asserting our dignity in small ways.

Rating: M

Words: 17.8k

Status: 1/1

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Summary:

“The church was… the only path before me, at the time, and I never questioned it," Beatrice admits.

“And now?” he asks, looking concerned, and Bea realizes she’s curled into herself against the counter. She didn’t even notice how small she’d become. He offers her the sugar. She takes it.

“Now, I think differently,” Beatrice says, rising to her full height, rolling her shoulders back. Now, the future is an open road, and she’s got her hands at ten and two and her foot on the gas.

Now, she sees how wrong it was: to be pushed into giving up her life as if it would mean she would no longer ache to live it, as if that could ever be possible. Now, she is learning how to choose herself. Sometimes when you’ve suffered a whole lot, it’s hard to stop, but she’s trying. She takes a sip of her tea, savoring the sweetness on her tongue.

“What about God?”

“What about Him?” Beatrice answers, trying to sound sure of herself. “I'm– I'm fairly confident that He still loves me.”

(Or, post-canon Beatrice, learning how to love herself while she waits for Ava to come back.)

Rating: T

Words: 8.7k

Status: 1/1

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Summary:

Breathing in deeply so the smell of old parchment fills her nose, Glinda tries to put the memory aside. Her hands shake, crumpling the edges of the letter where she’s clutching it. She closes her eyes.

Suddenly, she’s eighteen again, writing home asking if it’s alright for Elphie to come home for half-term; nineteen, celebrating her birthday with a cake, a field of poppies at sunset, and her four dearest friends, whispering in Elphaba’s ear about some secret that she can hardly remember now. She wracks her brain too long for what it could have been, and then she’s almost twenty-five—though birthdays hardly seem to matter anymore—and she has her hand pressed over her mouth because she knows Elphie is right, she can’t be found here, and she hasn’t heard a sound from Elphaba since she closed the door between them. But Elphaba said everything would be fine, and she believes her, has to, because she can’t imagine what will happen if, if—

The sound of Elphaba’s agony rings in Glinda’s ears.

(Or, Glinda's time between the end of canon to when she buys the house for her and Elphie. A farmhouse-verse prequel told in moments throughout the four years in the middle.)

Rating: T

Words: 9.8k

Status: 1/1

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Summary:

"Elphaba will want you two to get married eventually, you know,” he says.

Galinda shrugs. “And if she doesn’t, that’s okay.”

Fiyero smiles. “That’s why she’s going to want to.” It suddenly occurs to him that he and Galinda were never this honest with each other as kids. Because that’s what they were— kids. It feels a bit like being naked, being with someone who has known you so well for so long.

It’s lovely, truthfully, how you never really stop growing up.

(Or, farmhouse!Gelphie through the eyes of Fiyero throughout important moments of their lives.)