Rifiuto: Non Miriena
A/N: Sorry this chapter is so late
Question: "Just friends" huh?
Answer: Well, that's Elphie's excuse...
Thanks to Beautifully Tragic Girl, LittleGreenGirlxx and lizziemagic for reviewing 9.
They sat across from each other at a table in the Philosophy Club, a small little bistro tucked away in a quiet corner of the City. After ordering and having their dinner arrive, they ate in silence, trying to think of something to say besides the shower incident.
"So what do you think?"
She quickly took a sip of her tea before answering.
"I love it. It's... perfect. I like how it's hidden away from everything else."
He shared her smile, before they returned to their dinner. Several seconds of silence passed, before he asked,
"So how are you liking EU?"
She thought a moment, chewing the pasta she'd ordered, trying to think of what to say. If she told him the truth, he might just... just what? Kiss her? Tell her he loved her? It couldn't hurt. Swallowing, she said,
"I like it. A lot. It's... a lot different than Shiz."
"Shiz is still stuck in a time warp. It rooms women with women and men with men. It's run by old-fashioned money and old-fashioned ideals that were outdated since the beginning of time. Shiz is never going to change. It's the type of school where you can get a degree in being a housewife and mother. If you want to move up in the world, your best bet is EU."
"I think you're right. I'd been there... two years, I think, and they seemed to be reverting back to a forgotten time. I kept expecting them to force us to dress in corsets and pantaloons." He laughed softly, and soon she joined in.
"Shiz is like one of those old reform schools built in the sixteen hundreds. Or a nunnery."
"I think it was a nunnery."
They returned to their dinner, eating in silence yet again before Fiyero said,
"What was with the blonde that showed up that afternoon?"
"Glinda?"
"Is that her name?" Elphaba nodded.
"My roommate. Well- my old roommate-"
"At Shiz?"
"Yeah."
"Don't take this the wrong way, but... she seems selfish to me."
"Don't worry about it. And yes, she's very selfish. She's the most selfish girl I've ever met. Even more selfish than my younger sister, and that's saying something." Fiyero chuckled softly.
"That bad?" She nodded.
"She makes Nessie look normal."
"I take it Nessie's your sister?"
"My baby sister. She's three years younger than I am, and she's in a wheelchair. She was born too soon. Her little legs were all twisted and the doctor said she wouldn't be able to walk. Mama left us after Nessie turned one. The... the last memory I have of her is... standing on the porch, her kissing me goodbye and then watching her walk to the car. I never saw her after that. She abandoned us."
"So you had to play mother to Nessa." He said, filling in the dots. She nodded.
"Yeah."
When dinner finished, they paid the check, and walked back to EU under the stars. "so you raised Nessie like your mother raised you." He said, putting two and two together.
"I tried. But... as she got older, she... she just grew to resent me. Hate me, even. And... I started to wonder whether... whether Mama hated me too. If... if maybe that was the reason why she left, was because she hated me..."
After several moments of silence, Fiyero reached out and took her hand. She looked up at the contact.
"I'm sorry."
A small smile rushed over her features, before she said, "I... when I was little... I... I considered going out and searching for her... finding her and... and asking her why she left us. But... as I got older, I realized that, even if I did find her, she'd probably never want to see me or talk to me or... get to know me. And after a while, I gave up."
They stopped and he turned to her, before gently lifting her chin.
"We could look for her, if you wanted."
She shook her head.
"No, I... I couldn't. She... she'd probably never want to talk to me..."
He waited, and after several moments, said, "What if I helped? If we found her, and she didn't want to see you, then we'd leave her alone, but at least we'd know that she's still alive."
She bit her lip, before looking up at him.
"C... could we?" He nodded. "W... would you help me?"
"Of course."
When they got back to the dorm, Elphaba slipped into her room and returned moments later with a notebook. Sitting on the sofa, she quickly scribbled something down, before handing it to Fiyero.
"There. That's all I remember about her. I hope it's enough to go on."
He read over it quickly. "It should be. Ready?" She nodded, watching as he pulled up his laptop and quickly typed the information in.
Melena Salia Thropp
May 12th, 1979
Mahogany hair, blue eyes
It wasn't much, but it was a start.