Disclaimer: What I wouldn't give to own Wicked…but alas, I don't.
Author's Note: Well, this is my first Wicked fic…and one shot, while we're at it. This is just a little idea I came up with today. It hints at Gelphie and I think many would say that Elphaba is probably just the slightest bit AU. But I like to think that there is more to her than she let's on…and besides, it's fanfic…right? It's mainly book based…so yeah, let me know what you think!
Summary: When Glinda catches Elphaba in a moment of vulnerability there is no turning back for the green girl as she finds herself opening up to someone else for the first time.
Capacity-
-A One Shot
Elphaba stormed into the room, slamming the door in her wake. The walls shook from the force, the pictures Glinda had hung on the wall threatening to fall. But Elphaba took no notice as she began to pace the room, her mind reeling.
How could she let him affect her this way? To infuriate her beyond any anger she had ever felt before. To make her leave the table in such haste that she forgot to bid farewell to Boq and Fiyero and Tibbett and Crope? She knew the answer, and she hated herself for it. She hated herself for it just as much as she hated him. Sweet Lurline or Unnamed God or who ever the hell it was, she resented him. She couldn't even bring her self to think his name; he pissed her off so much.
Avaric.
As she expected a suppressed scream of furry escaped her lips. Avaric and his constant rants and sarcastic remarks of her and her green skin. But it wasn't his actual comments that had sent her into such a frenzy. No, it was the epiphany that had landed on her while she had once again listened to his incessant remarks of her verdigris and being. It was that she was no different than him. No matter how much she hated the idea, they were the same. Their same way of casting sarcastic remarks at the cost of others. How both didn't give a tick-tock of what others thought of them.
It was only the idea of that they both did it for different reasons that kept Elphaba from throwing herself out the bedroom window. Yes, both did it for different reasons indeed.
Avaric did it because he could. Because his swanky nature allowed him such liberties. Because it earned him a laugh and the title of being witty. Because he simply didn't care.
But Elphaba— she did it because she had to. It was the only way she knew, the only way she could know. For it she didn't she would allow others to see the hurt she truly felt. The pain she had endured all her life, something no one could ever know. Because if she didn't she would have been torn apart long ago.
So if they were the same, did that mean that she got on the nerves of all those around her like he got on her nerves? Did that mean that the others resented her like she so resented him?
The floor was threatening to thin beneath her as she continued to pace. Any longer and she would be falling to the floor of the room below her. But she didn't stop.
What did it matter? Why did she care what others thought of her? She never had before. So why start now? She clenched her fists in anger. Why was the petty Gillikinese boy sending her into such a state of self-consciousness and analysis?
"Stupid, filthy, pig-headed bastard," she seethed, kicking the corner of her bed.
"Elphie?"
Elphaba froze, unmoving. Her heart pounding in her chest. Slowly she turned, to see her blonde roommate sitting on her pink, frilly bed, the latest fashion magazine sprawled before her. A lump formed in the green girl's throat that she slowly suppressed. Had she really been so self-absorbed that she had failed to notice her petite roommate sitting in the room? It was true Glinda was tiny, but she wasn't that small.
"Oh, Miss Glinda…uh…hi," she finally breathed out lamely, trying to hide from the pressure of the blues eyes that were staring intently at her, failing to notice the frown that spread across Glinda's face at the term 'Miss'.
"Are you alright, Elphaba?" Glinda asked, throwing her magazine aside.
"Yes, of course I am-"
"Oh please, you know the question was rhetorical. Something is obviously wrong; you were beginning to make a dent in the floor."
"Really, I'm alright."
"No, you're not."
"Yes, I am." Elphaba finished, her voice gaining an edge as she sat on her bed.
"Are we not good enough friends for you to tell me what's wrong…?" Glinda questioned, sitting up a little bit straighter.
Elphaba turned her head to look out the window, then slowly turned back to the blonde. "I have no friends."
"Oh Miss Elphaba? Then what of Masters Boq and Fiyero and Tibbett and Crope?" Glinda asked. "You don't address each other with an honorific. If that's not being friends, then I'm afraid I don't know what is."
Elphaba smirked. "A minute ago you addressed me without the honorific, and only more recently did you use just that. Does that mean that at the beginning of this conversation we were friends and now we aren't?"
Glinda rolled her eyes. "I'd like to think that in light of certain events and being roommates for over a year now we are in some form or way friends."
Elphaba cackled. "Careful now, you don't want Miss Shenshen or Miss Milla or Miss Pfannee to overhear you, do you?"
Glinda had to restrain form throwing her pillow at her roommate. "You're evading the question."
"And which question is that? You've asked many in the past moments we've been talking."
Glinda didn't refrain from throwing the pillow this time. The light, fluffy article flew through the air hitting Elphaba in the chest. The latter took it and hugged the item, despite herself. "It's only recently come to my attention that those boys merely put up with me for reasons beyond me," Elphaba answered, not quite sure why she allowed herself to do so.
Glinda gasped. "Surely they didn't tell you so themselves?"
Elphaba laughed. "No, simply a conclusion I have drawn myself. Boq only puts up with me because I'm your roommate and he can easily ask me questions regarding you." At this, Glinda turned away, attempting to hide the embarrassment she felt engulfing her. "Tibbett and Crope. Crope and Tibbett. They are Boq's friends and therefore only put up with me because of him."
"And what of Master Fiyero?" Glinda questioned, turning back to her
roommate.
Elphaba thought for a moment. "He's just a new kid, nearly killed on his first day by rabid antlers. I'm a last resort."
"And Master Avaric?"
Elphaba's face darkened at the mention of the boy and Glinda felt herself retreating farther up her bed. "I loathe him with my every being and wouldn't mind kicking him into Suicide Canal . But he is Boq's roommate and I must put up with him, if only to keep my false understanding of friendships alive," she finished with a sigh. Elphaba couldn't believe she was talking this way, opening herself up and making herself vulnerable. But there was something about the blonde across from her that made her lose all sense of her real self— or the person she hoped to be.
Glinda stared at her for a moment, trying to catch the other's eye, but to no avail. Finally, she moved so she was sitting at the edge of her overly stuffed pink mattress. "And what of us, Elphaba?"
"Us?" Elphaba asked, finally looking to Glinda and finding she couldn't tear her eyes from the blue ones across from her.
"Yes, what excuse can you come up with to prove that we aren't friends?"
Elphaba felt something flip at the pit of her stomach as she continued to stare into the depths of Glinda's eyes. "Because we are only roommates. You put up with me because you have to."
"Elphie, are you so stubborn to not admit that you don't feel that we have indeed become friends? Would I sit and talk with you for hours on end each night if we weren't? Sharing my deepest secrets and hopes with you? Why are you so opposed to the idea that there are people out there who care for you?"
Elphaba felt a chill run up her spine at Glinda's words. Why was this blonde able to make her feel so…so… She didn't even know what it was.
"Because, Glinda," she said, standing, reluctantly breaking eye contact. "Because I can't have friends." If Elphaba believed in any deity she would have prayed just then. Prayed to it to make her build back the walls she had put up over the years. The walls that Glinda could easily tear down.
"You can't?"
Elphaba shook her head, willing herself not to speak but finding the words spilling from her mouth despite her best efforts to keep them hidden. "I'm not allowed. With friendship comes love. Growing up like me, one soon realizes that love is something out of reach." Was she really saying what she had long kept from everyone around her? Was she really allowing her this girl to know how she really thought? Yes she was. Though Glinda was more than just a girl, she was, she was….Glinda. And Elphaba found herself unable to deny her anything.
"Elphie, you surely don't believe that…"
"Of course I do. If you're taught it all your life it becomes easy to believe, because it becomes all that you know. I never received love. Always dragged around by my father so he could use me as an example to those he was trying to convert. After all, if the Unnamed God could love a thing like me, then he could love anyone." She paused for a moment, wondering if she should continue. She didn't want to continue, but Glinda's silent presence made her go on.
"There were times when I wondered if my father's use of me in such ways was his expression of love. After all, how does one express love for a green child?" A cackle escaped her lips. "Well, if that's love, it comes at much too high a cost and I'd rather not take part of it.
"So don't you see? I don't have the capacity to love. To have friends. To want friends or any of it. Because how can one return love when they have never known it?
"Besides, doesn't one need a soul to love? To feel? To build friendships? I'm sure they do. But I don't have a soul, something else I'm not capable of having. And if one doesn't have a soul then--"
A concealed groan escaped Glinda. "For Lurline's sake Elphaba, shut up!" she yelled, interrupting Elphaba mid-sentence. "For once, just SHUT UP!"
The green woman froze. She slowly turned to face her roommate, to find the blonde was now standing, looking at her with a fury Elphaba had never seen before. Her eyes were hazy, with…were those unshed tears building? Certainly not. Was her story so tragic she could actually get that sort of reaction?
"W--what?" Elphaba asked, taken aback. Glinda Adruennas never yelled, nor did she ever allow herself to use such language as 'shut up' however mild as it was. And to be witness to both at once, it was unnerving.
"Elphaba Thropp, you vile little thing. All this talk of not having the capacity for friends, of having no soul, of being unable to love. It's very unbecoming and quite frankly, I'm tired of it. Why can't you accept that there are people, like me, who have come to care for you?" With each word Glinda had moved closer to Elphaba, resulting in the two only standing a foot apart.
"For Goodness sake, Glinda, I'm green," Elphaba finally said, sitting back down on her bed, trying to avoid Glinda at all cost. "And growing up in such a way, one learns that those of my nature aren't allowed a soul or friends or love, for that matter. Haven't I just explained all that?"
Glinda sighed, "You're skin is no different than Fiyero's or any other Winkie's for that matter. You're simply a different color, just like them."
"Yes, but they are a whole nation. I am simply me. There's no other green person in Oz. I must agree that it really is vile when it comes down to it."
"I don't think it's vile," Glinda spoke softly, sitting on the bed and taking Elphaba's bony hand in her own. "I think it's very much the opposite. You just refuse to see it."
"Whether people have actually said it or hinted at it, I've gotten nothing but the impression of being vile my whole life. So why shouldn't I believe it?" Elphaba said, her voice coming out in gasps, unable to take her eyes off of Glinda's hands wrapped around her own.
Elphaba watched, hardly able to comprehend, as Glinda let go of her hand and placed each of her porcelain hands on either of her green cheeks. Elphaba felt her heart rate quicken and her breathing become fragmented. Slowly Glinda leaned forward, placing a small kiss upon her forehead before moving her hands to her neck and placing a delicate kiss on each cheek.
For a moment Glinda lingered, close, her red cherry lips only inches form Elphaba's ashen ones. For the briefest of moments Elphaba had the feeling that Glinda was going to kiss her. And what was more surprising than that was that Elphaba found herself willing for it to happen. Elphaba finally let her eyes drift up from Glinda's lips, where they had been staring, to Glinda's eyes. The minute they locked a smile formed on the blonde's face.
"I think your skin is beautiful," Glinda said, dropping her hands to her lap.
"You've gone mad," Elphaba replied, trying to control the rate of breathing.
Glinda giggled a little. "Why won't you allow yourself to let me in? Why won't you break down those barriers if only for me?"
"Why must you always ask questions at the most inconvenient times? When it is outside of a classroom and at another's expense?" Elphaba played, a smirk tugging at her lips. "Perhaps I should call you Glinda the Curious?"
"Glinda the Curious, I like it," Glinda commented, laughing even more.
Silence.
"But isn't that what has just occurred?" Elphaba asked, more to herself than her companion.
"What?"
"You asked why I never break down my barriers and let you in. Yet, isn't that what just transpired?"
"Yes, I do believe it is," Glinda replied, triumph spreading over her features.
Elphaba sighed. "Why is that you are the only one who can get me this way, Glinda? The only one who perhaps knows what I'm really like?"
"Ah, see! There it is again. Perhaps I'm making progress. Should I consider myself lucky?"
Elphaba smiled— an actual smile. Not the usual smirk that accompanied her face, but a true genuine smile. "Yes, I think you should."
"Then I will." Without word or explanation Glinda leaned forward once again and placed another kiss upon Elphaba's cheek before bouncing out of the room. Just as she went to close the door behind her, she turned and stuck her head back in the room. "And, Elphaba?"
"Hm?"
"You really shouldn't be so shocked at the idea that there are people out there who love you." Without another word the door was closed and Glinda gone.
Elphaba sat, motionless, staring at the door. Was it possible that she, the girl who never felt anything, did have the capacity to love?