He was a giant
When I was just a kid.
I was always trying
To do everything he did.

- Zac Brown Band.

I.

"What do you mean we still can't leave?.!" Annie Hughes's voice resounded, even above the noise of the other townspeople who were just starting their complaints. "I've been waiting to hear back from city hall for weeks! I have a son, a mortgage."

"There's no mention of a son on your list, Ma'am." The unhelpful clerk stated.

"WHAT?"

"Hold on, hold on." Dean, in his unusual business attire, twisted around her. "Did she fill out the right forms?" His eyes quickly skimmed along. "Can she resubmit all of it?"

"Of course," he was suddenly helpful and pulled out a new stack of papers.

"Thank you."

Annie and he immediately went to work. There was so much clamor and the clerk was already looking at a book, but the two drowned it out in their focus; there was no use in arguing or trying to run away. They both knew refiling was their best bet.

"OK... Hogarth. Hughes. Age... 9."

The woman choked a bit as she filled out her half quietly and he spoke his aloud:

"Hair color... red."

" 'Red?!' No, Dean, he has brown hair."

"Really?" His olive-toned brow crinkled. "I thought it was a dark shade of red."

"Of course not. Johnny had brown hair."

He appreciated her unnecessary tact in only saying the man's name.

"Annie," Dean smiled, "It's got a red-orange tint to it... like, dark copper."

"Dark copper?"

He nodded sagely.

"Please," she rolled her eyes and went to fill it out. "Medium auburn...Oh! That's a bad answer. No, no," Annie scribbled it out. "Medium brown sounds much better."

"It sounds like the last time you filled this out. Why not get a little descriptive?"

Annie exhaled testily. "I can be descriptive when I have to be..." She continued on.

Dean leaned down to examine her work. "So for eyes...?" He was confident. "Green."

" 'Green?!' " She looked at him in disbelief. "Honey, it's blue. Uh, they're blue."

"You're sure?" He took her chin gently and looked into her own.

"Positive," she freed his hold on her. "He has Johnny's eyes."

Dean chuckled. "That would be more descriptive."

Annie couldn't help but chuckle too. "Sentimental, even."

He saw her smile and it made him smile, too. Dean crossed his arms as he watched her jotting down studiously. "What would you think about...a coal-black haired child?"

"Oh, Dean." She said. For some reason, redheaded stepchild came to mind.

The man stroked his goatee thoughtfully. "With... grey-brown eyes?"

"I'll have to meet this child of yours when we get out of here." She glared up.

The clerk had left and full-suited guards had been employed to quiet things down.

Neither Annie or Dean noticed.

The man scratched at his stubble-free neck; Clean cut clearly wasn't doing it.

"A daughter?" He asked now, straightforward.

She paused and sighed softly, "I think he'd like a brother," Annie signed her name.

Dean caught his neck on the other side, looking away. "He already has a brother."

The woman shoved her new complaint under the glass divider stridently and turned on her heel to stride off. He didn't try to stop her until she strode out of the office... in fact, Dean pulled the paper back, signed his own name beside hers, and then he waited by the door for her as she remembered he had driven her. She turned in a sheepish manner, rubbing at her head and pulling her hair free of the pins holding it up. He rubbed at his head, too, and then came over to take her comely hands in his.

"Annie," Dean touched her chin and she looked up.

"You wanna promise me a spot in Hollywood?" She grinned.

He looked at her meaningfully and didn't catch her hair even as it flew against her forehead. "Annie, I promise you I'll do whatever it takes to help you find Hogarth."

"I know," she looked away in embarrassment.

"But it's not for your benefit."

Annie met his eyes in surprise.

"Or mine. It's for his." Dean emphasized.

She felt her brows rise and she touched his hand.

"Together." She said with purpose.

"For however long it takes."

Their foreheads nearly touched.

"Three weeks, eight years, whatever." He grinned impishly. "Together."

Together...

Dean blinked in the mute light of an overcast late morning. He looked down at the red-brown head laying against the back of the seat. Annie breathed slowly, deeply, and he remembered her. The man remembered their past together... both pasts. It wasn't hazy, nor were they dreamlike. At one time, Annie and he were happily wed.

He closed his tired eyes and stroked his gnarly beard. His gut poked out, unseemly.

God, she deserved so much better.

Something landed against shoulder and Dean was surprised to find her nestled on his large arm. He lifted a grizzled brow and leaned his cheek down to hide a strand or two of gray hair. Annie murmured something under her breath that stopped him.

His lips were an inch from the crown of her head.

"Annie?"

She didn't open her eyes.

"What was our daughter's name?"

Dean thought a moment... then rested his cheek on her head and closed his eyes.

"Julie," he said softly in her ear.

She smiled, the twang in his voice making it melodic, and clutched his arm close.

"It was my mother's name."

II.

He was a lion
We were our father's pride.
But I was defiant
When he made me walk the line.

Kent couldn't believe what he'd witnessed. The kitten robot had inserted herself in front of the Android Marketer as it'd turned to attack him; no doubt on commands from Dimelo. She had tried brute force, scaling up to it's size. Until, realizing that it was futile to try and overpower it, the kitbot had changed into a robotic sabretooth tiger, running up it's huge arms and legs until it twisted up and fell. It attacked it's own body savagely and Kent watched in horror as it finally ripped it's own face off.

He turned to her as she returned to her kitten form and romped up to him.

The man pressed his lips together as the octomaton landed with a seismic rumble.

"Get me out of here... and I'll help you find Hogarth."

She blinked.

"And you'll leave him alone?"

Kent looked her straight in the eyes. "I promise."

...

The townspeople wandered with rapt expressions up at the rain-drenched forest. Branches heavy with water weighed down as they pushed past what, to all of the former woodsmens' trained eyes, was untouched forest. The kind cat bot had taken them to an area where one of the more "informed" citizens was told were the docks.

"All right!" Ronald Winston griped, arms crossed over his chest. "I was ill-informed!"

They traveled in a long line, bushwhacking through the undergrowth with the elderly towards the middle. There were no sick among them, one of the few advantages in a city of more then one-hundred thousand. The advancements in medicine and surgery available to them (even a cure for polo!'!'!) would be severely missed. However, food and water were their first priorities at the moment. One of the trailblazers looked up.

"Bill, you thinkin' water might be ahead?"

The former elk hunter noticed the scurrying squirrels. "Might just be the storm."

"Look," Mack, a seasoned mountain man from the Adirondacks, pointed up ahead.

To the average citizen broken foliage meant nothing, but the three men knew better.

"C'mon!" Larry, one of Rockwell and Ashmore's local fishermen, led the way.

Out of the one-hundred thousand exodus, only 10-thousand had been forced to stay behind; they were all Maine citizens from various towns. The people hadn't had time to worry over this fact. Now, more men and their sons trekked down further into the slightly disturbed brush, easily clearing their way through weed-dotted kudzu before emerging out into what could've been the wild west as the pioneers had once seen it.

Their attention immediately turned to the source of the broken foliage...

A young, though ungodly huge deer with antlers like birch trees walked up to them.

Even next to the robot, this curious undulate was such a shock to them.

Ted Stillwell, a boy of seventeen, grinned and reached out to touch it.

His grandfather jerked him back.

Bill and Mack exchanged looks. Some of the other men were grinning at each other, rubbing their barely calloused hands together. But the youngest men were all unsure of what to do. Craig Stillwell, seventy-years-old and abhorrent of the computers he'd had no choice but to learn back in the city, stalked forward and broke a sturdy branch off of an ancient oak. He looked down at it and then up at the startled fauna. With a determined look, the man pulled out his old hunting knife and deftly whittled a point.

"Eight damn years in that city... we're from Maine, right?" He turned to the men.

"Yeah," They chorused, but in varying degrees of excitement.

"We're fishermen, aren't we?" Craig tried again.

"Yeah!" They were more enthused.

"HUNTERS, ain't we?!"

"YEAH!" Their fists and voices spiked the silence and the deer bounded off quickly.

Some of the teenaged boys watched this uncertainly.

"I don't know about you, boys, but this is a new start! Chance to live off the land..."

"Wait!" His grandson interceded as his grandfather turned to pursue the animal.

"What you waitin' for, boy?" He broke off another branch and handed it to the lanky teen. "You didn't want to become a guardsmen at the compound and that's great! I never been more proud. But it's time you and Art returned to your roots... M'right?!"

The hoots and "Yeah's" declared it so.

"Granddad..."

"Don't question me, boy." His grandfather's eyes were dark under the smoky sky. "It's after your dad passed away, I took you and your brother in, correct?" Tim nodded now.

"Right. Art, get over here."

Arthur joined them reluctantly, eyes averted.

"I know I never got around to teaching you boys," He griped his stick close. "But your dad would want this," he placed it in his other grandson's hand, grinning, "Look at it this way, boys... you get a new start!" Craig held out his hand to the vast, virgin Eden.

"It's beautiful," Tim murmured.

Others quietly agreed from behind him.

"Gonna be more beautiful when we till the earth and put up homes." Larry nodded, his hands on his hips. He and even more men eyed the lands and herds turning their way.

Timothy Alan Stillwell looked at his hand, closed his fingers slowly, then looked back up.

"No." He said.

"Come again?"

"No, Granddad. I mean, look at this place." The boy held out his hand. "It's perfect!"

"Exactly!"

"Granddad, I don't know. It just doesn't feel right."

His grandfather's leer was unflinching. "I didn't ask you if it made you feel right."

The tension grew, but the brothers stood together.

"Come on, boy! Show'em how it's done." Lucas turned to his son.

"Pa," Burt hesitated. His old man pounded a fist into one hand.

"Tim's right," He came over and, though they weren't friends, he came to his side.

"Seriously, Dad." Ryan argued too, only Johnny didn't budge. "Look at this place."

"How can you see this and wanna tear it up?" Tim inquired of his stern grandparent.

"You gotta—"

"Now hold on, Luke." Jim Faggin interrupted his friend. "Son, why don't you want to?"

"We could just fish instead," Ryan tried persuading. "We can live off fish."

Most people who heard this and were not particularly fond of returning to a diet of river salmon and sea cod made faces. More of the teens slowly joined them...and more and more parents either got louder or grew quieter. While Aruther and Jim flanked Tim and Burt, their elders were growing redder. A doe of the same huge deer nibbled on Ryan.

He chuckled. Tim and Burt laughed out loud and the animal wheeled away.

Craig pulled a branch off and snapped it in half:

"Tree-huggin', son-of-bitches!" He shrieked. "Your dad ruined you! Didn't raise no—"

"Mary, talk to your son!"

"Lucas, your blood pressure."

"Bambi lovin' PUSSIES."

"Maria," Luke said more dangerously.

She glared at him, then turned to Burt.

"Mom..." He wilted.

"Listen to your father." She turned helpless at his pleading. "What choice do we have?"

"It doesn't have to be this way, Ma'am! Come on. We can do better then..."

"Where's this coming from?!" Lucas demanded.

Tim pressed his lips together.

Craig zeroed in. "Oh, don't even tell me."

"He saved our lives," Aruther defended his brother now. Timothy looked up in surprise.

"He's why we're here." Lucas interrupted. "In this God forsaken Lost World!

Movies had been imported here and there.

"Hey now!" Craig turned to him. "Tim's right about that last part at least."

They were all arguing now but by that time almost all of the younger men, women and a decent portion of Rockwell and even some of the other towns had joined them. Every person who joined them was one more tree hugger who didn't know what the hunters, fisherman and laborers did for them. Every person against them was one more willing to keep this part of the island safe. Eventually, as more questioned them, Larry and a few of the resigned fishermen led them to where a river ran. Craig didn't leave though.

"Granddad?" Tim asked.

He stared off into the distance.

"This is the future of our families; kids who can't provide what their own kids want."

The teenager furrowed his brow. "You can't deny what he did for us."

But the man hadn't.

His grandfather hung his head. "Or for yourselves." He past him without a glance.

No. Timothy thought. We'll provide what they need.

And he could never forget what it was like to watch betrayal...

What he had been told about the robot, the enemy, was a lie. The Iron Giant had once saved him and his brother. Then, he'd been attacked for nothing. This was why he had stood up to Granddad today. This was why he had put their futures at risk...to protect this beautiful place. And maybe, if the Giant saw this, he'd know man was not all bad.

...

"I can't do it," Kent said from the bushes on the hill crest they landed on.

"Yes you can." Pygmy encouraged.

He bowed his head. "You don't understand..."

"Why?"

"I'll be killed. *That's* why." The man shouted down at her.

A few large hares bounded away and he clasped his mouth.

Kent had managed to keep his screams to a minimum as she came back to check on everyone. They hadn't seemed to find what they were looking for, but Kent had asked her not to go to them... or leave him. She was trying to convince him to try it himself.

To go and help others.

"Even if I did, there's nothing I can do."

"But you promised," she blinked her yellow eyes up at her.

"I know I did."

"You-,"

"I lied." He snapped at her. "That's all I ever do! I lie." Unexpectedly, be broke down into tears. "I can't help you...I can't help these people. Christ, I can't even help myself now."

She watched as he pulled himself to his feet and looking down pityingly at her.

"I know I promised you... I," He saw her blink at him. "I had to say something to get you to help me. I mean... I would if I could, but I can't. Dimelo is in control and The Reapers... they control everything else." Kent was truly sorry. "Do you understand?"

Pygmy nodded.

He adjusted his tie.

"Goodbye, little cat robot."

She flicked her tail. "Goodbye, Kent."

The man turned away and headed into the forest. Where he went, she'd never now.

III.

Now I'm a giant
Got a son of my own
He's always trying
To go everywhere I go.

Though they were curious, the large animals parted way to let the Giant pass.

"It's like Noah's Arc," Hogarth chuckled atop his shoulder, pleasuring in the height and the motion of the moment. "If we had a giant, wooden boat... or, ya know, girlfriends."

Taylor. Gold. Memories passed in procession, but the Giant had another interest.

"Arc?"

Hogarth met his white eyes. "From the Bible," he tried something, "Stars, remember?"

" 'Stars?' " The Giant scratched his undented head.

"Yeah..." His mind became slightly unhinged as his heart throbbed a bit. "They're like..."

Should Hogarth even try?

He noticed his head and sadly accepted he could have lost it from a number of things...

Like being shocked.

"It's okay, Giant, you- WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING!" Hogarth threw his hands out to *stop* him as what looked like a giant armadillo waddled past them without a glance up.

The Giant paused before dropping his foot, gasping.

"Set it down... slowly," Hogarth said, stricken, as more animals kept their distance.

They managed to find a better route then and survey the lands as they went.

Watching the trees out in the distance, the clouds pass overhead, there was no sense of urgency. Even the strange armadillo creature hurrying away didn't stop them from enjoying one another. Hogarth smiled over as the Giant gazed out at a group of birds circling in the distance. He enjoyed watching the Giant's freedom, even if he couldn't remember their past together. A past that didn't exist now. Hogarth felt his gut twist.

The Giant let some air out of his mandible and looked up at him as if in reaction...

To his friend's anxiety.

He saw something on Hogarth's face that made him tilt his head.

"I saw Dean again," the boy distracted him quickly.

But the Giant didn't seem to have any heavy thoughts, just curiosity.

"Dean," he said with interest.

"Yeah..." Hogarth grinned away.

"Hogarth?"

"He's fat," the boy looked up at him, remembering his own condition in 2000 ironically.

" 'Fat?' "

Hogarth chuckled. "You know, like poooo!" He pretended to jettison his own gut out.

The Giant only wondered at this and Hogarth was amazed that he could transition with two memories in parallel. While he remembered something in 2000, along with whatever he felt or thought at the moment, he could choose what he felt or thought about it now.

It was like watching a movie and it's sequel at once.

"Hey!" The sixteen-and-a-half-year old grinned. "You wanna run? See if we can reach the other side of the island?" It was the Giant's look at 'run' that made him try again. "No, buddy! For fun. Just...run." he giggled as he turned nine-years-old. "Run, Giant, RUN!"

His best friend, still half-confused, clasped him on the shoulder and hurtled forward.

...

The Giant didn't think as he ran, he saw the trees coming fast and mimicked a deer. It was actually... fun! Hogarth hugged himself to his neck and held on as they darted in and out of the trees, jumping into the shadows cast down by the sun. They fleetingly were in one place, then another. The Giant found it hard to think Hogarth had anything to keep from him... when he heard him laugh like this. He turned his metal face so that he was closer to him and then he leaped out of the forest onto a craggy crest. Feeling so much freedom, the Giant gawked down at Hogarth. The robot was so exhilarated that he was speechless, even if he knew so few words to say. His buddy was exactly the same...

So red in the face he couldn't laugh... or move. Hogarth finally remembered to breathe.

The Giant was excited as held out his finger to him and helped him up...

The sight below them was one they never expected.

To be continued...