AN: So I heard a song on tv - well, only two lines out of it, really - and my mind started spinning a Wicked oneshot around it, and so here it is. Hope you like it and please review!

Disclaimer: Wicked is not mine.

Glinda was standing on the balcony attached to her enormous bedroom, still wearing the sparkling dress she had worn to her engagement ball. Had it really only been hours since she had been dancing there, having fun? It seemed like a lifetime ago.

She had stormed into her room a few minutes ago, angrily kicking off her heels and yanking the pins out of her hair, so that her blonde curls tumbled freely over her shoulders. Her make-up was smudged with the tears she had shed, but she didn't even care. She stared out over the bright, shiny Emerald City, where people were celebrating her newly announced engagement with their Captain of the Guard. Little did they know. The news of his 'treason' hadn't spread yet, but soon they'd find out and they would hate him, hunt him down the way they were hunting down the Wicked Witch of the West… Elphie.

Glinda hugged herself, not even noticing when raindrops started to fall from the sky. When had her life become so complicated?

She had been blind, that had been it. She had been so absorbed in her own little problems that she hadn't noticed what had been right in front of her. Her fiancé… and her best friend. An engaged prince, loved by all of Oz, and a green fugitive, wanted by all of Oz. She hated them. She hated them both. For going behind her back, for hurting her the way they had, for…

For having what she didn't have.

Fine. She'd admit it – to herself, at least: she was jealous. She hadn't seen before what had been going on, but that one look Elphaba and Fiyero had shared, back in that throne room, had told her enough. That one look had spoken volumes, had bridged the years they had been apart, had conveyed so much emotion… Glinda had never shared such a look with anyone. She had never felt about anyone the way she now knew her two friends felt about each other. Oz, she had been so stupid!

She watched as the people on the streets danced and celebrated, not showing any signs of stopping despite the late hour. It stung. The green reminded her of Elphie. The dancing people reminded her of Fiyero. The entire city reminded her of everything she had lost or left behind, everything she could never get back. Not anymore. It was far too late for that.

'Dearie?' She turned around to find Madame Morrible in the doorway, a sympathetic smile plastered on her make-up-smeared face. She managed a half-hearted smile in return. 'Hello, Madame.'

'Oh, dearie, no offense, but you look horrendible,' the old woman told her with fake sympathy. 'I know it must hurt right now, but are you going to be all right?'

'I'll be fine,' Glinda replied mechanically. 'The people of Oz need me and so I'll be there for them.'

Morrible pinched her cheek in fake affection. 'Oh, Glinda, you are so good!' Glinda winced at that, but Morrible didn't seem to notice. 'Is there anything you need, dearie?'

'I would just like to be alone right now, if you wouldn't mind,' Glinda told her quietly, and the older woman nodded. 'Of course, dearie, of course! I'll give order for no one to disturb you tonight. Sweet dreams, dearie!' With that, she swirled back into the room and out the door. It closed behind her with a soft click.

Glinda turned back to face the City. The rain was falling more rapid now, sending the celebrating Ozians below in the streets back home at last. Glinda didn't mind the rain. It matched her mood at the moment.

She sighed as she reluctantly admitted to herself that fine, she didn't hate Elphie and Fiyero. She wanted to, but she couldn't. She loved them both, in a way, and she knew that they deserved this. They deserved each other. She had been selfish before; she hadn't even really loved Fiyero and she knew that now. She had loved the idea of it, two perfect people, perfect together… but she had never loved him. Not like that, anyway. And he hadn't loved her, either. It had had to go this far for her to realise that, but right now, she finally did. He had never belonged to her. He didn't love her, and he never had. He loved Elphaba. And Elphaba loved him back.

She wished she could make things right again. She was sorry for reacting the way she had, for betraying her best friend to Morrible and the Wizard… She wanted to apologise to her, and to Fiyero, and to tell them that she understood now, that they had her blessing, that she wanted them to be happy.

Only she didn't think she'd ever see them again.

The rain had soaked her by now, causing her normally perfectly modelled hair to stick to her head in dripping wet strands, and her dress felt incredibly heavy now that it was this wet, but still, she didn't care. She only stared at the horizon, the night sky, in the direction she suspected Elphaba and Fiyero to have fled in.

So if you care to find me, look to the western sky…

It wasn't a coincidence that Glinda's bedroom was set in the west wing of the palace, looking out at that same western sky. She had specifically requested this room; however, she had never once caught sight of her friend. She feared she was gone now, that she would never come back to her, that she had disappeared... forever.

A single tear ran down her face, mingling with the pouring rain. She didn't make any effort to wipe it away. 'I'm sorry, Elphie,' she whispered to the night sky. 'I really am.'

It hurt, to lose Fiyero, but she now understood that it didn't hurt her to lose him; it hurt to lose the illusion of them being together, ruling Oz as the perfect couple she had pictured them to be, with everyone loving them. That was a vision that would never come true now, but she could now see that it had been a childish dream anyway. Things were always more complicated than you dreamt them to be and happily ever after didn't exist – at least not the way you had imagined it.

Finally, I can see…

She sighed; then she turned around and went back inside, leaving small puddles of water in her wake.

We were never meant to be.