Disclaimer: I do not own Tin Man or its characters and receive no profit from this story.


He's twice her age, old enough to be her father—but what Cain feels for DG is anything but paternal.

At first, he thought she was just a kid. Now he knows who she really is: a brave, intelligent woman wiser than her years. A soldier, a leader. A princess. In her blue eyes he can see the hope she gave back to him.

When DG tries to give him a pep talk like she did Raw and Glitch, the other two excuse themselves as if they don't want to intrude. Cain tells her he knows what she's doing, and then he looks at her a long time, memorizing her face, searching her blue eyes in case it's the last time he sees them. When she offers him her hand to shake, he steps forward and hugs her as tightly as he can instead, and he thinks he might cry.

If she dies, if she stays here and goes down with the O.Z. like he knows she would, he'll go back to his son and break down, and try not to let on to the depth of his pain. But if by some miracle they do both make it through this, he doesn't know what he'll do.

"We did it!" she says when it's finished, and for the first time since the tin suit, he forgets to feel sad at all.

When she hugs him just a little longer, a little more quietly, a little more seriously than she hugs the others—then looks away a little too quickly—he thinks maybe she doesn't know what to do either.


After the eclipse ends and the O.Z. is right again, Cain tells DG he's going back to being a Tin Man. She nods slowly, as if she doesn't know whether that means he'll be leaving her. "I'd be happy to have you on my protection detail," she offers with a nervous smile. "After all, you've done a wonderful job so far."

His heart is beating too fast, but he smiles just enough to reassure her, and says he'll think about it. He tells her he has to be sure he can be near his son, and she's sympathetic, of course. What he keeps to himself is that if he's going to be near her all the time, he doesn't know how long he'll be able to keep his distance.

But of course he'll tell her yes. He always does.


It's the eve of the one-year anniversary of the eclipse, and all the O.Z. is celebrating. The clock in the grand palace ballroom counts down to the moment when the eclipse ended and all was well again, and everyone clutches their glasses of champagne in anticipation. DG is wearing a gorgeous blue dress that perfectly reflects her eyes, and some sort of magic must be involved because she's literally glowing. Or maybe it's just the way Cain sees her, because to him, she always glows.

The clock is counting down, and ten seconds to the anniversary, Cain looks at DG, and she looks at him, and when the bells ring and everyone else is blowing on their noise-makers and laughing and talking, he hears it only dimly. She smiles happily, innocently, and clinks her glass against his. "To the new world," she says, and Cain thinks she doesn't know how right she is. For better or worse, his world is about to flip upside down. They sip their champagne.

He kisses her.

She drops her glass to shatter on the marble floor, but she doesn't pull away. Then she's wrapping her arms around him like all those hugs they've shared but better, and he wonders how he could fall so in love twice in his life.

Cain can feel his head spinning with the intensity of this kiss.

When he opens his eyes, he realizes it's them, twirling like a top in midair.


A/N: Thanks for reading! I greatly appreciate praise and constructive criticism alike and will respond to all reviews. There may or may not be more of this; I'll have to see where inspiration drags me. :-)