"Oz, it's freezing! Elphie—"

The witch lit the fireplace with a wave of her hand, rushing to the bedroom to find something warm for the both of them.

Glinda practically threw herself onto the rug in front of the fire. Stretching her numb fingers towards the heat, she winced through the itch of sensation returning, clenching and unclenching the digits to get them circulated faster. Her leather coat had taken on the chill of the weather's bite and she was desperate to be shed of it. Elphaba returned with warm clothes and the wool throw blanket from the bedroom, already having stripped down to her chemise. She dropped them beside the fireplace and, as if reading Glinda's mind, started helping her unfasten her jacket.

"Elphie…" The blonde couldn't help pouting at her discomfort.

"As soon as we get your wet things off, we'll be under that blanket." Elphaba let Glinda continue trying to thaw her hands while helping her with the buttons of her dress.

"I hate the cold."

"I know you do," Elphaba exhaled through her nose in a sort of half-chuckle. Glinda met her with a bit of a grin, wondering if she, too, was thinking about the several winter nights at Shiz where a freezing Galinda with ice cold feet would tuck in next to her roommate, and Elphie would pretend she was bothered. Elphaba helped Glinda slip the purple dress off her shoulders, tossing the wet wool aside, then positioned herself behind her. Glinda graciously fell back into the girl who always carried more warmth, and the witch wrapped the blanket around both of them. "Corset, too?"

"No, this is fine," Glinda trembled. She pulled green arms around herself, willing the cave they'd created with the blanket to stop the chattering of her jaw. "That rain came out of nowhere!"

"Morrible must have stubbed her toe."

That got a laugh out of Glinda. From under the blanket, she managed enough sensation in her fingers to take off her shoes and stockings, finally free of everything that had touched the rain. Glinda sighed and closed her eyes in Elphie's arms. Her smell. Her warmth. The fire.

Familiarity pulsed, unlocking a memory.

"I'm going to get you into something warm and dry, okay?"

She startled a little.

"Glinda?"

Her heart started to quicken - a pang of fear - as if having a whitewake memory could trap her there again. But this wasn't a bad one. In her patience for a response, Elphaba's lips met Glinda's collarbone, finding a home there while the blonde put together the words she needed.

"I remember how you made sure to tell me everything you were doing," Glinda began after several moments, her voice soft as reminiscence, staring at the fire while its crackle played in her ears like it did then. "Obviously I couldn't…I couldn't say anything. But you told me anyway."

"I know this isn't your color, but it's warm."

Glinda smiled a little, looking over at her wet purple dress with not an ounce of nostalgia for any pink to cross her skin again. She'd go black first, and in that moment briefly mulled the idea with a smirk - mostly amused at the imagined look on Elphie's face if Glinda just made claim to the whole closet here. She brushed her thumb across Elphaba's leanly-muscled arms around her, dropping her eyes to look at them. The arms that carried her eleven hours through storms and cold to get her here. The arms that saved her.

"I remember you making sure I wasn't scared. Even though…I think you were. You tried to make me feel like…like I was still there. Not just…whatever I was." Glinda leaned back and turned so she could look at Elphaba. "I remember."

Elphie got a bit emotional, but tried to keep it back. The blonde noticed she didn't like to do that much around her. She hoped she wouldn't always feel that way, but she understood why. Although it made Glinda feel a bit infantilized, she knew it was out of love. Even before the forest today, she knew it was out of love. Glinda knew that she, too, had things she was keeping back.

Glinda shifted and draped both legs over one of Elphaba's, wrapping her arms around the heat of her witch, putting them face to face. Elphie entered an almost studious analysis of brown eyes, tucking a strand of blonde hair. Her green fingernails scraped gently against Glinda's head as they passed the shell of her ear, then spun the curl down the girl's shoulder like a gold ribbon.

"Did it help?"

As if a simple yes could never suffice, Glinda kissed her, for once taking Elphaba's face into her hands instead of the other way around. She joined their foreheads after, thumbs passing along Elphaba's jaw, eyes closed.

"It was everything."

When they parted, Glinda saw the wish of questions opening and closing on Elphaba's lips. She was relieved that she either never found them or correctly saw that Glinda wasn't ready to offer answers. Maybe she never would be.

Glinda had thought about this over the course of their flight back - whether love's honesty meant she'd need to provide a dissertation of the past six years in novel detail to truly feel connected. Whether, if she failed to do so in whatever invisible timeframe was meant to be appropriate, omission would be considered betrayal or lie.

"Aren't you going to ask me how?"

"Do you want me to?"

"...no."

"Then I won't."

Elphaba couldn't feel that way forever. She'd find other scars. The branding wasn't even the one Glinda hated the most.

If it'd been Glinda with the golden psychic hand instead of Chistery, she wondered if she'd use it to tell Elphaba. It would be easier. The way it worked - at least, the way Chistery seemed to use it - it would open more like thoughts than prepared speech. Just sudden knowledge. Like memory. She wouldn't even need to try. Glinda wasn't making any effort to tell Chistery anything when he touched her arm and saw the entirety of her palace experience - all her scars. If she could release it the same way, without fear of saying the wrong thing, maybe it could be understood. Maybe it wouldn't hurt so much. It would only take a moment and Glinda could tell her everything. If she wanted to.

But how in Oz was she ever supposed to tell the woman she loved - who she wanted to love for the rest of her existence, truly and deeply and without burden - that Glinda's six-year nightmare began with a young witch flying off and leaving her there? Elphaba would never forgive herself.

It wasn't her fault, but she would never forgive herself. Glinda could almost feel her arms rising into a cross at the wrist. Her silent promise.

Protector.

Elphaba saw the thoughts knotting on the porcelain forehead, and even without knowing their cause, smoothed them off Glinda's brow. Two veridian thumbs moved from the center outward. Glinda sighed, trying to let it release her like Elphie wanted it to. The blonde allowed her eyes to close, then took one of Elphie's hands to her lips.

"You here?" Elphaba asked gently, one hand still softening her brow.

"I'm here." Glinda spoke into green fingers, tasting their softness at her lips. "I don't want to be anywhere but here. With you."

Elphaba kissed her forehead, then her lips, and Glinda caught a smirk there as she removed them.

"Well it's a good thing you're kidnapped, then."

"You're also my ride," Glinda quipped back.

"I've got you a little trapped, I think."

Glinda unveiled a dimple and placed Elphaba's arms behind her neck, locking her own into the straps of Elphie's gown.

"Maybe I want to be."

Glinda traced the rectangle strap of Elphaba's slip - frayed cotton on the edges instead of the sharp triangles on the one she used to wear at school with the black stitching. That coal-colored cardigan she used to put over it was such a crime against the witch's arms, her neck, her chest…

Keeping eye contact with Elphaba, Glinda reached behind herself and slowly - her heart pounding - untied her corset. She mustered the courage to take green hands in hers, directing them to finish it for her before putting her own hands back at Elphie's shoulders. Feeling more access to breathe, Glinda's lungs needed it more, needing it faster. She definitely wasn't cold anymore. Her lips parted slightly when her eyes fell again to Elphaba's exposed skin, heating at the unyielding desire to touch every inch of her.

"I'm yours," Elphie released in a breath, immediately seeing the need in brown eyes. She finished her work on Glinda's corset and pulled it off for her, leaving them both in just their undergarments.

Glinda lowered to the sides of Elphaba's breasts through the chemise, thumbs gracing the sides of them and imagining the small, soft handful they'd be under her palms, without the fabric. Desire tugged against fear, yearning against anxiety, not knowing what was allowed and what wasn't, but drowning in a magnetic need for Elphaba, as much as Glinda could have her. As much as she could bring herself to ask for her.

She swung a leg around Elphie, straddling her atop the waist. She needed pressure against the heat that brewed between her legs, even if it was through her gown, and locked her ankles behind the witch. Glinda went for Elphaba's lips while at the same time Elphie started to take her own chemise off, and Glinda completely forgot to breathe. Elphaba stopped short.

"Do you want me to leave it on?"

Oz, no.

Losing Glinda's eyes to the girl's own anxieties, Elphaba brought them back.

"Hey, it's alright. Just because I do doesn't mean you have to, okay? I still can, if you want." And she gently repeated herself in a kiss. "I'm yours."

"And…Fiyero?"

"Should be back soon, but we'll hear Feldspar."

"He won't…I mean, you…" Glinda couldn't quite find the words for the flexibility and fluidity she knew Elphaba and Fiyero had, and she wasn't sure of the rules, if there were any.

Elphaba almost laughed at that, kissing her and meeting her eyes.

"The only thing he'll be upset about is that he's not on that couch making sketches."

Before she could even question the sketches - she'd never known Fiyero do so anything more than the occasional landscape - Elphie brought Glinda's hands to her hips. The blonde completely lost her train of thought. Elphaba gathered the edge of her slip and placed it in fair palms, and Glinda guided the fabric up and over long, black and brown microbraids. The fire cast orange-gold light onto small mounds of dark sage breasts that had Glinda stuttering for breath and tightening her legs around Elphaba's waist. She reflexively throbbed her hips against the witch when she reached out to touch them.

"Fucking Oz…"

Elphaba laughed lightly - a laugh that Glinda felt through her straddle and nearly sent her over the edge. The witch pulled her back in by slipping green hands under Glinda's arms, fingernails in her hair the way she loved, bringing her lips in for a taste. Elphaba's kisses found their way to her cheek, jaw, and neck, lingering at the last while Glinda explored the curves and hills of her chest and hips, finding freckles she'd never seen, somewhere between breathless and suffocating.

"What do you need?" Elphaba asked through a gentle nip of her neck. After one last anchoring grasp to green breasts, Glinda furiously unfastened the front of her button-up slip beneath the cover of the blanket and allowed it to pool around her waist.

"Closer," Glinda shivered, whipping the wool around to keep covering both of them up to the shoulders. "I need you closer." She pulled Elphaba's face from her neck and crashed her entire self into the witch - lips, breasts, stomach, hips - sending Elphaba's back to the rug. From atop her, she guided green hands to her back.

"Closer…"

Elphaba trailed tickled paths up and down her skin.

"Closer than that, Elphie…" Glinda breathed into the veridian lips. "You're too far away."

Understanding the assignment now, Elphaba gripped the blonde to her chest as if to adhere sage skin to porcelain. Glinda pressed herself to the witch, wrapping her arms around the back of Elphie's braids and keeping her in a kiss.

Glinda held them there, completely flush against one another until Elphaba tenderly parted. Their chests heaved against each other, synchronously finding their air again. Elphaba furrowed at the blonde.

"Don't you need to breathe?"

"I don't know." Glinda grinned into Elphie's lips, going for them again. "I don't think so. Not anymore." She shifted one kiss to Elphaba's neck and relished the pulse it pulled out of her hips. "I think all I need is this now." With a dimpled smirk, just as breathless as Elphie but in much more denial about it, Glinda devoured her lips again. The witch gave her a moment, then rolled the two of them to the side, keeping their cave of wool intact as she pulled their faces apart.

"Glinda, breathe." She moved waves of champagne blonde out of Glinda's face and found brown eyes. "I'm not going anywhere." Glinda grinned a bit devilishly.

"You're mine."

"I'm yours." One last kiss, then she guided Glinda's head to nest at her neck. "You're stuck with me."

Glinda found a version of the pressure and contact she needed from their position on their sides, bringing one of Elphie's legs between hers and locking her slender arms behind the witch's back.

"But Elphie, I want to be stuck to you."

"I've noticed," Elphaba laughed. She kissed the top of blonde hair and caught her breath. Glinda mirrored the witch's rise and fall of air, feeling it against her breasts, letting the sound of Elphaba's heartbeat slow her own.

Then Glinda realized that the sound was actually combining with Feldspur's hoofbeats outside. She startled up and fumbled to get her slip back over her shoulders and buttoned. Elphaba chivalrously provided a cave of modesty for her with the blanket. As soon as she finished dressing, she started to stand.

"Shouldn't we—"

"Nope, you're kidnapped." Elphie grabbed Glinda around the waist and pulled her back into their blanket.

Fiyero found himself smiling before he even reached the barnhouse door, greeted with the sound of a laugh he hadn't heard in years. His lover's name rang out in a familiar squeal that reached octaves unheard of, followed by her laughter as well. If he hadn't needed to get this radio inside and out of the rain, he never would have interrupted the mirth that played through the wood.

They were just two heads popping out of a blanket by the fire, with Elphaba distributing kisses all over the side of Glinda's face, drawing out every single giggle she possibly could. The blonde started to turn pink, so Elphaba stopped and just held her contentedly and rocked a little while Glinda caught her breath.

Fiyero set the radio on the table, then opened the door once more to shake his wet coat off onto the dirt. He couldn't take his eyes off the girls, though.

Elphaba started to near her ear again and Glinda immediately spun around and raised a stern finger in her face.

"Elphaba Thropp, don't you dare do that hideodeous voice."

Elphaba darkened her expression into a devilish grin and did a playfully sinister impression of how they portrayed her in radio propaganda - a nasally bite of a timbre, like fingernails on a chalkboard.

"You're at the witch's demise!"

"No, it makes my skin crawl!" A squealing Glinda pushed Elphaba's distorted face away from her. The blanket around them dropped to their arms and Fiyero saw that even though Glinda wore her slip, his emerald lover was definitely naked. His jaw dropped.

Don't. Smile.

He might have smiled a little bit. Glinda clocked his expression, followed his eyes to Elphaba's exposed breasts behind her and immediately hid behind her hands in an adorably blushed embarrassment. Fae whispered some reassurances to his former fiancé, bringing the blanket up and pulling Glinda back into her chest. His lover turned to acknowledge him.

"What did Qaurel find out about the announcement? Anything?"

"Nothing that can't wait until tomorrow," he said, crossing over to kiss her. "So please, by all means, continue absolutely everything that's happening here." He watched Glinda sink deeper into the blanket and chuckled, kneeling in front of her.

Glinda splayed her fingers slightly, brown eyes peeking through to look at his, her cheeks crimson. He gently lowered her hands with his own.

"You don't need to do that, you know," he said gently. "Are you happy?"

Glinda nodded so quick that she even seemed to surprise herself. Fiyero watched Elphaba's brows raise a moment with a sort of hopefulness. The prince looked back at Glinda, squeezing her hands that he held on the side of her face.

"Then don't ever hide it. Not for us." He kissed her forehead. "We love you. I love you. If you're happy, I'm happy."

"He's happier than he's letting on," Elphaba added, though she did give Fiyero an appreciative thank you at her lips, even if he knew she was definitely clocking what she called his 'muse face' right now. She pretended to be annoyed at it, but he gave her a smirk he knew she found charming and rushed off to the bedroom to change his clothes and get his sketchbook. Moments later, he dropped onto the couch and opened it up, one charcoal in his hand and a spare tucked atop his ear.

When he got back, the blanket was in a pool around the girls and Elphaba was reaching for her chemise on the floor, but he caught a glance with her and made a longing gesture with his eyes between her and the sketchbook. She glowered playfully at him and kept it off, bringing the blanket around her arms again.

"Come on, Glinda, we're muses now," said the witch, gesturing for the blonde to return to her spot in front. Glinda obliged, but turned her head towards Fiyero.

"What's this I hear about sketching? You sketch people now?"

"He's actually quite good," Elphaba said. "Show her the one from the other night."

"Ah…" Fiyero flipped back about a half dozen pages, then found a sketch he'd done of Elphaba and Glinda in the bed. It was actually the morning after Glinda's burn. The prince had woken in the morning to see them so beautifully entwined, facing each other. Elphaba's hair was still just shading, but he loved how he captured their faces - Glinda tucked into Elphaba's chest and Elphaba's chin on top of Glinda's curls. He turned it around to show Glinda. "I'm still working on Fae's hair."

"He'll sketch the whole thing in twenty minutes and then take three days on the braids."

"They're a masterpiece." Fiyero winked at the witch. "Gotta get them right."

"Fiyero, that's actually incredible!" Glinda exclaimed. "I had no idea you could do that." And perhaps a bit of sadness befell her a moment. Maybe some regret. Fiyero didn't know if he was reading it right, but whatever it was, he wanted to dash it away and have her smiling again.

"I didn't have time until here," he lied. "Now you two just do what you were doing. Sit by the fire. Talk. Pretend I'm not here."

Fiyero got to work. He started with the shape of their hair, shading out long strands for Elphaba where he'd fill in microbraid detail later. He sketched out a rough pool of the blanket, then moved on down to their shoulders and got more focused on shadows. He periodically looked up, both for his drawing and to better observe their conversation.

"I remember this, too," Glinda said softly, stretching her hands out towards the fire with Elphaba's fingers entwined behind them.

Charcoal scratched against parchment, and Fiyero waved through outlines of Glinda's curls, leaving space in between to make it look light.

"Do you remember this?" Fae asked. She held out two hands - one, then the other - with her fingers gently facing inward. Glinda mirrored her - one hand, then the other - from in between Elphaba's arms.

The Ozdust.

Fiyero watched them lower their arms. He watched Glinda turn with a dimpled smile towards Elphaba, and he watched their lips meet in a kiss. With a furrow in his brow that he was ashamed to have, he shifted to one of the first pages in his notebook. An old collection of drawings, from when he first got here.

The page had four portrait sketches of Glinda as he remembered her in the palace. Expressionless, mostly. The profile was especially lifeless and dead behind the eyes. He couldn't quite capture a spark in that one - or his memory couldn't apply something that wasn't there in the first place. One looked more like what you'd see with lines back and forth through the face to gauge proportional eyes, nose, and mouth. Perfectly symmetrical and beautiful, but inanimate. There was a sadness to her in the one where her chin was down. And in the largest one - a straight-on portrait with Glinda's lips in a line and her silver crown on her head - he'd captured something behind the eyes that he couldn't quite read.

Fiyero hadn't wanted to forget her face when he sketched these - not that he ever could forget Glinda Upland. But much like the few times their whispered conversations about the past and Elphaba in the palace sent them into each other's arms for connection, he'd come out of the attempt to understand her lonelier than before. He'd gathered that Glinda simply didn't love him anymore, and that hurt the prince, but not nearly as much as feeling like the girl he met at school was gone. She was someone else now. Over the years, he'd accepted that.

Fiyero looked between the sketches in his book and the woman in front of him. And he hated the thought - hated the thought, after all she had been through with Morrible and the whitewake in those last two months - but with this Glinda here, a girl that he thought was long gone, with light in her eyes and a dimpled smile, he couldn't help thinking it.

Where the hell was this Glinda at the palace?