Accidents Will Happen

Chapter Six

On Tuesday, it was back to class—for Galinda that was, but not before after lunch. She felt strangely disappointed when she woke up in the late morning, only to realise that Elphaba had long left the house to go to work.

'Working from 9 to 3,' was all her single, stumpy text said.

Perhaps she could have thrown in a little 'Good morning!' or 'See you later!' or... or something. Galinda surely would have. In fact, she decided to lead by example and replied with

'Morning, Elphie! Hope you slept well. Got an ARCH tutorial at 1 a.m. I'll be straight back home after that. Take care!'

Ah well. Galinda supposed she should actually be thankful that Elphaba had even bothered informing her about her shift. After all, her communication skills in that regard remained very much a work in progress. The form of such notifications was certainly of lesser importance in the grand scheme of things and could be amended later. To show her appreciation, she quickly followed up her earlier message with a titbit of praise.

'Thanks for letting me know, btw. I'll bring back some crullers <3'

* * *

The following day, Galinda's alarm rang exactly five minutes past six thirty—the latest she dared to sleep in without fearing the repercussions of not having enough time to adequately dress and style herself. The prospect of a nice cup of hot chocolate topped with whipped cream helped her get out of bed. She'd promised Elphaba to take care of lab duty for at least one more week, in order to grant her some additional respite. She stood by her word, of course, yet still hoped that this would be it for a reasonably long while. Staying up late to study was easy for her, but in the morning she needed her sleep. Even her odd fondness for her new roomie could only carry her so far.

Rubbing her eyes und mumbling a number of curses under her breath, she crossed the short stretch between her bedroom and the big bathroom. Just before she closed the door, however, she noticed the clattering and clanging carrying from below. Instead of proceeding with her usual morning routine, she snatched her bathrobe from the heated towel rail and threw it on before making her way to the stairs. Running her fingers through her messy curls, she tried to tame them just enough so as not to give her early rising housemate a heart attack.

"Morning!" she yawned, halfway down the stairs. "I thought you were resting?"

Elphaba stopped whatever she was doing in the kitchen and looked up, not immediately able to locate the person belonging to the voice. By the time she spotted Galinda, she had already set foot into the living room.

"I—I rested well enough last night," she responded sheepishly after staring at her for a clock tick, then scratched her neck and turned away. The clicking of the ignitor told Galinda that she was preparing to put whatever she'd been chopping and mixing onto the stove.

Having learnt her lesson by now, Galinda stayed on the non-kitchen side of the counter, despite her mild annoyance over not being able to see what Elphaba was doing.

"So if you're up already," she wondered out loud, "does that mean that you're coming for lab prep?"

Turning around briefly, Elphaba gave her a guilty look.

"Yeah, I could go in early today. I'm....feeling pretty okay, I suppose. You can stay home and enjoy a quiet breakfast."

"Screw breakfast!" laughed Galinda. "I mean, whatever you're making smells delicious, but I won't sit down for an hour eating it. I'm up early already, you took over preparing the food; I'm totally coming with you."

They left the house less than an hour later. When Galinda turned around after locking the door, she noticed Elphaba watching her intently, and the hint of a blush rose to her cheeks. It suddenly struck her that this leaving and arriving together would be a fairly common occurrence from now on. In her head, the mere idea was somehow... wonderful.