I love when things come together.

PS: you know.. there is a bit of Cain/DG fluff that gets nearly 9 more reviews a chapter than i do.

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Some men came eventually and took the body away. DeeDee had never felt so empty in her whole life. She was losing people, one by one. Her mother, Cain, Glitch, Raw, and now the Mystic Man. In her old life she might have given in to the thoughts of self slaughter that tried to crowd into her mind. That was when she only had herself and her mother to worry about. If she fell, all was lost for the O.Z.. She took a deep breath and pulled herself together. After she had found the Emerald of the Eclipse and stopped Azkadellia she could allow these maudlin ideas to overcome her. Now, the whole world was depending on her.

She Looked out of her cell and could see, diagonally across from her door the crank which opened the doors. She stared at it for a moment. She had seen movies where people used bed sheets to make a rope and used the rope to operate the door mechanisms to escape. This information was just shy of useless, as there was no bed in the cell, thus, no sheets. She only had her shirt and pants, even with the ruby slippers she didn't think she could reach the crank. She looked down at her hand, the symbol plain as a scar now. It had opened the door to the ice palace. Maybe…

She held up the hand, facing the crank and closed her eyes. She concentrated on moving the crank. She visualized the crank moving and the cell door opening. She saw herself stepping out of the cell. She saw the crank move… saw it move… fucking move!

She gave up with a sigh of frustration. That was when she saw the rat. It was rather large, about the size of a 20oz soda bottle. Christ, what do they feed these things? It was sniffling around the corridor, apparently looking for something to eat. She glanced around her cell, looking for something left over from the previous occupant. Jackpot! On the floor, off to the side, was a shallow platter of what had once been food. It was now crusted and moldy, but hey, rats aren't very picky. She took a pinch of the yuck in the bowl and flicked it towards the rat, who eagerly gobbled it up.

Maybe she wasn't the kind of princess who could sing woodland critters into doing her chores, but she was the kind who could think on her feet. She flicked another bit of food closer to the crank. The rat followed. It turned to look at her. She smiled. Smart little shit, she thought with adoration. She flicked the offering up onto the crank's mounting. The rat looked at her a moment before scurrying towards it.

"Gotta work for your meal," she told it. It scampered up the pipes lining the wall and onto the mounting. She tossed the last bit onto one of the crank handles. Working perfectly to plan, the rat went for the food, but its weight was too much and the crank turned, opening the cell door. Except that it was the door to the Mystic Man's cell and not her own. "Shit!"

She turned to get more food, when a shrill barking startled her. A small terrier ran down the corridor and chased her rat away. "Hey! Goddammit!" The dog barked at her and wagged it's tail. It resembled Benji, from those old movies. "Yes, very cute. How am I gonna get out of here now?"

Talking to a dog. She was losing it, she thought. But the thing seemed to understand her and actually hopped up onto the crank mounting. As she watched, it barked to her excitedly, and then turned the mechanism with its paw. Her cell door slip upward. I love animals in the O.Z..

"Thanks!" she called to it before darting off down the corridor. It barked shrilly after her. She turned and it barked again, walking a few steps away, then barked again. So, it wanted her to follow it. What, girl? Timmy fell in the well? She shook her head. "I have to find my friend first."

She ran down the prison corridors, which seemed to be set up like spokes on a wheel. She did not dare call Raw's name for fear a guard would hear her. She knew she had little time before someone discovered she was missing, but she could not leave him here.

"DeeDee!" she heard from the cell she had just passed.

"Raw!" she hissed back, so happy to see him alive and unharmed. He reached through the cell door and she squeezed his hand reassuringly. "I'm gonna get you out of here," she promised. There was an identical crank mechanism not far away. She rushed to it and turned it. The wrong cell door opened. "I suck at this," she berated herself, closing that door and trying again. This time Raw's cell opened. The dog barked at them and, hands joined, the two followed it down the corridor.

They managed to make it out of the prison area unseen. From there they entered a labyrinth of halls. They all looked the same and DeeDee would have become very lost very quickly if not for the small guide leading them. The last hall opened out into what looked like a vast boiler room. She decided this must be where the water and heat to the whole tower must be controlled. The dog urged them forward between the enormous tanks hissing and spewing steam. Suddenly, Benji came to a halt, growling. Up ahead, she could see the shadows of two people approaching through the steam.

"Long Coats!" Raw warned quietly, pulling her off to the side of the walkway, between two of the boilers. A rack of tools hung on the wall behind them and he took a large wrench from it, pushing her to stand behind him. The footsteps of the Long Coats grew closer. DeeDee held her breath as they passed. Raw lashed out and caught the one nearest them in the back of the skull with the wrench and he went down with a grunt. The other turned on them, ready to attack.

"Oh! That could bust a zipper!" the fallen Long Coat whined in pain.

"Glitch?" Raw said, looking down at him.

She barely heard this, because she had looked at his compatriot and just then her whole world focused on what, at that moment, were the most beautiful blue eyes she had ever seen.

"Hey, there, Princess," the other Long Coat said to her in a wonderfully familiar voice.

"Cain!" she heard herself squeal. She threw herself into the man, wrapping her arms around him tightly. "You're alive!" she breathed as if to reassure herself it was true. It was, she could feel his heart beating, even through the leather trench coat he wore. He held her close for a moment, then cleared his throat, pushing her gently away.

"Just barely," came a jovial laugh beside her. "Furry lips here really packs a punch."

She turned and pulled the jester close, breathing in his scent, which she had feared lost forever. He patted her back with one hand and chuckled. He rubbed the back of his head with the other hand.

"Missed you, too," he told her. She released him reluctantly. There would be more time for this later.

"How do we get out of here?" she asked.

"Well we can't go out the way we came in," Cain said, gesturing down the way DeeDee and Raw had been headed, and Glitch and himself had just come.

"Why?" she asked. Before he could answer, Benji barked impatiently and ran off in a new direction. She hurried after him. "This way!"

The dog led them down a set of stairs and into another boiler room. Cain, who had taken the lead, pulled everyone to a halt. More of Azkadellia's creepy scientist were working in this room, looking over various dials and gauges. It was at that moment DeeDee realized Cain was wearing his hat, which he had not been when the first found each other. Where the Hell did that come from? He peered at the scientists from behind a boiler. Glitch hurried across the isle and did the same from the other side. Raw ran up behind Cain just as an alarm started to sound within the tower. DeeDee's escape had finally been noticed.

Cain did not look pleased. But the alarm drew the creepy scientists away, clearing their path. The dog scampered forward and Dee followed. Cain tried to grab her as she passed, but he missed. The other followed in her wake. The dog led her into a row of boilers and what looked like turbines. It was a difficult path which required them to climb over the huge connecting cylinders between. At the end, Benji stopped and turned back to bark at her.

"Which way?" she asked. The dog only barked again. "I don't speak dog! Which way!"

"You're taking directions from a dog," Cain said in flat disbelief behind her. She turned to snap at him, but realized he might be right.

"Which way boy?" Glitch asked, coaxingly. "Left?" He pointed one way and then the other. "Or left?"

The dog barked and disappeared beneath a row of pipes. A shout came from far behind them.

"Long Coats!" Raw warned. The dog barked again, from up above this time, and Dee saw that he was standing inside a large piece of open machinery.

"I think he wants us to go in there," she said. Or he's laughing at me for trusting my life to a terrier I just met.

"I think we'd better," Cain said, pushing her forward. "Hurry."

They climbed into the opening, which fed into a huge, pipe. It was pitch black so they had to feel along the wall. She tripped and Cain, who had been behind her, fall onto her. Glitch and Raw blindly helped them to their feet. She could not hear the Long Coats in pursuit and hoped they did not follow them into this inky blackness. After far too long in the dark to suit her tastes, she could see light up ahead. The ground suddenly dropped away beneath her in a high angled slide and she dropped down. Cain caught her arm, just barely. They all made their way down the pipe and out into the light of day. Twin suns never looked so good, she decided.

They raced away from the tower and into the woods beyond. They did not stop running until the alarm had faded out, far behind them.