400 years ago

"They've called you back haven't they?"

Root nodded, scrunching up the paper with his reinstatement written on it, dropping it to the ground.

"They could have waited longer.  They couldn't know if you're mentally and emotionally fit for duty."

"They need me.  The situation in the city is terrible, not to mention what's happening Outside.  They need all the officers they can get.  Some of the top field fairies have been pulled to train up the new recruits – everyone knows we need them – and so there isn't many left to take up the slack.  Commander Gum can't get me any more time."  He looked down at the floor and then back up to meet his wife's eyes.  "I'm sorry, Maple."

"Not sorry enough.  I can't imagine why you're defending them like this.  They're forcing you back to work in a situation which is completely out of control when Sally only died a month ago.  Don't they know what that's like for you?  What it's like for us?"

"Red Gum knows.  His son died in combat two years ago.  There's nothing he can do for us, the Council have already given me much more time than they should have, if only because Sally was so young."

"But Julius!  How can you let them do this to you?  You don't have to go back.  They can get Simon to take your place, or Briar or someone!"

"Simon can't work in the field ever again.  His leg is too mutilated from a Mud Man bullet for it to be healed.  He'll have a limp for the rest of his life.  He's even retired from the LEP.  He can't stand having a desk job, he needs to be out there in action."

"That's what you're doing as well.  You can't stand being coped up in this little house with me any longer.  You can't stand mourning our daughter any longer.  Being out in dangerous situations is better than remembering your daughter, is it?"

"Maple, there's nothing I can do—"

"You didn't answer the question.  You prefer being out in the field than here where you should be!  I never would have thought Julius Root to be so disrespectful about the death of your own daughter.  Especially since if it weren't for you she would still be alive.  You should care more about her than that.  How can you thrive the chase of petty criminals more than you wish to have our Sally back?  How can you?"

"Yes, I do need to be out there.  No, I can't stand sitting here any more, I need to be doing something.  But yes, I would do anything to have our daughter back."

"Then stay.  Refuse to return to work.  Stay here with me.   Remember her.  Please, Julius, please…"

"Staying here won't bring her back."

"But it will help you."

"Being myself will help me, Maple."

"And so you're only yourself when you're out on patrol, risking death and danger.  Risking my loss if something was to happen to you.  That's you, is it?  Captain Root is who you are.  Then who did I marry?  Is there even a person called Julius underneath all those guns and ugly green uniform?  Where's my husband if the only person you are is the one who leads charges against criminals?"

She paused in her speech before backing away from him till she was in the door leading to their bedroom.

"I used to think that the Police were there to protect us, to keep us safe.  But now I know that it the police who take over our lives and hearts and give nothing in return that we should be guarding ourselves against."

Her voice faltered then became strong again.

"I wish you had never even existed Julius."

And she turned, tears streaming down her face, and walked quickly into their room, shutting the door behind her with the softest of noises.

Julius sank down onto the floor with his head on his knees.  He liked to imagine he could hear sobs through the door but he didn't move because of them.

Later, he hauled himself to his feet and pulled on his LEP uniform.

As he was walking out the door a tear tracked its way down his cheek but he quickly brushed it away.  By the time he got to Police Plaza there was no trace of his grief for the family he had just lost all over again.

Now

Simon's eyes moved from the floor to the yellowing back of the picture, to the face of his old Captain where his eyes could only linger for a second or two before feeling the guilt and pain of the ages.

"I'm the Tin Man, aren't I?  I'm so cold and heartless I can't even get my wife to love me.  The fairy without a heart, that's me."

            "Sir, no you aren't."

            "Why do you still call me 'sir'?  I'm not your Captain and I haven't been in a long time.  Am I so dispassionate that not even friends will call me by my name?"

            "I call you 'sir', Julius, only because you deserve it.  You are a remarkable person, a remarkable officer and a good man.  You deserve the respect of being called sir.  I don't know of anyone else who deserves that honourific more than you do.  No one else could match up to what you've done over the years, how courageous you've been through everything.  Including your family situations."

            "There's a very thin line between acting from courage and acting from fear.  I don't think there's a line at all; they're the same.  Acts that you consider courageous may have been a coward's act from the inside perspective."

            "I understand that, or at least I think I do…  But you've never been the Tin Man."

            "Who am I then?  Am I Dorothy looking for a home where she belongs?  Am I the Scarecrow who doesn't have two braincells to rub together?  Am I the Lion who hides from the sight of his own tail?"

            "You're all of them.  You are Dorothy when she thinks that she doesn't belong anywhere – when she does.  You are the Scarecrow when he realises that he has to trust his intuition, training and instincts it be the best he can be – that's how he's smarter than any brain-surgeon.  You are the Lion when he understands that an act of courage is doing something for the greater good – even if they may been seen by others as a cowardly thing to do; when he has enough courage to do the hard things which no one will like or respect him for."

            Root swallowed and looked down at his feet.

            "Look at me, Julius.  Look at my eyes, know that I'm not lying."

            He reluctantly raised his head to meet the eyes of his friend.

            "And you are the Tin Man.  You have love and passion and vitality, even if you don't know it.  And even if it's hidden away like something to be ashamed of."

            Simon's gaze bore holes in this friend's safety nets willing him to fall and open up; and knowing that if he didn't, Simon himself would have to give in.

            "You're still in love with Maple."

            Julius closed his eyes for a second, and then opened them again.  They were bright, shining, slightly glazed with tears. 

            He nodded.

            "Yes, I still love Maple.

The moment broke but it came back with Root's next words.

"Why under Earth do we have to live so long?"

            Simon looked up once again to his face.  The picture had been placed down reverently on the desk and now Root's eyes were bright with pain.

            "We fairies live too long.  The lives of the Mud Men are shorter... but sweeter.  They know that they have a specific amount of time and that time nips them on the heels and makes them live life quickly and fully.  We are too lazy.  We spend time contemplating when we could be doing things.  We act like those on a holiday when the end looks so far away; laying about, putting things off for another day when it's not so windy or we've finished that book.  We do that.  We put things off for so, so long - too long sometimes.  Most of the time it takes so long that whatever the act was is now no longer relevant and we convince ourselves that it wasn't worth it in the first place."

            Root sighed and picked up the picture once more, flipping it over to trace the lines of the picture with his forefinger.

            "Yet everything is worth something however long it takes for you to end up doing it.  Everything has a worth - even something as small and tiny as a ribbon or a nail.  The ribbon could be the favourite of a little girl and the nail could be all that is holding a roof together for one more night.

"I spent too long putting things off because I felt I had all the time in this world and the next.  And now I just keep thinking... what if?  What if I'd been better to Maple after Sal... left us?  What if when she went off I'd followed her?  What if we hadn't put off having children so that Sally wasn't our first?  If we'd had another child to hold us together…  What D'Arvit if?!"

            He breathed in.

            "I hate it sometimes.  Our lives.  How long they are.  It so long to sit with regrets and despair and knowledge of a lack of change.  We fairies are too closeted because of our lives and their length.  We think we are immortal and have all the time from now till the world's end to do the things we want to do.  We don't.  We don't have enough time to do anything properly.  Our lives are so spaced out that we never really try our hardest because there is always another day and another try.  We don't always have another try.  There isn't always another day for some.  There mightn't be another day for me."

            Simon looked up from the patterns on the floor.

            What was Root thinking?