"Give me my arm!" Glinda pushed ineffectively against Elphaba's solid shoulder, trying to pull her hand from the witch's grasp.

"Absolutely not."

"Elphie!"

The blonde looked pleadingly towards the kitchen, where Fiyero was making breakfast alongside the quiet hum of the radio and pretending not to notice the two of them in somewhat of a wrestle on the couch. With her right arm completely accostified by the witch, Glinda caught the prince's eye and glared at him.

"Fiyero—"

"You're on your own. She has a bit of a point."

"I know—she's taking it from me!"

The blonde had half a mind to position her stocking-clad feet up against the witch's thigh and use that as leverage to set herself free, but Elphaba had already gotten hold of her wrist. She pried the needle from between Glinda's thumb and index finger. Finally, Elphaba released her and held the small silver pin in front of Glinda like she'd plucked a dangerously sharp object from a child. The infantilizing expression infuriated Glinda more than she let show on her face.

"Elphaba, you're being ridiculous."

"Am I?" said Elphie with a challenge, pricking her own hand with the needle and drawing a small sphere of blood from green skin. She retrieved Glinda's wand from the floor and, when the blonde stubbornly refused the offer and debated just letting her bleed, Elphaba dropped the wand into Glinda's lap. "Go ahead. Heal me."

Anger emerged in a huff from Glinda's nose. It may have helped release the heat if Elphaba hadn't so obviously found her very genuine frustration endearing. As if the witch was the only one who could have a temper. As if being able to make objects fly when she was mad gave her the right to claim the emotion as hers, free to dismiss it when it came from other people.

"I could have done that," said Glinda with an even bite. Elphaba lifted her eyes to the blonde.

"To practice, you heal others. Not yourself. Unless you're actually hurt."

The witch nodded her head towards the book she'd given Glinda, Clerical Sorcery: Light and Healing. To her credit, Glinda had been reading it this morning. She'd just skipped past the history, training, and ethics at the beginning that was making her eyes glaze over.

"The book talks about it," Elphaba continued. "It's just a slippery slope. If someone's injuring themselves for you to heal, you understand the weight of healing them."

Glinda bit the inside of her cheek, probably pulling a mirthless dimple out in the process. She wasn't a fan of the insinuations that she couldn't handle a pinprick, or that it was in any way Elphaba's call to determine that. Mostly, the latter idea. Still, she lifted the wand.

"I don't see what the problem is, if we already know I would be able to heal myself."

"The problem is, you're not hurting yourself. End of discussion."

Glinda scoffed. She watched Elphaba start to clench her expression, nowhere near as adept at holding things back as she was. Glinda had half a mind to continue stoking the witch until this Clerical Professor Elphaba got at whatever she was trying to insinuate. The blonde was ready to throw Elphaba's own words in the forest back in her face where she was the one who reminded Glinda that, between the two of them, the witch was not the one who understood pain.

The green flame in Elphaba's eyes made a pointed gesture towards Glinda's left arm, then connected with her in a knowing look. Suddenly, the blonde found herself too seen - not just by Elphaba, but by Fiyero, who had turned the radio off and was now trying to figure out the energy between them. When an olive green glance also cast its way to the fireplace, Glinda's eyes quickly shot from the prince to Elphaba. She felt suddenly small as the prince closed in with a stifling concern, and as Elphaba's glare peeled off whatever broken mask Glinda had left. At the last moment, the witch's narrowed eyes struck.

"And how long before your arm is back in that fire?"

Fiyero whipped his head towards his lover.

"Fae!"

Elphaba ignored him. Glinda saw Fiyero come closer, disappearing peripherally behind her shoulder as he came to her side, but Glinda kept her furrowed fawn brows and wounded eyes on the witch. Elphaba's expression was firm and unyielding. The words were a laceration, but even in her shock, Glinda knew they wouldn't have been that way if she hadn't done what she did; she couldn't put one feeling to how they affected her. The waves of emotion were jagged and quick. Vulnerable. Furious. Devastated.

Glinda finally fell on disappointment. Disappointed in herself, for getting to the point where mutilating her own forced mutilation was the only release. Disappointed that she hadn't kept Elphaba and Fiyero from seeing it. Disappointed that it might have been more than just ridding herself of the scar. Disappointed in Elphaba for saying it all so bluntly just now - in front of Fiyero, who didn't understand nearly as much - and for inexplicably seeing everything Glinda was trying so hard to hide.

Wordlessly and without dropping eye contact, Glinda lifted her wand and healed Elphaba's pricked hand. The witch leaned forward and took either side of wavy blonde hair into her grasp, perhaps with more firmness than usual, and Glinda let herself be kissed, but didn't otherwise move. Veridian lips failed to soften her, at least on the outside. With the amalgamation of the witch's resoluteness unwavering on her face, Elphaba returned to brown eyes.

"I don't care if it makes you angry, Glinda. I won't let you hurt yourself."

In contrast to her expression, Elphaba's words were like rain. Cooling, intentional, not necessarily comfortable, and they fell into Glinda's skin and clothes in a way that made her heavy. They didn't thaw or dry. They just hung on her shoulders, shifting them forward and out of her well-crafted posture. The rain never hit her cheeks, but it welled in her eyes when she finally dropped her gaze into her left arm - the branded arm - held by Elphaba.

She watched the witch's thumb sweep over the deepest scar that both of them knew hid a secret under woolen sleeves. It wasn't the first time Elphaba had found it there, and with a shame that tried to drown her, Glinda suddenly knew for certain that she'd been seen. It wasn't a secret anymore.

If her mind could place herself back in that suite with the balcony, she'd now see Elphaba there, too. The witch, in her cape and hat, watching Glinda the Coward sitting in a dark corner of the room where a friend and guardian once stood to be there for her, but he'd been gone for years. Decidedly not wanting to spend one more second in the bed that she no longer shared with anyone.

Glinda the Weak had tried to drag a stolen dagger across her porcelain wrist before, but could never bring her feeble cuts to even draw blood. Morrible's fingernails went deeper than she could.

Glinda the Numb thought she was already dead. She'd told the Wizard as much, when he tried to keep her even after all his threats were gone. His hands on her throat didn't scare her anymore. They hadn't for years. In fact, they were quite inviting, as long as they were there to snap her neck. He never would, though. He'd never even clench. The Wizard didn't like bruises that showed, even if he loved them on the inside.

But Glinda the Pathetic with poison in her veins and voices in her head found herself without the strength to jump the balcony and returned to the blade. For once, it dug deep and warm. Red blood on emerald silk turned it brown. Was Elphaba watching?

Disappointed. The sentiment returned in an imaginary witch's onlooking expression, and in Glinda's inability to keep herself from hurting the woman she loved.

All because Glinda the Naive thought she could make a difference and let her best friend fly off alone.

Glinda the Idiot stayed behind, sealing her fate like he sealed her in that room, too stupid to see that his tap dance was a trap.

And Glinda the Disgustifying said yes to a monster in front of that stained glass window that he forced her to keep her hand on.

If only Elphaba knew just how disappointed in Glinda she truly needed to be. Elphaba would have been able to say no. Elphaba would have found another way to protect Fiyero. Elphaba would have never made a deal with the enemy.

The witch's words of rain fell again, sharper now, but perhaps that was needed to bring her back.

"I won't let you hurt yourself."

A lie she used to tell herself rose to Glinda's lips, but it surprised her to feel that, maybe, it wasn't a lie anymore.

"I won't."

Lips met with Glinda's cheek, brow, and the top of her hair as the blonde sank further forward, stopping only when her forehead found itself gently caught by Elphaba's. To cut past the weighted numbness that came over Glinda - to make sure she heard it - Elphaba chose the word that had, until now, retained an unspoken banishment from the walls of the barnhouse.

"Good."

The Glinda who was trying to be here definitely heard it. She heard and felt it a bit too much. Apparently, Glinda the Mad did, too.

"How was the watch?"

You think I don't remember?

"You still are, you know."

No I'm not. I can't be.

Glinda ripped herself from her own mind before Elphaba could act like it was her sole purpose, slipping her arms from the witch as she stood, running into Fiyero behind her. For the first time, she felt the shrinking smallness of their home as more suffocating than intimate. She needed to breathe. Glinda ignored their protests when she barreled out the door.

What Glinda wouldn't give for a cabinet full of glassware to throw at the wall. Even just one glass that no one cared about here. One piece of breakable something that wouldn't leave Elphaba or Fiyero without a plate in the morning. Glinda settled for a rock and chucked it at a fence post - missed - and screamed at its audacity to do so. It took everything in her not to keep screaming.

Glinda could still hear them arguing about her through the walls.

"I'm sure as Oz not dragging her back in here after you said that. Leave her alone if she wants to be alone."

"She knows what I meant. I have to go get her - it's not safe."

For someone furious at the idea of being treated like a child, Glinda was acutely aware that she may have been acting like one when she made the decision to hide. Still, the blonde dipped into Feldspar's small shed - grateful that it was unoccupied - and closed the door behind her. She dropped her shoulder blades against the wood and slid until her skirt pressed the soil beneath her.

Playing hide-and-seek with people who love you, now? Glinda the Pathetic.

"Shut. Up." Glinda thudded the back of her head against the wall with each of the two words, feeling a few single strands of her hair get caught in the wood and snap off. She gathered her locks in front of one shoulder, hugged her skirt-covered legs to her chest, and tried to breathe instead of cry.

Might as well be hiding. You always are. Even before, Guh-linda. Ridiculous. Grow up.

Her given name rang like a mockery. Oz, why did the whitewake mind have to sound so much like Madame Morrible. Alma, Glinda corrected herself, feeling more power in using the tie to Morrible's dead humanity, picturing the vitriolic sneer in the sorceress when Glinda used it for the first time.

It didn't make a difference, though, did it?

"Shut up, shut up, shut up…"

Glinda thudded her skull against the wall one last time and pinched her eyes closed.

Then, the kiss of a memory. It froze her and melted her at the same time. Tears fell into her blue skirt as the voice in Glinda's head became a voice she hadn't heard in far too long.

"Where's my bubble gone?"

A pink glow of her childhood bedroom, warm and filled with love. A little Galinda that would have come up to her Popsicle's thigh, bouncing on her toes with anticipation and giggling behind a soft rose curtain.

Manicured fingers reaching around and pulling back the fabric with the same gentle care they'd used to style the curls of a squirming little blonde that morning. A smile from Momsie that melted the world away.

"There's my little bubble! I found you!"

Little Galinda squealing in delight, reaching her arms out. Glad to be found. To be embraced.

To be home, safe, loved...

The memory faded even if Glinda desperately tried to hold on to the piece of childhood. It broke the dam and tears fell in a hideodeous way she never allowed. She didn't even attempt to dab her eyes or nose. She just unleashed everything into the wool of her skirt until it was wet to the touch.

A presence outside the shed began to crisp against the ground in tentative footsteps. Glinda didn't call out, but no longer cared if she was discovered.

A rectangle of yellow light expanded through the crack of the door. Expecting the shadow of a pointed hat to appear next, she picked up her head and turned slightly.

"Elphie, I—"

Glinda met with Winkie blue eyes instead, which actually came as a bit of a relief, especially with their distinct lack of pity. Fiyero had enough experience walking in on her tears to know she hated that. He knew to ignore them and just let them pass for her. Of course, in the palace, Glinda had trained him that way so he wasn't caught too close to her vulnerability. So she couldn't slip, and he couldn't see too much. She appreciated that he made no attempt to pull the chain on the ceiling light when the door closed behind him, and instead just sat with her in the darkness.

It wasn't pitch black. There were windows, just small and high up. It was still day. Not even noon.

When Glinda's soaked face stilled aside from the occasional hiccup of a sniffle, Fiyero held out her wand.

"She said you should keep it on you."

Glinda took it, and hated that it made her feel better to hold. She hated that Elphie was right. Of course she was right. Elphaba Thropp, ever the infuriatingly beautiful genius who could see right through her.

Glinda exhaled and propped her arms atop her knees, holding them out completely straight and turning the root-laced wand in her fingers. She wondered if the little yellow bird had found her way home. A piece of her - a whisper through the wand, a psychic spark left by a friend's golden hand, or a jade freckle of magic pressed through a witch's kiss - knew that she had.

Finally, Glinda looked at Fiyero, ready to hear whatever he had to say. Ready for him to ask his questions, to need to know everything Elphaba had so clearly alluded to, to dig until the guilt she knew was rotting him got carved out.

Glinda would have told him. Those last two months with Morrible were fair game now, as far as she was concerned. Anything after Fiyero's leaving. Glinda would likely never find herself in a place where she would want to talk about it, but she would. For him, she would. With that being settled in her head, it caught the blonde completely off guard when Fiyero turned towards her, his expression unfurrowed.

"Would it surprise you to know that I maybe understood…well, none of what just happened?"

Glinda blinked. She searched his face for sincerity, and a welcome thoughtlessness looked back at her. Maybe it was a little feigned. Maybe, for once, even though he saw more than he gave himself credit for, he didn't try to inevitably misinterpret it this time. A sniffle became a laugh, then she completely lost it. She laughed until she fell on his shoulder and he welcomed her under an arm, tears and snot and all.

"Fiyero, you are positively brainless."

For once, with the prince's head resting at the top of her curls, Glinda was so glad he was.