Ironically enough, Glinda didn't see much of Elphaba the next few days.
It was ironic because the green girl never seemed to leave the room, except for classes. She stayed at her desk, nose buried in journals and papers and textbooks so dusty and faded Glinda swore they were older than Shiz itself. More than once, Elphaba forgot or simply didn't bother going to eat something, and it became normal for Glinda to sneak a sandwich or salad out of the café for her.
She refrained from questioning Elphaba, even when the green girl was hunched over her desk with her face buried in her hands, trembling from anger or fear or fatigue or just plain desperation. But there was one question she couldn't quite keep down.
"You're staying in here to avoid Morrible, aren't you?"
There had been no answer.
As much as Glinda respected Elphaba's silence—and her intensity and dedication and stubbornness—she couldn't stand the long, tense hours shut in their room. So she spent most of her time wandering around campus with the boys. They asked about Elphaba, of course—Boq and Fiyero seemed particularly worried—but they all seemed to know not to press the subject. If Elphaba didn't want to be bothered, then they wouldn't bother her.
Glinda was grateful, because talking about her roommate was starting to make her feel sick. Something was coming. The stakes were rising—Dillamond's research was unfolding, the answer was getting closer, and Morrible was appearing more and more frequently.
It got to the point where Glinda was starting to struggle in sorcery again, simply because the feeling of Morrible watching made her too nervous to focus. Desperate not to appear suspicious to Morrible, she looked for ways to clear her mind when she was upset or anxious and couldn't conjure her magic. When deep breathing and calming thoughts didn't work, she found herself thinking of Elphaba's smell—earthy oils and new parchment and sometimes ripe green apples or crisp fresh air. She would focus on the memory of the scent, almost breathing it in, and her mind would settle.
The only struggle then, as the spell would cast flawlessly and Morrible's smirk would fade, would be not blushing in front of the entire class.
Elphaba felt as if she hadn't taken a breath in days. She worked without stopping, scribbling notes and researching terms and pulling an endless, chaotic string of ideas together. It was overwhelming, and she felt constantly on the brink of complete failure. One wrong move and she would stumble, losing her grasp on everything she was working toward. There were so many ideas to research, so much information she didn't know, and it both infuriated and exhilarated her.
She couldn't remember the last time she'd spoken to Glinda—or anyone, for that matter. She left her desk only to go to class, and as soon as the teacher dismissed them she would be darting back to Crage Hall to keep working. The research was always with her, either on the desk in front of her or in her bag. More than once she had fallen asleep in her chair, collapsing onto the stacks of paper with her pen still in hand, moving only when Glinda would nudge her gently awake and half-carry her to the bed. The blonde would pull off her boots and wrap the blanket around her and even—after Elphaba had sleepily protested leaving the work out on her desk, in the open for anyone to see—tuck Dillamond's journal under her pillow.
Elphaba knew the blonde was worried sick, and she was beyond grateful for the space and understanding Glinda was giving her. She had lost count of the number of times she'd answered a question with "Just trust me." But every single time, Glinda did.
She missed Glinda. It was like winter break all over again, but worse. Elphaba ached to spend time with the blonde—to tease her and make her smile and poke her side until she giggled or intertwine their hands under the table. She lived for the moments when Glinda would return for the night, greeting Elphaba silently with a hand on her shoulder and a kiss on the cheek. She knew that nothing was keeping her from the blonde but herself, yet she couldn't tear away from the research. She just couldn't.
They were so close.
Elphaba kept telling herself that, but it was only because the thought kept running through her head. Every word she wrote, every topic she finally understood, every part of her plan that fell into place reminded her: so close.
"Elphaba?"
The green girl blinked and shook her head before turning around. Glinda stood in the doorway, watching her. Everything seemed fuzzy, and words kept bouncing around her head: equal sentience, proving cognizance, instinctive moral judgment versus an ingrained set of rules—
"Elphaba, are you even awake?"
"S-sorry." Elphaba blinked again. "I'm just…"
The blonde stepped forward and knelt next to her chair. "Elphie, please. Take a break from this, just for a while."
"Glinda, you know I can't—"
"I'm worried about you. You barely sleep, and you haven't eaten a real meal in days. You're going to waste away in here."
"It hasn't even been a week." Elphaba scowled.
"Come eat dinner with us," Glinda went on, ignoring her. "Boq and Fiyero are worried. Crope and Tibbett keep complaining that they don't remember what you look like."
The green girl sighed. "I don't know."
"Please?" She pouted her lips and stared up at Elphaba. "Please, Elphie?"
As soon as their eyes met, Elphaba was a goner. "Oh, fine. But only dinner. Then I'm coming straight back here."
"Yay!" She jumped to her feet and hugged Elphaba. "Oh, thank Oz! I've missed you so much!"
The green girl gently pried Glinda off of her. "Relax, my sweet. I haven't gone anywhere."
And yet, she couldn't even try to hide the deep emerald blush that took over her cheeks.
Elphaba flipped a journal shut and stuffed it in her bag. Glinda's head snapped up at the sound.
"You're leaving?"
"I need to work somewhere else," Elphaba responded, loading more papers into her bag. "I'm sick of this desk."
"Oh." Glinda grabbed one of her pillows and hugged it to her chest. She glanced nervously out the window, as if the night sky held any of her worries. "Be careful?"
Elphaba shouldered her bag. "Don't worry. Besides, this way I won't keep you up half the night. I know you don't sleep well when my lamp is on."
"I sleep even worse when you're not here," Glinda mumbled, but her voice was too low for the green girl to hear, and soon Elphaba was gone.
She headed for the library, naturally. It had never failed her as a safe haven, and instinct told her she belonged with the rickety old tables and dusty bookshelves tonight.
She could feel the energy humming through her as she walked across the dark campus. All her excitement and worry and anticipation and determination all coiling tightly together somewhere in her gut—it wasn't quite magic, but it wasn't quite normal emotion, either.
Her mind was already running like crazy by the time she snuck into the library and settled down in her corner. She had missed it here. The boys' library was exciting, but this place was hers. It calmed her and centered her, and soon she was able to settle her thoughts and focus on Dillamond's research.
Boq had questioned her at dinner. She had barely talked to him since the night with Morrible's journal, and she felt a little guilty, especially when she brushed him off and avoided him throughout the meal. But at this point there was nothing more he could do. Once she figured out how to prove equal sentience, she would tell Dillamond, and she didn't want anyone else knowing that she was communicating with him.
Because the Goat was travelling closer and closer to Shiz. He hadn't said anything, of course, but it was taking less time for their messages to go back and forth, and he had been sounding more and more anxious with every letter they wrote. Of course, that very well could have just been due to how intense their research was getting.
Fiyero had obviously been worried, too, but he did his best to act casual, especially when Glinda was listening. And since the blonde had been curled up against Elphaba for the entire meal, she was almost always listening.
And then, when the entire group was walking out of the café, they had passed by the Madame Head. Elphaba could still see Morrible's cold stare, her eyes glinting dangerously and her mouth curling up into a predatory leer. There was no pretense in her gaze, not anymore, and Elphaba was sure that, had she been alone, she would have been cornered immediately. It sent shivers down the green girl's spine. But Crope and Tibbett had shouted out a joke, and Boq and Fiyero were doubled over laughing, and Glinda—sweet, tiny, compassionate Glinda—had gripped her hand harder and leaned into her side, emanating warmth and light and peace into Elphaba. When the headmistress passed, Elphaba looked down at the blonde, who was meeting her eyes with a fierce kind of understanding. It's okay. We're here. We've got you.
But now Elphaba was alone, left with nothing but the research she had been working on for months now. She didn't know how late it was, but she was tired. Her shoulders slumped and her eyelids were too heavy and she could feel exhaustion seeping into her bones. But at the same time, adrenaline was pouring through her. Her hand trembled as it scribbled across the paper. Her eyes darted from Dillamond's research to Morrible's work to her own notes. She flipped pages quickly, loudly. The pen scratched out letters and numbers, harsh and grating against the silence of the library. Ideas and thoughts clicked together, and she rushed to put it all down in writing before she could forget.
She stopped, her hand hovering above the paragraph she had just finished, and read quickly over the page. Her heart leapt to her throat and lodged itself there, leaving plenty of room for a rush of panic and thrill to bubble in her chest. Slowly, she lowered her pen and sat straighter, reading through it again.
Her hands reached up to brush through her hair and she leaned back, exhaling heavily.
This was it.