AN. Well, it's been a minute. I had a grand plans this year to write a grand, large fic to hopefully conveniently tie-in with the release of the film to celebrate. This clearly has not happened.

But I wanted to post something this year that wasn't a oneshot, and this is what came out. Something short and sweet, just to get my head back into the world of Oz after a few months away.

It may be the beginning of a series, we'll see. It is also, in my mind, part of the Timeless series, but it just grew much larger than I expected.


Chartreuse Court was an apartment block in the Emerald City that housed twelve apartments over three floors; marketed as being a space "where your urban adventure begins" and "a community of like-minded individuals who value convenience, style, and an unbeatable location."

Elphaba had only cared that the rent was cheap. She'd walked away from Munchkinland and her responsibilities with little in the way of money or possessions, and all she'd asked for was a place where she could start to put down roots and figure out who she was outside of the labels thrust upon her since childhood. That had been two years ago, and she was content now in her first floor apartment that she'd slowly made her own, piece by piece. Maybe she wasn't fulfilling her dream of changing the world, of doing good- unless one considered managing her boss's calendar "doing good". But it kept a roof over her head while she tried to figure out her life. At least, that's what she'd told herself eighteen months ago. And a year ago. And six months ago. Figuring out your life was hard, it turned out.

Her favourite feature of the apartment was the little reading nook in a corner of the living room, which got all the morning sunlight and was where she could usually be found on a weekend morning. Which was where she sat one Saturday morning in July, crossword in one hand and coffee in the other, when her front door burst open.

"Elphie! You'll never guess the news!"

"Hm?" Elphaba replied absently without looking up, filling in a clue.

An annoyed sigh was the response she got, and Elphaba slowly looked up from the paper to see Galinda standing at the bottom of the few stairs that led up to the reading nook, hands on her hips and tapping her foot impatiently.

"What?"

"Elphie. I have news," Galinda stressed impatiently.

"It's nine-thirty on a Saturday morning, and I've heard you stomping around for the past hour," Elphaba replied, flicking her eyes towards the ceiling. "What news could you possibly have already that's so important."

Galinda held up a manicured finger. "First of all, I am a lady. Ladies do not stomp," she said primly. "Secondly, I wasn't stomping. I was dancing while I made breakfast."

"Naturally."

"And thirdly," Galinda continued, ignoring Elphaba's interruptions. "I ran into Mr Appel in the hall. He had a woman with him- she's a realtor. The apartment across the hall from me is being sold! So I guess the Corletts' aren't coming back from Quox!"

Elphaba did find that news mildly interesting, but probably not for the same reason Galinda did.

"I guess Rhode's temp contract got extended," she said. "Good for them."

Galinda rolled her eyes, coming up the stairs and collapsing onto the second armchair she'd bought for Elphaba once they'd become friends and Galinda decided she needed a seat here too.

"Totally missing the point here. I'm getting a new neighbour!"

"Why are you so excited about that? You don't exactly have the best luck with neighbours," Elphaba pointed out.

"Um, you're my neighbour," Galinda retorted. "And my best friend."

"Yes, but that was after we spent the first three months you lived here hating each other. And in the fourteen months since the Corletts' moved, three people have rented it and you complained about them all."

"Only that couple with the dog that never shut up," Galinda defended herself.

"And the guy who stunk out the place that you complained to Mr Appel about until he evicted him; and the girls whose only crime seemed to be working nights."

"It was unreasonable for them to expect that no one on the floor makes any sound during the day just because they work nights," Galinda protested.

Elphaba didn't disagree, but she hadn't enjoyed hearing Galinda bitch about it for the whole six months the girls had lived there. Or that Galinda's solution was to intrude in Elphaba's apartment- where she complained about Elphaba's interior design incessantly.

Galinda sighed, slumping into her chair. "All I want is a hot, single, rich guy to move across the hall from me so that we can have a meet-cute, fall in love and live happily ever after," she complained. "Is that so hard?"

Elphaba wrinkled her nose. "What happens if the neighbour is hot and single, and you do date, but then it ends horrendibly and you're stuck living across the hall from him forever? You said the apartment is going up for sale, not for rent. Unless the new owner chooses to rent it out, you could be stuck in an awkward situation."

Galinda stared at her for a beat. "Elphie, can you just let me have the fantasy for five minutes?" she asked flatly.

Elphaba chuckled, taking another sip of her coffee. "Sorry. I hope you get a handsome, rich, single neighbour who immediately falls in love with you."

Galinda beamed. "Thank you, Elphie."

The apartment was on the market for just shy of a month, which Elphaba probably wouldn't even have noticed if not for Galinda offering her unsolicited judgement of every possible buyer she saw during that time. And while Galinda's apartment was directly opposite the empty one; Elphaba suspected that Galinda spent a lot of her free time finding reasons to be in the hallway to covertly snoop on weekends when most potential buyers came by to tour the place.

"You know that you have zero influence over who moves across the hall from you, right?" she asked one day.

They were sitting in the only common area of the building Elphaba could stand, the little rooftop garden at the top of the building. Galinda insisted that the community aspect of Chartreuse Court was an important part of living there and that they should know the other residents of the building. Elphaba was quite happy merely exchanging polite nods in the halls, but she would concede that the rooftop garden was a lovely space in which to pass an hour or two when the weather was nice.

"But what if there's a guy who comes to look at the apartment-"

"This conveniently hot, single rich guy you intend to marry?"

"-And maybe he's undecided," Galinda continued, ignoring Elphaba. "And then as he's in the hall, I step into the hall and we lock eyes and then it's love at first sight?"

"Well, yes. I hear rich, single, attractive men who are looking to buy real estate are all hoping to fall in love with their neighbour," Elphaba said sagely.

Galinda rolled her eyes at her and Elphaba chuckled. "Galinda, you meet men all the time. Why does your neighbour have to be the one you marry? Because it's convenient?"

"I want to have a nice story to tell my grandchildren about how we met and fell in love," Galinda protested.

"Stalking your neighbour-"

Galinda rolled her eyes. "No one said anything about stalking, Elphaba. Oz, you're so dramatic sometimes."

Elphaba snorted, muttering something about 'pot' and 'kettle' that Galinda ignored.

"I'm not saying we're going to fall in love. He might be horrendible. If it happens, it'll be organic… mostly. I just want it to be an opportunity."

Apartment Eight went off the market at the beginning of August. According to Galinda's sources (namely Masee Long, who lived in apartment Ten with her partners and their two dogs- and no, Elphaba did not know how they all fit comfortably in the apartment without wanting to kill one another), the new owner was indeed male- and single. Galinda hadn't seen him herself, so there was no verdict on how attractive he was, but Galinda suspected he was "rich enough" if he'd bought the apartment above asking price as Masee claimed.

"Apparently he paid extra to rush the settlement," Galinda told Elphaba.

Elphaba wasn't super invested in their new forthcoming resident- they shared no common walls or ceilings so she doubted they'd have much interaction. However, throughout August, news of the newcomer seemed to be all anyone in the building talked about, and rumours were spiralling like Elphaba had never seen before in her time living in the building.

"I heard he's moving here from the Glikkus after some kind of financial scandal," she heard Tottie Lucke (apartment Two) tell Malle Kinn (apartment Twelve) in the laundry room one day.

"I heard he's moving in with a woman and his illegitimate daughter."

"I thought he's bought the whole building?"

By the time the guy actually moved in at the beginning of September, Elphaba was sick of it all. Which is perhaps why she was the first person in the building to actually meet him- the universe tended to have an appreciation for irony, she'd discoverated.

She was going into work late that morning- there was a big project starting today which would involve working late and her boss felt strongly about his employees having a healthy work-life balance. Therefore, by staying late tonight, Elphaba got to go into the office later this morning. Usually she would have gone in early regardless, but by sheer fluke, she'd decided to actually indulge for once.

Just as she reached the front door of the building, it opened and swung towards her. Elphaba's heart jumped into her throat as she jumped back out of reach of the door, and the man standing in the threshold of the foyer looked just as startled to see her.

"Oh," he said.

Elphaba stood very still and waited warily. People in the Emerald City tended to react differently to her skin than they did in Munchkinland and it had taken her months after moving here to retrain her instincts; to let people take her in and see how they were actually going to treat her, instead of lashing out defensively.

The man seemed to be watching her just as warily, although he didn't seem put off by her skin. For a moment, Elphaba couldn't work out why and then he shifted in the doorway slightly and she realised that she recognised him. This was Fiyero Tiggular, Vinkun prince. Elphaba's first thought was that Galinda was going to die. Her second thought was that she understood why the prince might be eyeing her somewhat warily.

She straightened her shoulders, adjusting her bag on her shoulder. "Our new neighbour, I assume."

It wasn't a question.

His shoulders eased visibly and he stepped forward into the foyer a little more, a smile appearing on her face that Elphaba could only describe as winning.

"Fiyero Tiggular, apartment Eight," he said, offering her a hand.

"Elphaba Thropp," she replied, shaking the offered hand and keeping her tone polite if not especially warm. "Apartment One."

Fiyero's face flickered towards her apartment door ever so briefly. "Elphaba," he repeated. "Nice to meet you."

He smirked faintly. "The realtor never mentioned there was a colour-code requirement to living in the building," he said, clearly teasing.

Rationally Elphaba knew that he was attempting to be funny, but she was hardly in the mood. She knew Fiyero Tiggular's reputation- all of Oz did- and she was hardly flattered by his attention.

"Not a requirement, just a bonus," she said flatly.

Fiyero smiled at her, not moving.

Elphaba shifted her weight, adjusting her bag on her shoulder. "I'm late for work," she said bluntly, gesturing to the door behind him. "Welcome to the building."

She didn't give him time to respond before she stepped past him and headed out the door. As she hurried down the street towards the corner where she'd catch the trolley to work, she suppressed a sigh. Galinda was going to be insufferable once she learned who her neighbour was- but Elphaba supposed she'd gotten what she'd hoped for. The prince was indeed rich, admittedly handsome and- as far as Elphaba knew anyway- single. Elphaba just hoped that Fiyero Tiggular wasn't going to ruin the peaceful environment of the building. She didn't want to have to move.