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: 1,132


The next morning was the most embarrassing one of her life. She trudged down, after quickly getting dressed in the closest clothing she could find. Cain was somehow in another button-down linen shirt and pants. Snug pants, she noted as he moved to help her mother bring the plate of bacon over. They make everything look so nice and bi-

"Sausage?" her RoboDad asked, holding out a bowl of the breakfast food. She humored Henry and took one without really looking up.

Her mother was very much aware of something being up with her daughter. Damn her receiver, or whatever it was that she's equipped with. She was studying her daughter.

"You okay, cupcake?" she asked, lightly.

"She had a nightmare," the new comer to the table answered for her. She glared at him. And then blushed when gray-blue eyes looked into her darker ones.

"What about?" her mother asked.

"I don't remember." Lie. Lie. Lie. And her mother knew. "Anyway, I was thinking that maybe we could go back to the O.Z. to, you know, check on everyone?"

No one answered. DG knew immediately that Something Was Wrong.

"Wyatt," she said, nervously. He was clearing his throat and patting his mouth. "Wyatt?"

"The O.Z. isn't safe right now, DG. Part of why your mother agreed was because of the LongCoats."

"They still think Az is in control, don't they? That she's still possessed?"

He nodded.

"But we should be there!" she pushed back her chair. "Cain, Raw and Glitch need us. And my sister and my parents…" she started to leave, but Cain was in the doorway.

He knew too easily how to calm her down, she thought. With just his hands on her shoulders and a steady gaze, he was able to convince her to sit back down.

"You're the heir apparent, DG," Henry said. "More important than the current Queen or your sister. They wanted to keep you here for a while."

DG poked angrily at her eggs. "We are going back after the wedding; they can't keep me here." This made her bodyguard give a dry laugh into his oatmeal.

"I'd like to see them try, sweetheart."


"Jeb is fine," she says soothingly as they were bringing in firewood. Her friend had been quietly watching the sky. "You raised him well."

"I didn't raise him," he said, and she just assumed that it was out of humbleness.

She was wrong.

"We were going to separate, divorce." He said this quietly as a they sat on the porch, watching wind ripple through waves of grain. It's a bit like a dusty, dirty version of the lakes of Finaqua. Somewhat. DG tucked hair behind her ear and looked over at her companion, to see if he would continue.

"Andora and I, we just weren't going to make it as a married couple, and we knew it. We married much too young, and when we had Jeb, I thought the marriage would be saved.

"It wasn't. It got worse. We would fight over ever little thing; how to raise him, what to feed him. I wasn't even around all that much. I married during my Tin Man training, and had to travel, subsequently, afterwards." He turned and looked at her. "You have to, after you pass the training. Until they figure out where to put you," he said matter-of-factly.

"But you loved her," DG said, even if it hurt to say it, strangely.

"She was the mother of my child, of course I did. When I was home I doted on Jeb. He was just-I mean, kids are so amazing. They just needyou, Deijhi, and Jeb looked up to me something fierce. So we held on. They were a tough five years."

"And then?"

"And then she was pregnant again."

DG felt her stomach turn a little at that. She saw him swallow heavily, as if fighting back the bile she felt.

"I had been gone for five months. She was due in seven."

"Oh, Wyatt," she breathed, taking his hand. To her surprise, he did not fight her.

His eyes watered. "They came six weeks after that. And you know the rest. Should have been another grave marker there. That was still a child, a life that didn't-never had a choice, a chance…That's why I wanted to find her, believe she was alive and raising both children. Living a life she deserved to live after being tied to me for half a decade, of never really seeing me. I wanted to know that she had forgiven me for how much I hated her at first when she had told me."

Quiet settled for a moment before he brought it down, purposely. "Any deep, dark secrets you want to share with the blubbering Tin Man?"

She squeezed their joined hands. "You are not blubbering, Wyatt Cain." She settled her head against the back of the swinging love seat with a sigh.

"I was going to leave here, it was a bit of Fate intervening I guess that kept me from going. I was going to be buying my plane ticket the morning after the Tornado picked me up."

"Where to?"

She gave him a crooked little smile, more abashed than anything else. "Australia. It's on the other side of the globe, and warm, and beautiful, and sunny. A lot like the Outer Zone, from the pictures on the brochure."

"Do you still want to go?"

DG laughed, and it felt good to do it without having to worry about it. Her shoulders felt light. "I was being immature and stupid. My life is too wonderful to leave on hold or to abandon. Someday, maybe." DG turned her head and found herself looking up at Wyatt. "Would you like to go with me? You would like it, I think. They had these men call Bushrangers; you'd like them." It sounded so delicate and fragile a hope when it came out of her mouth.

He turned to face her, leaning his head against the upholstered seat, as well. "Wherever you go, I'll go, Deij."

"Guard or not?"

"Guard or not."

And then they sat watching the sun set over Kansas farmland, quiet and accepting of one another and holding hands. DG was struck by how content she felt there, and pictured the two of them old and grey, the princess-Queen, then, she mused-and her faithful companion, doing the same thing. She could not, for the life of her, picture anyone else besides her.

And it was in that moment that she realized she was in very, very, serious trouble.

"I hate waiting just as much as you," he said gruffly.

She looked over at him, trying to figure out exactly what he meant by it.

And then she realized he meant everything.