What is Age Anyway?
Disclaimer- I don't own Tin Man or Doctor Who. I'm just a crazy obsessive fan.
Summary- DG and the Tin Man have an argument, while the Doctor and Rose are enjoying a normal day.
"Look I'm just saying-" DG began but Cain cut her off.
"No."
"I'm twenty years old or twenty annuals, whatever it is here. The point is I'm an adult, old enough to choose who I lo-"
"Don't say it." He interrupted again as the two continued their walk through the town.
The O.Z. had been restored to it's former glory once the wicked witch had been defeated. Az had returned to the loving sister she had once been. DG's parents, her real parents, took the thrown back. Glitch, now Ambrose again, was restored his brain, and his place at the queen's side. Raw had stayed with DG, and the rest of the royal family, now that Azkadeilia wasn't forcing them to do her bidding; the other viewers were free to do as they pleased.
And finally Cain had returned to his first love. Being a Tin Man. He was now DG's personal bodyguard. She went nowhere unless he knew about it and was either with her, or with one of his best men.
The only problem that was posed now was the fact that DG had it in her head that she was in love with Cain, and Cain had it in his head that he was too old for her.
"My mom and dad are ten years apart in age." She added innocently touching one of the hanging rugs a merchant was selling.
"I'm more than ten years older than you." He said rolling his eyes, "I mean Jeb is closer to your age than I am."
DG sighed having heard this before, "Well why don't you give me his number and I'll see if he wants to go out sometime."
"I have no idea what that means, but I'll send him your regards."
"I don't want Jeb, and I don't care about your age. I like you okay? All that matters is if you like me back?" she said staring at him.
Cain tried to avoid her eyes, but found it damn near impossible to look away. "Kid, I-" Cain got cut off by a strange whooshing sound followed by a big bang. He threw DG behind him and pulled out his gun wheeling around to face a huge blue box.
"What is that?" DG asked, "It wasn't there before."
"I know." He said placing his arm out to prevent her from trying to investigate any further.
They both heard voices coming from inside.
"Well you can't expect every landing to be smooth can you?" A man's voice asked as the door opened.
"No, not all of them but maybe eighty percent of the time?" a young woman said getting out first.
"Bite your tongue."
"Maybe next time you'll listen to Mum when she says there's a storm approaching." The girl said, "But no, you're a Time Lord you know all about storms and there is no way we'd hit it."
"I'll have you know Rose Tyler-"
"Don' you mean Mrs. Doctor?" she asked holding up her left hand and pointing to the ring.
"Doctor is not my last name." He said rolling his eyes at her, he paused and added, "It's not my first name either, but to tell you my name would be tedious as it would take a very long time and you wouldn't be able to pronounce it anyway. Besides this marriage is a total formality."
"What every girl wants to hear." Rose commented sarcastically.
"Well you said I had to marry you or you were going to go back to Pete's World."
"It's called an empty threat, which you fell for." She said poking her tongue out at him, " "Besides, s'not like you were complaining last night."
The Doctor turned faintly pink and sputtered out, "R-rose- that's neither here nor there."
"The point is we're married, til death do us part." She said, sticking her tongue out at him again.
"You know, you are mighty lucky I love you Mrs. Tyler." He said teasingly.
DG was barely following along as this couple talked, though she didn't mind clinging to Cain's shoulders for protection, she did mind not knowing what was going on in her city.
"Um excuse me." She said.
The Doctor and Rose spun around to see Cain, with his gun still drawn and DG staring curiously at them.
"Hullo." The Doctor said with a smile, "I'm the Doctor, this is Rose."
"His wife." Rose put in.
"Purely a formality." The Doctor added, loving how it made Rose crazy.
"I'm DG, and this is Mr. Cain, the father of the man I'm going to marry." She added to annoy Cain, which it apparently did as he lowered his gun slightly and turned to glare at her.
"Princess." He growled.
"Oh you're a princess are you?" The Doctor asked excited, "Princess of what? What year is this?" he asked himself looking around, he paused spotting something in the sky, "Where are we?"
Rose followed his gaze to the two suns in the sky, "Whoa."
"Yeah, I had that reaction to. Are you from the Other Realm?" DG asked pushing Cain's arm out of the way, so she could step forward.
"Depends…" The Doctor started looking around, "Which Realm is this?"
"Well this is The O.Z." DG said.
"The Outer Zone?" The Doctor asked, "Like the Real Outer Zone? With the witches and the magic? And you DG? The little Princess? That's brilliant!"
"Doctor, what's the O.Z.?" Rose asked confused.
"You know all about it Rose." She still continued to look perplexed, "We're off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of…"
"OZ!" she exclaimed looking around, "Are you telling me that movie is real? Like the Wizard is real? And the Wicked old witch?"
"Oh she's dead now." DG said.
"Where do you think the Wizard went when he left?" the Doctor asked with a grin.
"Okay hold on," Cain interrupted, still holding his gun up, "Who exactly are you people and where did you come from?"
"Well I believe I already answered that. I'm the Doctor and this is the Mrs." He said, "We're from the Other Realm, I suppose though I'm not really sure how we got here."
"Yeah, there was no twister." Rose laughed, "Just a thunder storm. This tops the werewolf."
"I know." The Doctor said giddy.
"You'll have to excuse Cain, he's a Tin Man." DG said pushing Cain's wrist till he finally put the gun away
"What? But he looks nothing like a Tin Man. For starters he's not made of metal." Rose said.
"Well actually Rose, that's where the movie kinda gets it wrong. See in the true O.Z. as the legends go, Tin Men are actually a lot like policemen. Ah see there's his badge." The Doctor said pointing to Cain's coat.
"Wait there are legends?" Rose asked.
"Of course there are, why there are legends about everything Rose Tyler." He said as if he was talking to a very small child.
"How long are you staying?" DG asked.
"Well I suppose we'll have to figure out a way to get back, before we can determine how long to stay."
"Come with us back to the Palace. Glitch, our friends can help you get that all sorted out. In the mean time you can stay with us." DG suggested.
"Thank you, your-" Rose paused and glanced at the Doctor, "Sorry, Majesty? Highness? Heiress?"
DG laughed and said, "DG is fine."
"Right now that we've established we're all going to the castle let's get a move on." Cain sighed taking DG by the shoulder to get her to move.
"Such a romantic touch." DG sighed sarcastically.
"March kid." He said, pointing straight.
"Yes, sir." She said mock saluting making Rose giggle.
The Doctor held back a bit to talk with Cain while Rose and DG started to laugh and share stories.
"So you're both married?" DG asked glancing back to the Doctor and Cain. She let her eyes linger on Cain till he caught her looking and gave her a pointed look that said 'keep going.' Which made her sigh and turn to face a smirking Rose.
"I thought you said something about his son earlier?"
DG smiled, "No, I just said it to bug him."
"You fancy him then?" Rose asked stealing a glance at the men, the Doctor gave her a grin.
"He claims he's too old for me." DG sighed, "I'm Princess of the whole O.Z. I can have anything I want except him."
"So this Glitch person, he'll be able to help us get back?" The Doctor asked Cain as they trailed the girls. Cain nodded keeping his eyes fixed on DG, "So you protect the Princess? Are there really that many threats in the O.Z. now that the witch has been killed as she said?"
"Not really." Cain admitted, wondering to himself why he kept her on such a short leash if this was the case.
"Mother?" DG called down one of the hallways, "Glitch?"
"It's Ambrose." The man said annoyed poking his head out one of the doors.
"Yeah, your always gonna be Glitch to me." DG said while he rolled his eyes, "This is Rose and the Doctor. They're from the Other Realm, and need to get back."
"We figured since you're the smartest person we know we'd leave it to you." Cain said, then added to DG, "I'm going to my room. Not a step outside without me."
"I know." She said annoyed.
Rose smiled knowingly at the Doctor, who wasn't even looking at her. He was examining the zipper on this Glitch person's head.
"Um excuse me." Glitch said.
"You're being rude again." Rose said pointedly.
"It's just I've seen a lot of things, a very lot of things, but I've never seen a man with a zipper on his head."
"My brain was removed not too long ago." Glitch said, "Just got it back about a month ago." DG shook her head, even if he did have his brain back and wanted to be called Ambrose again, she couldn't help it. Everything he said sounded like Glitch. And she didn't just mean the voice.
But then she'd get reminded of how smart he was again at times like this when he was explaining to the Doctor the only way to get back to the Other Realm. She glanced over to see Rose looking just as bored as she was, and grinned. Rose reminded her of herself when she first came to the O.Z. and couldn't remember her past.
Remembering the past made her remember how she came across Cain, stuck in that tin suit, being forced to watch himself and his family being beaten. If you connected the dots fully it was all her fault that it happened.
That had to be the reason Cain didn't want her. He was there when she found out it was her fault. He had to have made the connection as she had so long ago. The age excuse was just that, an excuse.
"He likes you, ya know." Rose said contradicting her thoughts.
"What?"
"I can tell." Rose shrugged, "See before me and the Doctor got married he used to say things like 'he's too old for me' and 'we can't be together' and a whole lot of other stuff that he didn't mean cause he was protecting himself and me."
"Oh yeah? Did you also indirectly get his wife killed? And get him locked up for god only knows how many years cause he won't tell me?"
Cain paused outside the door, and sighed. He had been heading back to see how the progress was coming when he heard DG and Rose talking very low by the door. DG was still punishing herself for the wicked witch possessing her sister all those years ago. And for some reason she thought he was as well. He had never held it against her. She was a small child when she left her sister in that cave. He couldn't blame her. She was DG.
"Yeah, but indirectly? You didn't do it on purpose, yeah?"
"Of course not." DG said, "I wasn't even here. I was in Kansas in the Other Realm when it happened."
"He's not mad about it." Rose said, confidently.
'Listen to her .' the Tin Man silently wished.
"Then why doesn't he want to be with me? The age difference thing? How much older is the Doctor than you?" DG asked leaning against the wall.
Rose smirked and asked, "You really wanna know?"
DG shrugged, "Yeah."
"Well I just turned 25, and he's never told me exactly how old but he says it's in the neighborhood of 900." Rose said still smirking, only now she had turned it on her husband who was busy talking to Glitch.
DG chocked out, "900?"
The Tin Man peered through the crack in the door to look at the supposed 900 year old man.
"He's a Time Lord. They age differently." Rose explained, not wanting to blow this girls mind with the whole truth, about regeneration and so on.
"Great so there's an eight hundred plus difference in your ages and he's perfectly happy with you. Cain and I are barely eleven years apart."
Cain, having heard enough opened the door fully, "How's it coming?" he directed to Glitch and the Doctor.
"Smashingly." The Doctor said then paused turning to Rose, "I can't pull that one off either can I?"
Rose paused to think about it then made the 'so-so' motion with her hand, "I wouldn't use it too often."
He nodded, "Very good, then. It's coming along very, very good."
Cain stopped and thought about the relationship between the two, or at least what he had learned in the short time of knowing them. He glanced at DG who had already been looking at him and flashed him a smile when he looked over. He nodded to himself.
The Doctor picked up the object that Glitch gave him that would allow both him and Rose to get back to the Other Realm in the TARDIS. Glitch explained it was normally a very simple process, it would just being slightly harder considering the TARDIS into the equation as no one, not even the Doctor himself knew exactly how big it really was. But Glitch assured him it should work. At the very least, he and Rose would come through unscathed.
"Well, we're off." The Doctor said.
"Seriously?" Rose asked, "We haven't been hunted or chased or anything and we're gonna leave?"
"You said you wanted to honeymoon on Barcelona, though why I'm sure I'll never know, anyway Barcelona waits for no man."
"Cause Barcelona is the first thing you said to me." She answered taking his hand.
"No, I believe 'Run' is the first thing I said."
"No, I meant this you." She said snaking her arm around his waist.
"Well, I'm gonna walk you back to your police box." DG said, then glanced at the Tin Man as if asking permission.
"Yeah, let's go." He nodded.
"Don't give up, yeah?" Rose said to DG as they said their goodbyes outside the TARDIS.
DG shrugged, "How can I? The heart wants what it wants." Both girls glanced over at Cain and the Doctor shaking hands goodbye.
"You could come with us you know?" the Doctor said to both of them, "Plenty of room, lot's of adventures."
"What kind of adventures?" DG asked curiously, but Cain, surprising everyone including himself, put his arm around her waist, and added, " Something tells me we have enough adventures coming. Thanks anyway."
Rose smiled and followed the Doctor into the TARDIS as DG got that kiss she'd been waiting over a month for.
"They were nice." The Doctor said dropping his coat at the console, "So Barcelona?" he said giving her a grin.
Okay I really don't know where that came from. I was just lying in bed last night trying to fall asleep and the idea just came to me, and wouldn't let me sleep till I started the story. I hope you all liked it.
I for one was very upset that Cain and DG never had anything more than a hug, but I was pleased to hear that I wasn't imagining it, the creator or writer people said there was subtle hints to a possible DG/Cain romance. Isn't it nice when you find out that you're not crazy? Well not as crazy.
And I know there are probably more than eleven years difference in age, between DG and Cain, but since we don't know for sure, I just decided on a random number.
Please review.
-Em
