DISCLAIMER: Tin Man doesn't belong to me and I'm not making any money, so you can't sue me.
Just Wasn't My Season
She hadn't acted any different.
She had been smiling, laughing, regularly pouncing on him whenever she got the chance, getting into trouble left and right. Anybody who didn't really know her, would think that the girl was completely happy and at home in her settings, with her family - the family she barely remembered - with the lessons that she so often shirked.
"He isn't teaching me anything useful, Cain! And then he gets mad when I show him that I can do something that I read out of a book, says that I'm not taking the proper precautions! Says that I'm likely to loose control of my magic and kill everyone within a hundred mile radius, just because I can't learn it the way he shows me!" She pushed her hair out of her face, blue eyes flashing. "I have control, damn it! Why doesn't anybody trust me when I say that?"
Anybody who didn't know her wouldn't see the things that he caught.
Two weeks after the witch, he started noticing the tightness about her eyes and the way she managed to push her food around her plate, making it appear as if she had eaten more than the few bites she took. She somehow avoided most of the dancing at the formal events.
"What are you doing, Kid?"
"Shh! Christ, Cain, you trying to draw attention to me or something? I don't wanna dance anymore than you wanna be in that uniform!"
A month after the witch, she had dropped weight significantly, but nobody seemed to notice, and her eyes seemed to be forever bloodshot, but when he stopped studying her she looked as normal as could be, healthy even. An inkling of suspicion snaked it's way up his spine.
"I'm fine, Cain!"
Two months later, the smiles didn't always reach her eyes, her laughs were hollow, and her pouncing seemed to be routine, as if she did them because she was expected to. She found more ways to avoid lessons and any sort of formal function, or disappear from them. It seemed only he noticed, everybody else - her family - seemed too busy with the restoration to take the time to notice. Maybe it was because she would sometimes cling to him longer than proper.
She was staring out the window again.
"Is it interesting?"
She jumped, blinked rapidly and then stared at him. "Huh?"
"Is it interesting? That place that you go to when you stop paying attention to the place you're at?"
She paled a little bit, and he knew that she hadn't thought that he noticed as much. She recovered well enough and only smirked at him. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
Two months, three weeks and five days later, her smile had changed, a smile that didn't show any teeth, didn't show any mirth, just an act, a motion, and her blue eyes were always looking out the window. She was restless, he could see the way that she chafed at the restraints, the way she looked completely overwhelmed when she though nobody was looking and let her guard drop for just a moment. Still nobody noticed, nobody cared to look or ask. He spent the day trying to figure out a way to help her or find a way to get her talk to him or somebody.
"Quit staring at me, Cain, the Tin-man glare is starting to make feel guilty and I haven't done anything yet!"
Two months, three weeks and six days later, she wasn't to be found. He wasn't the slightest bit shocked or surprised, he'd been expecting it, but he'd hoped that he wouldn't be too late in coming to her, prayed that she would come to him first. Looked like even he didn't know her well enough to see when she was going to drop everything and run.
That small realization hurt, but it hurt more knowing that she didn't come to him with her problems or her thoughts.
He rubbed his fingers over the slightly worn paper - paper that was already falling apart from the way he continuously unfolded and folded it, trying to glean some sort of information out of the smudged ink writing. He'd found it in the front pocket of the shirt that he put on that morning.
Sorry, Wyatt.
He scowled at the words and wondered if she was apologizing for the worry she knew that she would cause him, or the fact that she hadn't felt like she could come to him with her problems, or maybe it was both, or maybe she just didn't know what to say.