Aloha my homies! I've been telling people that I've been working on an Oz story for a while, and now I finally finished it! It kinda sucks though; it's very cheesy and predictable.

Another thing about this story is while it has elements from the movie, the character's personalities and such are mainly based off of the books. At least that was what I was going for. Let me know if I got it at least semi-right.

Disclaimer: I don't own Oz or any of the ones who live there. I'm only borrowing them.

If there was one thing not to be trifled with, it was a bored robot.

It was the middle of the night, and Tik-tok was completely wound up. And when I say that, I mean it literally; a servant had wound his thinking, talking, and action commands as tight as they would go a bit earlier. Tik-tok would have preferred to be wound up in the morning, but the man with his key had something to do the next morning and had to wind him early.

Normally Tik-tok wouldn't mind waiting it out until morning (being a mechanical man he didn't need sleep, and it certainly wasn't as if he had anything better to do), but for some reason he couldn't explain, he was feeling (or what passed for feeling to him) restless that night. He decided to take a walk around the royal palace of the Emerald City of Oz. As he left his personal quarters, he passed the bedrooms of people such as Jellia Jamb and even Princess Ozma herself. He tried to tread as quietly as a man made completely of copper could.

Making his way out of the sleeping quarters, he passed the beautiful palace garden (which was now dark, with all the pretty blossoms closed up for the night) and headed decidedly for the royal waiting room. Perhaps the Gump would be up for a little chat.

As he continued on his path, he happened to pass one of the drawing rooms. As he walked by, he happened to look into the room and paused as he noticed someone besides himself who was still up. Upon taking a closer look, he could see that it was the Scarecrow. It was not unusual for the straw man to be up this late since he didn't need sleep, but he was doing something that caused Tik-tok to stop in confusion.

The Scarecrow was sitting in front of Ozma's all-seeing portrait. Shown in the frame was Tik-tok's own beloved mistress, Dorothy Gale. She appeared to be quite asleep, which made sense since it was the middle of the night. When she rolled over in her bed, the Scarecrow gave a barely audible sigh. His actions so confused Tik-tok that the robot came up behind him and asked in his monotonous voice, "Why are you watch-ing Dor-o-thy sleep?"

Tik-tok's sudden comment quite startled the Scarecrow and he jumped and quickly spun around, nearly losing his balance in the process. When he saw who it was, he breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh my gracious, Tik-tok! That was entirely unexpected! Why are you not in your room?"

"You are al-so not in your room," said Tik-tok, "So I could ask you the same thing."

"Well I suppose you could," said the Scarecrow thoughtfully.

"Yes," replied Tik-tok, "But right now I'm ask-ing you a dif-fer-ent ques-tion. Why are you watch-ing her?"

The Scarecrow sighed and sat down heavily (or as heavily as a straw man could). "I don't know. I guess…I guess I just want to make sure she's safe, and…well, I miss her…"

The stuffed man had a look on his face that Tik-tok recognized from his many, many long years of existence, but he was having a hard time putting a name to it. His mechanical brains whirled and clicked in his head as he tried to remember what that look meant. He stayed silent and motionless for so long that the Scarecrow waved a hand in front of his face and said in a worried tone, "Tik-tok? Did you run down?" Then he looked thoughtful and said, "Although I suppose if you have run down you wouldn't be able to tell me so."

"I have not run down," replied Tik-tok, "I am mere-ly think-ing."

"Oh, well that's good," said the Scarecrow, "Because I don't have your key with me, and it would be strange to have to explain to Ozma what you were doing running down in her drawing room."

It was then that Tik-tok recalled where he had seen that look. He set a heavy hand on the Scarecrow's shoulder and said, "You're in love with Dor-o-thy."

The Scarecrow had never looked more surprised. He was so surprised that his hat fell off and he was having a hard time picking it up again. "Now really, Tik-tok," he said confusedly, "I would expect a ridiculous suggestion like that coming from the Pumpkinhead, but not from you! Why, if anyone were to fall in love with Dorothy it would be our dear friend Nick Chopper. After all, he's the one with the heart."

"Nick Chop-per many be the one with the heart, but he's not the one watch-ing her in the port-rait," replied the copper man.

The Scarecrow was starting to look very uncomfortable. "Well, yes, but…you need a heart to love, don't you?"

Tik-tok considered this. "So it is said, but it is al-so said that one needs a heart to live, and you seem to live just fine with-out one."

The Scarecrow begrudgingly nodded. "This is true," said he, "But I still don't see what gives you the right to say that I'm in love."

"That is a sim-ple mat-ter," replied the robot, "When you were watch-ing her the look on your face was that of a man in love."

That made the Scarecrow look skeptical. "But Tik-tok, you've repeatedly said that you're a robot and therefore don't understand anything about emotions, so how do you know what a man in love looks like?"

If Tik-tok had owned a mechanism to shrug his shoulders, he would have done so. "I ad-mit, I know no-thing ab-out the e-mo-tion of love. But years a-go, when I was first built, Mr. Smith look me out to show me to the pub-lic. As we walked down the street, I not-iced a man who was star-ing at a girl near-by. When I asked Mr. Smith why the man stared so, he said it was be-cause he was in love. I asked him how he knew, and he told me the look on his face was that of a man in love."

He then looked firmly at the Scarecrow. "You wore the same look on your face when you looked at Dor-o-thy."

For a while, both were silent. Just when Tik-tok thought that his friend wasn't going to reply, the Scarecrow sighed and said, "Well, my highly developed brain can't deny the evidence you've set before me. It seems that I am indeed…in love with Dorothy. Not that knowing this will do me any good."

This made Tik-tok's thinking mechanism work even harder. "You con-fuse me," he said in his monotonous voice, "Care to e-lab-or-ate?

The Scarecrow brought his hands up to look at his cloth fingertips. "Well, just look at me," he said, "I'm made of cloth. My face is painted on, I have a tendency to fall apart; I'm basically a walking sack of straw. My only good point is the fantastic amount of brains I have. Meanwhile, Dorothy is in Kansas where there are a bunch of boys her age, humans like her. What chance do I have of winning her heart?"

Tik-tok studied the Scarecrow's face carefully. Did he really not notice how happy Dorothy was when she was with him? When she was near him, her whole being seemed to give off a certain glow that gave warmth to everything surrounding her. Even if she didn't love him in the exact way that he loved her, she definitely loved him in some way. "I be-lieve that way of think-ing is called 'shal-low'." Tik-tok said carefully.

The Scarecrow was surprised. "What do you mean?"

"I do not be-lieve that Dor-o-thy is the kind of girl who thinks on-ly of looks. You have known her for long-er than I have, and she has nev-er re-ject-ed you for how you look. You are un-der-est-i-mat-ing her. Be-sides, you are mis-tak-en in think-ing that your brains are the on-ly good qual-i-ties."

The Scarecrow thought carefully about what his copper friend had just told him, his brow creased and wrinkly from how hard he was thinking. Eventually, he said sadly, "Even if this is so, she deserves better than me."

If Tik-tok had been a living creature, he would have rolled his eyes or gotten very frustrated; but he was a robot, and was very patient. He asked, "Bet-ter in what way?"

Now the Scarecrow looked embarrassed. "Well…you know that I'll never be able to physically pleasure her, or provide her with children. I just…want her to be happy, even if it means she's with another."

As Tik-tok watched the Scarecrow squirm, he could tell that the straw man was serious. Finally, he said, "May I make a sug-ges-tion?"

The Scarecrow raised a painted eyebrow. "Of course, my friend. I value your opinion."

"I sug-gest that you find out how Dor-o-thy feels be-fore as-sum-ing she would pre-fer an-o-ther."

The Scarecrow looked quite surprised at this notion. He was very quiet for a bit, and then he said, "I guess I really don't know how she feels, do I?"

Tik-tok shook his head. "No, and you nev-er will if you don't ask her."

It was then that a noise came from the mirror, which was still trained on Dorothy. Instantly, the Scarecrow and Tik-tok had their eyes fixated on the mirror. Dorothy was squirming in her sleep and appeared to be having a nightmare. The Scarecrow's cloth face scrunched up in sympathy, and Tik-tok's would have if he had the facial structure to. Neither of them had the ability to sleep, which meant no ability to dream. This meant no bad dreams, but it also meant not good dreams.

As they watched, she mumbled, "Please, Scarecrow…"

The Scarecrow immediately tensed up at the mention of his name. Dorothy continued to toss and turn, and muttered, "Please, don't leave me…"

If Tik-tok had owned a heart, it would have broken just on the sound of her voice. He turned to the Scarecrow, who was staring in awe at the woman he loved. "Well," the robot said almost smugly, "Do you still think that she would pre-fer some-one else?"

The Scarecrow stood up and released the portrait from it's view of Dorothy. "I think I'll take a walk in the gardens," he said, and then he continued, "And Tik-tok?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

And with that, he walked off in that wobbly walk of his. Tik-tok watched him leave, and then he himself went back to his own private room. He had done a lot of talking and thinking that night, and he didn't want to completely run those functions down before the servant came back the next day. He wanted to be at least of some use to the princess. As he settled in his resting spot for the night, he did allow himself one last thought.

"If this turns out well, I may have to take up match-mak-ing."

Afternote: Blaaaarg, I totally could have done better with this. I started out trying to copy Frank L. Baum's writing style, and it slowly transformed back into my own style!

Anyway, for those of you who haven't read the books, Tik-tok is a mechanical man who shows up in the third book. Ozma, Jellia Jamb, the portrait and the Gump all show up in the second book. I do recommend you read them if you haven't already, they add so much to the OZ universe. Please tell me how I did!

~DaAmazingMeepers ^w^