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Galinda has always loved flowers.
Pressed into books, pinned into her hair, floating in crystal bowls at parties—perfect, controlled, pretty. They sit nicely on the surface of her life and never get under her skin.
So when the first petal lands on her tongue, pale and silken, she recognizes it immediately and wants to claw her own throat out.
Her pulse spikes. The image jams itself into her brain like a splinter.
She is in Morrible’s lecture, of all horrible, unromantic places, stuffed into the front row because apparently brilliance and proximity are the same thing. Elphaba is beside her, hunched over her notes, taking everything down in that furious, cramped hand of hers, underlining things that Galinda can promise she will never care about.
Galinda swallows hard. The petal clings to the back of her throat, fragrant and delicate and wrong. Her eyes sting.
She coughs.
It’s small, at first. A little sound behind her gloved hand. Morrible pauses just enough to glare before continuing on about “signatures of sorcerous aptitude” or whatever nonsense she’s pretending isn’t propaganda.
The tickle doesn’t go.
Galinda coughs again, more sharply. Something loosens, catches, tears.
She fumbles for her handkerchief, brings it to her mouth just as she chokes—and there it is.
Soft, blush-pink, veined, impossibly perfect.
A camellia petal.
Her favorite.
For a second, everything in the lecture hall goes oddly distant. Morrible’s voice becomes a hum. Quills scratch. Someone behind her whispers. Beside her, Elphaba mutters under her breath about incorrect citations.
Galinda stares down at the petal in her hand like it might explode.
No, she thinks, fierce, panicky. No, no, no, no. Absolutely not.
“Are you all right?” Elphaba’s voice, low and annoyed, like she’s irritated at the interruption but more irritated by the idea that Galinda might keel over and ruin her concentration. “You sound like you’re dying.”
“Just—just a little tickle,” Galinda says, folding the handkerchief so fast she nearly stabs herself with her rings. “I’m fine.”
Elphaba gives her a long, dubious side-eye, then goes back to her notes.
Galinda exhales slowly through her nose.
She looks at Elphaba’s profile—sharp nose, sharper cheekbones, ink smudge on her left thumb from where she always presses too hard. The familiar twist happens under Galinda’s ribs, that now-familiar ache that means oh no and oh yes at the same time.
She’s known it was bad for weeks.
She just didn’t know her chest was taking it literally.
The stories say hanahaki begins with a petal and ends with a garden.
They say it starts as an irritation, a cough, a bloom; then more; then buds; then stems and roots and vines threading through lungs and ribs and around the heart until there’s no room left for air.
They say there are two options:
Surgery, to carve the flowers out, along with the love that grew them.
Or a miracle.
Reciprocation.
Mutual love turning the blooms to confetti instead of shrapnel.
Galinda thinks “miracle” is such a theatrical word. She has never counted on miracles. She’s always counted on her looks, her charm, her ability to rearrange reality around herself like furniture.
None of that helps when the person you want looks at you like you’re the sun, but they’ve never been taught they’re allowed to touch.
So she does the only thing she knows how to do with something ugly and terrifying.
She hides it.
At first, it’s easy enough.
She times her coughs. She excuses herself to the bathroom. She learns how to press her fist against her sternum to smother the worst of it when she’s in public. She chews mint leaves like they might convince her lungs they’re not a flowerbed.
There’s blood, sometimes. Just a thread, at the edges of the petals. She rinses it away before anyone notices.
Fiyero is a perfect distraction.
He flops into her life like a golden retriever in expensive boots—laughing, careless, fascinating in that way boys are when they’ve never had to think very hard about anything. He asks her to a party. Then another. Then an actual date, under lanterns strung between the dorms, his grin easy and open.
And Galinda says yes.
She doesn’t say yes because of the way his fingers brush hers. She says yes because of the way Elphaba’s jaw clenches imperceptibly across the quad, eyes dropping back to her book like she doesn’t care at all.
Galinda is very talented at lying to herself when it hurts less.
Fiyero kisses her. It’s nice. Warm, practiced, uncomplicated.
Her chest does not unclench.
The next morning, she coughs up an entire bud.
It hits porcelain with a wet, horrible sound, pink petals packed so tight together they’re almost white at the center. Galinda grips the edge of the basin, knuckles white, and breathes through the pain as it rips up through her.
It hurts.
No one tells you that, in the stories. They say “coughing flowers,” like it’s delicate. Like it’s pretty. Like it’s not a stem dragging itself along the inside of your lungs like barbed wire.
She rinses the bud away. Scrubs the bowl. Puts on more rouge.
When she meets Fiyero for breakfast, she smiles and pretends her throat doesn’t burn.
He finds out a week later.
They’re sitting under a tree near the quad, pretending to study. Fiyero is spinning his quill between his fingers. Galinda is reading the same sentence over and over and absorbing none of it because Elphaba is six tables away in the library, visible through the windows, head bent, lips moving as she reads.
A cough builds in her chest, sharp and insistent.
Not now, she thinks. Please, not here.
She swallows against it. It spikes. Her vision blurs.
“Hey,” Fiyero says, noticing the way her shoulders tense. “You okay?”
“Fine,” she chokes. “I’m—”
The cough tears through her. She claps a hand over her mouth, the world going white-hot for a second as something thick and thorny scrapes up her throat. Tears spring to her eyes.
“Galinda,” Fiyero says, alarmed now. “Hey, hey.”
She can’t answer. All she can do is lean forward, forearms braced on her knees, and let it come.
When it’s over, there’s something heavy and damp in her gloved palm. She keeps her hand closed around it, shame clawing up the back of her neck.
“Let me see,” Fiyero says, soft but firm.
“No,” she manages. “It’s gross.”
“I’ve seen worse gross things,” he says. “Boarding school. Boys’ dorm. Please.”
His hand covers hers, gently. He doesn’t try to pry her fingers open. He just waits.
Of all the infuriating things, patience might be his worst trait.
Galinda deflates. Her hand trembles as she uncurls it.
A cluster of petal-shards lies in the cradle of her palm, sticky with red.
Camellias. Again. Of course.
“Oh,” Fiyero says, in a tone that holds more comprehension than it has any right to. “Oh. Galinda.”
She jerks her hand back, curling it into a fist. “It’s nothing. Just—I don’t know, allergies.”
“Those are not allergies,” he says. “I might not be top of the class, but even I know you shouldn’t cough up a bouquet.”
She stares resolutely at the ground, as if the grass might swallow her whole if she wills it hard enough.
Fiyero’s voice softens further. “It’s hanahaki, isn’t it?”
Her shoulders flinch.
He exhales, a quiet little sound. “I had a cousin. Back home. He—uh. He had it. I recognize the… the general vibe.” His attempt at humor falls flat, but she appreciates the effort.
“It’s stupid,” she says, hoarse. “I’m being stupid.”
“You’re coughing flowers,” Fiyero says. “That’s… that’s not stupid, that’s serious. Have you seen the healers? The infirmary?”
“I don’t need healers.” Her voice snaps sharper than she means it to. “I just need to get over it.”
He studies her. “Get over… who?”
She laughs a little hysterically. “Modest, aren’t we?”
His brow furrows. “I—wait. You think I—? No. No, Galinda, I know it’s not me.”
That stings more than it should. “Oh.”
“You like me,” he says, and for once there’s no cockiness in it, just a quiet certainty. “I like you, too. We’re… fun. But hanahaki is… it’s the real thing, right? It’s the ‘I’d let you ruin me’ kind of thing.”
She winces.
“So,” he says, gently, “who is it?”
Her chest seizes. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters if it’s killing you.”
“I am fine.” She pushes herself to her feet, swaying slightly. “It’s just… a phase. It’ll go away when I’m sensible.”
Fiyero rises with her, hands hovering like he wants to touch but doesn’t know if he’s allowed. “Galinda. You’re coughing up blood. That’s not a phase, that’s—”
“I can’t tell her,” she blurts.
Silence slams down between them.
Fiyero blinks, once. Twice. “Her.”
“Forget I said anything,” she says quickly. “I didn’t say anything.”
His eyes flick automatically toward the library window. Elphaba moves past, books in her arms, scowling at a stack of flyers.
Galinda’s stomach turns liquid. “Don’t you dare say her name.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Fiyero says. “But, uh. Given the options…”
“Don’t,” she whispers. “Please.”
Fiyero rubs a hand over his face, all the flippancy drained out of him. “You should talk to her.”
Galinda barks a humorless laugh. “Oh, yes, of course. ‘Hey, Elphie, you know how we’ve just about stopped hating each other? Tiny complication, I’m in love with you and my lungs are throwing a tantrum about it. No pressure.’”
“Exactly,” Fiyero says. “No pressure.”
She gapes at him.
He grimaces. “Okay, bad wording. Point is: she deserves to know. And so do you. You can’t just—suffer in silence until you—” He swallows, looking suddenly ten years older. “Until there’s no air left.”
Galinda looks at the crushed petals in her hand.
She imagines Elphaba’s face if she said the words out loud. The way she might freeze. The way she might pity her.
The way she might say she doesn’t feel the same.
Her lungs tighten around the imagined pain.
“I won’t do that to her,” Galinda says. “I won’t… trap her. Make her feel like she owes me anything because I was foolish enough to fall for her.”
“Galinda—”
“I mean it.” Her eyes are bright and wild. “She’s spent her whole life feeling like she needs to compensate for her literal existence by being exactly what everybody else wants of her. She deserves… she deserves to choose. Not to be cornered because my body’s decided to be dramatic.”
Fiyero closes his mouth.
He looks at her for a long time.
“Okay,” he says finally. “Okay. I get that. But please at least see a healer. Find out how bad it is. Find out your options.”
She hesitates. The idea of sitting on a bed in the hospital wing while someone with kind eyes tells her exactly how fast she’s killing herself is… not appealing.
“It’s just flowers,” she says, weakly.
“Flowers growing where your lungs should be,” Fiyero says. “And I like you too much to let that slide.”
His voice cracks a little on “like.”
Galinda’s throat aches. “You’re very inconvenient,” she mutters.
“Yeah, well.” He shrugs, attempting a grin. “So are you.”
He reaches out, and this time she lets him take her hand. He doesn’t flinch at the blood on her palm.
“I’m on your side,” he says. “Even if you’re an idiot about it.”
Galinda laughs, shaky. “Rude.”
“Accurate,” he counters. “Promise me you’ll at least tell someone if it gets worse.”
She doesn’t promise.
But she doesn’t say no, either.
It gets worse.
Of course it does.
The coughs come more often. They don’t wait for privacy anymore. They strike in hallways, in study groups, in the middle of conversation. She learns how to transform a choking fit into a flirty little “oops, wrong way down,” how to turn away and fuss with her hair while she spits petals into her sleeve.
The petals become buds. The buds become small, stubborn blooms that drag at her insides like they’re hooked.
Every time Elphaba brushes past her, or says her name in that exasperated, fond way that means you distract me but I don’t actually mind, Galinda feels something twist and tighten.
She starts avoiding her own dorm as much as she can. It’s too dangerous to be sick in the room where Elphaba sleeps six feet away.
She naps in the library instead. She hides in empty classrooms. She spends long evenings with Fiyero, letting his lazy jokes and casual warmth wash over her like a balm.
He notices the shadows under her eyes. The way she holds her side. The way sometimes, when she thinks he’s not looking, she presses the heel of her hand to her sternum like she’s trying to keep herself from falling apart.
“Talk to her,” he says, one night, when she’s bent double over a basin in his private bathroom, hacking up a tangle of stems and petals and dark red.
She spits, gasps, clings to the porcelain. Her throat feels flayed. There’s a coppery taste in her mouth and the faint, sweet scent of camellias, nauseating now.
“I’m fine,” she rasps. The words scrape. “It’s fine.”
“You’re not fine,” Fiyero says, kneeling beside her. One hand hovers at her back, not touching until she leans against it herself. “You’re… gods, Galinda, you’re scaring me.”
“I don’t want her to know,” Galinda chokes out. “She’ll—she’ll feel obligated.”
“She won’t,” he says. “She’s Elphaba. She’d rather set herself on fire than be guilt-tripped into love.”
“Exactly,” Galinda says. “I don’t want her to have to… to push back against that. To push against me. I can handle this. I can.” Her voice breaks on the last word.
Fiyero swallows hard. His eyes are wet. “You shouldn’t have to.”
She doesn’t answer, because another cough is coming. This one feels like it might kill her.
When it passes, she sags, shaking, forehead pressed to the rim of the basin. The water is pink, shot through with petals and bits of torn green.
Fiyero reaches for a cloth, dampens it, presses it to the back of her neck with gentle hands.
“You know,” he says quietly, “you deserve the chance to find out if she feels the same. Before you decide it’s impossible.”
Galinda stares at the ruined flowers. “What if she doesn’t?”
“Then you’ll deal with it,” he says. “We’ll deal with it. Healers, surgery, whatever it takes. But this—pretending it’s not happening—that’s what’s going to kill you.”
She closes her eyes.
In her mind, Elphaba is laughing at something Galinda said earlier that day, a rare, startled sound that had made Galinda’s heart slam against her ribs.
In her chest, the flowers curl tighter around the beat.
“I can’t,” she whispers. “I won’t make her carry that.”
Fiyero’s jaw works. “You’re forgetting something.”
“What,” she croaks.
“I’m carrying it,” he says. “You told me. I know. You’re not sparing anyone pain, you’re just… redirecting it.”
That thought hadn’t occurred to her. It settles heavy on her shoulders.
Her eyes sting. “And yet you’re still here.”
“Yeah,” he says, a little wry. “Turns out I’m not a complete waste of space.”
She half-laughs, half-sobs.
They don’t speak of Elphaba by name. They don’t need to. Her presence is stitched into every silence.
Elphaba notices something is wrong long before she knows what.
Of course she does. She is, infuriatingly, not an idiot.
Galinda is quieter. Not in a way most people would catch. She’s still loud in public, still brilliant and bubbly and all those things everyone expects from her. But Elphaba has learned the difference between Galinda’s real laugh and the one she uses as social currency.
The real one appears less and less.
In its place: forced brightness. Overcompensation. And a cough that won’t go away.
“Have you considered that you might be sick?” Elphaba asks one evening when Galinda hacks into her pillow for the third time in as many minutes.
“Don’t be dramatic,” Galinda says, voice hoarse. “It’s just… a little cold.”
“I’ve had colds,” Elphaba says. “They don’t usually involve… that.” She gestures vaguely at the handkerchief Galinda is clutching, balled tight in her fist.
Galinda’s fingers curl even tighter. “It’s nothing.”
“Nothing,” Elphaba repeats. “Do you define nothing as ‘coughing so hard you nearly bring up a lung?’”
“Look who’s suddenly concerned,” Galinda tries to tease, but there’s no energy behind it.
Elphaba scowls at her book, because looking at Galinda directly right now feels dangerous. “You’re my roommate. If you expire in the night, that will be very inconvenient for me.”
Galinda smiles weakly. “Aw. You do care.”
Elphaba mumbles something that might be “shut up” and might be “obviously,” and turns a page harder than necessary.
The truth is, she’s been caring for longer than she would ever admit out loud.
There was a moment—months ago, now—when Galinda had fallen asleep at her desk, cheek pressed to an open book, hair spilled everywhere. Elphaba had been midway through a complaint about frivolity when she’d looked over and something had shifted.
The word that had occurred to her then had been lovely.
It had unsettled her so thoroughly she’d spent an entire week being even more sarcastic than usual, like she could snarl herself out of it.
It hadn’t worked.
Love had settled in anyway, a quiet, stubborn thing.
She’s good at ignoring her own feelings. She has practice. So she files it away. She studies. She pretends. And she watches.
She sees Galinda come back late, smelling of Fiyero’s cologne, eyes too bright, movements too sharp.
She tells herself that’s fine. That’s expected. Galinda and Fiyero make sense on paper the way she and Galinda never will.
She still feels something unpleasant and hot twist in her stomach every time Galinda talks about him with that brittle smile.
And lately, she notices, Galinda talks less about Fiyero at all.
She talks less about anything real.
She just coughs.
Elphaba lies awake at night listening to her. The sound is muffled through the thin bathroom door, but it carries all the same: ragged, painful, wrong.
Sometimes there’s a sound after the coughs, too. Water running. The scrape of porcelain. A choked little whimper that Galinda absolutely would not make if she knew anyone could hear.
Elphaba curls her hands into fists in the dark.
She doesn’t get up.
She doesn’t know what she would do if she did.
The last time she tried to show concern—offering Galinda a scarf on a windy day—Galinda had smiled too brightly and said, “Oh, Elphie, you do think about me,” in a way that had made Elphaba’s heart stutter and her defenses snap up all at once.
She doesn’t know how to be gentle without also being exposed.
So she stays in bed.
She stares at the ceiling.
She tells herself that in the morning, she will insist they go to the infirmary.
In the morning, Galinda is perfectly put together and insists she feels wonderful.
And Elphaba, who has been told her entire life that she is wrong about things, believes her instead of herself.
It comes to a head on a stormy night.
The kind where the sky over Shiz is bruised purple and the rain lashes against the windows like it’s trying to get in.
Galinda can’t sleep. Her lungs won’t let her.
Every breath feels shallow, like there’s something heavy pressing on her ribs from inside. Each cough is a tearing, burning thing. She’s exhausted down to her bones, but the minute she closes her eyes, another spasm seizes her.
She doesn’t want to wake Elphaba.
She doesn’t want to wake Elphaba ever with this.
So she slips out of bed as quietly as she can, bare feet cold against the floorboards, hand pressed to her chest. The room is lit only by the ghostly light of the storm; Elphaba’s silhouette is a dark shape in the other bed, turned towards the wall.
Galinda pads toward the bathroom, one hand on the wall for balance.
She doesn’t make it.
Halfway across the room, the cough hits. No warning, no build.
It slams into her like a physical blow. Her knees buckle.
She catches herself on the post of Elphaba’s bed, knuckles white, as the cough tears through her, and tears through her, and tears through her.
Her body convulses. She can’t breathe. There’s a awful, wet sound as something thick and rooted wrenches itself free inside her.
She falls to her knees.
Her hand flies to her mouth. Something spills out between her fingers and scatters over the floorboards with soft, damp thuds.
Petals. Buds. A whole bloom, something pale and perfect and slicked with red.
There’s a copper warmth on her chin. She tastes iron and rot-sweet camellia and panic.
“Galinda?” Elphaba’s voice, sharp with sleep and alarm.
Galinda tries to answer, but the coughs won’t let up. Her whole body is shaking.
“Galinda.” The mattress creaks, blankets rustling. “What—”
Elphaba’s words cut off.
Galinda doesn’t see her face. Her vision has narrowed to a tunnel. The edges are going dim. Her hands slip in something slick on the floor and she realizes, distantly, that it’s blood.
She hears Elphaba suck in a breath, a small, strangled sound like someone seeing a nightmare step into the room.
Then hands, warm and firm, are on her shoulders.
“Galinda. Galinda, look at me.”
She tries.
Elphaba’s face swims into view. It’s pale, greener than usual around the edges. Her eyes are huge, pupils blown wide, fixed on the flowers scattered between them.
“Hanahaki,” she whispers, like a curse.
Some part of Galinda wants to say you know it? Some part wants to make a joke about Elphaba reading too much. Most of her just wants to breathe.
“Can’t—” she gasps. “Can’t—”
“Shut up,” Elphaba says, but her voice is shaking. “You’re wasting air. Oh, stars, there’s so much blood—”
Another cough wracks her. More petals tumble out, mixed with clots of dark red.
Galinda’s vision flickers.
The next thing she knows, she’s being lifted.
Elphaba hauls her up like she weighs nothing, one arm under her knees, the other around her back, cradling her. Galinda sags against her chest, too weak to protest, cheek pressed to the rough fabric of Elphaba’s nightshirt.
There’s a wild hammering heartbeat under her ear.
“Elphie,” she croaks.
“Don’t say anything,” Elphaba orders. “You’re going to the hospital wing.”
Galinda’s hand fumbles weakly at her shoulder. “Don’t… don’t make… a fuss.”
“You are literally dying in my arms,” Elphaba snaps. “I am allowed to make a fuss.”
A hysterical little laugh bubbles out of Galinda, half-choke, half-sob.
The corridor outside is cold and echoing. Elphaba’s bare feet slap against stone. The storm outside throws sickly light through the high windows, illuminating the trail they’re leaving behind them: petals and smears of red on the floor.
Galinda coughs again, the motion jarring them both. Elphaba swears under her breath, tightening her grip.
“Stay with me,” she says. “Do you hear me? You are not allowed to—” Her voice breaks. “Just stay with me.”
Galinda tries to nod. It sends a spike of pain through her skull. “Hurts,” she whispers.
“I know,” Elphaba says, hoarse. “I know.”
She bursts into the hospital wing like an invading army.
The night healer on duty—a middle-aged woman with steel-gray hair pinned back in a no-nonsense bun—jumps, then hurries forward at the sight of the girl in Elphaba’s arms.
“Put her here,” the healer says briskly, yanking the sheets back on the nearest bed.
Elphaba lays Galinda down with a care so gentle it almost undoes her. Her hands are shaking. There’s blood smeared along her forearms, on her collarbone, on the hollow of her throat.
Galinda is distantly aware of someone propping her up, of a basin appearing, of cool fingers on her neck measuring her pulse.
“Hanahaki,” the healer mutters, sounding grim. “Advanced. Damn it.”
Elphaba’s head snaps up. “You can fix it?” she demands. It comes out more like a challenge, like she’s ready to fight the laws of magic themselves if they say no.
The healer’s eyes flick between them. “Fix is… a strong word. You know how this works, Miss Thropp?”
Elphaba’s mouth flattens. “Theoretically.” She’s read every book Shiz has on magical pathologies. Of course she has. “Unrequited love, floral manifestation. Two cures. Surgery or reciprocation.”
“Lovely,” the healer says dryly. “Yes. And your friend here has left it far too long. The roots are deep. Surgery would be risky.”
Galinda closes her eyes. She’s heard the stories about surgery. Half the people who undergo it survive. Those who do come out hollow-eyed and strangely distant, like someone has ripped out not just the love, but everything around it.
She doesn’t want that.
She doesn’t want to die, either.
“Is there… time,” she pants, “to be… dramatic about it?”
The healer snorts despite herself. “If you can joke, you can breathe. That’s something.”
Galinda coughs, a sharp, brutal series of spasms that leave her doubled over, spitting more petals into the basin the healer thrusts under her chin. Elphaba flinches at every one like she’s the one being cut.
When the fit finally eases, Galinda collapses back against the pillows, exhausted. The flowers in the basin are soaked in blood now, pink turned muddy.
The healer looks at Elphaba. “If we can’t operate, and she doesn’t… resolve the cause, she’ll suffocate. Tonight. Maybe tomorrow.” Her voice is blunt, but not unkind.
Galinda feels Elphaba’s hand clamp around the bedrail.
“The cause,” Elphaba repeats. “You mean the person.”
“Yes,” the healer says. “The one she’s been idiotically in love with while refusing to do anything about it. Teenagers,” she mutters, under her breath.
Galinda makes a weak noise of protest.
Elphaba’s gaze drops to her.
“Who is it?” she asks, and there’s a note in her voice Galinda has never heard before. Fear. Raw and unvarnished.
Galinda’s chest tightens. “No one,” she whispers.
“Don’t you dare,” Elphaba says. “Not now. Not when—” Her voice cracks. She swallows it down. “You dragged yourself this far into death because you didn’t want to bother anyone?”
“I didn’t—” Galinda’s eyes fill with tears. “I didn’t want to trap her.”
Elphaba goes very, very still.
The healer clears her throat. “I’ll… go prepare the… tools. In case.” She backs away, giving them a pocket of space. She’s not subtle about it, but then, this isn’t really the time for subtlety.
“Trap her,” Elphaba repeats slowly. “Trap who?”
Galinda turns her face away. “You.”
The word hangs there between them, fragile and bloody and real.
For a heartbeat, there is only the sound of the storm and Galinda’s ragged breathing.
“Me,” Elphaba says blankly.
Galinda laughs, hysterical and wheezy. “Surprise,” she croaks. Tears spill sideways into her hairline. “It’s so stupid, right? I just—that first night, when you argued with Morrible like you didn’t care she could ruin you, and then you defended me when I said that idiotic thing about sorcery, and then you lent me that book and pretended you didn’t care if I read it, and—and—”
She’s babbling. She can’t stop.
“I tried to make it go away,” she says. “When I realized. I thought if I… if I dated Fiyero, if I just… focused on someone who makes sense, it would… fade. But it didn’t. You kept—being you. And my chest kept—” She breaks off in another cough, wincing as more petals spill out. “I didn’t want you to find out like this,” she whispers, when she can speak again. “I didn’t want you to feel like you had to… pretend. Just because I’m pathetic enough to cough myself to death over you.”
Elphaba stares at her, as if she’s trying to reconcile the words with the world as she understands it.
“You’re dying,” she says slowly, “because you love me.”
Galinda squeezes her eyes shut. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?”
“I didn’t mean to,” she rushes on. “I know you don’t—obviously you don’t—why would you—it’s fine—well, it’s not fine, it hurts like the rain hates me, but you know what I mean, you don’t have to—”
“Stop,” Elphaba says sharply. “Just—stop talking.”
Galinda flinches. Of course. Of course this is too much. Of course Elphaba is angry. She’s made it impossible for Elphaba to just be her friend without this… weight.
She bites her lip hard enough to taste more blood, swallowing the words, swallowing the cough building under them.
A hand closes around hers.
Galinda’s eyes fly open.
Elphaba is closer than she’s ever been, leaning over the bed, hair falling forward. There’s blood on her jaw, a red smudge where Galinda’s earlier cough must have hit. Her eyes are fierce and wet.
“You monumental idiot,” Elphaba says, voice shaking. “Do you—do you have any idea how long I’ve been in love with you?”
Galinda stares at her.
“…what?”
Elphaba makes a frustrated sound, like she’s chewing on glass. “Months,” she snaps. “Since—since you brought me that ridiculous hat and then defended me in front of an entire ballroom full of people who would have happily watched me burn. Since you stayed up all night helping me rewrite that paper even though you didn’t understand half of it. Since you fell asleep on my notes and drooled on my thesis and I didn’t even mind.”
Galinda blinks. “You—”
“I thought it was hopeless,” Elphaba barrels on, as if she’s afraid she’ll lose courage if she pauses. “You’re… you. You’re light and charm and frivolity and everyone loves you. You were dating Fiyero, for Oz’s sake. I told myself it was… inappropriate. That wanting you was just another thing I didn’t get to have. So I learned to be grateful just to be near you. To be your… your friend.” She scrunches up her face like the word tastes strange and precious. “I would have been content with that.”
Galinda’s chest feels too tight for a different reason now. Her eyes flood with fresh tears. “Elphie…”
“And meanwhile,” Elphaba says, furious and heartbroken, “you were carrying this alone, too stubborn and noble and ridiculous to say anything. You were willing to die rather than possibly inconvenience me with the knowledge that I am loved?”
Galinda hiccups a laugh that turns into a cough. Elphaba squeezes her hand.
“The cure is reciprocation, isn’t it?” Elphaba says, swinging her gaze to the healer, who has hovered just within earshot.
The healer lifts an eyebrow. “That’s the theory.”
Elphaba looks back at Galinda. Her grip tightens. “Then listen very carefully, because I am only going to say this once, and then probably a thousand more times when you’re not actively expiring.”
Galinda’s heart stutters.
Elphaba leans closer.
“I am in love with you,” she says, each word clear as a spell. “Utterly, idiotically, debilitatingly in love with you. I have been for months. I loved you yesterday and I love you now and I will love you tomorrow, whether you’re coughing up flowers or complaining about your hair or rambling about shoes. You are not a burden. You are not trapping me. You are—”
Her voice cracks. She swallows.
“You are the first thing I have ever wanted just because I wanted it, not because it was right or righteous or necessary. And if love can grow flowers in your lungs, then let it kill them, too.”
Something bright and wild flickers in her eyes, then, like lightning caught in glass. She lifts her free hand, places it gingerly over Galinda’s sternum, over the place where the pain lives.
“You hear that?” she murmurs, half to Galinda, half to the stubborn blossoms inside her. “You don’t get to take her away from me. I won’t allow it.”
Galinda laughs again, delirious, dizzy, undone. “Bossy,” she whispers.
“Yes,” Elphaba says. “Very. Now breathe.”
Galinda tries.
For a second, nothing happens.
Then, slowly, the pressure in her chest shifts.
It’s not gone. It still hurts. But there’s a… loosening. A sense of something unwinding, like a fist uncurled. The cough that builds feels different—deeper, heavier, inevitable.
“Here we go,” the healer says, voice steady. She shoves the basin back under Galinda’s chin. “Last one, if we’re lucky.”
Galinda clutches Elphaba’s hand like an anchor.
The cough rips through her like a storm.
She screams. She can’t help it. The pain is blinding, white-hot, like something is being dragged out of her with claws. Her lungs burn. Her vision whites out.
And then—
With a wet, tearing sound, something massive wrenches itself free.
She doubles over the basin, gagging, spitting, until the cough finally, finally dies.
For a long moment, all she can hear is her own rasping breath and the pounding of her heart.
Then the scent hits her.
Camellias. Overwhelming, lush, cloying.
She blinks down into the basin through a haze of tears.
It’s full to the brim with flowers.
Not petals this time. Whole blooms, roots still attached, tangled stems slick with blood. They’re beautiful and grotesque, pale pink with darker centers, leaves glossy and deep green.
Her lungs seize on a reflexive cough—and… nothing.
No petals. No tearing.
Just air.
It feels shocking, like she’s been drowning for weeks and someone has just remembered to haul her to the surface.
She drags in a breath.
It hurts. But it’s the ache of worked muscles, of something stretched, not torn.
Elphaba’s hand is still on her chest. Her palm rises and falls with Galinda’s breaths, each one a tiny miracle.
The healer lets out a long, low whistle. “Well, I’ll be damned,” she says. “Didn’t think you had it in you, Miss Thropp.”
Elphaba doesn’t look away from Galinda. “Neither did I,” she says quietly.
Galinda sinks back against the pillows, exhausted. Her whole body trembles. A few stray petals cling to her lips; Elphaba wipes them away with her thumb, so gentle it makes Galinda’s eyes fill again.
“This is not fair,” Galinda croaks. “I look a state.”
Elphaba’s mouth twitches. “You look disgusting,” she agrees softly. “And yet, somehow, still infuriatingly beautiful. I’m beginning to suspect I’m biased.”
Galinda laughs—really laughs, this time. It comes out shaky but real.
Fiyero appears in the doorway a few moments later, breathless, hair mussed, coat thrown on over pajamas.
“I heard there was a dramatic midnight medical emergency,” he says, trying for breezy and not quite managing it. His gaze falls on the basin of flowers, then on Galinda, pale and fragile and alive. Relief floods his features so hard he has to grab the doorframe.
“You told her,” he says to Galinda, then catches Elphaba’s hand on her chest and recalibrates. “Or… she told you? Or… you both… told… something happened.”
“Yes,” Elphaba says shortly, color rising in her cheeks. “It’s handled.”
Fiyero grins, bright and wet-eyed. “About time.”
Galinda reaches out with her free hand. He comes closer, takes it, squeezes.
“Thank you,” she whispers. “For… being my very best idiot.”
“Anytime,” he says, voice rough. He glances at Elphaba. “If you hurt her, I will… I don’t know, write a strongly worded poem about you.”
Elphaba snorts. “Terrifying.”
“I contain multitudes,” Fiyero says solemnly.
The healer shooes him back. “Visiting hours are over. She needs rest. You can threaten each other later.”
He leans down, presses a kiss to Galinda’s forehead, then backs away, hands up. “Okay, okay. I’ll be outside if you need me. Or if you decide to cough up more flora. I always wanted to run a flower shop.”
“Go,” Galinda says, smiling. “Sleep.”
He goes.
The healer mutters about potions and charts and bustles off to her cabinets.
The storm outside has eased to a steady patter. The hospital wing is dim and quiet.
Elphaba hasn’t let go of her hand.
“Does it still hurt?” she asks, low.
“Yes,” Galinda says honestly. “But… less. Different. Like… like the flowers are gone, and now it’s just… the space they took up, learning what to do again.”
Elphaba nods slowly. “That seems… reasonable.”
Galinda looks up at her.
“You really love me,” she says, in the smallest voice she’s ever used.
Elphaba rolls her eyes, but they’re soft. “Yes, unfortunately.”
Galinda’s heart flips. “You’re not just saying that so I don’t… die?”
“Galinda,” Elphaba says. “I carried you through a corridor full of witnesses while you bled on my favorite shirt. I confessed in front of a medical professional. I watched you vomit an entire hedge and did not faint.” Her mouth curves. “If this is a phase, it is a very committed one.”
Galinda’s eyes shine. “You’re going to have to kiss me,” she says, completely serious. “For scientific confirmation.”
Elphaba chokes. “You just almost died.”
“Yes,” Galinda nods. “Which means we have some catching up to do.”
Elphaba stares at her.
Then, very carefully, she leans down.
The kiss is soft. Awkward, at first—she’s not done this much, if at all, and Galinda is tired and sore—but then Galinda tilts her head, their noses bump, and something slots into place.
Elphaba tastes like rain and ink and the faint metallic tang of someone else’s blood. Galinda tastes like camellias and salt and survival.
The world narrows to the press of lips, the warmth of Elphaba’s hand on her jaw, the steady beat of her heart through the thin hospital gown.
When they pull back, Galinda’s smile feels like it could light the entire wing.
“How’s your breathing?” Elphaba asks, a little dazed.
“Much better,” Galinda says. “Highly recommend this as a treatment plan. We should continue the course regularly, just to be safe.”
Elphaba huffs a laugh, then sobers. “Don’t ever do that again,” she says. “The… suffering-in-silence thing. If something is killing you, I want to know. I’m not… I’m not good at this. At… feelings. At saying them. But I want—”
“I know,” Galinda says, squeezing her hand. “I’ll try. I promise.”
Elphaba nods, as if that’s all she was desperate to hear.
The healer returns with a vial of something that smells like peppermint and fire. “Pain draught,” she says. “And a sleeping charm. You need rest. Both of you,” she adds, eyeing Elphaba’s wild hair and wild eyes.
“I’m not leaving,” Elphaba says immediately.
Galinda’s heart swells.
The healer rolls her eyes. “Fine. One chair. No spellcasting over the patient.”
“No promises,” Elphaba mutters.
Galinda drinks the potion. Warmth unfurls in her chest, smoothing out the remaining spikes of pain. Her eyelids grow heavy.
As she drifts, she feels Elphaba’s fingers card gently through her hair, careful of the tangles. It’s clumsy, but reverent.
“Sleep,” Elphaba murmurs. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”
“You’d better,” Galinda mumbles. “Otherwise I’ll… haunt you. Very annoyingly.”
“I have no doubt,” Elphaba says.
Galinda smiles, eyes finally sliding shut.
The last thing she feels is the brush of lips against her forehead, and the last thing she hears is Elphaba’s voice, soft and incredulous, like she still can’t quite believe any of this is real.
“My silly, stubborn, flower-choked girl,” she whispers. “Of course I love you.”
In the weeks that follow, word of what happened spreads in that way Shiz excels at: whispers, exaggerations, hallway glances.
Galinda doesn’t care.
She walks the halls with a scarf around her neck and Elphaba at her side, their shoulders brushing. Her cough is mostly gone now, just an occasional twinge when she laughs too hard.
There are scars, the healers tell her—delicate webs inside her lungs where roots once burrowed. Sometimes, when the weather changes, she feels a ghost-tightness there, like phantom blossoms.
But then Elphaba will bump her shoulder, or Fiyero will swing by and make some absurd joke about starting a floral line called “Hanahaki Chic,” and the tightness will ease.
One afternoon, she finds a pressed camellia between the pages of her notes, carefully flattened, the petals still a soft, stubborn pink.
On the corner of the page, in Elphaba’s cramped handwriting, is a single line:
Proof that even the most ridiculous magic can be survived. —E.
Galinda presses her fingers to the flower and smiles.
She keeps it.
Not as a reminder of pain—though she remembers; her ribs won’t let her forget—but as a reminder of what grew out of it.
Not the flowers.
The love that refused to be cut out.
The love that, given half a chance, bloomed somewhere better.