Elphaba tried not to hover at the window in between wiping dishes clean, but as minutes turned into an hour, she was beginning to wonder if the two of them had gotten themselves trapped in some psychic catatonia. Framed by the sunset that slowly dropped into the mountains, Glinda and Chistery sat together on top of a fence outside the barnhouse, not even looking at each other. Elphaba could only see them from the back. Glinda's long braid - looking almost imperceptibly a shade darker these days - hung over the back of her leather coat. The wind swept smaller curls of gold around and above her head. Even Chistery's coarse blue fur swayed slightly in the movement, his dark wool vest whipping up at the waist. A gold hand was placed atop Glinda's.

Chistery's family had been safely escorted to Kiamo Ko to remain in hiding. The youngest of the Blue Monkeys - two of them about the size of a human toddler - were cautiously fascinated by the long hallways of the castle, as if surprised that there was, indeed, space to move. Space to run. Space that wasn't a cage. Elphaba had been baffled to see small wings sprouting from the children who wouldn't have been born yet at the time the Wizard tricked her into performing the spell. And with intellectual curiosity that was nearly drowned away with utter fear, Elphaba was left questioning the extent of her power. Had The Grimmerie done that, or had she?

Chistery finally stood, more stable and gallant than one would expect considering he was close to death only three days ago. Elphaba was relieved to see Glinda moving again, tucking her windswept hair behind one ear and turning to face him. The Monkey lifted his arms into an X that crossed at the wrist, and Glinda reflected the sign back at him, then pointed to the house. Chistery appeared to wipe his cheek - or perhaps another sign - touched hers briefly, bowed before her, and took flight back to the resistance chapel.

Glinda returned through the front door, moving somewhat slowly. Her face was sunken, almost exhausted, but there were no tears. Expecting her love to need her, Elphaba put down the dishes she was washing and dried her hands. The witch was surprised when Glinda passed right by, going towards the bedroom.

"Glinda?"

The blonde startled slightly and turned.

"I'm just going to lay down for a little bit," she said. Elphaba closed some distance between them.

"Do you want me to come with you?"

"You can finish that." Glinda gestured towards the dishes that Elphaba had been previously occupied with. "I'll be alright."

And with the witch looking on through the open bedroom door, Glinda curled up on the top of the bedsheets.

The ground had breath, if you knew where to find the pulse. The soil could inhale, exhale, cough, choke, gasp, and sigh. You just had to be familiar with the anatomy in a way that wasn't organic, but earthen. It had its own kind of body - maybe its own soul, too. Kneeling on the forest leaves, her hands on the ground, Elphaba was trying to find the exhale. The lift. The gravity.

In exhalation, there was an offer. Rising up between green nails on the soil, roots emerged and curled around chips of wood - small pieces of Elphaba's broomstick that had fallen off when used as a barricade by Glinda the night of her burn. A twist of earth, wood, vine, and root began as a mangled sphere, ascending in the air to reach eye level with the witch. It stretched lengthwise, then like a dough, had to rest in a slow spin before stretching again. The witch's hands waved and directed the roots without touch, like a dance, until Elphaba had created something new and magical from the shards of the broom. She only hoped that this creation could be imbued with the same power. Not flight, but freedom. Freedom in action, and in purpose. A sense of control for someone who had theirs taken from them.

Glinda looked like something out of a storybook, with long blonde tresses draped loosely at the shoulders of the dress that splayed around her lap. Dappled sunlight fell through the treetop cover onto the purple fabric of Glinda's skirt, which she had bunched up slightly to wrap around a young, injured bird.

"How will it help her?" she asked. "What you're making, that is?"

Elphaba - in her full witch attire of black corsetted dress, coat, lace-up heeled boots, and hat - closed the conjuration texts in front of her. She folded the book back into the satchel she'd left by her broom. Her boots made a soft crisp out of the twigs underfoot as she crossed to where Glinda sat. She knelt in front of the blonde, producing the rootwork creation.

"You're going to help her, Glinda."

Glinda looked up from petting the yellow, feathered head of the bird.

"Is that…?"

"A wand," Elphaba finished. "For you."

Glinda's face lit up for a short-lived moment before a wave of self-doubt appeared to chase it off. She attempted to hand the wand back.

"Elphie, I can't."

"Hey," Elphaba said gently, taking Glinda's cheek in her hand to direct brown eyes to hers. Her other hand closed pale fingers back around the wand. "You can. And you have to, love, because all I'll do is put her in pain. You've seen me try." She took Glinda's arm in apology, rubbing a thumb atop the sleeve before giving her hand a squeeze. "I told you once," Elphaba continued somberly, "that magic might be harder when things have been easy for you."

They both felt the ache of how untrue that was now. The blonde dropped her chin and stroked the fragile bird in her hands. Drawing Glinda's forehead into a kiss, Elphaba wished that she could take back her words then, as if the utterance of them had cast a spell in Morrible's classroom that sent Glinda into a fate determined to prove her wrong. All Elphie could do was smooth the silken curls of the girl she once told "you don't need it" - a girl who very much could have used it - and beg the universe to let her take some of Glinda's hurt. If only for a moment. If the lips at her hair could make her girl forget pain, Elphaba would never remove them.

"That's not the case anymore," the witch finally resumed. She wiped the one tear that fell. "I'm the one who's had things easy now. Clerical sorcery - healing, without hurting - you need to have known pain. The universe - the magic, wherever it comes from - it knows you, and you're made allowances when it senses you understand it back. I thrive in transmutation because my very existence in green defies what nature is supposed to be able to create."

Ever the girl who first called her beautiful, Glinda joined her hand with the green one at her cheek, without a care in the world for its color. Elphaba couldn't even remember a time where her skin was a topic of conversation and her best friend hadn't immediately laced fingers with her. Always reminding Elphaba that she was touchable and beautiful.

She locked eyes with Glinda again, lifting her face.

"And you'll thrive in healing because what you've been through defies what anyone should ever have to go through." Elphaba parted with one more kiss to Glinda's cheek and held her hands out to take the bird. "You said you've done light, right?"

"Barely brighter than a candle," said Glinda, readying the wand with some uncertainty. "With my old wand."

Elphaba adjusted her legs under herself and carefully held the little yellow creature, minding its broken wing.

"It starts as light," the witch explained. "Then you'll feel the opening, when you connect it to her."

"Opening? Connect it to—" Glinda cut herself off and shook her head. "What does that even mean?"

"You'll feel it, Glinda. Trust me. I know you can do it."

The witch's words softened the twist in Glinda's brow. Resolve rose up to replace it. She breathed. Closing her eyes a moment, she turned the wand in her hand until it seemed she found the hold that felt right. With a flick of her wrist, Glinda shone light through the end of the root-laced wand. She opened her eyes, and squealed at her success in a way Elphaba probably hadn't heard her do since Shiz.

"It's been so long - I wasn't sure I still could!"

"You did it!" Elphaba emphasized. "Keep going. You won't hurt her. You'll feel it if you start to, and we can stop."

Glinda nodded, now filled with even more determination. She tossed her hair behind her shoulders - for once not for anyone's attention - and focused deeply on the wand and on the bird. As she looked between the two, Glinda appeared to find something unseen that she was seeking. She locked onto it.

Her brows lifted as if for a moment, she found the little creature's pain, and then Elphaba felt the bird's left wing start to fight for freedom in her hands just as much as the right. Glinda fell slightly back into her folded calves, clearly having felt something happen.

"Is she alright?" She leaned forward to inspect the small, fluttering feathers. "I didn't hurt her, did I? It felt like—"

Elphaba looked up from the bird with a smile, a tiny feathered strength fighting back against her fingers.

"Glinda…" She took Glinda's hand and placed them on the bird, allowing her to feel it, too. Elphaba watched large brown eyes smile even more than the lips below them, full of wonder at the magic she beheld - the magic she, herself, created. Elphaba let Glinda take the bird, then in gentle, affirming words, made sure the blonde knew what she had just accomplished. "You did it."

Glinda only met Elphie's eyes for a second, then returned to the strong little creature belligerently struggling for flight beneath her gentle hold.

"I did it," Glinda whispered. Slowly, so the bird wouldn't hurt itself, Glinda opened up her hands to release it. It shook a moment, black eyes blinking once at the blonde, twice at the witch, and then scurried into a nervous but dept flight.

Defying pain, defying gravity.

Both women rose to their feet, watching the creature fly into the trees above them. Glinda still had her eyes on the yellow feathers when Elphaba practically tackled her into an embrace and spun her around.

"YOU DID IT!"

"I did it!"

Glinda squealed with joy almost directly at her ear, but Elphaba didn't care.

"You're magic!"

"I'm magic!"

Elphaba parted their faces just for a minute, but kept Glinda's feet hanging off the ground.

"Then again, I always thought so."

Her girl's laughter was light and rang like a bell, and Elphaba pulled it closer. She held the purple dress that was once hers, and brushed her fingers through gold hair that was beginning to feel like it belonged to her, too. Dizziness nearly became a problem by the time she stopped spinning them, letting Glinda's feet back on the ground, but keeping the embrace. Tightening it, and feeling one of the two people she loved most in this world hold the back of her cloak and braids. The words that came next should have been obvious, but somehow in this forest, with Glinda's smile, with magic between the both of them, the words felt renewed.

"I love you." They felt so true to say, so needed, like breathing, that Elphaba kept saying them. "I love you, I love you, I love you…" She didn't need to hear them back. She already knew. But when Glinda's shoulders trembled a moment and Elphaba felt a dampness at where their cheeks met, she pulled the two of them apart. She saw the tears in Glinda's eyes, hoping they were tears of relief for the bird or happiness for her success, and Elphaba laughed lightly at them.

"Hey," she whispered, wiping porcelain cheeks. "What are those for?"

She looked down at the blonde, olive eyes meeting doe brown trying to decipher their emotion, when suddenly Glinda reached up and pulled Elphaba's lips to her own. Only startling a moment, Elphie's hands found their way around Glinda's back to hold her closer.

Their lips parted, and Elphaba pulled back to see the girl who had embraced her at the Ozdust. Dimple on full display, the most beautiful smile she'd ever seen. Though the Glinda in front of her now looked down slightly.

"Sorry," she breathed, removing her hands from the back of Elphaba's neck, but unable to get the smile off her face. Elphie crooked her head to reunite with Glinda's eyeline.

"Sorry for what?"

At that, Glinda beamed at her and dove in for another, knocking off the witch's hat. Elphaba stumbled back a few paces until her hip hit a tree, and she rolled into it until her shoulders were flush with the bark, giving herself some balance against the blonde. She laughed through the crash of their lips, taking Glinda's face and deepening the kiss once more before parting it. This time, the brown eyes remained closed for a moment. Lips mostly relaxed, but couldn't keep their slight smile away. Elphaba swept gold ringlets from the face of her girl, still laughing at her a little.

"What - you didn't know?" She meant it as a joke at first - surely Glinda knew - but she could see further reassurance was needed. Didn't she know? In what universe could Glinda have possibly been unaware that she and Fiyero were Elphaba's entire world? The witch cradled the back of Glinda's head in her hands. "You think I carried this boulder of yours on my shoulder for an eleven-hour flight because, what, I missed having you as a roommate? I'm kissing your face every day, you're in my arms every night, I've said 'I love you' before! What else was any of that supposed to mean?"

Elphaba playfully took the ridiculous girl into her arms, pulling the blonde's shoulder into the center of her chest while her porcelain face was blushed with an utter glee that Elphaba could have devoured. She pinned her there, giving herself full access to Glinda's cheek, attacking the dimple with her lips, relishing the giggle she uncovered as she did so.

"You're telling me all of this - that I'm doing constantly, mind you, even just five minutes ago - means nothing, but when I'm here—" Elphaba kissed her lips. "THEN it matters?!"

Glinda's head fell in slight embarrassment. Her joy was so pure. So uncharacteristically wordless. She attached a dainty but intentional grasp to where the buttons of Elphaba's dress met, as if to anchor herself there. Almost like she didn't want to believe it was real, or that the witch would stay. Making a point to assure her it was, and that she would, Elphaba took Glinda's face and kissed her again. Delicate fingers knitted into blonde hair, brushing the side of her cheeks. They parted, and Elphaba passed her thumb over pink lips.

"But if this is what you need to know that you're mine, it's yours."

Glinda looked up, hooking her hands on top of Elphaba's as the sides of her face. Even in tears, her smile beamed with a light that was and always had been magic, at least to the green woman who fell in love with her.

"And in case it wasn't also completely obvious," she whispered, joining her forehead with Glinda's, "I'm yours. I always have been. As long as you'll have me, I'm yours."

Glinda exhaled shortly, almost a giggle but not quite, wiping dampness from her eye. She folded herself into Elphaba's arms, gripping the back of her cloak in the way she always did, and the witch heard Glinda's voice at her shoulder returning the sentiment.

"I love you."

Elphaba laughed into her hair.

"Oh, I didn't know."

Yet despite the levity, without even her name attached or its shortened moniker, Glinda's words felt new in Elphaba's ear, too.

Elphaba remembered the spell she willed herself to cast in utter desperation, with Glinda's limp form in her arms. The spell willing Glinda back to her dimpled smile. Back to warm. Silly. Light.

Back to the only person who really made her laugh.

With a sigh of love and relief, Elphaba, inaudibly, found herself whispering like air into blonde curls.

It worked.