#lets-do-the-time-lord-again

“I just don't understand how someone could do something like that!” Galinda sat on her bed, playing absentmindedly with the tassles on the edges of her pink bedspread. She was distraught, utterly distraught, and even the pinkness of the room around her couldn't distract her from it. That Pfanee and Shenshen would ever- no, the thought was too horrible to even engage. She shook her head. This was why she didn't like to think. “People often do bad things,” Elphaba reasoned. The green girl was always calm, always logical, and Galinda couldn't pretend not to admire her for it. Still, the situation as it was, she found she had little patience for calmness today. Especially with that odd tickling- it wasn't uncomfortable exactly, but merely out of place- on the back of her neck. She hadn't noticed it before, but once she had become aware of it, she found it hard to concentrate on whatever it was Elphaba was saying. It wasn't that it was a sensation she had never felt before- in fact, it wasn't that infrequent a sensation at all- but she'd never felt it in a room with so few other people present. She felt it tracing down her back, and noticed, a bit startled, that it was trailing along the same line as the gilded buttons of her dress, as if someone were undoing them one by one. “Do you feel that?” she asked Elphaba, a bit unsettled. “Feel what?” Elphaba asked. The sensation stopped for a moment as the other girl asked the question. “Oh, nevermind.” It had come back, and Galinda tried to ignore it, but it simply wouldn't go away. It had reached her last button now, and switched, seemingly without travelling, to her sleeves, pulling them down by the cuffs until she could've sworn her top lay crumpled in her lap. It returned to her back, then, working at the impossible little hooks of her lace brassiere. This, for some reason, was the only thing that discomforted her, and she brought her hands up to her back to cover herself. “Perceptive,” Elphaba said. “Pardon?” Galinda asked. “Perceptive,” Elphaba repeated, the note of a smile in her voice. “It means-” “I know full well what it means, Miss Elphaba,” Galinda interrupted, “but I do not know what you mean by it. Would you enlighten me?” “Must I?” Elphaba asked. “I do have things to do in my days, Miss Galinda, that are more important than enlightening you to any arbitrary comments I may make.” “Elphie,” Galinda said impatiently. “Just tell me what you meant already.” She turned to face her friend, who was blushing a dark shade of green. Galinda crinkled her forehead at the other girl's sudden embarrassment. “Elphie, what is it?” she asked. “Me.” Elphaba's tone was frank, but her cheeks were the color of pine needles, giving her away. “It was me.” “That funny feeling I had, you mean?” “Yes. It was me.” Galinda was blushing now, too, though- thankfully, she thought- her cheeks were more rose than pine. “Were you-?” she asked uncomfortably. “Not- not physically. I was just-” Galinda had never seen Elphaba this flustered before, but she liked it. Elphie was almost- cute- this way, she supposed. “It's fine,” she said. “I mean, I don't- it's not- I'm-” Galinda, too, had never had this much trouble finding words, but under Elphaba's gaze, she felt almost inadequate. “Forget it,” she finished. “Okay,” Elphaba said, sounding relieved. Still, even with the subject dropped, she reached out to hold Galinda's hand.