New chapter number two.

Thank you to all you wonderful reviewers especially Queen Isabella who left a lovely, long review that I probably don't deserve.

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"I'm sorry for scaring you earlier," Cain said sitting down beside her in the common room. During dinner, he hadn't said a word to her, and now he was being genial. Damn man. She narrowed her eyes at him. Though they were practicing decent subtlety, she had a feeling they'd decided to take shifts with her because she hadn't been left alone except to relieve herself since they'd been assigned to her, and Nathan's exit had been followed by Cain's arrival half a second later. Casual and unassuming of course. "You were talking about Christina?" he prompted.

She wasn't used to him starting a conversation, so she let go of her resentment long enough to answer, "Yeah." That'd show him, nice and eloquent.

"She was a nice girl if a little skittish, but she adored her brother."

She turned to him, "You saved her."

He shrugged, "My grandfather always said that a woman might be able to pummel ten men without a hair falling out of place, but that didn't mean you were supposed to leave her alone to do it."

"A wise man. Did this grandfather of yours have a lot of these sayings?" she asked raising an eyebrow.

A faint smile appeared on Cain's face, "Yeah, he had an answer for everything. He said tin men needed them."

"Wow," she said in a monotone, "he was a tin man? That's a shock."

"Is this sarcasm of yours a common illness where you come from or are you its only victim?" He'd said it with a strait face.

This would have earned a scathing retort if not for the fact that her brain couldn't quite process the fact that he'd teased her. Wyatt Cain. Conversation starter. Wyatt Cain. Teaser. Wyatt Cain + conversation + teasing remarks = Not Wyatt Cain.

The time in the suit really had changed him. Losing his family had changed him, and she'd been responsible for both. "You okay?" he asked reaching out to touch her when she didn't respond.

She jerked back and cleared her throat, "So you're, you're getting married. Have you got your children's names picked out?"

He looked at her strangely for a moment then shook himself back to normalcy. "Adora says I always plan ten steps ahead, but choosing names already is extreme even for me." His lips quirked slightly.

"So that's a yes?"

He gave her a mock glare, "Nothing's been decided, but if we have a boy, I'd like to name him Jeb after my grandfather."

"Ah," she stated in the manner of a wise man, "I see. Jebdiah Cain. Moralist. Tin man. Beating up bullies by the age of two. Carrying on the great Cain family tradition."

"Your mocking tone is not appreciated," he said but smiled a little as he did. She liked how easily he smiled here. "So your family was the epitome of normal then?"

She snorted, "Yeah, my sister's mentally-scarred for life, and my parents foisted me off onto a pair of robots to raise."

"I'm sorry," he said and reached out again to touch her. She still pulled away, but this time it was gentle. Why the hell did he keep trying to comfort her?

"So am I, but then I ought to be since it's my fault."

"I don't believe that's true," he replied sincerely.

"Thanks," she mumbled and got up, "but here's a lesson in life Tin Man: retroactive apologies aren't worth crap."

"Gail," he said getting up behind her. This time when he reached out, he didn't let her pull away. However, when she finally turned to face him, the look on his face wasn't of sympathy or concern but of panic, and it was focused on his hand. She turned her head and saw why. His hand was inside her shoulder trying to close on empty air.

She felt it then, a feeling like her body was being pulled in two separate directions at once, but rather than being painful, it was only disorienting. Around her a roar of sound erupted. It was as if she was under water, and people were shouting at her from above the surface. She could see Cain's lips moving in a shout as his head turned to the door, and she was dimly aware that Nathan and Rhys had joined them.

Then the world slid, but Cain was still there except now he was the Cain she knew, older but still looking at her in helpless terror. Glitch and Raw were beside him, and Az and her mother were in either corner of her peripheral vision. She thought they might be calling her name.

Pain sliced through her, and she was staring again at the younger Cain and his companions who were desperately trying to grab her. The image kept shifting back and forth, again and again, from one Cain to another until her head swam in the rocking blur, and then she was in a dark room staring face to face with Zero and a little girl who seemed oddly familiar. Zero snarled while the little girl's eyes widened in shock as her body spasmed in pain

With a final jerk, DG felt her knees knock against the floor of the common room where she and the three tin men were staying, and the pain she felt now was the grip of their hands on her arms tight enough to leave bruises.