Chapter Text
The rumor spread through the psychology department like wildfire: Professor Upland was wearing a ring. Gold band, pink diamond, and absolutely not there before winter break.
The speculation barely lasted a week before someone asked, “Professor Upland—”
“Galinda, not Professor,” she corrected gently. “We’re all here to learn together.”
“Right. Galinda. Did you…get engaged?”
Galinda’s eyes lit up. “Yes! My girlfriend proposed over break. It was the most romantical—” She paused, but the glow in her eyes didn’t fade. “Well, it’s time for class.”
The story came out in bits and pieces. A day at Galinda’s favorite beach. An expensive dinner. Candles already lit when they stepped into their house, and her girlfriend, down on one knee, declaring her love.
No one had even known that she had a girlfriend. With most professors, that would have been perfectly normal — after all, professors liked to keep their private lives private — but Galinda had never been most professors. She didn’t keep secrets. She treated her students as equals.
And somehow, she’d hidden an entire relationship from them. Even now, with a ring on her hand and the story of the proposal, she refused to talk about her fiancée. She didn’t say her name. She didn’t show a single picture. So they turned to social media. Of course, someone as outgoing as Galinda would share pictures of the love of her life. There would be pictures of the ring, or the proposal, or her fiancée smiling while Galinda showed off her left hand.
All of Galinda’s accounts were private.
Begging was their absolute last resort, but Galinda didn’t give them a choice. “Please tell us about her. We couldn’t find anything online.”
“Did you Facebook stalk me?” she asked slyly.
Two people answered at once — “You taught us the value of primary sources” and “There wasn’t a lot to stalk.”
Galinda smiled. “My fiancée is a very private person.” And, no matter how much they begged, she refused to elaborate.
Their first breakthrough came during the semi-annual Psychology Department Honors Dinner, four weeks into the semester. Galinda, sitting between the head of the department and the honors students, looked more relaxed than she ever had in lecture. When Professor Diggs asked about her weekend plans, she said, “Me and E—” Her eyes went wide, and darted towards the eagerly waiting students. “Me and my fiancée are having an engagement party. It’s a little late, but my family has been so busy lately.”
Of course, it went out to the class group chat immediately.
ATTENTION ATTENTION 🔔🔔🔔
Upland’s fiancee’s name strats with E
*stats
STARTS
with E
Naturally, the chat exploded.
By the end of the semester, the rumors had mostly died down. There were still occasional questions, but Galinda never answered. She just shook her head and said, “You really are persistent.” The year was almost over, and they had nothing but the story of the proposal and the letter E, and an unprecedented amount of secrecy from their least secretive professor.
Then, with just two weeks left in the semester, Galinda announced that she wasn’t teaching her summer seminar. And when they demanded an explanation, she blushed. “I’ll be focused on my wedding and honeymoon.” She paused. “And I’d appreciate if you could wait until after class to share that with the group chat. After all, there is an exam next week.”
She refused to answer any questions for the rest of the class.
The fall semester started, and the entire biology department was on fire. Because Professor Thropp was wearing a plain gold ring — one that she hadn’t been wearing at the end of last year, one that she was wearing on her ring finger.
As dangerous as it was to provoke the professor, they really couldn’t help themselves. “Uh, Professor Thropp. Are you…married?”
“I wasn’t aware that my marital status was relevant to the study of chemoreceptors in the brain.”
“It’s not, I was just—”
“You can give the first presentation in class on Thursday.”
He’d been scheduled to present the following Monday, but he just nodded; arguing with Professor Thropp was a very, very bad idea.
The spring came with a brand new Abnormal Neurobiology class, jointly taught by the biology and psychology departments. It was completely filled on the first day of registration. Everyone knew that it would be rigorous; after all, Professor Thropp was one of the instructors, and her classes were nothing less than brutal. But it was co-taught by Professor Upland — Thropp’s opposite in every way, from personality to teaching style to clothing — and the class was almost guaranteed to be a disaster.
But it wasn’t. Every Tuesday, Galinda talked about symptoms and diagnostic criteria and everything that could be seen. And two days later, Professor Thropp added the science. She put explanations behind everything that Galinda had taught them. It was…strange. The professors should have hated each other, and there were jabs, of course, but the class was interesting and informative and challenging, and absolutely, utterly unexpected.
They weren’t doing anything wrong. Truly. Galinda insisted that her office was open to students, office hours or not, and they’d visited with questions before. Galinda had always smiled and greeted them and brushed off their apologies.
But they’d never heard voices coming through the closed door, and they froze when they realized who they were interrupting.
“You can’t kill the students on the midterm. Honestly, Elphie, we’re professors, not murderers.”
“That’s debatable.”
“Which part?”
“It’s not murder, it’s just—”
“Attempted murder?”
“They should be able to answer all of this. Besides, I’ve heard about your famous midterm reviews.”
“Oz, I hate you. Are you going to help with the review?”
“I’ll sit in the back and give you a gold star if it goes well.”
They carefully backed down the hall before anyone could hear them. The word ELPHIE appeared in the chat twenty times in the next hour.
The first time someone suggested that their professors were married, they were kicked out of the group chat. Of course, they were added back two hours later because everyone needed their notes, but the idea was laughable. Galinda couldn’t be married to the intense, angry Professor Thropp. And Professor Thropp would never tolerate someone as bubbly as Galinda.
Except…they’d both started the year with new wedding rings. Galinda’s wife’s name started with E. E like Elphaba — like Elphie, and that nickname was their most damning piece of evidence. There was no way that Professor Thropp would allow someone to call her by a nickname. Especially not one as perky as Elphie.
“It’s like the scientific process,” someone joked. “We have a hypothesis. Now we need to prove it.”
“Not during Thropp’s lecture.”
“Obviously not. She’d kill us for it.”
“Even if it’s true?”
“Especially if it’s true.”
So they waited until Galinda’s lecture to ask, “How long have you and Professor Thropp been together?”
“This is our first semester teaching together, but we started working on the class last year. Interdepartmental classes have a lot of paperwork,” she joked.
“I meant together as in, you know, like… Dating. Engaged. Married. You know, together.”
For the first time, Galinda’s calm expression faltered, and her gaze unmistakably darted towards Professor Thropp. Professor Thropp didn’t flinch. “We’ve been married since June,” Galinda said lightly, “and we were together for four years before that. Now, can everyone please focus on the subject material? Against my better judgement, the midterm is going to be…rigorous.” There was a hint of a smirk on Professor Thropp’s face, and Galinda shot her an exasperated glare.
Everyone lingered in the hall after class, ears pressed eagerly against the wall. Galinda’s voice came through, quiet and distorted. “You were right about the midterm.”
“I know.”
“You’re going to be insufferable about this, aren’t you?”
“You called me an axe murderer.”
“Okay, but—”
“I don’t own an axe.”
“You can be smug and buy an axe. I’ll even hang it on the wall.”
“Tempting. Can I use it on your friends?”
“Absolutely not.”
“All of this is your fault.”
“Excuse me?” Even through the wall, there was no mistaking Galinda’s offense.
“I’m just saying, my students are too terrified to ask about my life.”
“That’s not a good thing, darling. And they’re our students now.”
Every phone lit up with DARLING. HOLY SHIT GALINDA CALLED HER DARLING.
“The nosy ones are yours.”
AND THROPP LETS HER??? holy?????????? fucking??????? shit???????????
“I know we need to talk about this—” Galinda said.
“Astounding observation.”
“—but we should do it when there aren’t students listening outside.”
By the time Professor Thropp opened the door, the hallway was deserted.