Disclaimer: Wicked belongs to Gregory Maguire. The musical verse belongs to Stephen Schwartz and Universal, I believe. I am but a mere fan. I own nothing.

A/N: Thank you so much for all the nice comments. They made me feel all warm and fuzzy.

I got good news for you! Got meself a beta, duckies. Isn't that grand? Many, many thanks to The Wolfinator for being so helpful with this chapter, and so nice about what needed to be fixed. Thanks!

That's all. Here goes the second chapter:

Chapter Two:

"Change the world"

Galinda spent the next few days in a frenzy of scheming. She thought so much that she started to fear her brain would melt. Elphaba must have feared the same thing; she was looking more worried the more Galinda sat at her desk and thought. She planned and plotted her days away until she finally was able to devise a plausible strategy.

The first step of "The Plan" was simple: she would need to make Elphaba eligible. Not to her, of course. To Galinda, Elphaba was far too eligible for her own good. She also needed other students to consider Elphaba eligible.

Galinda Upland of the Upper Uplands had absolutely no room in her life for a clandestine affair. That was just ridiculous; clandestine affairs were for mistresses of married men. Not for the most beautiful and popular girl in all of Shiz. If she was going to date Elphaba – and she was going to date Elphaba- she wasn't going to hide. She wanted to go on dates, she wanted flowers, she wanted to hold hands, and she wanted Elphaba to walk her to class and carry her books. Elphaba was going to court her properly, but she would never be able to do that with all of Shiz University loathing her.

To be fair, Elphaba probably could do all Galinda wanted with Shiz hating her, but it would be a terrible inconvenience. If Galinda dated Elphaba with the green girl being as unpopular as she was now, her friends would surely stop talking to her. She didn't think they were such great company, mind you, but she didn't believe Elphaba would be a good shopping companion.

Elphaba being a girl wouldn't be a terrible problem, Galinda knew that Elphaba's gender didn't present a terrible problem.There were plenty of people who dated their own gender: It was acceptable in most of Oz, there were two girls dating eachother even in their section of the dorms. Of course, her parents would have preferred her to date a handsome prince. They wanted grandchildren after all. Galinda supposed they would have been happy with Fiyero, but it hadn't worked. After two dates and a couple of unsatisfying kisses, they both had decided their relationship wasn't going to work. Her parents would have to deal and adjust.

The problem with her Elphie was that she was, well, her Elphie. She was green, strange, and antisocial. Most of the popular students in Shiz despised her. Galinda herself had loathed Elphaba when she had first met her, and she had changed her mind. With the right kind of encouragement, the others would too. Galinda was sure of that.

First, what she needed was something that would help make people stop thinking Elphaba was weird and make them start thinking she was mysterious. Something that would make Elphie interesting…make her worth knowing. There was only one thing she could think of.

"I discovered something quite peculiar about Miss Elphaba last night," Galinda said one day while she was having lunch with her friends.

"More peculiar than being a horrible green bean?" asked Pfanne.

Honestly, thought Galinda, annoyed. If you're going to hate somebody, at least put some effort into it. You've called her the same silly name the last five times I've mentioned her.

"Yes," Galinda said, smiling. She took a sip of her drink and continued. "More peculiar than being green, indeed."

"Do tell us, please, Miss Galinda," said ShenShen, looking curious and at the same time, bored.

Galinda remained silent for long enough that her friends began to look anxious and extremely curious. Then, she said in a low whisper, "Miss Elphaba is extremely rich." It was a lie, of course. As far as Galinda knew, Elphaba was a pauper.

"The vegetable is rich? Are you having us on, Miss Galinda?" Milla asked, not convinced.

"Oh, she is. She is obscenely rich," Galinda whispered. "She hides it well, of course, because she doesn't want to get any attention for her family fortune. She is the heiress of various mansions, whole states for all I know, and she has plenty of money."

"Really?" ShenShen perked up, her interest evidently piqued.

She was convincing them. Good.

"Indeed," Galinda continued. "She didn't want me to find out, of course. But last night I found this trunk – a whole trunk- filled with the most exquisite jewelry I've ever seen."

"A trunk?" Asked Pfanne "A trunk full of jewelry? Where!" Pfanne's eyes were glazed, and Galinda was pretty sure her mouth was watering. Galinda would have laughed if it wasn't so disturbing.

Galinda nodded. "It was under her bed. I saw it while I was trying to retrieve an earring I dropped." The girls still looked unconvinced.

"Why does she dress like that, if she has so much money?" Milla wondered.

Oh, you are a though one, aren't you? though Galinda.

"I told you, Miss Mila, she doesn't want anyone to know of her status. She hasn't explained why yet, but I believe her family has an important political position."

Galinda realized that hadn't lied this much since she had been fourteen and her parents hadn't let her date that eighteen year old boy she had a terrible crush on.

"That is most peculiar indeed, Miss Galinda," Pfanne observed.

At that precise moment, Elphaba entered the lunch hall. She sat on an empty chair in the most secluded spot she could find, opened an enormous, boring-looking, ancient book, and started reading while munching an apple absentmindedly.

"It does make a certain amount of sense," said ShenShen. She was looking at Elphaba intently. "She does seem to have a fair amount of eccentricities. Incredibly rich people always do."

Galinda smiled. She had gotten them. Elphaba was no longer weird. She was eccentric.

Still, this wasn't enough. She needed to make sure they told everyone they could about this new "revelation."

"I need to ask something of you," Galinda said seriously, whispering as if telling some great secret. "I've told you this because you are my most dear friends and I trust you, but you mustn't tell anyone what you've learned."

"Of course not!" Milla replied.

"We would never!" cried Pfanne

"Oh, how could you even entertain such a notion?" asked ShenShen, indignant.

There, thought Galinda, smiling. The whole University should know that Elphaba is an obscenely rich heiress by lunch tomorrow.

Pfanne, ShenShen and Milla proved to be more efficient than Galinda had imagined. By dinnertime, people were whispering, pointing, and looking at Elphaba with surprise and with a hint of fascination.

Elphaba didn't notice, of course. She was so used to the stares and whispers that she mostly tuned them out. However, Galinda was paying attention. The stares were different- less aggressive, and the whispers were soft; they didn't want Elphaba to hear them gossiping about her.

Galinda grinned. She was actually quite proud of herself.

Now, she needed to start the second step of her plan: Make Elphaba popular in her own right, before Shiz realized she really didn't have a fortune.

And the first step to popularity? Friends with influence.

She crossed elegantly to Elphaba's table – honestly, did she have to sit so far away from everything? People wouldn't even see her sitting with Elphaba here - And she sat.

Elphaba, the brute she was, didn't even look up from her book. The books themselves kept getting bigger and bigger; Galinda wondered how in Oz Elphaba was able to carry them.

"Hem, hem," Galinda coughed delicately.

Elphaba turned a page.

"Hem, hem."

Elphaba kept on reading.

"Hem, Hem!"

Silence.

"Elphie!" Galinda shouted, finally tired of Elphaba notpayingattention to her. How rude.

"What–" Elphaba looked up from her ridiculous book, seemingly irritated. Then, she looked shocked. "What are you doing here, my swe- Miss Galinda?" She looked around, probably afraid she was to be the victim of some prank.

Galinda was quite offended.

"Can't I have dinner with my roomie, Miss Elphaba?" Galinda asked crossly, huffing a little and crossing her arms over her chest.

Elphaba looked at her in confusion. She started to say something, but then stopped. She sighed. "Of course you can," she said finally. "But people will see you."

"They could see me far better if we moved to another table," Galinda pointed out, indicating a table in the center of the hall with a nod of her head.

"Why are you doing this?" Elphaba asked, narrowing her eyes. By this point, Galinda felt most insulted.

Elphaba was all kinds of hot when she got paranoid, though.

"I'm making you popular, of course." Galinda smiled.

"Galinda!" Elphie unconsciously dropped the honorific. "We've been over this. I can not, I will not, become some sort of a green and pink monstrosity of a debutante to fit in with our moronic classmates."

So, Galinda's last attempt to make Elphie popular hadn't gone so well. Galinda still believed pink looked good with green, but Elphaba had looked positively ridiculous in her pink frilly dress, and even worse in her yellow sundress. Really, Elphaba had looked horrendous in all of Galinda's clothing.

"You will not need to become anything, Elphie," Galinda reassured her.

Elphaba narrowed her eyes. She still looked extremely suspicious.

Will you be so kind as to stop that infernal attitude? Galinda thought. You're making me blush, and it really doesn't look well with this dress!

"How so?" asked Elphaba.

"I have decided that I will not need to change you to make you popular. I have a different plan this time," Galinda answered, grinning proudly.

"And what, pray tell, is this fabulous plan of yours, Galinda?" Elphie hissed sarcastically.

Galinda smiled. It didn't matter if Elphaba thought her plan was complete rubbish; they both knew Elphaba would go along with it anyway. She had yet to learn how to say 'no' to Galinda.

"I won't need to change you because," Galinda's grin got ridiculously wide, and she looked extremely pleased with herself when she finished, "I'm going to change the world!"

Elphaba felt confused. This was a normal occurrence when she had to deal with social matters. However, today, she was very confused.

She sat on her bed and pretended to read, but the words in her book had lost all sense about half an hour ago. A couple of meters away, Galinda slept soundly, occasionally giggling or mumbling something unintelligible.

Galinda. It was all Galinda's fault. She couldn't sleep, she couldn't read…she, of all people, couldn't read! She just wanted to understand.

And she couldn't do that either.

She couldn't understand why Galinda – perfect Galinda, popular Galinda, beautiful Galinda – was so determined to make her popular. Sure, they were friends. Good friends, even. But still. What did Galinda hope to gain with this?

"I'm going to change the world!" Galinda had said.

Elphaba had laughed, of course. But inside, she was worried. She had no doubt Galinda would change the world if she actually wanted to.

The world would turn itself inside out if Galinda asked it to.