Elphaba had only been home for about fifteen minutes on Monday night when Galinda let herself into her apartment.
"Elphie, do you have any hair pins? I cannot find any for the life of me," she complained.
Elphaba gestured towards the bathroom without looking up from the laundry she was sorting.
"Check the bathroom. Where are you going on a Monday night?"
"I have a date," Galinda explained, hurrying towards the bathroom.
Elphaba shook her head faintly. "On a Monday night? Wow. Fiyero works fast."
"Oh, it's not with Fiyero," Galinda replied.
Elphaaba paused in the middle of turning a top the right way out. "Wait, what?"
Galinda didn't respond until she returned to the living room, hair pins in hand. "I'm going for drinks with this guy from work- Nathe? I've told you about him."
Elphaba nodded slowly, fiddling with a sock. "Yeah… I'm still confusified. What happened with Fiyero?"
Galinda looked at her blankly. "Nothing happened with Fiyero."
Elphaba sighed, rubbing at her forehead. "This is why I hate dating," she muttered. "Weren't you hoping to date Fiyero? The whole meet-cute, epic love story?"
""I was," Galinda admitted readily, stepping before the mirror in Elphaba's entry way to fix her hair. "But I think we're going to be better as friends."
"Uh huh," Elphaba said, focused on her laundry. "And what makes you think that? I didn't think the dinner party went that badly."
"It was a very successful evening," Galinda nodded, fussing with her curls in the mirror. "I think it's just a different love story than I thought."
Elphaba turned and frowned at her. "Unless you think Fiyero's going to run off with Mrs Caddel, I have no idea what you're talking about. He barely said a word to Delmes that I remember."
Galinda turned and smiled at Elphaba brightly. "Elphie, you're hilarious," she said sincerely, which explained absolutely nothing to Elphaba. "I love you. Thanks for the hair pin. Enjoy your laundry night."
"Enjoy your date," Elphaba replied with a shake of her head as Galinda let herself out of the apartment as quickly as she'd come. "Thanks for explaining what in Oz's name you're talking about, as always," she muttered to her empty apartment.
Honestly, sometimes it felt like Galinda was speaking another language to Elphaba.
Elphaba preferred to do her laundry on a Monday night, because the laundry room was almost always empty then. And somehow, it helped her mentally clear her mind for the week ahead. The laundry room was surprisingly cosy and there were worse places to sit and read for however long it took for a load of laundry to finish on a Monday night.
This week however, Elphaba clearly wasn't the only one who thought as such. She came to a halt in the doorway to the laundry room at the sight of Fiyero Tiggular sitting on a chair with his feet resting on a machine, crossed at the ankles and munching on an apple as he flicked through a magazine.
"Elphaba!"
"Hi," Elphaba said awkwardly, realising she was hovering in the doorway like an idiot. "Sorry. I'm not used to finding people in here," she apologised.
Fiyero grinned, lowering his legs. "You mean, the laundry room isn't the hot spot within the building to hang out? I'm shocked."
Elphaba snorted. "You clearly haven't been in here on a Saturday morning when half the building is fighting for a machine."
Fiyero laughed. "Seriously?"
"I was living here for three months when they brought in the rule that you couldn't use the machines outside of the hours of ten and eight? I'm pretty sure Panie Long in apartment Ten slept in the hallway with her laundry to make sure she was the first one here at eight am. And they brought in that rule after a ridiculous amount of arguments."
Elphaba always thought it was ridiculous that Galinda had her laundry sent out, but before she'd realised Monday nights were usually quiet, she'd almost considered doing the same.
Fiyero shook his head with a grin. "I thought living in an apartment building was going to be tame after a university dorm. Clearly I was wrong."
Elphaba tried to ignore him as she started to fill the machine with her laundry, but that proved harder than expected.
"Can I ask you something?" she asked after starting the load, turning on the spot to face him and leaning against the machine.
"I'm an open book," Fiyero replied readily, closing his magazine.
Elphaba smiled faintly. "Life experience?"
Fiyero grinned broadly, much to her surprise. "You're smart," he noted.
"I'm curious," Elphaba corrected.
"You're smart to be curious," Fiyero quipped back and Elphaba rolled her eyes.
Fiyero chuckled, straightened in his chair and then shrugged. "My dad thinks it's good for me to see how other provinces do things before I have to take the throne. What we have in the Vinkus works well enough for now, but there's always room for improvement, right? And what works now, may not be the best way to do things ten years from now. Or even now. So, why not have your freshly college-graduated son spend a year or two working on the ground level and get some fresh perspective?"
Elphaba nodded slowly as she considered that. "Makes sense. How's that working out for you, so far?"
Fiyero tilted his head thoughtfully. "You know, it's not as horrendible as I expected. I mean, yeah, I'm doing a lot of grunt work, and there's a lot of jokes from my colleagues. But it's interesting so far. The life experience my mom had in mind though? That's not going as well."
Elphaba raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"Laundry sucks," Fiyero said bluntly and Elphaba couldn't help but laugh.
"It does," she agreed. "But it's fairly essential. It would get expensive just buying new clothes all the time, wouldn't it?"
"I can't imagine the taxpayers would be thrillified if I did that, no," Fiyero conceded.
"Well, I've seen you four times since you've moved in and each of those times you've been wearing clean clothes, so laundry can't be that much of a disaster?" Elphaba asked.
"No," Fiyero admitted. "But I will admit that I asked a lot of questions of our staff before leaving home. Once I found the laundry room. And which staff were responsible for doing laundry."
Elphaba couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at that, and he shrugged. "Castle."
"Right," Elphaba said dryly.
Fiyero leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. "Thropp, right? Your surname. Like the governor of Munchkinland? I'm guessing you're his daughter? So you must have staff too?"
"We had some," Elphaba allowed. "The last few years, it was mostly me."
Fiyero stilled, his eyes widening slightly. "Oh."
Elphaba shrugged. "Not a big deal," she lied. "So, life experience. I'm guessing it's not just laundry, but the full range of domestic skills?"
"It turns out I'm horrendible at cooking anything that isn't breakfast foods," Fiyero admitted. "Thank Oz the Emerald City has so many restaurants. And that you can make pancakes suitable for every meal."
Elphaba chuckled. "You can't be that bad."
"Cooking meat is okay," Fiyero shrugged. "Vegetables are surprisingly hard. And my mashed potato? More like mushed potato."
Elphaba snorted. "You're exaggerating."
"I'm really not," Fiyero swore. "How'd you learn to cook?"
"Helping our housekeeper in the kitchen when I was a child, and then eventually taking on more and more of the job. Trial by fire," Elphaba said simply.
Fiyero leaned back in his seat and fluttered his eyelashes in a way that was rather reminiscent of Galinda. "Any chance you tutor?"
Elphaba blinked, startled. "You're asking for cooking lessons? You haven't eaten anything I've cooked."
"I had that cheesecake."
"That's baking, not cooking."
Fiyero raised an eyebrow. "Are they that different?"
Elphaba shifted her weight on her feet awkwardly. "Well, no. But that doesn't mean that I'm the best person-"
"You're pretty much the only person I know. Who can cook," Fiyero shrugged. "Unless Galinda made the dinner we had on Saturday night."
Elphaba snorted before she could help herself. "She did not," she confirmed, then bit her lip. "Can I think about it?"
"Sure," Fiyero agreed. "You know where to find me."
Elphaba smiled faintly and turned away.
"Can I ask you something?" Fiyero asked after a moment of silence.
"I guess," Elphaba replied.
"You said your job isn't that exciting. I'm guessing it's not your dream job. What would you rather be doing?"
Elphaba turned back to him, eyeing him for a moment before answering. "I don't know," she said honestly. "I haven't figured it out yet."
Fiyero nodded. "Well, you've got time. You're how old?"
"Twenty-three."
"Plenty of time," Fiyero repeated. "And at least you have a choice."
That was a small consolation.
"Can you tell me more about what you're doing for work?" Elphaba asked, desperate for a change in subject.
Fiyero was more than happy to tell stories about his experiences at work, and then followed that with stories of his attempts and failures at cooking. He was a very good storyteller, Elphaba found and it felt like barely any time had passed before Fiyero had finished his laundry and was making to leave.
"This is the most fun I've ever had doing laundry," he smiled at her. "Thanks, Elphaba. See you around."
Elphaba nodded. "Goodnight," she said quietly.
By the time she returned to her apartment, it was late. And Elphaba didn't feel settled as she usually did. She just felt restless, almost itchy. A long hot shower didn't help as much as she'd hoped it would and she curled up in the armchair in her reading nook in her nightgown and robe, absent-mindedly braiding her hair. Plenty of time, Fiyero had said. Rationally, Elphaba knew he was right. But that didn't stop her from feeling frustrated with herself for not having any answers about what she wanted from her life.
Mostly, Elphaba wished that she could talk to Nessa about this. But Nessa didn't understand. Even as Elphaba was packing her things to leave, Nessa hadn't understood why Elphaba needed to leave. When she did write, Nessa seemed to think that Elphaba was on sabbatical, that it was only a matter of time before Elphaba returned to Munchkinland. Elphaba had no doubt this was the rhetoric that their father was spouting. That in time, Elphaba would fail at being on her own or regret her choices and come home. Frex probably hadn't counted on Elphaba wanting to stay just out of spite, even if she spent the next thirty years as someone's assistant. Elphaba wasn't above being petty.