wind up again, as if she has been slapped and feels herself capable of the same. Her sardonic laughter has the same effect on Elphaba's candour as a razor does on skin. "Burden of association?" she echoes. "That's an awfully clean way of putting it."
"I'm not here to excuse what you've gone through on my account," Elphaba says valiantly.
"You have no idea what I've gone through on your account!" Nessa says, making no effort to govern her fury. "You don't claim that someone is your family, Elphaba, and then spin on your heel and leave. You don't turn your back on family – and then turn back to beg for support."
Elphaba suffers the blow in silence, as though she has not been made a pariah by her own father.
"You'd be on your knees if you had any idea what we endured after you left," Nessa says. "They were interrogating people you'd never even spoken to. How do you think they treated your friends? We were under surveillance – for months. They opened our letters before we even knew we'd gotten any. They pulled us out of class to question us, one by one, so we couldn't plan what to say as a group. No one talked to us in all that time, Elphaba, and then Glinda and Fiyero were invited to the Emerald City, and where do you think that left Boq and I?"
This is the most that Nessa has ever recounted of her last months at Shiz and Melena is stunned by its sting. It's over now, she thinks, but the guilt scorches just the same. If she brought Nessa home – Frex be damned – then Nessa would not have suffered the fear and the scorn heaped on her in Elphaba's absence, then she would not be using it as ammunition against her sister. It is so surreal. They lash out like wounded animals, digging into their own wounds without thinking, and it is the first time that Melena has ever really seen them as each other's family.
Even so, her intervention is feeble. She only manages to say, "Let her explain, Nessa."
"Why? Don't you see what she's done to us?" Nessa's lips curve into a sneer as she faces Elphaba again. "My father died, did you know that? As if that hasn't been enough stress, my mother's been worrying about you. She barges into my study three times a day to harass me about contributing to your cause."
All of Melena's meetings with Nessa are booked in advance. She submits herself into the list of appointments that is now compiled by Boq and receives a slip of confirmation at breakfast the next morning. She only does this every few days, and when the time comes, she never speaks of Animals, or a cause, only of contacting Elphaba and extending sanctuary.
She can't bring herself to admit any of this.
"I'm sorry you've been worrying over me." Elphaba turns to Melena and flushes from shame. "I didn't realize…"
"It doesn't matter," Nessa interrupts.
"Maybe…" Elphaba fumbles for her words. "Maybe, if you didn't think of it as an agreement between the two of us, but as something you're doing for wronged citizens…"
Nessa laughs.
"You're the Governor of Munchkinland," Elphaba says. It grieves Melena that after all this time she still has faith in titles. "You control the largest territory. You control nearly every resource. If you cared about this, it could make all the difference."
Nessa's eyes flash and her face scrunches in disgust. "I'm an unelected official," she says icily. "I can't harbour a fugitive."
"That's not what I'm asking you to—"
"No? Speak of Animals all you want; it's hardly convincing." Nessa's voice is nearly a snarl. "You're here because you're out of options. You've lost." She tosses her head. "Well, frankly, I refuse to be a last resort. And I can't grant you aid any more than I can grant you refuge, so I think it would be best if you left." She adds, acerbically, "You're good at that."
At this, Melena feels raw panic surge into her bloodstream. She says, "Nessa, if we could—"
"No," Nessa says. "She made her choice. She left. I owe her nothing." She rounds on Elphaba one last time. "I owe you nothing. I do, however, owe allegiance to the Wizard of Oz. If you say another word, I'll have you delivered to him myself."
Elphaba winces, but she is not cowed. Remarkably. Stupidly. "Nessa," she says, "I still consider you family. I had to leave. Don't you see? I had to." She falters. She breathes. She tries again. "If you saw what I've seen…Nessa, it's more complicated than you're making it. It's always more complicated."
Nessa's reaction is the purest pain, then the purest loathing, and Melena can hardly stand to watch as memories war behind those uncertain hazel eyes. The anger claws and gnashes its way to a victory and Nessa flies from the room. Elphaba remains in the centre, stranded, and blinks in astonishment as her purpose leaks out of her like blood. "Where is she going?" she asks.
"To retrieve Boq, I assume."
"Boq?"
"You won't be able to leave through the door," Melena says.
"I…I don't remember what I was expecting," Elphaba says. Her voice is hoarse and her eyes glazed enough to shine. Melena has not noticed this until now. "I suppose I'll be going then."
A limp, too, and sluggish steps. Melena charges forward and lays a hand across Elphaba's forehead. Elphaba flinches and ducks but the fever sears through Melena's palm with so much intensity that she is compelled to say, "I won't have you leaving—"
"Through the door, I know."
"In this condition," she finishes.
Elphaba scowls. "And what do you propose? Should I change into my formal wear and wait on the maid to summon me to dinner?"
Melena trumps the sarcasm with blunt logic. "You have a fever," she says. "You need warmth and a meal and I daresay some rest after that flogging Nessa just gave you." The click of frantic footsteps advancing down the hall and congregating on the other side of the door. Elphaba issues a desperate plea with her eyes and Melena says, "Are you claustrophobic?"
"No."
And so Melena nudges her, a little roughly, towards the wardrobe. The hat is knocked off in the process. "Do you remember where my room is? The doors are fully closed; you won't be able to get out on your own. No one will hear you, but stay quiet anyway. I won't be more than fifteen minutes."
"But—"
"In," Melena hisses.
Elphaba's eyes are wide with alarm. "How do I know I can trust you?" The hat is stuffed in after her and she grasps it tightly, saying, "How do you know you can trust me?"
The wardrobe is wrenched shut as Boq and a cohort of four guards charge in. Melena has managed to spin towards the window, as if pondering the view of the ravine, and she releases a breathy exclamation of what is – for all intents and purposes – fright. They flick back the drapes, peer under the desk, and glance around the furnishings, murmuring to each other while they form a circle around the wardrobe with the air of a hunting party.
As they exchange a signal and haul it open, Melena's teeth sink so deeply into the flesh of her cheek that she tastes blood, but the cavity behind the doors yields nothing more than some musty ceremonial robes. Boq chalks it up to Nessa's paranoia. The guards posit Elphaba's shape-shifting abilities.
Melena puts forth a remark about being the first in after Nessa's supposed encounter and seconds Boq's theory before slipping out, stifling laughter with her wrist and making her way to the kitchen. "I'll be retiring early. If you could have dinner brought to my room," she requests of the first maid she comes across. "A soup, I think, and some of the pie from last night. And maybe a tea, the one with the mint leaves."
From there, she raids the pantry, then Nessa's chambers, filling a basket with the necessities that call to her through the fog: non-perishable foods, a nightgown, underclothes, gloves, the thickest pair of stockings that Nessa won't miss. She returns to her own chambers and heaves the lot of it onto a chair to sort through after she has freed Elphaba from the wardrobe. (Although she is of half a mind to leave it sealed until the witch business blows over.)
Alighting on the edge of the bed, Melena wrings her hands, trying to ignore the drum of her pulse in her ears until a knock on the door nearly stops it. She thanks the maid and assumes the tray, but the girl lingers and peers in.
She asks, "Should I turn down the bed? Or run you a bath?"
"That won't be necessary," Melena says. Her voice is not level. But surely it is not pitched so as to reveal that she is the mother of an unelected official and harbouring a fugitive in her wardrobe. That she is the mother of the harboured fugitive in her wardrobe. Absurd. It is all absurd.
"If you'll excuse my saying so…you do look flushed, ma'am. Rest well." The girl starts and then stops, toying with the strings of her apron. "Oh – if you hadn't heard, ma'am, word is that the Wicked Witch of the West dropped in on the governor just now. Would you have a guard posted outside your door?"
Melena nearly bursts out laughing again. She smothers it into a cough. "No thank you, Holly. I'll be fine."
When Melena flings open the doors, her harboured fugitive all but topples out, and she offers an arm until Elphaba has righted herself. "Is it amusing how much they fear you?" Melena asks. "Or was it tiresome before it began?"
"I award points based on creativity," Elphaba says, steeping in the familiarity of her surroundings. Memories of stealing in with carefully selected books play out across her face as she crosses to the door and rattles the knob. "This is not very sturdy. Perhaps you should have had that guard posted."
"I think I'll survive."
Elphaba twists and untwists the lock and presses her temple to the wood. "Will they hear anything?"
"No."
"How do you know?"
Melena adjusts the throw on the settee. "I've had a great deal of noisy lovers."
Elphaba looks askance, Melena meets her halfway, and then they are laughing, at Frex, at themselves, at everything. "Not Mayor Timsette, I hope," Elphaba says. "Or – good god – the Duke of Kvon. A bastard, if I ever saw one. And I say that as a bastard myself."
"I do have taste, you know," Melena says crossly. In my recent years, at least, she thinks, though she watches Elphaba poking around the furniture and pawing through the book on the bedside table and doesn't give under her usual pang of regret.
"Have you been reading this?" Elphaba asks, drawing her finger down the table of contents.
It is Gubriel's Unabridged History of Munchkinland or, rather, the late-night hankering Melena had to delve into the world of Nessa's predecessors. Melena feels uncomfortable being found out, as if she is exposing Elphaba to something that shouldn't be seen – history, after all, is little more and little less than lies and blood – and she doesn't relax until Elphaba shifts the volume and uncovers the novel below it.
"One that's fiction and one that isn't. I used to do this too," Elphaba says. "Although recently I've found that the lines dividing the two don't run quite as deep as I thought."
She looks up. Melena says abruptly, "I'll run you a bath."
When she returns, leaving the water to slosh into the basin, she finds that Elphaba is still frozen in place, the spine of the book cradled in her palms.
"Do you remember that conversation we had two summers ago? About my father's behaviour?"
"Yes."
Elphaba traces the embossed title with a slender finger. "He's a fraud," she says softly. "He has no powers. I was a tool. All along, I was a tool. The proof he didn't have. And when I wasn't useful anymore, I was refashioned. Who's going to fixate on drought and debt and bids for power when a witch might kidnap their children? Or worse: recruit their children." Her lips are touched by a tired smile that doesn't advance past them. "I just…I thought you should know what became of it."
Melena feels as if her heart is being pinched. "It must be almost full by now," she says. "Toss your clothes out. I'll lay them to dry."
Complying, Elphaba disappears through the powder room and Melena sets about sorting the rotting, rumpled pile that has been shed like an old skin. There's no helping the boots, but the underclothes and the stockings – sodden and worn right through at the toes – she replaces. As she seizes the ratty cloth bag that Elphaba has set against the bed post, she peers in and an itch swirls about her fingers.
I shouldn't, she thinks, as she does.
She withdraws an old tome, musty and worn, but somehow weightless, written in strange symbols that twist and scatter before she can make sense of their shape.
She withdraws a scrap of paper that is jagged around the edges and discoloured from the elements, with what look to be directions written in a code.
She withdraws—
Melena gasps her surprise and nearly chokes on the lump in her throat as her fingers wrap around the smooth neck and draw it out. Chipped mouth, peeling label. She opens her palm and the green glass catches the light. Miracle Elixir, it reads proudly, though a miracle has yet to come of it. Inside, Melena can make out the curling corners of a prayer card depicting Saint Aelphaba.
Fear uncoils, and Melena feels as buoyant as she does ill, because she is so close. A few words between herself and freedom, with the bottle to fill in what remains.
I am so close, she thinks.
But they are such hulking, destructive words and she shrinks before the prospect, even as it spreads its arms and closes in. It's time I told you or there is a reason for all of this or I wish I had done better.
The gurgle of draining water interferes and the words are punctured with reality. Melena looks over the artifacts mixed into the folds of her skirt and realizes that she has taken longer than she meant to. Hastily, she tucks Elphaba's belongings away, burying them under the pilfered supplies and restoring the bag to its original place. She tries to put it from her mind, but she catches her eyes straying back suspiciously, as if it will betray her at any time.
Elphaba appears in the doorway, in one of Nessa's blue nightgowns, rubbing her good ankle with the opposite foot. Her hair clings to her in wet straggles and she looks sturdier in her bearing, but seems to be recollecting what it is to be shy. She asks, "Why are you doing this?"
"That was quick," Melena says.
"I don't like imposing."
Melena pours out a steaming cup of tea, pressing it into Elphaba's hands and motioning her towards the vanity. The matted ends of her hair could use a trim, badly, but Melena has already saddled herself with the task of explaining away a sudden illness and an uncalled for appetite and does not know what magic she could possibly work on clumps of hair that aren't hers. She resigns herself to combing it out.
"You haven't answered my question," Elphaba says, sipping contentedly.
Just a few words, Melena thinks. End it. "The past year hasn't been good for Nessa," she starts and it is already too late. The lies, however true, are too comfortable. Too easy. "On the whole, she hasn't had a great deal of good years – except her first year of university, and that's owing to you." Melena's hand closes around one of the damp strands. "That friendship was everything to her. I suppose I feel an outstanding debt."
She detects a tremor in Elphaba's shoulders and bends, pretending to be absorbed by a complex snag. Elphaba breathes deeply and recovers and says, "The debt is mine. That was a good year for me too."
Working in silence, Melena leaves it to Elphaba to strike up the subject she wants. Elphaba stares into her cup and winces every so often until she asks, "Do you worry about Glinda?"
"All the time," Melena lies.
"She's the daughter he wanted – or needed, I suppose, and I led her right to him. And she brought Fiyero along."
There is a difference in Elphaba's tone when she mentions Fiyero; it is nearly a caress. Melena recalls the truce that Galinda was once so determined to facilitate and meets Elphaba's eyes in the mirror.
Elphaba blushes and looks away. "Have you been keeping up with the news?"
"When I can."
"My father doesn't occupy the Vinkus. He controls it, but he hasn't moved in," she says. "He never will, because it's too sparse. The next logical move is Munchkinland – if he has it, he'll have everything. Isn't it strange? Nessa is the only political leader standing in opposition to him and she doesn't even realize it."
"Nessa, and you," Melena says.
Elphaba shakes her head. "I'm not a leader."
Melena disagrees but does not argue; her battle lies elsewhere. "Is it possible that Munchkinland would have been better in his hands?" She notes the way Elphaba's fingers tighten over the edge of the table and rushes to explain: "Nessa's approach isn't exactly ideal, and there isn't much left to sabotage, but she's managing it. When her father died, they offered to put a representative on the council to oversee the transition."
"Not out of the goodness of their hearts, I assure you."
"I wasn't having it, of course," Melena says, "but I can't shake the feeling that it was a mistake."
"You were right to refuse."
"But was I?"
Elphaba's head jerks and her reflection looks startled by the insecurity she perceives in these words.
"After all, she's stripped us of our rights," Melena hastily adds, and then she stops altogether and backs away. It is a moment before she is able to take up her position behind Elphaba again. "There was a time when I would have died before including myself in that us."
"Under any other circumstances, I'd call that progress," Elphaba says generously, and then she goes quiet. When she surfaces from her thoughts, she delivers her words with slow precision. "You've been right to keep her out of the fold. Nessa doesn't have the expertise to hold her own with them. I don't either, but I can run when it suits me. They'll eat her alive."
And how long will that be? Melena hears, suddenly, as if Morrible is lurking nearby. Elphaba spins in the chair, without warning, and seizes Melena's sleeve. "Promise me you'll take care of her," she says. "You have to promise me."
The absurdity of agreeing to guard her own daughter is not lost on Melena, but she sees the severe – almost crazed – look in Elphaba's eyes and nods without thinking. "I promise," she says.
"Okay," Elphaba says, calming. "Okay." Her eyes drop to where she is still clutching Melena's wrist and she quickly releases it. "I just…I don't know. I needed to hear it aloud."
"I understand," Melena says, not understanding. "Can I ask you something? How did you come about the sprain?"
"Stupidity."
Melena waits.
"There was a gang of Gale Forcers on my trail and I was trying to get a look at them," Elphaba says. "I ended up tripping on some roots. It was storming too hard for me to fly, so I climbed the tree and sat there in the rain until they moved on."
"Why were you trying to get a look at them?"
Elphaba clamps her mouth shut, closing off, and does not elaborate. Melena respects this – every fragment is a gift she never thought she'd get – and parses the last few knots of hair without further inquiries. Afterwards, she sends Elphaba to the table and slides the tray across. Elphaba slurps the lukewarm soup from the spoon with strained decorum and then dabs her chin with the napkin and twists it through her fingers, staring meditatively at the concave surface of the bowl. It is not until halfway through the pie that she says, "Why is Boq here?"
"I'm still asking myself that question."
"He's friendly, but I never understood the…the attachment," Elphaba says. "Especially when – Oz, surely she knows that he doesn't love her by now."
Melena scoffs. "It's hard to say. Our lovely Nessa has always had a difficult time grasping the nuances between love and servitude."
"Glinda and I, we often tried hinting—"
"Did you? Has no one told you about her condition?"
Elphaba tenses. "Her condition?"
"She suffers from selective hearing," Melena says. "It's hereditary, I'm afraid, and incurable. She gets it from her father's side."
"Not from yours?"
"What? I didn't catch that."
Elphaba's concern cracks open into a smile, though it doesn't endure for long. It fades, every time, to the same pensive frown. "She was right about us being on our last limbs – that's why it had to be today. I thought perhaps she'd be settled and I could reason with her."
"Nessa doesn't respond to reason," Melena says.
"What does she respond to?"
Melena runs her hands along her forearms, thinking, and then it comes to her. "You could try bribery."
"I don't have much to bribe with," Elphaba says, accepting defeat. "Besides, it wouldn't work – not on Nessa. She hates me. She has every right to, but it was a terrible thing to realize."
The resignation behind the words plunges into Melena like a fist. She's felt it herself so many times. "Nessa is difficult," she says. "She's hurt. But she wouldn't let herself be this hurt if she didn't love you."
Elphaba looks marginally soothed by this.
"If it's any consolation," Melena continues, "she doesn't seem to believe you're wicked. Just that you've wronged her, and I know that's its own trial, but at this point I'm certain she will always think of you as Elphaba."
A drawn smile. "So that makes a grand total of one."
"Two," Melena says.
"…thank you."
"Elphaba."
"Yes?"
"What do you do? What is your goal?"
Elphaba gauges Melena's expression, as if fearing that she is being mocked or challenged or backed into a trap. She pauses, deliberating, searching for a clue and coming away with only patient expectation, and then says, "At first, it was offensive manoeuvres. We sabotaged. We waylaid officers so that captives could escape, or so they had time to flee. We ransacked the makeshift prisons that were set up far into the provinces and we succeeded, for a time, but we've lost too many members and now we can't afford to be reckless. Half of our agents are in Southstairs." Elphaba pauses to collect herself and then tumbles back in. "There are networks that organize outposts and camps. There are underground routes into surrounding territories. The conditions are dismal but mostly safe."
The prongs of the fork squeal in protest as she draws them unthinkingly across the plate. "We try to protect new mothers and children. They're targeted because it's easy, because voices can be impeded during the early stages of their development. The children are put in cages; the mothers in prison. Any who struggle are killed outright."
"Have you ever killed?" Melena asks.
"Not intentionally."
It breaks over Melena's head like thunder; a moment of utmost force and then nothing. "And the 'we,' the 'us,' who is that?"
"I'm just the face of the Resistance," Elphaba says, "not the entire body. It's an extra little 'fuck you' to my father. I was a good get, and don't they know it."
"Do you live on the camps?"
Elphaba bites her lip. "I stay, sporadically, and I engage with them – to keep them speaking. It's so easy to lose yourself in the squalor." She nudges the crumbs on her plate. "But no, it's not a permanent arrangement for me."
"Are there safehouses, then?" Melena prods. "Somewhere you can return to? Someone who waits for you to return?"
"There are, and there is," Elphaba assures her, waiting for a reaction, for the next leg of quizzing, but Melena can hardly focus on extracting more information when she has been given so much to process. She knows she will regret this later, but now it dawns on her: I don't want to hear anymore. I can't bear it.
Ignoring the questions that cluster and jostle on her tongue, Melena merely says, "I'd like to call in my debt."
"I won't walk away." Elphaba tenses and her shoulders go square. "I'm the only consistently effective agent. There's no one to assume my position."
"I realize that. Just…tell me there are more of them than I think there are."
"As in safehouses? Someones?"
"Either – or both. Anything."
Elphaba glowers. "I'm not completely helpless."
"Maybe not, but you're overestimating yourself." Melena's nerves rub and grind until they are too raw for her to remain in her seat. She rises and begins pacing, tallying her fears on her fingers. "Creeping up on the Gale Force. Raiding prisons. Conducting underground routes. It's not a game." She whirls towards Elphaba. "You don't see the newspapers. The lies. There's a bounty. There are hunters. An entire industry has been built on despising you."
"I know that."
Melena is chagrined by the calmness with which Elphaba's meets her distress. "You do realize that you're in danger, don't you? That every move is life or death?"
"It's not just my life or death. It's thousands of lives and deaths that are being overlooked." Elphaba's lips curl in anger and then purse with shame and she turns away to conceal the emotion. "You can't pretend an informed opinion when you've only seen one side of it."
"If I'd only seen one side of it, Elphaba, you'd be in the loving embrace of the Gale Force right now," Melena says.
They glare at each other and drag the argument no further. Melena clears the dishes, busying herself over the china to fill the emptiness with something tangible, with senseless clamour, though she can tolerate this better than anything she's fielded in the last few months. It is not one of Nessa's brutalizing silences. There is acceptance on both sides, clashing and spinning away and retreating into mutual submission. Melena caves first and pulls Elphaba out of her chair, guiding her to the bed with a wordless gesture. Elphaba protests over and over and then concedes and pulls back the covers in what is nearly awe. Melena can see her resisting the temptation to dive in and drown.
It is not long before Elphaba settles against the pillows and takes up the novel; Melena moves to the settee and resumes with the history. Three pages rasp before Elphaba shifts uncomfortably and says, "There are more of them than you think there are."
Melena does not believe it in her heart but she believes it in the moment. "I think what you're doing is admirable," she says solemnly. "If that's worth anything."
"It is," Elphaba says.
"I just…it's difficult for me to accept the fact that it comes at the expense of your—" Melena does not know what she means to say. Youth. Education. Future. Happiness. All of those things she planned so thoroughly for them. "If you should need anything else, I'd be happy to –"
"Harbour a fugitive?" Elphaba supplies. "Well, if you ever find yourself on the wrong side of public opinion, I'd return the favour."
They dissolve, superficially, into their texts, pretending at the absorption that they don't buy in the other. Melena feels the tingle of Elphaba's eyes glancing over every few seconds and quickly darting down again and suppresses a smile each time, seizing that brief interval to do her own scouting. She persists with this pattern and sneaks intermittent glimpses until the moment she does so and finds Elphaba asleep.
Gingerly, Melena tugs the book from Elphaba's slackened grip and smooths the hair off green temples that are no longer radiating heat, and then she retires, turning out the lamp and curling up on the settee. The late autumn chill seeps in through the window and presses down, but she is impervious to the effect even as it drains the sensitivity from her limbs. She fancies she'll coax Elphaba into breakfast and a compress for the ankle – maybe even lunch – and drifts out of herself in the cradle of a feeling that may just be peace.
She wakes, stiff and sore from the odd angle, with a second blanket tucked around her. A note sits where Elphaba's head was not six hours ago, written on the scrap of paper with the code, reading only: Thank you. Really.
Later, a search of the grounds forces Melena to accept that Elphaba is gone, and she places the note among the fifteen years' worth of clippings that inhabit the bottom drawer of her desk. But she returns within the hour and moves it to the second drawer, where articles from the last two years live, and she is pleased to see something genuine atop the heap of lies.
Perhaps this will all work out, she thinks.
She does not believe it in her heart but she believes it in the moment.
