Disclaimer: I do Not own Tin Man it and all recognizable characters belong to their respective owners which isn't me i'm just borrowing them for a while :)
A/N: A big thank you to Hippo-Griff Tamer from being my Beta for this especially since i sent about four chapters to her all in one day. (Yes i am aware i do not paint Adora and Cains marriage in a good light in this story but just go with it after all this story isn't about them :))
Chapter 4 (takes place during chapter 3)
DG awoke in an unfamiliar place. Momentarily disoriented, she looked around before recalling why she was in the small cabin in the middle of nowhere. Sighing, she got up and dressed. She walked down the stairs and gasped in surprised at seeing Adora's ghost sitting at the table.
"Sleep well, DG?"
"Not really," came the sleepy princess's reply.
"They are worried, your sister especially," Adora said softly.
"I know, maybe I should go back and face the music," DG sighed sitting down at the tale across from the spirit.
"Oh, I don't think you should. Besides we had this conversation last night if I remember correctly," Adora said smiling.
"I am well aware of the fact that we talked about this last night, but if they are all worried about me then I should just face it and return home."
"No, they will come for you tomorrow at the very latest, the decision about that has already been made. Though, they will not know how to get through the barrier you have erected."
"It shouldn't be to hard. All Wyatt has to do is walk through it and the spell holding the barrier up will disintegrate. At least it should," DG said truthfully.
"But what if someone else were to walk through it? Say your sister?"
"They would find nothing but an open field," came her reply
"You know that they are wondering how you were able to erect such an elaborate cloak when your magic has yet to be unlocked," the spirit said in passing as she watched the young woman's face.
"I'm not sure how. I do know that my magic has been unlocked though not the memories. Mother told Az and I once what it would take for me to unlock both and seeing as that has yet to happen... I am not quite sure how I was able to erect the barrier. My theory is that my love for Wyatt is so strong that even though we haven't come together physically, the emotion side of the bond has helped me to unlock at least part of my latent magic," DG explained.
"Yet, you are not ready to face him are you?" Adora asked after watching the princess's face for several minutes.
"No," she whispered softly.
"So why not make the barrier so it blocks even him? At least until you are ready to talk to him?"
DG looked up sharply at this. Could she? It wasn't such a bad idea. She knew that if they were to show up in the morning as Adora mentioned then... she let the rest of the thought fade.
"You are a genius!" DG cried and then reaching into herself for the magic to change the spell slightly. Only this time she linked her own feelings for Wyatt into it so that when she was ready to talk to him he would be allowed through the barrier not a moment before.
Once the barrier had been fixed she turned to Adora, "Why are you helping me keep him away?"
"Because you are not ready to face him DG. Even though you love him, his words hurt you deeply. It will take time for you to be able to even look at him without the hurt pulsating through you. Trust me, I know all to well."
She looked at the spirit whom she now counted as a friend, one delicate brow raised in question at her remark. Adora sighed and explained what had happened between them when they had been courting and the many misunderstandings that had stood in their way after they had married.
"So it wasn't all rainbows and sunshine in paradise then?" DG wasn't expecting Adora to understand what she was saying though.
"You could say that. After we married the harmony that should have been there wasn't and I now know why." Though she refrained from telling the princess the real reason behind the discord in her marriage to Wyatt.
"Why then?"
"Because we simply were not meant for each other, not like the two of you are. We fought all the time and I mean all the time. It got better once I had Jeb but the fights, the angry words, they still managed to come out only quieter and less noticeable by a young child. Did you know that I didn't even want him to become a Tin Man? I simply went along with it because I knew of his stubborn nature."
DG was floored by that little tidbit of information. She couldn't think of Wyatt as anything but her Tin Man and his own wife had not wanted him to pursue it?
After a little time had passed and DG had thought about Adora's words she asked the question that had been burning in her head since the moment she had figured out that Wyatt had not been quite truthful with her about his relationship with his deceased wife. "It makes no since why would he...?"
"Why would he think of only the good in our marriage and leave out the bad? Why would he not let on that our marriage was not the perfect one he hoped it would be? I can't answer you that. Maybe it was what kept him going while in the iron suit. I always knew that he was too stubborn to just die. I knew that Zero had lied to Jeb and I when he told us that Wyatt was dead."
"If you knew that, then why didn't you come back and let him out?"
Adora wanted to answer her young new friend but knew that she couldn't. So instead of telling her the truth she answered, "Because we were being watched. Zero made sure that there were eyes on us all the time. We couldn't risk returning to the homestead and letting him out."
"About the suit, I do have a question that has been bothering me for some time, why is it he didn't seem to age? In the projection of that time loop thing he was forced to watch he didn't seem all that old maybe in his late twenties or early thirties but when Glitch and I rescued him and he got all cleaned up he didn't look like he had aged a single day."
"Because he didn't age," Adora began only to stop at the princess's gasp. She began again after a nod from DG, "Zero loved to torture Jeb and I about Wyatt being put in the Suit. One day he was careless and told us that he would never age as long as he was in the suit. He would have to watch as we were tortured for all eternity, living the nightmare daily while the world around him aged and eventually faded out of existence."
"Okay I once thought it was cruel but this goes beyond cruel and unusual punishment. Its no wonder he wanted Zero dead."
"Oh, but that's the thing, the victim doesn't know what happens to them when they are put in the suit."
"You mean Wyatt thinks he's older than he really is!?"
"Yes. He believes himself to be over twenty annuals older than you, when actually it's more like only ten maybe twelve at the most. It's why he didn't allow himself to become attached to you when you stopped the witch. He thought he was way too old for you and so didn't pursue you even though he really wanted to."
"When exactly did his feelings go from needing to protect me to loving me anyway?" she asked out of curiosity wondering if Adora knew the answer to that question.
Adora leveled her eyes at the girl and smiled, "You know when, DG. Just think back to before the battle. Think about the week you spent with him. The answer to your question is there in your memories."
DG sat staring at Adora trying to comprehend what the woman was telling her. She thought back to their time together as they searched for the Emerald. It wasn't until the memory of the embrace she had given him in the tower, when he and Glitch had come to rescue her from Azkadellia; she remembered the feeling that had accompanied that embrace, the look of pure relief on his face before she had hugged him. In fact, it was in that hug that she had felt something shift between them. She had put it off as the adrenalin that had been coursing through them at the time but had thought differently when he had been the one to initiate their last hug before the final battle. "He loved me even then didn't he?" she managed to get out.
"Yes," came the soft reply of the ghost sitting across from her.
"All this time and he said nothing?"
"Well, to be fair you didn't exactly let on that you had any feelings for him either," Adora pointed out.
"Yes, well I knew that he was still mourning your death and I was allowing him time to grieve!"
"And how much time were you willing to give him to grieve DG? Forever? You know how stubborn he is and now that you know what his personality was like before the suit, he probably never would have let on that he had any feeling for you at all. Not unless he had some indication of your feelings for him and even then it's debatable if he ever would. It's just how he is."
DG simply nodded in understanding and asked about what time would they be expecting them to be here wanting the memory of the argument with Adora to be gone.
"Mid afternoon tomorrow unless Azkadellia calls up a travel storm then it will be just after first sunrise," Adora answered before fading away again leaving the young princess to her thoughts.
DGWC
Cain, Jeb, Glitch, Raw and Az walked out of Central City just as the first sun rose into the morning sky. They had discussed it and they had agreed that it would be faster to get to DG if they went by way of a travel storm instead of by horseback. So they made their way to a hill outside the city and Az called up the storm and told it where they wanted to go. Soon they were sucked up into the twister and then moments later were deposited in the same spot DG had been a few nights before. Looking around they saw nothing but a barren field just like the map had indicated. Looking around trying to remember where the cabin had been located exactly, Jeb and Cain were both started by Raw and Az's cry.
"DG, over there," the Viewer said pointing in the direction of the invisible cabin.
"I can feel her magic, but it's stronger than it used to be. Cain, you were right, she must have unlocked her memories, though how is uncertain," Az said impressed by her sisters ability to hide her magic from them.
They all nodded and walked in the direction of the cabin they could not see.
