I own no one but my own people

A/N Just letting you know it's based off the 1939 movie, but it will have several book references in it. Not a lot but some. Enjoy :-)

"You know you really didn't have to help," Dorothy protested for what felt like the hundredth time that night as Frank stood diligently beside her helping her do the evening dishes while her family and the farm hands worked diligently outside on the wagon that had broken it's wheel.

Frank shook his head as he reached over and grabbed a plate and washed the suds from it before drying it. "If it means I have an excuse to see you for another hour then I'll wash every dish in this farm house ten times over."

A blush crept to the surface of her skin and Frank grinned at her timid smile. "That's… that's very kind of you. Thank you."

Frank chuckled as he permitted himself to lean over and give her a chaste kiss on the cheek before he turned back to the dishes.

Dorothy sighed contently as she washed out the large cook pot full of chicken and dumplings made from scratch. Frank looked over at her while a sly grin grew on his lips. Dorothy caught it out of the corner of her eye and turned to him, her brow raised in confusion. "What's wrong?"

"Oh nothing," he answered with a shrug, discreetly scooping some of the foamy suds into his hand. "It's just…"

"Just what?"

"It's just I thought you could use a bit of cleaning yourself."

Her lips parted in confusion before Frank flicked the suds at her with a beaming grin on his face. She let out a cry of shock as she wiped the soap from her dress. Dorothy struggled to hold the look that told him she wasn't amused but her grin quickly gave her away.

"Well thank you for that," she told him as she wiped the remaining bubbles from her dress. "Only there's one little problem."

"Which would be…?

"You need cleaning up yourself!" Dorothy told him as she scooped up a hand full of suds and tossed it at his face.

He sputtered and blindly picked up another fistful of suds and threw it at her, met with her shriek of amusement and another face full of soap. Frank laughed as he dodged her ammo and took a massive sized handful and turned towards her, a wickedly sly grin on his face.

Dorothy slowly began to back away as he approached her. "Frank, don't," she told him, unable to keep the smile off her face. "I'm serious."

"So am I," he said with a grin.

She took another step back when she stepped into a puddle of soapy water that had gotten spilled on the floor during their bubble riots.

Dorothy let out a cry of surprise as she began to fall backwards only to be caught at the last second by Frank.

"I gotcha," he told her as he held her tight in his arms, his voice a soft almost whisper. "I promise I won't let you fall."

Dorothy wrapped her arms around his neck as the young couple stared deep into each other's eyes. As she did, she couldn't help as flashes of another man with brilliant blue eyes entered her mind's eye…

"Dorothy?" Frank asked his voice soft and low.

"Yeah?" she answered, struggling to rid her memories of the straw man, desperately telling herself it was all a dream. That it wasn't good to hold onto the things you could never have. That she shouldn't be wasting her time thinking about the beautifully painted man when the real love of her life was standing here in front of her.

Frank took a deep breath as he swallowed hard. "I… I need to tell you something."

"What is it?"

Frank licked his suddenly dry lips as he looked deep into her eyes.

"Dorothy… I lo-."

A scream louder than they had ever heard before erupted from outside followed by the sounds of all four men shouting and hollering in fright.

Frank straightened her out before the two sprinted outside to see what the commotion was.

"Auntie Em!" Dorothy cried as she and Frank made their way to the back of her house where they had heard the scream.

When the pair reached the back of the house they both stopped dead as they took on the scene in front of them.

Auntie Em had fainted and Uncle Henry was holding her in his arms and fanning her while the three farm hands looked on in shock at what was standing in front of them.

"What IS that?" Frank asked in awe as he approached what looked like a large pile of scrap metal while Dorothy could only stand there, her eyes wide open, her mouth half open as she looked upon the man she hadn't seen in years and who she thought only existed in her dreams.

"It popped out of nowhere!" Zeke cried as he cowered behind the wagon. Saw Emily scream and faint, he began crying that he didn't mean to hurt her and stopped moving!"

"It's a communist weapon!" Hickory shouted desperately to anyone that would listen. "That's what they are! Cruel evil dictators with no hearts creating them to spy on us! You mark my words, these machines are gonna be used for spying all over this country!"

"Oh have a little bit of brains, Hick!" Hunk snapped as he too found his eyes unwilling to tear from the thing that had literally popped out of nowhere. "Even they aren't that smart to design a machine that'll pop out of nowhere! No it's… it's something else."

Dorothy finally came out of her daze as she shook her head. She slowly approached it and reached a shaking hand up to touch his face when Frank grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her back.

"Don't touch it Dorothy," he warned as he stood in front of her. "You don't know what it is. Could be a bomb for all we know."

Dorothy shook her head still unable to form words as she walked past him and up towards the statue. "No it's… it's something else. Something I saw in my dreams a long time ago," she mumbled out loud to herself. "But he can't be real. It was all a dream. Him, Lion, The Witch, Glinda… Scarecrow," she muttered the last name as if even speaking his name brought pain to her. "They were all parts of a dream…"

She reached up and gently stroked his tin face, as if assuring herself what she was seeing was nothing more than a vivid dream.

Dorothy swallowed hard when she stroked his cheek, her fingers running over every bolt and joint on his face. She took a deep breath and reached for the oil can that he held in his hands and quickly squirted him several times in the jaw joints and the lips with the black liquid.

He moved his lip and jaw and gasped as his eyes fell on Auntie Em.

"Is she okay?" he asked, ignoring the gasps of the frightened mortal men all around him. "I didn't mean to frighten her, honest!"

As his familiar voice reached her ears, his desperate plea that tried to convince them he hadn't hurt the elderly woman on purpose, Dorothy was sent into a whirlwind of familiar memories of the adventures she had gone through to get back to a home she wanted to leave the moment she got back.

But what was the most vivid was his beautifully painted face, his kind voice, his soft warm comforting body, his brilliantly blue eyes, the way he had pushed Dorothy back when the Witch had confronted them with the burning broomstick and held on tight to her, the way his hand grasped hers in her moment of fright, and how the gloved hand had fit perfectly in hers. Almost as if it had been built just to hold hers…

Dorothy had to use every bit of her might to push away the memories of him and instead focus her attention on the man in front of her.

"Tin… Tin Man?" she gasped softly. "Is it… how are you here?"

Tin Man turned towards her and his eyes lit up with joy. "Dorothy!" he cried out gleefully. "Oh I'm so happy to see you! I didn't mean to frighten her!"

Her mind could barley wrap around what was happening to her. She had told herself over and over it was nothing more than a dream yet here he was, talking to her in the same tone.

Dorothy opened her mouth to assure herself it was a dream when Frank stood boldly in front of her. "Who are you?" he asked, his voice more wondering then intimidating. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm the Tin Man," he introduced, "and I'm here to tell Dorothy we need her help."

Dorothy shook her head. This had to be a dream, she was sure of it now. "No. Thi- this is a dream. You're not here, just like last time."

Tin Man furrowed his brow in confusion. "A dream? What are you mean?"

"None of this is real, none of it WAS real. It was all a dream."

The Tin Man looked positively hurt. "How can you say that? After all we did together, after you and Scarecrow," she flinched as the name she had struggled not to remember was spoken out loud first time in years. Tin Man had noticed the flinching movement. "After you both saved me, after we rescued you, after you destroyed the Wicked Witch and saved all of Oz? How can you say what we did together was a dream?"

"Destroyed a Witch?" Frank repeated out loud. "Wha… Dorothy what is he talking about?" he demanded, his voice completely flabbergasted.

But the girl barely heard him. She shook her head once more. "No, it was all a dream! I… I know it was!"

Tin Man looked like he was going to cry once more. Realizing it must be incredibly uncomfortable to be able to talk but not move any other part of your body, but still telling herself what she was seeing was nothing more than her minds imagination, Dorothy quickly began to oil the rest of his tin body.

"Dorothy, what are you doing?" Hickory asked as he eyed the Tin Man wearily. "That thing is a communist invention that-."

"Communist?" Tin Man inquired as he rolled his neck. "What's a communist?"

"It's un-American is what it is!"

"What's American?"

Hickory's eyes widened as he took several steps back, his hand clutching his heart. "What… what ARE you?"

"That's what I'd like to know and- Dorothy, stop oiling it!" Frank protested as she finished the last of his oiling.

Dorothy put the oil can down and turned back towards Tim Man who was looking at her with desperate pity. "Please, Dorothy, you HAVE to believe it was real! Oz needs your help! He needs your help!"

"No," she protested. "No it was all a wonderful, fanciful dream, nothing more! None of it was real! Oz wasn't real, Glinda wasn't real, Lion wasn't real and… and he wasn't real either!"

"Please, Dorothy," Tin Man pleaded, "Oz and the Scarecrow is in trouble! The Witch came back and she and her forces are taking over Oz!"

Her mind whirled with the words that he spoke to her. No. No it couldn't be real. It just couldn't be…

"No. No it's not real!"

"Yes it is, Dorothy!" Tin Man interrupted. "She targeted the Emerald City first and managed to overrun it and now she has the Scarecrow hostage ad he's in trouble! If you and me don't get back to Oz in three days she's going to kill him then come here and kill you!"

"Hang on; someone's threatening to kill her?" Frank demanded before he turned to Dorothy. "Dorothy, tell me what's going on, please!"

But she paid no attention to his words or anyone spoke. The world before her spun out of control. The dull colors of the land swirled together to form a whirlwind of colors before her. She felt her legs give out and she collapsed onto the dry prairie ground. She heard several people cry out her name but she paid no mind to them as her eyes fluttered shut and she fell unconscious, her last coherent thought being 'Not him.'

…

"We need to take out Gilikin Country first," one of the Witch's head Winkies explained to her. "If we do that they'll be too busy saving themselves to care about Munchkin Country."

"No, you fool!" The Witch cried loudly. "Glinda has made it impossible for me to fight there! Ever since she defeated Mombi she cast a spell so one in that country is allowed to have magic but her! That's why I need the ruby slippers before I take that area! I must draw her to me!"

"But, my Lady-."

"We take Munchkin land first!" The Witch snarled. "That way when Glinda comes to try to save those pathetic fools, I'll be able to use my own powers against her ad defeat her once and for all!"

"But-."

With a wave of her hand the Winkie was thrown backwards, crashing into a brilliantly green wall and slinking down to the floor. He didn't get back up.

The Witch got up from her chair and paced nervously. It had been almost a half day since she had sent that bee hive after that cursed brat. Surly she would sacrifice herself for her friends. She didn't have the brains to save herself!

"You'll never take over Oz," came a somewhat frightened voice from behind her. The Witch snapped around and narrowed her eyes at Scarecrow who was hanging on a pole that was up his back, several places in his clothing ripped open and pieces of hay sticking out several places it shouldn't have been sticking out. "You may have Emerald City, but Glinda won't let you take over anything else!"

The Witch cackled as she walked over to him. "Glinda's power can't compare to my own and once I have those ruby slippers my powers will be the greatest in Oz! No one will be able to defeat me! Not even that ugly brat you love so much!" She spat out the word 'love' like it left a horrible taste in her mouth.

"Don't talk about her like that!" Scarecrow shouted and The Witch swirled her hand a ball of flames appeared in it.

His blue eyes widened and he tried to scamper up the pole as much as he could, prevented by the nail in his back holding him there. "Help help fire fire!" he cried loudly, praying to Ozma that someone would hear his cries and come rescue him.

The Witch let out a cruel malicious cackle once more as she extinguished the flame she held in her green hand. "You are nothing but a pile of clothes and hay, Scarecrow," she taunted. "Nothing more! Even as pathetic as the little brat is, she will never love you back!"

Scarecrow narrowed his eyes at her as she cackled once more and turned on her heel and walked out of the throne room that she had made into her command center.

He waited until she had left before he sighed and bowed his head. "You're wrong," he muttered so softly he could hardly hear himself. "She DOES love me. Oh, Dorothy, where are you…?"

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