Disclaimer:Everything belongs to L. Frank Baum, Sci-Fi, and each actors creation of those characters.

With Music

Interlude: I Wanna Hold Your Hand

yeah i'll tell you something/i think you'll understand/when i say that something/i wanna hold your hand

The day of the ball, they leave the smaller dining hall, Cain two steps behind DG, and he notices that Ahamo and Lurline are watching them and whispering conspiratorially to each other. Already tired of their plans, and aware that all of them are nefariously anti-Cain, he frowns and ushers DG off to her last dance lesson, where, to his immense surprise, DG asks him to stay. Usually, she tells him to go do something for himself, because lessons usually last a few hours and the dance instructor has a burly bodyguard of his own that could probably break a moving bullet – or a renegade Longcoat – in two.

She is to announce, tonight, who she has chosen as her consort. The future producer of heirs. The – he isn't quite sure he can stop himself from punching something, whenever he thinks about it, so he has, for the last three months, not thought about it. He has put someone else on DG duty whenever she is off with one of the the dukes, or princes, or whatever dignitaries are suitable for the future Queen of the O.Z., and has instead spent time with Jeb, who, he forces himself to remember, is only a few years younger than DG.

"...all about it, right?"

Wyatt blinks, stares at both DG and the dance instructor, and realizes after a moment that DG has been talking about him. "What?"

"I was saying that you taught me that...Oobagan –."

"Ugaban waltz," he answers a little too quickly.

"Right, that. Beoro here doesn't believe that a rugged outdoorsy type like you knows such a stiff-neck dance."

He raises an eyebrow at her, and doesn't take the bait. She wants to dance with him, and as much as he is sure he'd enjoy holding her in his arms again, when he hasn't touched her since that day when he comforted her in her room, he knows he will regret it, when later tonight she is dancing in the arms of someone who does not suit her.

"I never said such a thing," Beoro tells Cain, and Cain nods.

"You sure did, mister," she responds, and looks at Cain again, and she knows that he knows what she's doing. Her eyes are big and bright and blue, and for a moment – but only for a moment, he lets himself get lost in them. Then he does a minute head shake. "What if I asked really nicely?" she says.

The problem with listening to the sensible, self-protecting part of him is that that part has no idea what those blue orbs really do to a man. The problem is that the rest of Cain is at a loss as to what to do with those eyes, because there is simply nothing he can do to resist them.

Once again, he doesn't. Within moments of telling himself that he shouldn't, he has stepped forward and taken DG's hand, and slipped into the steps that have haunted him for the past five months.

Before he can begin to wonder why he is here, or what he will do when the dance ends and he takes his final steps out of the princess' life, DG leans into him more than the dance strictly calls for, and he ignores the fact, tightening the hold of his left arm across her back, and before long all that is on his mind is the way the princess shrieks when he twirls her, and the feel of the fabric of her tunic against his very bare ring finger, and the complete and utter sense of trust she exudes when he bends her low, like she has no doubt in her mind he won't drop her. They swirl easily across the floor, and he loses himself in it, forgets everything but their motion and how the mix of it and DG makes him dizzy.

They end their movements abruptly when Beoro clears his throat just a bit too loudly, and for that moment in time his hand does not stray from her back, and her face is maddeningly close to the hollow where his neck and shoulder meet, and he swears her breathing is heavy against his throat and the hand clasped in his own is as clammy as his.

Then, quickly as he can, he clears his own throat and turns away, apologizing as he begs leave and whisks from the otherwise empty ballroom, cursing himself and his reaction to wide blue eyes. He climbs the stairs three at a time, and as he finally makes it to the door, Beoro, below, starts a set of music to dance to.

i wanna hold your hand/i wanna hold your hand/oh please say to me/you'll let me be your man/and please say to me/you'll let me hold your hand