A/N: This is basically a whole new story arc for the last portion of my story, hope you enjoy. By story arc I mean things really begin for pick up with Hogarth and the Giant. A lot of this chapter focuses on a single relationship for important reasons. Get cued in. ;)

I.

Washington D.C., December 12th 1964…

The outside was dimmed as nightfall spread across the courtyards of the temporary cells that contained inmates ready for transportation; a retired army general garbed in his best business suit walked down the hallways escorted by a prison guard, going by a room for interrogation and down to a long room where meetings with inmates were conducted.

Mr. Shannon Hines Rogard had been presented with the option of a private meeting being held in the more constricting of the two, but he had chosen to bypass it and had arranged a less formal meeting with a former federal agent. The back room came alight beyond a panel of glass as he made his way toward a plain oak chair and sat down facing a weary man.

"It's been a while since we've spoken one-on-one, Mansley."

"So it has." He was dressed in shoulder-to-toe tangerine, his once bright reddish-orange hair had grey coloration seeping through the roots and in the shadows from the halls he appeared older then his early forties. "I heard you sent the kid a bolt." Kent mentioned.

"One of several actually." Rogard added in a civil voice, crossing his arms. "But we both know about that." Neither man said anything about Kent's admittance and betrayal of the communist Dimelo; they both knew he would never receive any badge of honor. Finally after a long period of silence, Kent allowed his azure eyes to travel up and meet Hines's.

"And we both also know there's a real reason you sent that screw, sir. What is it?"

Rogard's eyes held no remorse in them for Kent's earlier redeeming actions. "I know you won't tell me anything I'd want to know, your egos been inflated and deflated too much."

Being trained to see through lies, Kent saw right through the retired general's facade. "I have come to terms with myself, General. And yes, the real reason I helped convict that murderer was to clear my own name. I may be selfish, but I'm not ashamed to admit it."

"We have an understanding then." Satisfied, the seventy-one-year-old man took his leave.

"You forgot to answer my question, sir. Why is it that you sent the boy that screw? Why you may hold a large quantity of sympathy for Mr. Hughes, I have a feeling that you sent him that screw not just out of commoration and pity." The controlled tone of Kent worth Arnold Mansley's voice hovered with anticipation. "I am just dying to know the secret."

The general turned with a figurative look at the man. "Mansley, my sympathetic qualities for Hogarth and what's left of his family overrides any desire to obtain information from you. Classified or otherwise." He left with a clear conscious and mind with one thought.

Nuclear transmutation. Hines answered to himself in his mind, daring not to utter a word.

His former underling lowered his head in supposed defeat and abjection.

The elder of the two departed.

"Transforming robots, eh?" Kent mused to himself, tapping on a dime-sized ear piece.

Mansley looked up at the retreating figure of his former commander and smiled slyly, he had been ready to make amends but the general's lack of concern for that only solidified the man's resolve. With Dimelo out of the way Mansley had sweet revenge all to himself.

"Mansley!" The warden called from the doorway. "Meal time. And guess what, it's going to be a grueling experience today as always." His raucous guffawing made Kent cringe as he stood up miserably. "This has not been my best day." He sighed roughly, trudging on.

Just as Kent was ready to enter the hall, he pulled out his pocket watch and the photo of a brown-eyed, golden-blonde haired young woman made heartache bunch up inside of him. "Lurlaine." He whispered, they were in the same city and she hadn't wanted to see Kent.

The real reason he had admitted anything to the judge was because he knew what that darned beatnik was going through. Mansley wasn't a killer, but he was resigned to fate.

If he could go back in time, he would change things. But the extremist couldn't be halted.

Kent knew that Hogarth and the Iron Giant were the only ones who could stop Sergey.

But why should he stop what was already well underway? It was too late for him.

The brink of dawn, December 13th 2201…

II.

Night and mist gradually churned back in preparation for a clear and spectacularly sunny day; the opportunity for love and a future beckoned the horizon of everyone's inner stars.

"Giant!" Hogarth called out to his friend. The two robotic entities looked over their way. "Way ta go, buddy! Don't fight the love…" he was immediately swept exasperatingly up into Taylor's hug. The Giant chuckled a little to himself and turned back to see his Gold.

She was inching away into the receding shadows, rendered suddenly self-conscious of the fact that only part of her was there. "It was good to see you again Giant, I leave for now."

Folding his shutters inward with incredulity, the Giant snapped his enormous fingers onto the droid's arm and pulled her back toward him. "Wait." He said gently, but hindered the golden robot from leaving. "You don't have to run off. They could fix you here, Golden."

She closed an eye and shook her wire and circuit exposed head. "No, Giant. They could never repair wounds that are unseen. Please release me." He complied but his mandible gave a little tremble as she slid off along the building. "Do not pursue me now, all right?"

"You can't just leave." The Giant tried again to beckon her. "Where will you go?"

"That is for me to know."

"Gold…"

"Giant." She turned to look him in his eyes, straining a final message. "You committed a life to Hogarth and I will not jeopardize such a bond." He shook his head at her notions.

"You have it all wrong. There's plenty of room for…" She inched away. "Don't make me pick and choose, Gold." The Giant said, turning offended. "I have too much to lose here."

"Precisely, my dear robot. I will not add more."

"Will I see you around… or ever again?"

"I'm always around, Man of Steel." Gold attempted a laugh; her voice had warmed to a sophisticated, womanly dialect. She straddled the side two steps. "Good morning, Giant."

With that, she teleported away.

"I don't believe it," Hogarth said with a disbelieving scoff. "That has got to be a record-breaking break up. She led him on and dumped him in four minutes flat." He turned to a concerned Taylor as she said. "I should probably go and talk to him about love and loss."

"Whoa-whoa-whoa." Hogarth caught her arm as she made a move toward him. "Taylor, you may have spent more time with the Giant but no one knows him like I do." She gave him a curious look as he folded his arms and continued rather boastfully. "The Giant may seem like he has more software then hardware, but when it comes time to give up all he love and cherishes the Giant knows how to man it up..." he flashed a doubting Taylor his widest, daring grin. "Iron hard. Right Giant!?" Hogarth swung two firm fists into the air.

"Mmm…" The '50-foot-robot moaned in dejection as he trudged past the two, his entire upper body nearly dragging him down in the weight of his low spirits and dashed hopes.

"Ah come on, pal." Hogarth skated forward. "There're others out there in the frozen sea."

"Oh, nice going Hogarth." Taylor muttered before swatting his arm. "He's heart-broken."

The memory of his first major break up resurfaced. "Yeah, like a kid with a crush who got crushed. Like me and Abigail Winters in seventh grade." Hogarth squeezed her arm reassuringly. "You should go talk to him. I've got to get inside and get ready to change."

Taylor faced him with an admiring look. "I love how much you care."

He was a little surprised at her more free-spirited sexiness. "Well," Hogarth shrugged his fuzz-covered brows twice. "I love how you love how I care so much." She and he leaned inward to engage in a final passionate kiss when in unison they were stopped by the Giant gazing over at them wistfully. Taylor and Hogarth exchanged unsure looks at what to do.

"She probably just needs time." The young woman said kindly.

He only appeared more depressed.

"Hey, Giant. Check out this cool ice-skating move." Hogarth grabbed Taylor by the hand, whipped her around in near-perfect tango spins, went under her legs like a limbo pole.

"Hogarth!" She nearly exploded on him.

They turned at the Giant's heavy sigh at their attempts to cheer him up. "It's all right, you two. Don't let me spoil your time together." He waved for them to continue on and went on his way down to where the iced ocean opened up. Hogarth looked after him dubiously.

"Yeah, my best pal's in gloomsville and I'm going to enjoy myself. Right."

Taylor hugged him and skated out to follow the Giant. Looking down, Hogarth saw that he needed some work done as the sun splayed out over the once unthawed ice and made the decision that it was time for a change. He was going to have a lot of responsibilities in his near future, and one of them was saving the world, which meant he had precious time.

"Better get some fun in while I can." Hogarth said, becoming upbeat as he trotted over to the sidelines in a relaxed state. Time would always pass him by, but he would not let life.

The Giant used a large pointed rod to scrawl rather poorly drawn whales crashing out of the clear ocean water, their rubbery flippers arched out of the cerulean splendor in a way of greeting fellow whales. They were large and very social giants of the Denmark Strait.

He felt around inside the space of his shoulder, the yellow orb Hogarth gave him jostled.

Taylor had a time sliding in and out of the Giant's large foot prints; she uneasily noticed that droid operators were working on decommissioned droids over a ways. The girl made it over a more solid body of iced snow, rose to her feet and brushed the white powder off.

"What're you drawing?" She asked him casually.

"Taylor." The Giant looked over his ironclad shoulder at her.

"It's just little, old-yipes!" In a split-second, Taylor inadvertently found a weak spot and sunk right into the snow. Crabbedly, she folded her arms and leaned against the enclosed embankment created by her plunge. "It seems like I'm always getting in over my head…"

A large shadow loomed overhead and the Giant's affably amused white eyes zeroed in on the stranded girl. "Then it must be nice to have someone over your head to help you out."

Taylor smiled and backed away a bit as he gently prodded a finger down to her level. The grey digit stayed there long enough for Taylor to grab it before she was lifted out clinging on to it, and up to meet the Giant's face just about thirty feet high. "Hi." He accosted her.

"Hey." She greeted back, accustomed to being suspended up at such heights.

"Just hanging around?" The Giant inquired breezily, his shutters arched top-to-bottom.

"Just hanging around." Taylor reiterated. When he brought his left hand down for her to rest her feet upon, she merely clung on. Concerned she misunderstood, the Giant ushered Taylor down with an inward finger wave. "I'm trying out some feministic rights, thanks."

The Giant cocked his head at that before straightening up a bit and going into one of rare, mischievous moods. He rotated his thumb into his palm and gave a small poke under her underarm. Taylor suppressed a laugh and immediately clutched at it, resolved to hold on.

He shifted his head to the right a little and brought his thumb back to its normal position, she shrieked his name out in a burst of laughter when he poked under her other underarm.

Taylor glared at him only semi-seriously. "That's not funny!"

"I'm not the one laughing…" He chuckled softly.

The Giant then tried for her sides with his left fingers, Taylor gritted her teeth in a forced smile and then clutched at both her sides. On a roll, he moved on to the backs of her legs.

"What if your children saw us!?" she gave the hand a swat. "Giant, come on, stop that…"

"Oh, all right."

She eased up as he moved his arm back to the ground, but was caught off guard to see his hand was detached and lying on its back on his knee cap. It gently plucked off sole-studded shoe as easily as if it were a grape; she exploded with laughter when the grey-tipped index finger tickled her foot and in those moments Taylor forgot her troubles.

The Giant re-attached his wrist to his arm and made sure she landed safely in his palm, he held out her temperature-resistant, white slipper shoe on his finger tip for her. "All right?"

Taylor nodded wordlessly and concentrated on putting it back on. "Just fine."

Unsatisfied by that, the Giant tapped her cheek and prompted her to look his way. "I'm sorry. I didn't go out of bounds, did I?" She smiled at this. "No, you were fine." Her light brown eyes moved down to her tie-die jumpsuit. "I'll need something more stretchable."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

When Taylor looked up she was right before his eyes. "We've told each other everything over these last few months, haven't we?" He nodded his Notre dome bell-sized head. "I just…" Taylor looked to the icy expanse. "… Didn't want you to lose your concept of love."

"Taylor." The Giant said patiently. She turned to him. "With you and Hogarth, I've seen what true love is." He turned musing as he looked out. "It's not something that's perfect."

"But there's nothing wrong with being a romantic." Taylor added, concerned about him.

The Giant didn't go into the Gold situation as he raised his hand up to his shoulder, and she slid onto it to gaze out with him. "So… you lived here for six years in snow and ice."

"That's right." He gave his plated chest a few proud clamps. "I was unofficially known as the robot-who-hid-in-the-glacier-and-ate-ships." The Giant lifted his lower shutters a bit at Taylor's somewhat stunned look. "Or, you know, a whale-hunting harpoon or more…"

She chuckled before pausing for thought. "It must've gotten rather lonesome for you."

A distant look entered his glowing eyes. "Sometimes." He didn't allow that part of him to show as he went on briskly. "But you learn a lot about yourself when you're on your own for so long. Like this spot is one of the greatest ones for whale watching. Of course, being

So icy they probably moved on." Taylor just kept quiet as he spoke on, wrapping her legs close to her chest and just enjoying his enthuse for the glacier he now owned. "Oh," The Giant pointed over at a funnel indention. "There's where the penguins use to slide down."

As he moved sideways, Taylor slipped off his wet metal. "Whoa!"

"Well, they didn't say 'whoa'. But they slid-." He suddenly became aware of her descent and caught her before she hit the snow back first. "Um, sorry," Was his sheepish apology.

"I'm all right." Taylor told him as he sat her down on an exposed rock. "But tell me, did you ever think about going back to… well, Rockwell. Back in our own century, I mean."

The Giant rubbed his chin before responding. "I did. But not right way. I decided that if I ever did try to go back, it could only be when I had a better understanding of myself and only if Hogarth needed me." He tapped the round screw that secured his gargantuan jaw.

"And then one day it went off…" Taylor coaxed.

"And I decided to return."

She smiled humorously in memory of their first encounter. "And then we met. You know Giant," her mood turned a little serious. "I can still feel Hogarth's holding things inside."

"Mmm… I think so too."

"But you know, when he opens up I have a feeling it'll be to the one he trusts the most."

"That's good. Who?"

Taylor looked at him incredulously.

He placed his hand to his chest. "Me?" As happy as the Giant was to have his best friend back, there was still that distance between him and Hogarth. "Well, maybe sometime…"

"Look at all this far out snow." She mentioned.

The Giant slid his fingers through the fine white particles beside Taylor, emerged with a handful of the stuff piled up and flicked a bit onto her. Taylor threw up her hands at this and retaliated by scooping some snow herself, but spilled it to the side at the last minute.

"That's not fair." She folded her arms. "You're four stories high."

Evening the odds, the Giant scooped up another handful and squished it around to pack it in. He gave her a considerate smile and held out a near-perfect snowball in the middle of his palm. Taylor took it reluctantly as he lowered to her level, closed his eyes and pointed at his cheek for her to hit it. She smiled at his cuteness and gave him a small peck instead.

The Giant opened his eyes in surprise and looked at her; Taylor chuckled at his look. He sat up straight and let his gaze roam around the carpet of sun-bathed ivory before spotting a couple up a ways away. "Hmm…" Taylor watched curiously as the Giant stood up, ran his fingers through his circular hip spaces to get snow out and took a few backward steps.

"What're you doing?"

"You'll see." He said simply. The Giant positioned himself, craned his neck around twice at ninety degree angles to see behind and then straightened his arms out like a giant letter T. There was a low, whistling whoosh! and the Giant plopped down on his back. A jostle of vibrations caused Taylor to have to cling onto the rock. "You're holding on, right…?"

"Yes." She said, shaking her head in amusement.

In delicate precision, the Giant fanned his flailed arms up to his hearing sensors and then back down in a clean arc to his sides. Taylor just hung on and enjoyed the ride as the path around the rock was cleared. He remained stationary before extending his hand out to her.

"Help me up?"

"Hey," Taylor cast an ear-to-ear grin down at him. "You got down on your own; you can get up on your own." He opened his shutters to glance up at as she climbed into the hand.

Readying himself sturdily, the Giant gave a deep grunt as he rose to his feet and swerved on his heel in a crouch to survey his creation. The impression in the snow would've been perfect had there not been his large hand print in the snow. "Nice job." Taylor concluded.

"You make one." He insisted to her.

"All right." She agreed. The Giant moved her down to where his chest area was at before helping her off. Inhaling in deeply, she yanked her hair from its bun and fell backward in a state of bliss as she executed a snow angel of her own. "Need a finger?" He offered her.

"Thanks," Taylor smiled and crawled back up into his palm to sit down and survey her own work. "Very nice job." The Giant complimented. She rubbed her arm a bit modestly.

"Yeah, but it isn't as big as yours."

"Well, no," He admitted in his baritone voice before pointing out. "But look, Taylor. See how yours is shaped. It's perfect!" The Giant's voice wavered in its tone. "Complete…"

Taylor looked up at him sincerely. "It only got that way because I had help." She said.

His offered smile wasn't convincing, so he sighed and rose to his full height. "Let's go back inside. I need to straighten some things out before this world-wide road trip happens."

But she only continued to examine him; Taylor's eyes traced the shape of his grey dome-head, the curve of his under bite, and the all-or-nothing determination that could appear out of nowhere in his eyes. She felt she was one of very few who saw beyond his wrought iron face.

"Is there something you want to ask me, Giant?"

He turned to give her a questioning look. "Ask you something?"

"You know," Taylor encouraged him. "Something that's on your mind about…well, us."

The Giant turned slightly embarrassed white eyes, but she kept his gaze unfalteringly. He took a moment to consider something and encompassed the petite girl in his hands. There was a forbidden sense to the friendship they shared, and they both knew it would deepen.

"If I wasn't…" The Giant started cautiously, not wanting to startle her with his question. "What I am. Or you weren't… what you are. Do you think… that we… you and I, um…"

"Could have fallen for each other." Taylor concluded tonelessly.

He nodded once. With a soft sigh, she rose to her feet and came up close to his enormous iron plate face. "Giant, out of everyone I've met along this crazy journey you're the one I've learned most from." Taylor smiled tenderly. "You're my friend, my brother and even sometimes a father. Before you and Hogarth, I never trusted men aside from my uncle…"

"…But..." The Giant insisted with a low, eager note.

"But, even if you were human I don't believe I would ever have fallen in love with you."

He looked away and seemed to be thinking to himself.

"I know that's not what you wanted to hear."

When the Giant looked at her there was a pleased expression. "Actually, it's exactly what I wanted to hear." He placed his finger tip atop Taylor's heart. "You and Hogarth belong together, Taylor. It's just something that I needed to know. I want you both to be happy."

Slowly, he pressed her up against his face and she sprawled out across his metal cheek in which surprisingly emitted a concentrated warmth inside. This was one of those times she forgot about their outward differences, only now the feeling was stronger. "I do love you though, Giant." Taylor said as he moved her out to face him, tears escaping her ecru eyes.

"I'll miss you." He told her.

She decided on her course in life at this moment: Motherhood.

The Giant knew for certain now what he would decide regarding his friends' fate.

From the enclosed area outside, Hogarth watched the two with a small smile on his face. He sensed someone coming up from the side. "So, Inx, how will this whole thing work?"

"It does not bother you to see that." The older man gestured outside.

"What?" Hogarth turned calm eyes on the green-suited guy. "That my girlfriend and my best friend are close…Not at all." Inx eyed him intently. "It is an odd sight, Mr. Hughes."

"I'm not the jealous type, Inx. I know the Giant would never take advantage of this whole love rectangle with Taylor." He eyed Inx just as intently. "You have feelings for her too."

"Very perceptive." With a mutual ground established between them both, Inx went over a handheld communicator. "All right then, Mr. Hughes. Since you've consented to a rather perilous choice of compensation, for the next twelve hours I've been assigned to be what you people in the 1960's might call a 'customs official." Hogarth thumped his shoulder.

"All right, Inx. But if we're going to become chummier with me you're going to have to loosen up, and start calling me by my real name." He let Inx led him inside, hands resting on his head. For the first time in a very long time, Hogarth felt like he could finally relax.

"Oh, that is right. You wish to be called Garth Hughes." Inx said quickly.

"No, try Hogarth." He flashed the man a ready smile. "Let's get on the ball, Mr. Inx."

Hogarth and the Giant caught sight of each other for a moment as Taylor went back toward another section of the facilities, the Giant gave him an odd look at the display that he and Taylor had just given but Hogarth merely placed his hands up to his temples and waved at him slightly. The Giant gave him a double wave as well and went along his way back inside.

This was the path in life that Hogarth chose; his bad boy image no longer had a place now.

To be continued…