Chapter Text
Glinda sat through her final meeting of the day desperate to get home to her wife.
The Gillikin trade delegation had been talking for what felt like an entire lifespan. She nodded at appropriate intervals. She kept her posture immaculate. But her mind had drifted long ago — back to the palace, to their room, to the thought of coming home and wrapping her arms around Elphaba from behind the way she always did after a long day. Pressing her lips to her cheek, then across her jaw, then finally to her mouth. To the way Elphaba would smile against the kiss. And then usually she would pull Glinda into her lap and —
"Glinda?"
"Hm?"
The Minister of Commerce was looking at her expectantly. So was everyone else at the table.
"We were just discussing the proposed amendments to the Gillikin Import Tariff Act."
"Oh, yes." Glinda straightened, summoning her most authoritative tone from whatever corner it had retreated to. "My position remains unchanged. We phase in the reductions over three quarters rather than implementing them all at once. It gives our domestic producers time to adjust without destabilizing the market."
The minister blinked. Nodded. Wrote something down.
Glinda tried to stifle a yawn and mostly failed.
"I think," she said, rising from her chair with a grace that betrayed none of her exhaustion, "that's enough for today."
The room murmured its agreement.
Thank Oz.
The palace felt like home now.
Elphaba's boots by the door, usually muddy. Then there were the books. They appeared gradually at first, then all at once, colonizing every flat surface in the private quarters like scholarly moss. Texts on political theory and Ozian folklore.
But the most telling sign that things had changed was the laughter.
Glinda was happy. The kind of happiness that lived in the bones, in the quiet moments, in the way she always reached for Elphaba's hand without thinking. The way Elphaba absentmindedly tucked a strand of golden hair behind Glinda's ear while reading, in the sound of their laughter echoing down the marble corridors over something only they found funny, in the way Glinda would catch Elphaba watching her from across a crowded room with a look so soft it made her chest ache.
The Wicked Witch persona was gone. The truth had been revealed. Elphaba had been accepted by the Ozian people, slowly, imperfectly, but genuinely. Their life together had settled into something neither of them had ever dared imagine. Something almost ordinary. Something blissful.
Elphaba loved her work: restoring true historical knowledge to Oz, unearthing the records the Wizard had buried, and working alongside Glinda to amend the animal rights legislation that had been gutted under his regime. She had purpose. She had freedom. She had a beautiful wife who kissed her goodnight and a life that no longer required hiding.
And Glinda continued her work as Glinda the Good because Oz still needed her. The people still looked to her. And she was, despite everything, very good at her job.
However, Glinda had her difficult days. Days when the weight of governing pressed down like a physical thing and she came to their room exhausted, her smile packed away, her eyes hollow with a tiredness that no amount of sleep could fix. On those days Elphaba drew her a bath with the rose salts Glinda loved and sat behind her in the tub and she held her.
Elphaba had her difficult days, too. Days when she read something in the archives that reminded her how much had been lost, how many Animals had suffered while Oz looked the other way. Days when the old anger resurfaced and settled across her features like a shadow. On those nights, Glinda sat beside her on the floor of the study, laid her head against Elphaba's shoulder, and traced slow, gentle circles across her back until she felt the tension leave her body. She never tried to fix it. She just loved her through it.
They took care of each other. Not perfectly. Not always gracefully. But relentlessly.
Glinda quietly opened the door to their bedroom, exhausted. Careful not to disturb Elphaba who was, of course, stationed at her desk, deep in thought.
That's where she usually was, the desk or in the library.
Glinda stood in the doorway for a moment, watching her. Heart full.
It still hit her sometimes that even after everything, this fierce, quiet wave of love that came without warning and without mercy. Elphaba, alive. Here. Hers. Elphaba, frowning at a book, completely unaware that she was the center of someone's entire world.
Glinda smiled. Kicked her shoes off. Padded across the room on bare feet.
She wrapped her arms around Elphaba from behind and kissed her cheek.
Elphaba smiled immediately. Her hands came up to cover Glinda's, holding her there, and she turned her head to find Glinda's lips.
"Hello, my sweet."
"Hello, my darling." Glinda set her chin on Elphaba's shoulder and looked down at the scattered pages. "Hard at work?"
“Always.”
Glinda pressed another kiss to her cheek. Then one just below her ear. Then she started making her way slowly along the line of Elphaba's neck. She felt the slight hitch in Elphaba's breathing, and smiled against her skin.
Then she stopped.
"Elphie. You have ink on your nose."
"I do not."
Glinda giggled.
"I am looking directly at your nose. It has ink on it."
Glinda licked her thumb.
Elphaba turned in her chair but she held still. Her dark eyes tracked Glinda's face as the blonde leaned in, bottom lip caught between her teeth in concentration, and gently rubbed the smudge of ink from the bridge of Elphaba's nose. This close, Elphaba could count the pale freckles that Glinda would never admit to having.
"There," Glinda said softly.
Elphaba caught her wrist before she could pull away. Drew the pad of Glinda's thumb to her lips and kissed it. Just once. Just barely.
"Thank you, my sweet."
And there it was — the flush. It climbed Glinda's throat like sunrise, pink and warm, even after all this time. Even after everything they'd survived. Elphaba could still make Glinda Upland blush with a kiss to the thumb and two quiet words.
"You're welcome," Glinda whispered.
Glinda retreated to the bathroom to dismantle Glinda the Good.
She stood before the mirror and peeled it away, layer by layer.
She lifted the crown from her hair and set it on the vanity. Then removed the pins, dozens of them, holding the elaborate updo in place. She pulled them out one by one, dropping them into the little porcelain dish with soft, metallic clicks. Her golden hair tumbled down in heavy waves as the woman in the mirror started to look more like a person.
She wiped away the makeup with practiced hands. Underneath it all was a face that was softer. A little tired. A little pale. A face with freckles she never let the public see.
She unzipped the gown and stepped out of it carefully, hanging it on the hook by the door for cleaning. Then she unhooked the corset and took a deep, full breath. Her ribs expanding freely for the first time in hours. She llet out a quiet, satisfied sigh.
She ignored her usual nightgowns and reached instead for one of Elphaba's shirts. It was too long on her, the hem falling to mid-thigh, the sleeves loose around her wrists. It smelled like old books and chamomile and something that was just Elphaba.
She looked at herself in the mirror and saw, finally, the person she actually was.
Not Glinda the Good. Just Glinda. Elphaba's wife.
She liked this version better.
By the time Glinda emerged, a warm fire was crackling in the bedroom hearth. Elphaba had migrated from the desk to the bed, propped against the headboard with a book in her hands. She looked up when Glinda appeared. Her eyes did that quick, involuntary sweep from the loose golden curls to the borrowed shirt to the bare feet and back again, followed by a smile that started slow and bloomed across her entire face.
"What?" Glinda asked, though she knew exactly what.
"Nothing." Elphaba's voice was soft. "Come here."
Glinda climbed into bed and settled against Elphaba's side, her back against the pillows and her legs draped across Elphaba's lap. Elphaba's free hand came to rest on Glinda's knee without looking up from her book. Glinda reached for the romance novel on her nightstand, a truly scandalous thing she'd found in a bookshop the last time they'd gone out together. Elphaba had raised an eyebrow at the cover. Glinda had bought it anyway, with great enthusiasm.
Sometimes they did this. Let the fire burn low as they read side by side, their shoulders touching, the silence between them warm and full and belonging only to them. Sometimes they talked for hours about policy, about philosophy, about whether the cook's lemon cakes had been better last week or this week. Sometimes they sat in comfortable silence, and the only sounds were the crackle of the fire and the scratch of Elphaba's pen and the occasional rustle of Glinda turning a page.
And sometimes, like tonight, Glinda would set down her book and look at Elphaba with an expression that was filled with need. Something between want and worship.
"Elphie."
Elphaba looked up. Held that gaze. The firelight caught the angles of her face and threw shadows beneath her cheekbones and made her dark eyes flicker like something untamed.
"Come here," Glinda breathed.
Elphaba set down her book.
Glinda was already reaching for her, fingers curling into the front of Elphaba's shirt and pulling her down. Elphaba went willingly, bracing one hand against the pillow beside Glinda's head as the other found the curve of her waist. Glinda kissed her slowly, deeply as her hands slid up Elphaba's sides, palms warm against green skin.
Elphaba made a sound against her mouth. Low. Involuntary.
"I've been thinking about this all day," Glinda murmured between kisses. Her fingers found the hem of Elphaba's shirt and traced the skin beneath.
"You had a meeting with the Gillikin delegation today."
"Yes."
"And you were thinking about this?"
"My mind wandered." Glinda pressed her palms flat against the warm skin of Elphaba's stomach, felt the muscles tense beneath her touch, then slid a little lower to the edge of her waistband. "It wandered here."
Elphaba's breath stuttered. Her hand tightened on Glinda's waist. Her composure cracked open and underneath was nothing but want. Her breath came ragged. Her body arched toward Glinda's touch with a need she could not contain.
Glinda's mouth found the base of Elphaba's throat, where the pulse jumped wild and fast. She pressed herself upward until their bodies were flush, intertwining their legs, and gasped softly at the warm heat of Elphaba's skin against hers. No space left between them.
"I love you," Glinda breathed against her ear. "I love you so much."
Elphaba's hand came up and cupped Glinda's face. Traced the line of her jaw with her thumb. Her eyes were dark and liquid and completely, devastatingly open.
"I love you, too," she whispered.
They moved together in the firelight, slow and sure. Elphaba's fingers trembled in Glinda's golden hair. Glinda's mouth mapped every inch of green skin like devotion. They had learned each other's rhythms long ago and knew exactly where to press, where to linger, where a certain touch would pull a gasp or a moan or that breathless whisper of a name that was better than any sound in the world.
After, they lay tangled in the low orange light.
Glinda's cheek rested against Elphaba's chest, rising and falling with her breathing. Elphaba's fingers drew absent, wandering patterns on the bare skin of Glinda's shoulder. The fire had burned down to embers. The books lay forgotten on the nightstand. The room was quiet except for the sound of their breathing, slowly settling back to something steady.
Elphaba's arm tightened around her. She pressed her lips to the crown of Glinda's head and breathed in the scent of her, roses and vanilla and something warm that was just Glinda.
Their evenings had developed a rhythm.
Glinda would come home weary from the day. Elphaba would be there. They would have dinner together, talk about their day, their work. Sometimes they took a shower or a long relaxing bath if the day called for it. Glinda leaning back against Elphaba's chest while the water cooled around them. Sometimes they fell asleep mid-sentence, hands still intertwined.
Everything felt right. Perfect. Complete.
Until it didn't.
The next morning, Glinda woke first.
She slipped out of bed carefully, pressing a feather-light kiss to Elphaba's bare shoulder before padding to the bathroom to begin the process of transformation. It was a ritual by now — the bathing, the pinning, the powdering, the lacing. Whatever alchemy turned her from a sleepy, rumpled woman tangled in her wife's shirt into a gleaming public icon.
While Glinda dressed, Elphaba made coffee.
Three sugars. A splash of cream. A dusting of cinnamon, because one morning Glinda had mentioned in passing that her mother used to make it that way. Elphaba had never forgotten.
They ate breakfast together in the small sitting room off their bedroom. A quiet room with a window that caught the morning light and a table just big enough for two.
"What's on your schedule today?" Elphaba asked, folding herself into her chair sipping her coffee.
"There's an opening of a new school in the southern quarter. A ribbon-cutting, a luncheon..." Glinda paused, lifting her cup with studied casualness. "Which you really should join me for, Elphie. I mean it. You never get out anymore. People are going to forget you exist."
"Children." Elphaba made a face, teasing.
Glinda looked up at her over the rim of her cup.
"Yes, Elphie. There will be children." A soft laugh. "It's a school. What's wrong with children?"
Elphaba stopped for a moment, caught off guard by the question
“Oh um, nothing I suppose. Children can be… fine.”
Glinda gave her a sideways glance. Something flickered behind her eyes, brief and gone before Elphaba could read it. She smoothed it away with a sip of coffee.
Elphaba frowned slightly. Still a little confused by what just passed through them, but she tucked it away in the back of her mind for later.
"And you?" Glinda asked, a little too brightly. "What are your plans for the day?"
Me?" Elphaba was still lost in thought from the moment before.
"Yes, Elphie. Your plans. For the day."
"Oh yes. Research. Writing."
"And a luncheon," Glinda added, smiling brightly.
“Do I have a choice?” Elphaba asked dryly.
Glinda didn't answer. She just smiled into her coffee cup. Elphaba knew she did not.
The ribbon cutting ceremony went without a hitch.
The school was beautiful. It was bright and modern, with wide windows that flooded the classrooms with light and a library that Elphaba had to admit was rather impressive.
Glinda was glowing. For the first time in what felt like ages, her wife was beside her for a social gathering. Elphaba stood slightly off to the side in her usual dark clothes, looking vaguely uncomfortable with the attention but there, and every time Glinda glanced over and caught her eye, she felt a spark of warmth bloom behind her ribs.
After the ceremony, they made their way to the luncheon. A bright, airy affair in the school's new courtyard, with long tables draped in white linen and garlands of wildflowers. Dignitaries mingled. Teachers beamed. Glinda worked the room with effortless grace while Elphaba hovered near the refreshments and tried to look approachable.
A young woman, one of the new teachers, had brought her infant son. The baby was being passed from arm to arm among the guests as everyone fussed over him. When he reached Glinda, something shifted in her face.
Elphaba saw it from across the room.
Glinda's practiced public smile dissolved into something unguarded and real. She adjusted the baby against her arm with an instinct that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. One hand cradling his head, the other tucked beneath him, like she'd done this a thousand times before. She held up a finger and waited until tiny fingers curled around it. The breath she let out was so quiet, so tender, that Elphaba felt it from across the room.
Glinda looked down at the baby and the whole world fell away. Just a woman holding a child, swaying gently without realizing it, her thumb stroking the impossibly small knuckles wrapped around her finger. Looking like she'd found something she didn't know she'd been missing.
Elphaba's chest tightened.
The baby made his rounds through the room, passed from dignitary to teacher to beaming administrator. Each new set of arms earning a gurgle or a squirm or a bewildered stare. Elphaba tracked his progress the way one might track an approaching storm, with growing unease and no clear exit strategy. And then, inevitably, he reached her.
She accepted him the way she accepted most things she wasn't prepared for, with rigid posture and barely concealed panic. The infant blinked up at her with enormous round brown eyes, and for one unsteady moment Elphaba thought of Glinda. The baby seemed entirely untroubled by the fact that the person holding him was green.
"Hello," Elphaba said stiffly. "You're... very small."
The baby gurgled.
Something in Elphaba's expression softened, just a fraction, just at the edges. She shifted him more securely against her chest, one long-fingered hand cradling the back of his head, and he settled there immediately, as though he'd found exactly where he wanted to be. His tiny fist closed around a strand of her dark hair, and Elphaba looked down at him with an expression of pure bewilderment that slowly, slowly gave way to something tender.
"Well," she murmured. "You're not terrible."
The baby cooed. Elphaba's mouth twitched.
Across the room, Glinda was smitten.
And also… hot.
She tried to play it off. Truly, she did. But there was something about watching Elphaba Thropp with a baby nestled in her arms, speaking softly in that deep, gentle voice. It made Glinda's heart race and her body feel warm all over.
Her imagination, as usual, took off without permission.
That could be our baby, she thought, watching as Elphaba rocked him gently back and forth. Our toddler climbing the furniture. Elphaba catching them. Elphaba kissing scraped knees. Elphaba, barefoot in the kitchen with a baby on her hip, reading aloud from some ridiculous history text as though the child could understand every word—
Glinda bit her lip.
"Elphie," she murmured, crossing the room to her. "You're... um... you're really good at that."
Elphaba didn't look up. "They're just small humans, Glinda. I've dealt with Parliament. Same level of emotional regulation."
Glinda huffed a laugh, but she couldn't stop staring. "Still. You're kind of..." She paused.
Elphaba finally glanced at her, suspicious. "Are you blushing?"
"No," Glinda lied. She was definitely blushing.
Elphaba smirked. “What exactly are you thinking about over there, my tiny menace?”
Glinda rose on her toes, pressed a kiss to Elphaba's lips and smiled.
"Nothing," she said sweetly.
But her eyes told a different story entirely.
Oh, yes.
She wanted this. She wanted her. And she wanted all of it.