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It is cruel, Glinda thinks, to have someone, but not really know them.
For instance, she has Fiyero, is engaged to him (just announced by Madame Morrible), feels his strong hand gripping onto her waist, steadying both of them on the platform, is able to kiss his soft lips to the cheers of hundreds adoring Munchkins, but when she pulls him behind the supporting wall adorned with flowers to have a hurried, tense discussion, he quickly drops her hand.
When she looks into his eyes, she sees nothing, devoid of any warmth they once held (for her, for anyone). His old lackadaisical posture made it look like he would float across the ground instead of walking, now, it’s replaced with a rigid accuracy that, when he stands still next to her, makes him unforgivingly statue-like.
Just like his blank expression, this new tenseness doesn’t suit him. Sometimes, it even morphes his face into something that almost looks like ugliness.
They fight, of course. Most of their conversations turn into arguments these days, but it’s never like the arguments she used to have with Elphaba. Fiyero never yells at her, never raises his voice, all of his emotion and resentments bubbling below the surface and let out in rushed, controlled whispers. He always gives in, always acquiesces, if he thinks that’s what she wants.
(She wants to pound her fists against his chest, to scream, to cry, to get him to do anything other than look down at her, pityingly. She wants to fight with him. To shove him hard enough to get him to come to his senses, to realize she’s fighting for Elphaba and for them, and get him to do the same.)
It’s almost worse that way. Because he’s the antithesis of Elphaba, easy in the way she was not. Elphaba, with whom she fought with for nearly their whole first semester at Shiz, who was aggravatingly the smartest person in the room and never let Glinda forget it, who would fight and yell and scream right back at her and make Glinda feel so, so many things.
With Fiyero, she feels nothing. The months they had at Shiz feel like decades ago, like they happened to a whole other person, a Glinda who hadn’t yet grieved almost everyone in her life even if they were still alive. The Ozdust is a distant memory and the days following, where it actually felt like she found friendship with not only Elphaba and Fiyero, but Nessa and Boq as well, feel like a dream. Something she can’t remember fully and a fading feeling of happiness meant for someone else entirely.
She wonders if he would let himself be angry at her, whether he would yell, voice rising dangerously, or it would manifest physically, though she couldn’t even imagine he would put his hands on her. She senses it within him and it mirrors the anger she holds inside herself: the anger she has for him, for the Wizard, for Morrible, for herself, but ultimately, because it always does, it goes back to Elphaba. She can see the emotion flicker in his eyes, right before he mentions Elphaba’s name (hushed, of course, they are still surrounded by Morrible and the Munchkins and surely this piece of wood can’t protect that much of their conversation), and something like purpose flutters in the base of her stomach.
She can work with this, she can appease him, and if they’re lucky enough, they can appease each other. Can’t he see that? Can’t he see how all of this pain and guilt is clawing its well up her throat and gauging out her insides?
He hurls the words at her, accusatorily, but she’s ready for them and the admission of her own guilt hangs heavily between them, Elphaba’s unspoken name even heavier. She hates this, hates how they don’t talk about Elphaba, and when they do, they throw her name back and forth to each other like a weapon, silently testing who is hurt by it the most.
Glinda folds first this time, in this continuous and exhausting routine they have, and confesses to him how much she’s worried, how much she misses Elphaba and he softens instantly, placated by her admission, and doesn’t seem to hear what Glinda says next, that Elphaba can’t be, doesn’t want to be found. Fiyero’s stupid sense of nobility and honor comes over him and any goodwill Glinda has started to feel in the last few seconds vanishes at once.
Her voice shakes with urgency and raw emotion, almost begging Fiyero to understand. Maybe if she says it out loud, what has been running through her head for weeks, she’ll get him to stay too.
Elphaba is the one who left, left her, and now Glinda is the one who has to pick up the pieces. Fiyero isn’t clever enough to realize that. Elphaba made her choice and Glinda has to live with that. Besides, his plan is a death wish, Head Guard of the Gale Force or not, it’s ridiculous to even say out loud, surely he knows that.
She goes to kiss his cheek, more out of habit than anything else, and it stings when he turns his head, effectively stopping the motion. They are wrapped up in each other, holding each other close, but his body feels foreign to her. His training in the Gale Force has made his arms sinewy, his hands rough and calloused, and new scars and half-healed wounds hide themselves across his body. If he leaves, he’ll only get more unrecognizable.
Help me, she pleads internally to him, let me help you here.
Maybe he hears her because he moves on to another subject in their conversation and agrees to marry her, if it makes her happy, and this facade between them cracks a little more. He tells her he’s always happy and she can’t help but think neither of them have been happy in a long time.
Again and again and again, she will think of this moment and later realizes it is the start of their undoing, the first time they pushed each other too far. How they both choose Elphaba instead of choosing each other.