Disclaimer: Here Tin Man, Tin Man, Tin Man. Where are you? I think it knows I don't own it… But I'd be willing to adopt.
Before she could ask what was going on Jeb was bowing to the Queen as Cain introduced him. Ahamo left her and went to her mother as she finished the last of her meal. Raw had stopped next to her sister and was smiling gently at her. "Princess feel better. Raw help?"
Azkadilla ducked her head shyly at her furry friend. "Yes, thank you very much, Viewer Raw."
"Pretty Azkadilla welcome." Az blushed badly at him. "Will get easier. Raw will help if Princess allows." Her dark eyes came up in surprise at his offer.
"I couldn't ask that. It can't be comfortable for you to be near me."
Raw reached out and took her sister's hands again. As she watched them interact Glitch noticed the tray of food and bounded happily over to it. She observed him picking through the tray as he searched for the treats he liked as she continued to listen to the conversation between her sister and the healer. "Azkadilla should not add worry. Raw helps because Raw can. Helping will make everyone feel better. This is what Princess wants yes?"
Her sister nodded reluctantly. Raw rumbled at her. "Good. Raw keep nightmares away. Kalm will help also. Teach Azkadilla to smile again." She ducked her head again and Raw patted her hand before he stood back up.
He waved his hand at her so she would follow him to the far side of the room. Glitch had grabbed one of the pink onion roles and trailed after them curiously. As soon as they were away from her family he moved her hair away from her neck so he could see the injury Cain had obviously told him about. He mewled at the sight of the dark stain on her lightly colored skin before he placed his hand over it. Glitch bit into the role shaking his head at the sight.
A viewer had never healed her before and she found it to be rather soothing. A warm tingly sensation spread out from Raw's gloved hand and into her abused skin. She sighed in contentment as the pain faded away. When he took his hand away she gave him a small smile. "Thanks, Raw."
He rumbled worriedly. "Need to talk to DG."
The feeling of offness returned as she met the healer's warm brown eyes. "Sure, Raw." She paused. "Is something wrong with Kalm?"
"Kalm fine, safe. With medic helping." She waited unsure of why the viewer seemed so concerned. "Went to find Longcoats that attacked DG and Glitch last night." Her stomach knotted and she nodded in understanding. Still she had no clue why he was upset. She knew why she was upset, she'd killed a man, maybe he was just reacting to her emotions.
Glitch had finished the roll and suddenly grinned at her. "We did do that!" He said brightly remembering. Her lip twitched as she took in her suddenly very excited friend. "We found your nurture units, Doll!"
She jumped up and down yipping in excitement trying to get past the viewer. "They're here? Where are they? Are they downstairs?" She hadn't been this happy in days. Sure they were robots, but they'd raised her, she loved them. Raw grabbed her hands suddenly and she was forced to stop. She was grinning from ear to ear, eager to see her foster parents.
"Whose downstairs?" Glitch looked at her his toffee eyes sparkling as he reacted to her excitement. His synapses must have misfired but she wasn't all that worried about it.
"Momster and Popsicle. Let go Raw! I haven't seen them in a week!" He held her more tightly.
"Not downstairs, DG." Raw's voice was grave and she stopped her bouncing. Something was wrong. Her eyes darted between a now lost Glitch and Raw. His dark eyes were leaking compassion. She sucked in a breath and a strange sort of stillness came over her.
"Where are they?"
"DG-"
"Where are they?" She shouted. The conversation across the room ceased immediately.
"Gone, DG."
Her world changed again. "What does that mean?" She asked returning to a composed reasonable tone of voice.
"Broken, torn apart. Found in room where dead Longcoat was."
She tore her hands away from his standing motionless. Had she hurt her neck slamming into the remains of her foster parents? Oh god, oh god. That was wrong. The stillness wormed more deeply inside of her. Everything from her life on the Otherside was gone now. Her home, her parents, even her cloths. All gone. She didn't know how long she had stood there before someone took hold of her arm. "Princess?" She finally blinked and found herself staring uncomprehendingly up at Cain.
"Yes, Cain?" Her voice didn't sound right. There was no emotion in it at all.
His eyes were flashing with worry. She glanced past him and noticed that everyone else in the room was watching her as if she were going to turn into a dragon and eat them. Azkadilla had pressed herself into the far corner of the loveseat she was in and was clutching the emerald as if her life depended on it. "Follow me, DG."
She put up no resistance at all as the Tin Man propelled her out of the room and away from all the watching eyes. She didn't remember the trip back to the room they had spent the night in and she had no idea how she ended up on the floor next to the small fireplace with Cain's duster around her shoulders. But it seemed that suddenly they were there and she clutched at the waterproof material like a lifeline. "Even if we get his brain back in Glitch can't fix them can he?"
Cain was kneeling in front of her adjusting the material around her. "No." Straightforward man, she wasn't sure he even knew how to lie.
She bowed her head her breath hitching. Her hands went to her hair as she drew her knees up to her chest. Cain ran his hands over her hair trying to get her to stop yanking at it. She resisted momentarily, the physical pain was keeping her away from the emotional pain. "Why was everyone looking at me like that? Like they were scared of me?"
He sighed managing to get her hands loose. "They were afraid your magic was going to get out of control. It's tied to your emotions." She met his eyes for the first time since they had left everyone. "I'm not sure Azkadilla could have stopped you even with the emerald. You're much stronger than her."
"They're afraid of me?" That was perfect. Her lip began to quiver and he made a soothing noise in the back of his throat.
He sat down in front of her never breaking eye contact or letting go of her hands. "No, they were worried because you don't know how to control your magic yet."
"Then why are you still here? It'd be safer if I was alone."
He cupped her face. "I told you I'm not going to leave you. Besides you'd never hurt me, Darlin." He said it with absolute confidence and for some reason it made her hurt even worse.
The quiet that had taken her over vanished in that instant. "I've hurt everybody I've ever come in contact with! Not to mention everyone in the Outer Zone I have yet to meet! I hardly think you're safe!" Panicked she tried to force her way past him.
He caught her as she tried to stand pulling her into his lap despite her struggles. He wrapped his arms tightly around her as she fought against him. "Fighting me isn't going to make the pain stop, DG... It wont make them come back."
A sob tore through her as the reality of the situation hit her. Curling her hands into his vest she felt tears rolling down her eyes as her vision blurred. His arms loosened the death grip he had on her and began to run from her head down her back as she cried into his chest. "I know it hurts." She tried to burrow deeper against him and he didn't try to stop her. In fact he adjusted her body so she could mold herself to him more easily as she grieved.
After a long while her tears stopped falling and she sat hiccuping and trembling in the Tin Man's arms. He snuck his hand under her long hair and caressed the back of her neck. "See now? I'm still whole and unharmed. Not nearly as dangerous as you seem to think you are." Her hands left his vest and went around his neck her mind feeling fuzzy from her outburst. "Unless you count the water stains of course." She let out a strangled hiccupping laugh against his neck.
"Good girl." His hand continued to kneed the muscles of her neck his hand dipping down under the collar of her shirt. "It's better than not knowing." She knew he was right even as pain ripped her heart apart. She sat back reluctantly finding his hands much more appealing than she thought she should have. She blamed the emotional trauma because had she been in her normal mind she would have listened more closely to that voice in her head that told her he was grieving as much as she was.
Wiping the back of her hand across her eyes she sniffed. "I feel I've been saying thank you an awful lot to you lately. Maybe I should get you a card or something."
He used his thumb to help dry the tear tracks that had wound there way down her face. "A card? I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that's an Otherside custom." When she sighed his lips twitched. "Don't worry about it, DG. Ozma knows we've been through the mill the last few days."
She sniffed. "Still… I think I've cried more in the last week than I have in the last seven years. You must think I'm either insane or completely girly."
He looked at her oddly as he finished rubbing her face off. "You're not crazy, you're human. I'd be more worried if you hadn't burst into tears when you found out about your nurture units. Especially after the way you dragged me across the Papay Fields after them… Although I do think you're a girl. Don't know why that should be upsetting."
"I guess people aren't categorized in the O.Z. What with all the viewers and Guild Members that are running around."
"Of course they're categorized. But apparently not the same way." He leaned back more fully against the wall of the hearth making sure they were both comfortable before he continued. She thought he might be trying to give her something to think about other than the fact that her nurture units were gone. "How would you categorize yourself?"
"Oh, I'm a tomboy. Although some people referred to me as 'the loner'."
"The loner?"
Oops. She hadn't meant to say that. But he was watching her in that way that made her tell him the truth for no apparent reason. That way that said he wanted to know because he wanted to learn about her not because he was judging her. She blamed it on his eyes…She might as well finish telling him now. "I didn't fit in real well. Most people thought I was a bit off so after a while I stopped trying to make friends." She felt tears threatening to fall again and her throat constricted as she pushed them back. "Momster and Popsicle never seemed to think I was weird like everybody else. But then again they knew who I was didn't they?"
"Hmmm." He flipped the collar of his duster up so it hit the back of her ears. She glared at him and he raised his eyebrow at her. "I doubt they were worth the trouble if they didn't take the time to find out anything about you. You seem to make friends easily enough to me."
"Either you're trying to get in my good graces, which we both know isn't true, or you're tying to distract me."
He snorted. "Well I don't have the option of frolicking off into the Longcoat infested forest like a certain princess I know in order to distract you."
Her throat was still sticking together but he was making her feel a little better. "Geez, do that two or three times and suddenly I'm labeled for life."
"Yes, I should go ahead and stamp trouble across your forehead so I'm constantly reminded what I'm up against."
"And here I thought you didn't have a sense of humor. Was it hiding under the duster and escaped when you put it on me?" She poked his shoulder good-naturedly and he winced. Her eyebrows knit together. "What's with the face?"
He grunted. "Nothing, I got hurt in the brain room yesterday."
"Did you get hit?" She focused on his arm her hands darting out to the edge of his shirt collar.
"In a manner of speaking." He muttered catching her hands in his bigger ones.
She narrowed her eyes at him. "Wyatt Cain, I will poke you again unless you tell me."
He rolled his eyes at her. "The Furball healed me, I'm fine."
"Oh and that's why you flinched in pain when I touched you?" Sarcasm dripped from every syllable.
He grumbled. "I may have been shot. Healers can only do so much."
"You got shot!" Her already precariously balanced emotional stability cartwheeled out of control. She twisted her hands out of his and attacked the buttons on his vest intent on making sure he wasn't lying to her about Raw fixing him.
He grabbed her hands again after she only managed three buttons. "What are you doing?"
She looked at him as if he were totally insane. "Making sure your arm isn't going to fall off! Why didn't you tell me you were hurt? What is wrong with you?"
He was taken aback by the intensity of her outburst. "Relax, DG. I've been shot before and I didn't have a viewer with me to patch me up afterward either. My shoulder'll be fine in a few days."
"That makes me feel so much better!" She got free from him again and went for the top buttons of the black shirt her mother had found for him. He tried to grab her again and she reared her head back and leveled the most annoyed look at him she could muster. He blinked at her in surprise. "I'm looking at your shoulder. If you try to stop me again I swear I will get Toto to teach me to turn you into a toad. We clear, Tin Man?" If he thought he was going to just walk away hurt he was out of his tin plated mind.
His lip twitched at her but he dropped his hands to the side. "Very clear, Princess." Growling low in her throat at the fact that he found this humorous she worked another few buttons free and gently peeled the dark fabric away from his injury. If he hadn't told her he'd been shot yesterday she wouldn't have known. The bullet hole was closed over but was bright pink and puffy. She bet it was sore and she'd accidentally hit it dead on. What he really needed was some ice for it.
She sighed knowing that wasn't going to happen. Even if she could find some it would probably be melted by the time she got back. She frowned thinking. Then her eyebrow twitched up. Az and her mother had been able to call things to them at will why couldn't she? She leaned back in his lap slightly and opened her hands palms upward focusing on her inner light the way Toto had told her to. He said she had to want it badly enough.
Cain was watching her with interest but she ignored him putting every ounce of willpower she had into calling what she wanted to her. She felt her magic stir in answer to her silent plea and her light flared brightly in her open hands. When it faded a white handkerchief lay over her hands covered in snow. She felt Cain go still beneath her as she folded the material around the white powder and placed it over his shoulder.
Once it was secure she glanced up at him. He was watching her with the oddest expression on his face. She shrugged. "It'll help with the swelling."
"How did you do that, DG?" He asked softly his eyes searching hers.
She couldn't understand why he wanted to know. He'd seen her mother and Az do this trick in the last twelve hours. Frowning she answered. "Toto said if I wanted something badly enough I could use my light to call it to me. Does it feel better?"
He grunted leaning his head back against the stone behind him. "Much." He was working something out again; she could see it in his eyes. Then he changed the subject entirely. "We're going to be moving to Finaqua tomorrow. You ready to get out of this Tower?"
"Finaqua? What about Glitch's brain?"
The Tin Man glanced down at the handkerchief she had pressed to his shoulder. "You need to talk to your mother about that. Think you want to put it back in his head badly enough?"
He had to be joking.
Author Note: You guys are being awesome about the reviews! Seriously, I'm flattered and impressed. Thank you!