Title: And Guest
Author: littleswirl
Characters: Cain, DG, Lavender Eyes, the Robo 'Rents
Pairing: Cain/DG
Rating: PG-13 for minor curse words and some naughty stuff
Summary: When DG returns to Reality for her friend's wedding, the new Head of the Royal Family's guard is the perfect choice to accompany her. Multichap fic.
Warning: I guess you shouldn't read if you haven't seen all three parts.
Disclaimer: It's routine by now, right? La la, was L. Frank Baum's, da di da, Sci Fi's adaption. Do be doo don't own, just play with. New characters are mine.
Word Count: 2,161

Of course Cain decided to pull into the first diner that they passed. And it was Hilltop Cafe. It had to be Hilltop Cafe . Where was the irony if it wasn't?

Apparently motorcycles and whatever they had in the O.Z. weren'tthat different because the ride was perfect. All the stupid little things she usually forgot to do-like motioning for turns, putting the kick stand down (which would inevitably lead to her trying to stop it from falling over) well, he remembered.

And he moved with such confidence. DG was sort of envious.

"You coming or not?" he called over his shoulder, but then he stopped and turned with an expression that came with waiting for an explanation. This one, in particular, was caused by the young woman's fidgeting.

"You see, this is where I used to work, Wyatt."

His look turned unreadable, and she could clearly see the muscles in his jaw move smoothly when he clenched them. "If you didn't want to be seen with an old man like me, then you should have said something. We can go elsewhere." He angrily started back to the bike. DG grabbed his arm, desperately.

"That's not it. At all," she said firmly, in a way that she hoped ended that talk right then and there.

"For one thing, you are not old. Second, I never actually told them I was leaving, what with everything that went on, so I sort of walked out on them, right after being told how lucky I was to have a job here. And I am just a little nervous because the officer who was looking for me about oh, a few hours before um, that thing?" A family moved past them. DG could only imagine what they thought of the two of them, with their leather jackets and tense looks and 'out-of-placeness'. "Well, he usually hits here in the afternoons to grab a cup of coffee and hand me my most recent ticket."

"So you're nervous?" he asked, disbelieving.

"Yes! Cops and sheriffs are like Tin Men, but without the looks or the leather or-shutting up now. Yes, I am nervous." Where thehell had that come from?

He moved closer to her then, since the lunch crowd of usuals and tourists was straggling in. She ended up leaning against the bike, and the Tin Man put his hands on her shoulders. She found the weight to be pleasant.

"Never, ever, forget who you are, DG," but he said her name strangely. "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

"Eleanor Roosevelt," she mumbled at the ground, but then looked up at him, surprised. "How-"

"Your father gave me a book from the Other Side when I received my new position. The quote was in the text."

She took his arm and they took the stairs quickly, and with one last deep breath DG walked into Hilltop Cafe diner.

Everything was the same as it had been two months earlier, and there was Joe in the kitchen, barking at Reese Mae that there was a plate up. But Reese was too busy gaping at DG in the doorway to get the patty melt.

"Why if it isn't our DG. Bless you, child, we missed you!"

DG stared, blankly, and she did not have to turn to know that Wyatt Cain had an eyebrow raised. He would probably never believe anything she said again. Lovely.

"Hey, Reese," DG said awkwardly, getting enveloped in a hug that left enfolded between more than Reese's arms. That woman needed something with a little more support. "I just wanted to say that I am really sorry for walking out of here that day and never explaining-"

"Darlin' don't you worry about that; your folks came over and explained it."

"Because I had a perfectly good-They did?"
"Why, if I just found out I was adopted, I would be in the same state, confused and scared. And then to go and find your momma? Takes guts, sweetheart. You just sit yourselves down wherever."

The seat cracked. DG forgot about the seats being so old. Usually she was working, and wasn't sitting in them.

"You were afraid of that?"

DG pushed around the metal napkin dispenser. "Well that wasn't exactly as bad as I thought it would be."

But the it got worse.

Somewhat.

"If it isn't little DG," came a voice from the table next to them. DG knew that voice anywhere.

"Hello, Officer Gulch. Don't mind me, I'm sitting here, abiding the law."

She turned and gave him a little wave, for good measure. The officer looked over her shoulder at her table companion, who was, she saw when she turned back around, staring him down with his arms crossed. DG knew that he had one hand very, very close to his gun, and this was a public place, and she could only imagine how she was going to explain this to her parents. Either set.

"Oh, um, Officer Gulch, this is my…boyfriend. My boyfriend Wyatt."

She had truly, really, hoped that that would be the end of the conversation. Oh, how she was wrong.

The officer scooted his chair closer. "Is that right? You're not from around here, are ya?"

"No, can't say I am."

DG looked nervously between the two men. Both were old-fashioned gun slingers, but one of them had the legal right to arrest people in this world, and also had a set of handcuffs and a taser. Hopefully the officer wouldn't be resorting to any of his usual belittling, or any of those three things might be used.

"Where you hail from?"

"Oh you know, there." There was a very vague and unhelpful wave that came along with it, in a sort of circular motion.

The aging man with the shining badge made a small noise through his closed lips, one he usually made when he was writing DG a ticket.

"You look like you're one of us." Alright, so maybe this wasn't so bad. And it was close to the truth. Cain was a cop. Kind of. Well, he had been. But in a world with winged monkeys and ice caverns and possessed princess with magical powers.

"I'm in-" Cain looked to DG, forgetting what she had told him.

"The Secret Service," DG finished quickly, licking her lips. She placed a hand on his. "Honey, you said you didn't want to share that, remember?"

"It's fine, dear."

Oh the officer loved this, and DG could tell. Here was a man doing, presumably, the sort of thing he had wanted to do as a child, protecting someone and laying his life down with all the glamour and physical shape that went along with it. Here was a guy who had scored a younger girlfriend, didn't have the donut gut he was sporting, and probably was getting substantially better pay.

"So what sort of thing do you do, protect dignitaries and stuff?"

"The Queen." The truth, how it was awkward.

DG let out a nervous, loud laugh.

"Oh, you!" she said, punching him, hard. Of course it was Wyatt Cain, so it really had about the same effect on him as Glitch trying to get her to dance: it was more painful for her than him. "Calling Hillary Clinton 'the Queen'. Sometimes you are so funny!" DG threw some money on the table and grabbed his arm.

"Pleasure meeting you, Wyatt. Oh, and DG?"

Shit, he remembered. She turned with a bright smile. "Yes?"

"Don't you worry about that ticket, you here? When your parents told me about what happened, well, it just wasn't in my heart to do that to you."

So, mentally kicking herself, DG climbed onto the bike behind Cain and they sped off.

"The Queen? Wyatt Cain, I told you, we don't have them here," she angrily as she scooped potato salad onto her plate. Her parents were still out, doing errands, as they liked to call it when they disappeared for hours on end, returning with nothing but themselves and more energy as they went about their chores. Since DG was pretty sure they weren't able to well, engage in that sort of thing, she now guessed that they were recharging their batteries.

He was inspecting the food, eyeing her and the plate she had in front of her.

"This is a lot for me to take in; I'm trying. That's quite a lot of food on that plate of yours."

"Oh, you know that's not polite, to criticize how much food a girl takes. And I went through the same thing without someone there to help me out. And I was learning how to use my magic." She poked his shoulder with a celery stick.

"True." He took a spoonful of potato salad and chewed it, carefully, as if it might blow up in his mouth. "So when are you going to go sleep in your real room?"

"What?"

"Your real room. The one upstairs."

She set her plate down with a loud clink. "How the hell did you know that?"

She had been using one of the two guest bedrooms since her room upstairs was just…well, Cain would be concerned if he knew that that was her room, so open to attacks as it was. That and it was messy and looked like a bomb made up of clothing had gone off in it.

"The guest room wasn't lived in, of course. And you know, the smell."

DG stopped chewing. "What?"

"It didn't smell like you," he said, pushing the potato salad around on his plate. He was trying to pick out the specks of seasoning. Really, he muttered it. Quietly.

She couldn't resist. "And what exactly do I smell like?" The grin spread across her face.

His plate dropped to the table now. "I'm going to take a look around the perimeter. Don't free any strangers from traps or break any laws or-"

"Yes, darling," she drawled as he stomped out.

She had the first dream that night.

She didn't quite know what exactly had transpired, but Glitch had told her about it, and this dream version of the back of the truck is mostly what it was like; perhaps it was a bit smaller in real life, and maybe there weren't as many blankets, but in her dream Cain was shivering, and she was going to save him.

"Wyatt," she says, whispering even though they are alone and the wind howls outside. "We have to get your body temperature up."

He moans and shivers, and she is reaching down to undress him, and suddenly she is under the blankets, bare skin pressed against bare skin, and he is trying to protest.

"I saw it once, on something on National Geographic," she says in way of an explanation that he wouldn't accept in real life. "It stopped one guy from getting hypothermia."

She wraps her arms around him, and he presses his head into the space between her neck and her shoulder. The dream version of him does not smell as wonderful as he does in reality, but it's close.

And somehow he's warm, and very much awake, and kissing her. He reaches an arm across and cups the back of her head delicately in his palm.

She's never done this. Not in real life. Not in a dream. It's strange and exhilarating and nowhere as awkward as she had assumed it would be. He's strong and warm and pushing her onto her back, hands brushing and holding.

"Seems like you're okay." She can barely get it out between kisses and breaths.

He moans again, but it's nothing like the sound he made earlier.

And then he reaches lower and-

DG shot out of bed, wide awake and gasping for breath. The sheets stuck to her from sweat and then of course, he knocked on the door.

"DG?" his voice floated up from the doorway below.

Could it get worse?

"DG, are you alright?"

Oh dear Dorothy, he was going to come up.

He took the stairs two at a time, gun out and looking for anything that could be a potential threat.

When he noticed she was still in her bed and not in any form of peril, he holstered the gun and walked over. Was there a way for her to disappear? She was going to have to ask Toto to teach her that trick.

"I heard you making noises."

She stared at him. Making noises. "Yeah, I was having a dream."

"You mean a nightmare?"

DG was very much aware there was a flush in her cheeks and well, if he stayed in the room any longer she might very well jump him. "Something like that. Goodnight, Wyatt."

She flipped over so that her back was to him, and he only remained in the room for a moment longer.

She was still awake when the sun rose, and their neighbor's rooster crowed.