Okay. So...welcome to chapter 5... Enjoy!

005. Outsides

She returned to her dorm room breathless from running. She tried to close the door softly as not to wake her room mate, but it turned out she was already sitting on her bed waiting.

"So," Glinda said.

Elphaba jumped.

"Where were you just now?" Glinda asked her.

"Out," she replied, still trying to regain her breath, "What's it to you?"

Glinda furrowed her brow. "Maybe I was worried. No need to be so hostile."

Elphaba guffawed. "You wouldn't worry about me if you saw someone push me off of Mount Runcible."

"Maybe you're right," Glinda said vaguely. ",but that's not the point. Who were you meeting?"

"What?"

"You left at one in the morning and didn't get back until almost three in the morning, it's Friday night, and you're out of breath and sweaty. What am I supposed to think?" Glinda argued.

Elphaba's mouth dropped open. "Surely you don't think I would degrade myself by doing that," she spat.

"Then what were you doing?" Glinda pressed on.

"It's none of your concern," Elphaba snapped.

"Then I'm going to assume that you were doing what I thought you were doing," Glinda stuck her nose in the air, "and I hope you were smart enough to use protection. It'd be a shame if you had to leave because you were with child."

"Glinda! I was not off screwing some guy!" Elphaba yelled, but not so loud as to wake anyone, "If you must know, I was doing some research. That's all."

Glinda took in the information and pouted. "Aww… that's a boring story. I think you should just stick with what I said."

Elphaba rolled her eyes and grabbed her nightclothes to go to the bathroom and change for bed. As she emerged from the bathroom, there was a light tapping on the door. Glinda was asleep already, so Elphaba answered it.

"Fiyero? What the hell are you doing here?" she hissed.

He shook his head and sighed. "You forgot something." He smirked as he held up the lantern that Elphaba had brought to Dr. Dillamond's office.

"Is this some sort of a joke, waking me up in the wee hours of the morning?" she asked him without missing a beat, "That's not mine." She was sure that at least half of the campus had lanterns like that.

"Oh. Alright. Well, could you give this to-" he turned the lantern upside-down and read "- 'E. Thropp' when you see her? Thanks, that'd be great." He said sarcastically.

She grabbed the lantern. "Alright then. You know I was there. Why were you there so early?" She interrogated.

"Uh…" Fiyero struggled to find an excuse. He was so excited to rub it in her face that he'd caught her that he'd forgotten to find a way of explaining why he was there.

"Mhmm. That's what I thought. Speechless." She rolled her eyes. "Thanks for the lantern. You're welcome to come back once you find the words to tell me why you were in Dr. Dillamond's office. Otherwise, I need sleep." She moved to close the door on him.

"To help the Animals!" He exclaimed suddenly, reaching out to stop the door from closing. Elphaba stopped the door just as it was about to hit his arm.

"You expect me to believe that? Why the hell would you, a shallow, self-absorbed prince, be interested in anyone's well-being?"

Fiyero squared his jaw. "I'm not shallow and I'm not as stupid as you think."

"Seeing as you hang out with Avaric, that's really hard to believe."

"I don't even like Avaric! He's just the only one that'll talk to me, so I tolerate it," he protested. "Listen, I'm not here to listen to you judge me by appearance. I wanted to talk to you about the research thing."

"The research thing?" Elphaba repeated, slightly amused.

"You know what I mean."

"Fine, I know what you mean. What about it?"

"I want to help. I can read stuff, get supplies or books… anything."

Elphaba pondered his proposal for a moment. "How about this: You do your research, I'll do mine, and we'll pick one day to meet up per week to share our findings?"

"Sounds good to me," Fiyero complied.

"Wonderful. Now if you don't mind, it's three-something in the morning. I'm going to sleep. Goodnight, Fiyero."

"G'night."

Elphaba closed the door after him. She sighed loudly. Who knew that in a half hour her perceptions of two people could be so dramatically changed. Glinda acknowledged her existence and Fiyero turned out to be… well, he wasn't the ass that Elphaba had thought him to be. Maybe it is true what they say. You can't judge someone from the outside.

Uh oh...

Review?

e.r.

p.s. I realize that there are errors. I scanned through quickly and fixed some, but I'm really too wound up to get everything.

--RENT tonight! squeak