I'm thinking the pandemic never reached Oz lol. First chapter!

Day 1000

December 2020

The room slowly glowed to life as the first rays of sunshine streamed in through the windows. Elphaba laid motionless in her bed, trying hard not to open her eyes despite her vision slowly going red as her room continued to brighten. It was morning. Already.

"Stupid curtains," her mind grumbled. Though most of the time, she actually liked her thin curtains. It helped keep her apartment brightly lit during the day. Plus, it helped reduce electricity consumption—not that she was tight on the bills, anymore. "It's good to practice one's advocacies," she always said.

Cursing the sun and the fact that it came 'too early', she groggily lifted her elbow and pushed herself to a sitting position. Tiredly wiping her eyes, she glanced at the clock by her bedside as she forced herself to get out of bed. 7:32 AM, it read. She was late. Another groan.

She blamed everything around her for her horrible morning. The thin curtains, the cozy blanket, the freezing weather, and the thermostat she forgot to use to combat said weather. The alarm clock she forgot to set the night before, the wrinkled pantsuit she lazily refused to iron the day before, the doorman who greeted her a good morning, and the winter breeze that blasted on her face as she exited her apartment building.

As always, Emerald City was loud and noisy. The sound of progress, they said. Cars honked as people hustled up and down the streets to go on their daily grind.

Elphaba rushed to hop on the next train going North as she pushed past busy people running to work in the underground station. With a small suitcase dangling at her elbow, a warm cup of coffee in one hand, and a pole grip on the other, she faced the window to look at her reflection, made clearer by the dark walls of the subway tunnels. Under the dim light of the moving car, she saw her bloodshot eyes and the dark circles around them. Her boss would undoubtedly comment on her lack of sleep. If she even had any.

She cursed her eyes. And her lightheadedness.

But deep down she knew it was none of the things she cursed that morning that really bothered her. Not the curtains, the weather, nor the kindly doorman. It was the reason she couldn't sleep in the first place—it was him. She couldn't even bring herself to say his name.

As the train pulled up to her station, she steeled herself to get through the swarm of people trying to get in and out of the trains and the station itself. Finally stepping out into the daylight, she briskly walked to the entrance of her office building. Northtown Towers, home to Emerald City and Oz's largest publishing company, Dixxi House.

"Good morning, Miss Thropp! I must admit, it's the first time I'm seeing you at this time," the security guard greeted, as the addressee of the statement placed her ID at the scanner and sped through the digital barriers.

She was never late. Never. She had to work hard to get to where she was now. It took a while before people saw how intelligent and talented she was as a writer and an even longer while before they saw past her verdant skin and background. Elphaba Thropp, now an editor in Oz's biggest publishing company. Why did she have to be late today, of all days?

Upon exiting the elevator, Elphaba hastily dropped her coat and hat on her desk before entering the editor-in-chief's office. The room was furnished in a sort of modern industrial style—black-and-white paintings against bare concrete walls with floor-to-ceiling metal-rimmed windows. It wasn't her first time in this office, but it never failed to intimidate her despite the relaxed aura it expressed.

"Good morning, Elphaba!" a middle-aged man with kind eyes and a scruffy tie greeted, as he looked up from the stack of papers he was reading.

"Good morning, Mr. Strumpet," she replied with a slight pant. "I'm sorry for being late. I had a headache earlier this morning. And I know there's no excuse for tardiness, but I—"

The chief raised his hand as a signal to cut her speech, and she mentally kicked herself.

"A minute… is forgivable, Elphaba. You're overreacting. Please, take a seat," Strumpet calmly ordered as he gestured to the cushioned chair stationed at the front of his desk.

Elphaba, slightly startled by the quick progression of the conversation, stiffly lowered herself to the chair with her eyes fixed on her hands. It was one thing to be late to a meeting with her boss and a whole other thing to think of what was to come at the end of the day, she thought. And an unusual feeling settled at the bottom of her stomach once she remembered what she had to do before she went home that day. More terrifyingly, who she had to see.

"Are you feeling alright?" the older man asked with concern in his eyes as he watched his young employee fidget in her seat. "You said you had a headache?"

Reeled back from her trance, the emerald-skinned woman looked up at her employer with wide eyes. She didn't hear his question.

"Goodness, Elphaba! Have you slept?"

She stuttered as she couldn't think of an answer. Strumpet continued,

"Anyway, I'll make this quick, and once we're done, I want you to rest for a while. You deserve it, after all."

That caught her attention.

"I'm sorry, sir?"

"Clockwork was a hit!" Suddenly in a burst of excitement and pride, the chief stands from his leather chair. "Vellerstein's novel, the one I assigned you to head, is off the charts! Best-selling in the top five of adult fiction. We're losing copies for OzBooks, Chuffrey & Company, Applerue, and almost all other major bookstores in the Emerald City, Shiz, Munchkinland, and even in the Vinkus!" He rotated the reports and articles on his desk to face his employee—articles showing reviews on the appraised novel.

As the older man finished, he contentedly went back to his seat, all the while smiling at the woman across him.

"Well done, Elphaba," he said.

"I—I don't know what to say, sir."

"Oh, when will you stop being so humble?"

"I'm not, sir. It's just—all I did was offer suggestions. Mr. Vellerstein is already very talented—"

"Elphaba," the man started. "I know you're a hard worker. And I know how much effort you put into this project and in your career so far. Please, for one day, give yourself some credit. I, for one, could use more employees like you. I mean look at Jomxon over there, snoozing off again."

"Sir—"

"I didn't mean to compare, but the poor boy doesn't know work even when it slaps him in the face!" The chief glanced through his window to see Jomxon almost falling off his rolling chair.

"Elphaba," the man continued. "You did a wonderful job. And please do as I say. Finish as much as you can this morning, and I don't want to see you here by lunch break."

And just like that, she was shooed out of the office by half-past noon. The news of her project's success as well as her boss' appraisal—which was both unexpected but appreciated—gave her morning a boost. In the four hours she worked with no breaks in-between, it seemed as though she floated through her work—whether due to glee or the fact that she still felt lightheaded.

Lightheaded.

No sleep.

Him.

Then she suddenly remembered the dreaded meeting at the end of the day. Her stomach churned. "Lunch might be a good idea," she thought.

She went to the nearest sub-shop, ordered a vegan sandwich, and took a seat by the window. As she munched, she watched the city people speed by the restaurant during the lunch rush. She saw a man with a silver briefcase hurriedly walk past. Then, a woman who frantically hailed a cab across the street. Then just outside her window, she saw a little boy holding a book of fairy tales that was newly bought from the nearby bookstore. She lost her appetite.

Lunch forgotten, she left the restaurant and headed to the public library. The large building loomed as she ascended the wide staircase leading to the front entrance. But despite its size and aged architecture, she always found comfort in the historical structure. Swiftly maneuvering through the waxed marble floor and past the thick Grecian columns of the lobby, Elphaba went straight to the history section and browsed through the proud collection of Ozian History volumes.

The area was quiet and small and housed five rows of dark mahogany bookshelves that reached the ceiling. She thumbed through multiple spines, each having different covers—paperback, hardbound, cushioned, and embossed—and soon found herself lost in thought.

Her mind raced, as she remembered that she only had four hours left. Four hours until she had to visit the place she'd been avoiding for the past three months. Four hours until she had to look at the eyes that haunted her dreams. Four hours until—

Her thoughts were interrupted when she saw the set of books in her arms. They were all about the Vinkus and their people. She left them in a hasty stack at the nearby stocking table.

Then like a bursting stream of water flooding the plains of a landscape, her mind was filled with nothing but him. For suddenly, everything reminded her about him. The Vinkun books, the blue leather seats in the library, the patterned scarf a man she walked past by wore, the elderly couple at the counter, and the melody that played through the overhead speakers in the lobby. She hated it. She hated him. She knew he wasn't to blame for anything, but she hated him for always making her feel so vulnerable, especially now. And yet she still couldn't bring herself to say his name, not even in her head.

Soon, time seemed to sweep by, and the four hours were suddenly over. It's a funny thing—time. They say, time flies when you're enjoying yourself and slows down when you're not. But in memories, time seems to do the opposite. Long hours of anxious anticipation can be easily forgotten, but fleeting moments of bliss tend to be ingrained in the mind. And though these moments seem to escape before one can fully notice them, it slows down when remembered and replayed. And with each reprise, the vision of the memory focuses on the object of importance—the subject that makes the memory worth visiting.

But sometimes, time stops. And one is left with no time to think of anything other than the present.

As swiftly as her four hours went by, Elphaba's mind was suddenly flooded with the name she couldn't say—or think of—the entire day. For there he was, just a short distance away. He leaned on the railing surrounding Emerald City's famous lake and looked straight into the body of water. The same man she'd seen multiple times in the same spot before, against the same flaming sky.

Fiyero.

He looked up when he saw her approach, and his eyes lit up. "Fae," he said.

She settled at a spot located a few paces from him and fixed her gaze at the half-frozen lake in front of them. She couldn't bring herself to look at him. She knew her eyes would betray her once she saw his. She felt him deflate, and she tried her best to steel herself.

Silence.

Suddenly, the air felt thinner and the winter breeze, harsher. Her lips quivered and felt as though she was being strangled. But she couldn't let herself hear his voice again. No, not after all this time. So she forced her mouth to open and speak before he did.

Feeling her heart pounding in her ears, she said the only sentence that occupied her mind:

"Is this goodbye?"

A pause.

Then, a chuckle.

"Ever the stoic, straightforward Elphaba," he said and he turned his head to look at her.

But she didn't look at him, and she didn't laugh. She couldn't.

She felt his smile falter before clearing his throat. "Do you remember this place?" he asked. And she knew he was trying hard to lighten the mood.

She did. Of course, she did. How could she forget? Though after a moment in thought, she noticed the way he framed his question. Do I? So, he did? But how?

"Do you?" she asked back.

Time seemed to stand still as she waited for a response. Yet the Clock continued to tick.

Some chapters will be shorter than others, but I still decided to keep it one day a chapter. I just thought it might be easier to follow the story if you could have a list of all the day numbers as a reference.

I'll try to update every few days. Hope you like it so far! :)