The Effects of Gravity 24/?, by ainsleyaisling
Title: The Effects of Gravity 24/?
Author: ainsleyaisling
Rating: PG
'Verse: Musical AU; some details from bookverse
Pairings for Story Overall: Glinda/Fiyero, Elphaba/Fiyero, Glinda/Elphaba
Summary: The year is winding down.
Disclaimer: Wicked belongs mostly to Gregory Maguire, and musicalverse belongs to Stephen Schwartz, Winnie Holzman, and possibly Universal.
Notes: Previous section can be found here.
~~Elphaba~~
Glinda might have apologized, but it didn't make her less jumpy, and it didn't entirely improve her mood, either. But Elphaba had to appreciate that she was obviously trying. It didn't help that their final examinations were drawing nearer and nearer. Glinda was worried that she hadn't concentrated enough on her schoolwork in the first half of the year - and Elphaba could hardly offer her much comfort there, other than to promise to help her study - and to make matters worse, Elphaba herself was beginning to feel the strain and she knew it made her less tolerant of Glinda than she might otherwise have been. She fought not to be snappish, but at times she just couldn't help it.
On the day they had their practical examination in sorcery they walked to class together as usual, Glinda uncharacteristically silent (unless Elphaba were to count the muttering of spells under her breath). Halfway across the campus she suddenly slipped her arm through Elphaba's and looked up at her roommate with an almost defiant look on her face.
Elphaba didn't entirely understand, but she patted the hand that rested on her arm and said, "You'll be all right."
"I know. She's testing us on easy things. But still - I just don't like tests."
"Me either."
"You're top of our class without even trying, Elphie."
Elphaba frowned down at her. "I try. I study all the time. You yell at me for it, although you're doing the same thing when you think I don't notice."
"You study all the time," Glinda said, "but half the time it's to learn extra things. Same as me. You could be top of our class and do half the work you do now, and you barely have to concentrate to understand things."
Her tone was suddenly almost bitter. Elphaba tightened her arm around Glinda's and said, "Stop. You know you'll be fine."
"But what if -"
"There is no 'what if.'"
Glinda fell silent again, but not for long. "I had a letter from my parents this morning."
"Did you?"
"They invited you to come for the summer."
"Oh." Elphaba had forgotten that she was expecting that. "Did you ask them?"
"Not yet, they offered on their own. They know you're my roommate and all."
"Oh," Elphaba said again.
Glinda, seemingly either relenting of her nervous mood or forgetting about it momentarily, slid her hand down Elphaba's arm and tangled their fingers together. "You are coming, aren't you?"
"I haven't asked my father yet."
"So write him."
"I was going to have Nessa bring up the idea, actually," Elphaba said. She fought to keep the usual note of neglect out of her voice. "Have her suggest that she and he could have the second half of the summer to travel alone together if I went to visit you."
"Maybe my parents should just write him," Glinda suggested. "Put the idea into his head."
"Maybe," Elphaba said. "I'll think about it."
"Just as long as you come," Glinda said. "I can't even imagine what it will be like, not having you there."
Elphaba opened her mouth to say something sarcastic, then closed it again and smiled wryly down at Glinda. "I know," she said. "Me either."
At the beginning of their examination Glinda got nervous and set a desk on fire instead of levitating it, but she regained control of herself admirably and completed every task set to her, although some more smoothly than others. At the beginning she looked ready to cry with frustration, but Elphaba didn't think the professor could tell - probably no one could have, who didn't know Glinda as well as her roommate did. Elphaba, of course, had little difficulty with anything on the examination. Since Madame Morrible's departure their lessons had grown rather simplistic, leaving them to challenge themselves on their own time.
Elphaba let her hand rest on Glinda's back as they left the building, on the way back to their dormitory. "You were wonderful," she said.
"Not entirely," Glinda replied. "But enough to scrape a good mark, I think."
"It won't be scraping."
"I'm not ready for this, Elphaba," Glinda said suddenly.
"For the exam? It's over."
"No. To go home. I can't -" Glinda waved one hand nervously. "I don't feel like we can leave yet."
"Oh." Elphaba shifted her satchel on her shoulder, considering. "I think I know what you mean."
"There's too much unfinished," Glinda said. "We have so many things to worry about, and there are so many people out to get us, and we haven't figured out what to do about any of it. How can we just go home to our families for the summer and pretend everything's fine?"
"I know. I mean - anything could be happening here. And we'll lose time to work on our spells and things."
"I didn't mean that, really," Glinda confessed, looking a bit ashamed of herself. "I meant I'm a little afraid - that they'll still be spying on us, or coming after us, when we leave here. And my parents don't understand anything, and you won't be there - for a while at least. It feels like anyone could be plotting to do anything to us, and we wouldn't know."
"You're right," Elphaba said, fighting a little shiver. "But - we don't have a choice."
Glinda took her hand. "Just promise you'll come to visit soon, please? Don't stay too long with your father. My parents invited you for the whole break anyway, so they're expecting you to stay a long time."
"I'll do the best I can."
Glinda nodded and stepped away from her as they rounded the corner of the sciences building. "I'm not coming home yet. I told Professor Merlin I'd join the choir, for the end-of-term ceremony."
"Oh. All right." Elphaba stopped to finish their conversation. "Are they meeting now?"
"Mmm-hmm. But don't start studying history without me, please. I need the most help for that one."
That was the most that either of them said these days, about Glinda's reasons for missing so much history class or about what had happened to her in their classroom. Elphaba nodded. "I'll wait."
"Thanks." She turned away, long curls flying over her shoulder, and strode off in a rather un-Glinda-like manner. Elphaba felt as though she wanted to say something else to her, but she couldn't think what.
~~Fiyero~~
He saw Glinda practically flying across the campus, long hair streaming out behind her, and veered out of his way to place himself in her path. "Glinda."
She seemed startled to see him, but she stopped. "Fiyero."
"How was the exam?"
She looked down at the grass for a moment before replying. Things between them had been thawing slowly, but there was still a long way to go. "Fine," she said finally.
"No accidents?"
"I set a desk on fire," she admitted. The bit of color that stained her cheeks was welcome; it made her look more like the Glinda he remembered from their first meeting.
He laughed. "I'm sure the professor was able to put it right out."
"No," Glinda said. "She tried. Elphaba had to do it."
"I suppose sometimes brute power is required." He smiled down at her. "But you should be proud of yourself - even if it was a mistake, you created something so strong it took Elphaba to undo it."
"I guess." Glinda shifted the small pile of books in her arms. "I didn't think of it that way."
"Where are you headed?"
"Choir practice."
"Oh. Well." There honestly wasn't much interesting to be said about choir practice, from his point of view.
She nodded. "See you later."
"See you."
When he heard the light, airy sounds of chapel music floating up from the square near the dormitories, however, he knew exactly what to do. Darkness was just beginning to fall over the campus, and he was fairly certain of not being seen as he travelled the now-familiar route to the girls' dormitory and up the gnarled tree outside Glinda and Elphaba's room.
When he knocked on the window, Elphaba was bent over her desk with a lamp casting flickering yellow light on her face. Her eyebrows lifted, and she unfolded herself from the chair and came to open the window.
"Hello," she said. "What?"
"At least we're getting to 'hello' first now," he said cheerfully. "I wanted to show you something."
"What?" she repeated.
"Let me in?"
She hesitated, her fingers curling on the windowsill. "Glinda's not here . . ."
"And you don't trust me?" he asked incredulously. "Seriously, Elphaba?"
"No, of course I do. Sorry." She stepped back and opened the window more fully, extending a hand to help him in.
He gripped her arm for balance and climbed through the opening. "You know," he said conversationally as his foot sought the floor, "we'd all better hope you and Glinda have this same room next year, or these little visits are going to become much more complicated."
"You're expecting to be a frequent visitor next year?" Elphaba asked. She took off her glasses and laid them on the desk, watching him.
"Well, I figure you need a co-conspirator." He gave her his most charming grin.
"Who says we're conspiring?"
"Give me some credit, Elphie, no one's that slow."
"Elphie?"
He laughed at the look on her face. "No?"
"I let you in, don't press your luck. What did you want to show me?"
"This." He took hold of her arm and pulled her back over to the window, then threw it open as far as possible.
"What -"
"Ssh." She complied, and once his ears had adjusted to the silence in the room the sounds of the choir made their way through the open window.
"Choir?" Elphaba whispered.
He nodded and whispered back, "Glinda's there, right?"
"Yes."
"I thought you'd want to hear. You seemed . . ."
"What?"
"Over-stressed."
"We're all over-stressed." Still, she was leaning closer to the open window, resting the side of her head against the bottom of the raised sash. He took the rare opportunity, while she wasn't paying attention, to observe her the way he had been able to in the old days, before they really knew each other. She did look tired - her face was pale, and the shadows under her eyes were more purple than usual. Tendrils of her hair curled around her face in the late-spring humid air; an unexpectedly girlish trait for her. The skirt she was wearing, one of the simple dark ones the girls wore when they had to have physical education classes, was too big - he would have guessed it wasn't hers. Borrowed from Glinda probably; if it hadn't been hanging so low on her narrow hips it would also have been too short. Her blouse was one the modest Elphaba would never have worn outdoors - or, he suspected, indoors either if she had expected him - it left her arms bare and was loose enough that he could see the outline of her shoulder blade when she raised her arm to brush hair out of her face. Something about the mere fact of noticing that detail made him shiver.
She would have hit him if she'd known he was thinking about brushing her hair back for her. Instead he rested one hand against the small of her back, surprised when she didn't move away.
"Thanks," she said after a moment.
"For what?"
She gestured silently out the window.
"Oh. You're welcome." He shifted his weight beside her, looking nervously down at his feet. "I'm leaving next week; are you?"
"Yes. With Nessa, on the day the dormitories close."
"Home to Munchkinland?"
She nodded, her gaze still out the window rather than on him. "And then to Glinda's, probably."
"Oh." A hundred things to say sprang to his mind, and he bit his lip. He wanted to know if she would write back, if he were to write to her over the break. He wanted to know if the entire idea was ridiculous. He wanted to tell her that he thought about her all the time, that the smell of her hair would haunt him all night after this, that the intimate sight of her so informally attired, and in Glinda's skirt, raised feelings he didn't even know how to understand. He gestured out at the tree. "I should go."
"Right." She stirred from her reverie to offer him a hand, which he took even though he didn't need it. He rubbed his thumb over her fingers, and wondered if her shiver was entirely due to the breeze or just a little bit to him, as well.
"'Night, Elphaba," he said when he was standing on the tree branch.
"Goodnight. Thanks again - this was . . . nice." She didn't exactly smile, but her expression was gentle enough that he could almost imagine one was there.
"I'll see you in class."
She nodded and leaned against the wall, still listening to the singing through her open window. He shook his head and began the climb back down the tree in the dark.
Author: ainsleyaisling
Rating: PG
'Verse: Musical AU; some details from bookverse
Pairings for Story Overall: Glinda/Fiyero, Elphaba/Fiyero, Glinda/Elphaba
Summary: The year is winding down.
Disclaimer: Wicked belongs mostly to Gregory Maguire, and musicalverse belongs to Stephen Schwartz, Winnie Holzman, and possibly Universal.
Notes: Previous section can be found here.
~~Elphaba~~
Glinda might have apologized, but it didn't make her less jumpy, and it didn't entirely improve her mood, either. But Elphaba had to appreciate that she was obviously trying. It didn't help that their final examinations were drawing nearer and nearer. Glinda was worried that she hadn't concentrated enough on her schoolwork in the first half of the year - and Elphaba could hardly offer her much comfort there, other than to promise to help her study - and to make matters worse, Elphaba herself was beginning to feel the strain and she knew it made her less tolerant of Glinda than she might otherwise have been. She fought not to be snappish, but at times she just couldn't help it.
On the day they had their practical examination in sorcery they walked to class together as usual, Glinda uncharacteristically silent (unless Elphaba were to count the muttering of spells under her breath). Halfway across the campus she suddenly slipped her arm through Elphaba's and looked up at her roommate with an almost defiant look on her face.
Elphaba didn't entirely understand, but she patted the hand that rested on her arm and said, "You'll be all right."
"I know. She's testing us on easy things. But still - I just don't like tests."
"Me either."
"You're top of our class without even trying, Elphie."
Elphaba frowned down at her. "I try. I study all the time. You yell at me for it, although you're doing the same thing when you think I don't notice."
"You study all the time," Glinda said, "but half the time it's to learn extra things. Same as me. You could be top of our class and do half the work you do now, and you barely have to concentrate to understand things."
Her tone was suddenly almost bitter. Elphaba tightened her arm around Glinda's and said, "Stop. You know you'll be fine."
"But what if -"
"There is no 'what if.'"
Glinda fell silent again, but not for long. "I had a letter from my parents this morning."
"Did you?"
"They invited you to come for the summer."
"Oh." Elphaba had forgotten that she was expecting that. "Did you ask them?"
"Not yet, they offered on their own. They know you're my roommate and all."
"Oh," Elphaba said again.
Glinda, seemingly either relenting of her nervous mood or forgetting about it momentarily, slid her hand down Elphaba's arm and tangled their fingers together. "You are coming, aren't you?"
"I haven't asked my father yet."
"So write him."
"I was going to have Nessa bring up the idea, actually," Elphaba said. She fought to keep the usual note of neglect out of her voice. "Have her suggest that she and he could have the second half of the summer to travel alone together if I went to visit you."
"Maybe my parents should just write him," Glinda suggested. "Put the idea into his head."
"Maybe," Elphaba said. "I'll think about it."
"Just as long as you come," Glinda said. "I can't even imagine what it will be like, not having you there."
Elphaba opened her mouth to say something sarcastic, then closed it again and smiled wryly down at Glinda. "I know," she said. "Me either."
At the beginning of their examination Glinda got nervous and set a desk on fire instead of levitating it, but she regained control of herself admirably and completed every task set to her, although some more smoothly than others. At the beginning she looked ready to cry with frustration, but Elphaba didn't think the professor could tell - probably no one could have, who didn't know Glinda as well as her roommate did. Elphaba, of course, had little difficulty with anything on the examination. Since Madame Morrible's departure their lessons had grown rather simplistic, leaving them to challenge themselves on their own time.
Elphaba let her hand rest on Glinda's back as they left the building, on the way back to their dormitory. "You were wonderful," she said.
"Not entirely," Glinda replied. "But enough to scrape a good mark, I think."
"It won't be scraping."
"I'm not ready for this, Elphaba," Glinda said suddenly.
"For the exam? It's over."
"No. To go home. I can't -" Glinda waved one hand nervously. "I don't feel like we can leave yet."
"Oh." Elphaba shifted her satchel on her shoulder, considering. "I think I know what you mean."
"There's too much unfinished," Glinda said. "We have so many things to worry about, and there are so many people out to get us, and we haven't figured out what to do about any of it. How can we just go home to our families for the summer and pretend everything's fine?"
"I know. I mean - anything could be happening here. And we'll lose time to work on our spells and things."
"I didn't mean that, really," Glinda confessed, looking a bit ashamed of herself. "I meant I'm a little afraid - that they'll still be spying on us, or coming after us, when we leave here. And my parents don't understand anything, and you won't be there - for a while at least. It feels like anyone could be plotting to do anything to us, and we wouldn't know."
"You're right," Elphaba said, fighting a little shiver. "But - we don't have a choice."
Glinda took her hand. "Just promise you'll come to visit soon, please? Don't stay too long with your father. My parents invited you for the whole break anyway, so they're expecting you to stay a long time."
"I'll do the best I can."
Glinda nodded and stepped away from her as they rounded the corner of the sciences building. "I'm not coming home yet. I told Professor Merlin I'd join the choir, for the end-of-term ceremony."
"Oh. All right." Elphaba stopped to finish their conversation. "Are they meeting now?"
"Mmm-hmm. But don't start studying history without me, please. I need the most help for that one."
That was the most that either of them said these days, about Glinda's reasons for missing so much history class or about what had happened to her in their classroom. Elphaba nodded. "I'll wait."
"Thanks." She turned away, long curls flying over her shoulder, and strode off in a rather un-Glinda-like manner. Elphaba felt as though she wanted to say something else to her, but she couldn't think what.
~~Fiyero~~
He saw Glinda practically flying across the campus, long hair streaming out behind her, and veered out of his way to place himself in her path. "Glinda."
She seemed startled to see him, but she stopped. "Fiyero."
"How was the exam?"
She looked down at the grass for a moment before replying. Things between them had been thawing slowly, but there was still a long way to go. "Fine," she said finally.
"No accidents?"
"I set a desk on fire," she admitted. The bit of color that stained her cheeks was welcome; it made her look more like the Glinda he remembered from their first meeting.
He laughed. "I'm sure the professor was able to put it right out."
"No," Glinda said. "She tried. Elphaba had to do it."
"I suppose sometimes brute power is required." He smiled down at her. "But you should be proud of yourself - even if it was a mistake, you created something so strong it took Elphaba to undo it."
"I guess." Glinda shifted the small pile of books in her arms. "I didn't think of it that way."
"Where are you headed?"
"Choir practice."
"Oh. Well." There honestly wasn't much interesting to be said about choir practice, from his point of view.
She nodded. "See you later."
"See you."
When he heard the light, airy sounds of chapel music floating up from the square near the dormitories, however, he knew exactly what to do. Darkness was just beginning to fall over the campus, and he was fairly certain of not being seen as he travelled the now-familiar route to the girls' dormitory and up the gnarled tree outside Glinda and Elphaba's room.
When he knocked on the window, Elphaba was bent over her desk with a lamp casting flickering yellow light on her face. Her eyebrows lifted, and she unfolded herself from the chair and came to open the window.
"Hello," she said. "What?"
"At least we're getting to 'hello' first now," he said cheerfully. "I wanted to show you something."
"What?" she repeated.
"Let me in?"
She hesitated, her fingers curling on the windowsill. "Glinda's not here . . ."
"And you don't trust me?" he asked incredulously. "Seriously, Elphaba?"
"No, of course I do. Sorry." She stepped back and opened the window more fully, extending a hand to help him in.
He gripped her arm for balance and climbed through the opening. "You know," he said conversationally as his foot sought the floor, "we'd all better hope you and Glinda have this same room next year, or these little visits are going to become much more complicated."
"You're expecting to be a frequent visitor next year?" Elphaba asked. She took off her glasses and laid them on the desk, watching him.
"Well, I figure you need a co-conspirator." He gave her his most charming grin.
"Who says we're conspiring?"
"Give me some credit, Elphie, no one's that slow."
"Elphie?"
He laughed at the look on her face. "No?"
"I let you in, don't press your luck. What did you want to show me?"
"This." He took hold of her arm and pulled her back over to the window, then threw it open as far as possible.
"What -"
"Ssh." She complied, and once his ears had adjusted to the silence in the room the sounds of the choir made their way through the open window.
"Choir?" Elphaba whispered.
He nodded and whispered back, "Glinda's there, right?"
"Yes."
"I thought you'd want to hear. You seemed . . ."
"What?"
"Over-stressed."
"We're all over-stressed." Still, she was leaning closer to the open window, resting the side of her head against the bottom of the raised sash. He took the rare opportunity, while she wasn't paying attention, to observe her the way he had been able to in the old days, before they really knew each other. She did look tired - her face was pale, and the shadows under her eyes were more purple than usual. Tendrils of her hair curled around her face in the late-spring humid air; an unexpectedly girlish trait for her. The skirt she was wearing, one of the simple dark ones the girls wore when they had to have physical education classes, was too big - he would have guessed it wasn't hers. Borrowed from Glinda probably; if it hadn't been hanging so low on her narrow hips it would also have been too short. Her blouse was one the modest Elphaba would never have worn outdoors - or, he suspected, indoors either if she had expected him - it left her arms bare and was loose enough that he could see the outline of her shoulder blade when she raised her arm to brush hair out of her face. Something about the mere fact of noticing that detail made him shiver.
She would have hit him if she'd known he was thinking about brushing her hair back for her. Instead he rested one hand against the small of her back, surprised when she didn't move away.
"Thanks," she said after a moment.
"For what?"
She gestured silently out the window.
"Oh. You're welcome." He shifted his weight beside her, looking nervously down at his feet. "I'm leaving next week; are you?"
"Yes. With Nessa, on the day the dormitories close."
"Home to Munchkinland?"
She nodded, her gaze still out the window rather than on him. "And then to Glinda's, probably."
"Oh." A hundred things to say sprang to his mind, and he bit his lip. He wanted to know if she would write back, if he were to write to her over the break. He wanted to know if the entire idea was ridiculous. He wanted to tell her that he thought about her all the time, that the smell of her hair would haunt him all night after this, that the intimate sight of her so informally attired, and in Glinda's skirt, raised feelings he didn't even know how to understand. He gestured out at the tree. "I should go."
"Right." She stirred from her reverie to offer him a hand, which he took even though he didn't need it. He rubbed his thumb over her fingers, and wondered if her shiver was entirely due to the breeze or just a little bit to him, as well.
"'Night, Elphaba," he said when he was standing on the tree branch.
"Goodnight. Thanks again - this was . . . nice." She didn't exactly smile, but her expression was gentle enough that he could almost imagine one was there.
"I'll see you in class."
She nodded and leaned against the wall, still listening to the singing through her open window. He shook his head and began the climb back down the tree in the dark.