Resemblance
Disclaimer: I don't own 'Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West'
Nessarose did not resemble her sister.
Perhaps it was because Elphaba's skin was apple green, while Nessarose's was peachy, or that Nessa lacked arms…
But Glinda could see no resemblance and, in truth, wanted none. After the hideous disaster of a trip to the Emerald City, when Elphaba had bade her goodbye with two chaste kisses, killing months of passion and a creeping love with two sentences, Glinda did not think she could bear an armless Elphaba sleeping in the room next to her.
She could hardly bear the remaining Thropp sister as it was, and Nanny, dear Nanny, flitting through her days as if they were not real. Nessarose frowned and sulked, moaned over Elphaba's departure, demanded answers from the walls and sometimes even Glinda herself, no matter how hard she protested her lack of insight.
Nessarose was demented at the loss of her sister. Glinda was sure it was not the shame that stung most, no matter how hard Nessa insisted it was, but the abandonment from someone Nessa was sure would never abandon her.
Glinda knew that was what haunted her .
Nessarose lay awake at night, long after Nanny had retired to bed and long after she assumed Glinda was asleep. Glinda could hear her, twisting in the sheets in the adjoining room.
How terrible it must be, she mused, not to be able to push back the covers and leave the dark silence. Glinda liked to walk when troubled, which was often, and she pitied Nessa's dependence on other people, her lack of room to breathe, her startling crutch that was religion, her smothering relatives. Oh, how she must have hated Elphaba. Elphaba did what Nessa would never have the courage or physical capabilities to do.
Oh, for the days before all this, Glinda thought wryly, as she leaned against the door to Nessa's room, listening to the younger Thropp twist and moan, when I didn't think so damn much.
She touched the knob gently, easing the door open. The rustling of sheets stopped and all that could be heard was Nanny's low groans.
"Nessa?" Glinda spoke softly into the darkness.
There was no reply and Glinda sighed. She shut the door and crossed the room, padding barefoot across the rug, imported from the Vinkus. She sat silently on the edge of Nessa's bed.
Nessa was quiet, her body curled into a ball, with none of her sister's sharp edges. Then, "Why did she leave us, Glinda?"
Glinda thought. She had given this question much consideration – more consideration than she thought entirely healthy, in truth. "Madame Morrible –"
"I'm sick of hearing about Madame Morrible," Nessa's voice was sharp. "Why did she really leave?"
Glinda felt despair creep up on her again, as she regretted the pity she felt for Nessa. "I think…I think…she couldn't come back. Elphaba always hated the idea of being a pawn on someone else's board," She could barely force it out, Madame Morrible's proposal. She could barely think about it without that woman's spells corrupting the memory. "She was…afraid…of that proposal…of Madame Morrible's,"
Nessarose snorted.
"And freedom," Glinda said vaguely, twisting her hands on her lap. "Freedom for those damned Animals, not only herself. You know how much she loved her causes,"
"Yes," Nessa agreed mildly. "Only I thought she loved you more,"
Glinda was glad it was dark. Nessa did not see her eyes widen or her hands suddenly still. "Of course she loved me," Glinda said carefully. "And she loved you, too, though she would never say it –"
"I don't mean that," Nessa snapped irritably. "Don't treat me like some poor fool! I know that she was in love with you – and you with her, if I'm not mistaken,"
How Glinda would have loved to tell her she was – to deflate Nessa's inflated view of her own superiority. But she did not. She was silent, plucking at invisible threads on her cuffs.
"So it's my opinion," Nessa continued, with that icy chord running through her words. "That Elphaba loved her freedom, loved her Animals, loved being the unbent martyr, more than she ever loved you – or me, for that matter,"
Glinda wondered how Nessarose could function with such bitter thoughts running through her seemingly pious and righteous body. These were the thoughts that Glinda had ran from. Yet she couldn't believe it – couldn't believe it off Elphaba. Trust was a shaky and fragile thing and it had taken months before Glinda conceded that she still trusted Elphaba.
"Your opinion," Glinda replied in a wintry whisper. "Only that,"
It was, she realised, Nessarose's greatest failing; she was not her sister.
The End