The energy shifts
The morning stretched on lazily, neither of them moving much, as if acknowledging the weight of the moment might break whatever fragile truce had settled over them.
Glinda found herself watching Elphaba—watching the way she held her mug, green fingers curled around the porcelain, the way her eyes flickered between her book and the window, lost in thought.
"Do you always wake up super early?" Glinda asked, her voice still hoarse from sleep.
Elphaba hummed in response, flipping a page. "Old habit."
Glinda rolled onto her side, resting her head against the arm of the couch. "You’re so strange."
Elphaba arched a brow. "Because I wake up early? It’s not by choice.”
"No," Glinda said with a small, knowing smile. "Because you pretend you don’t like taking care of people, but you do."
Elphaba’s expression flickered for just a moment—just long enough for Glinda to know she had hit a nerve.
"You don’t know me as well as you think," Elphaba murmured.
"Don’t I?" Glinda challenged, tilting her head. "You made me tea. You could’ve ignored me, let me suffer through my headache in silence, but you didn’t. You say you don’t care, but you do."
Elphaba let out a soft, almost resigned sigh. "It was just tea, Glinda."
"Mmm." Glinda smirked against the rim of her mug. "If you say so."
Another charged silence settled between them, but this time, it wasn’t uncomfortable. If anything, it felt... natural. Familiar in a way neither of them had expected.
Glinda shifted, stretching her legs out across the couch, her sock-clad feet barely brushing against Elphaba’s knee. She didn’t move them.
Elphaba flicked her eyes toward her but said nothing, only rolling her eyes as she turned another page in her book.
For the first time in weeks, they weren’t fighting.
And neither of them seemed in a rush to change that.