AN: Next chapter up! Later, Gators!

Chapter Five: Day the Third

Cain woke to the crackling smell of something wonderful. His nose twitched as he breathed the scent in deeply and sighed his satisfaction. For a brief moment, he was reminded of his wife; how she would wake him with the smell of breakfast, dressed and ready for the day. He wondered sometimes how she had done it – getting up so early, taking care of their home, making the meals, watching over Jeb. She had been a regular miracle.

The moment passed, and his heart stung as the memory of her death came over him suddenly. He swallowed hard before opening his eyes, raising the hat on his face back onto his head and blinking as the morning light filtered through the trees.

Ambrose was hunched near the fire, watching something intently. He jumped when Cain cleared his throat.

"Morning, Ambrose," the tin man said with a nod and a smirk.

"Good morning, Cain," the inventor returned with a strained politeness. "It's good to see you up, finally. I would have thought you'd be awake by now, hunting down the wildlife of the forest."

"Well," Cain sighed, stretching with a wince as his back popped, "I didn't get much sleep last night."

"Really?" Ambrose asked, eyebrows furrowed. "I slept wonderfully." He hummed an absent tune while he poked something hanging over the fire with a stick but stopped abruptly and frowned. "I mean, I think I did . . . It's all very vague." He looked thoughtful for a moment longer before shrugging. "Either way, I feel very refreshed this morning."

Cain stood and glanced over the man's shoulder. "Whatcha got going there?"

The adviser craned his neck to look up at the tin man, smiling as he said, "Rabbits."

"Thought you didn't like rabbits."

"I don't," Ambrose stated, turning back towards the fire. "These are for you."

Cain's eyebrows rose high on his head. "Me?"

"Yes." Ambrose pulled the two cooked rabbits from the fire and held them out to the man. "You."

Cain took the stick that the rabbits were tied to and looked at them skeptically. "You know how to catch rabbits?"

"I'm a quick study." The inventor crossed his arms indignantly, daring the man to say anything. "Now eat before it gets cold."

Cain sighed, taking a hesitant bite. It was surprisingly good. Almost better than he himself could cook. "Hmm," he commented, taking another bite. "You sure you don't want any?"

"I've already had breakfast, thank you," Ambrose said with a satisfied smile, turning and beginning to break camp. The tin man eyed the fruit cores lying in a pile beside the fire and grunted, continuing to eat his own breakfast.

Cooking rabbits was just another thing that he would have to add to the endless questions surrounding the mysterious man known as Ambrose.

0 o 0 o 0

"There's a river not too far from here," Cain noted conversationally as the two hiked up a rather steep hill. Ambrose was still feeling rather well, a smile adorning his face every so often when the tin man looked back at him, and he was keeping up much better today. "It'd be a great place to take a break, maybe wash up a bit."

The inventor brightened at the idea. "Oh, that would be nice." His smile reminded Cain of Glitch for a moment – that wide grin that would curve up towards his high cheekbones, the crinkles of skin that would appear in the corners of his eyes.

Ambrose was certainly not Glitch, but Cain was slowly warming up to the man.

"It's just a little more than a quarter of a mile. It shouldn't be long now," he explained. And true to his word, little less than fifteen minutes later, Ambrose could hear the gurgling sounds of rushing water. He grinned widely when he and Cain finally stood on the bank, their boots squishing in the soft, wet sand.

"Well," the tin man said with a smirk, "last one in's a rotten egg." He removed his hat and started to unbutton his vest and shirt. Ambrose's smile waned somewhat as the other man began to shuck his clothing and hang it on a few nearby branches.

Cain's back was riddled with scars – befitting of a tin man with his experience – and Ambrose swallowed, forcing himself to turn away as he began to remove his own clothing, starting with his vest. Cain had a reason for his scars. He'd earned them, each one marking his bravery and valor. Ambrose's scars, however, conveyed his cowardice, his betrayal to the queen and the O.Z. He hadn't showed them to anyone except Raw, who had attempted to heal them. Unfortunately, the scars had been etched far too deeply and with far too much dark magic. Not even the queen herself, if she was returned to her full power, could rid his body of them.

And they ached – oh, they ached – even after fifteen years.

The inventor held his breath as he slowly let his shirt slip over his shoulders and down the length of his skinny but well-muscled arms, catching the garment as it slithered to his fingers. The scars seemed to sizzle against the chill coming from the river, and Ambrose hunched his shoulders, hissing in pain.

Cain turned, his fingers undoing his belt when he noticed the angry welts glaring at him from the adviser's back. "Ambrose?" He took a step towards him, and the man turned around, eyebrows raised in feigned question.

"Where did you get those?"

The inventor begged Cain with his eyes to leave the matter alone, but the tin man stared at him expectantly.

"The witch," he said breathlessly, crossing his arms defensively. "She tried . . . several other tactics of extracting the information from me before she took my brain."

Cain slowly and cautiously stepped around the man, coming to a stop behind him and furrowing his brows at the red marks. "These don't look fifteen years old," he pointed out, studying them carefully. "They barely look a couple hours old at most but . . ." He trailed off, and Ambrose tilted his head so that he could see the other man out of the corner of his eye.

"Dark magic is a scary thing, Cain," he whispered, stepping away from the man and removing his pants before heading towards the river in nothing more than a tight-fitting pair of gray shorts.

When he got close enough for the water to lap at his toes, he turned, a bright smile on his face. "Hey, Cain!" He called, taking a step back into the water. "Looks like you're the rotten egg!"

0 o 0 o 0

Cain tried not to stare as they dressed again. The swim had been relaxing. They'd raced a couple of times, swimming from one bank to the other. It had been a tie both times, but Cain wondered if Ambrose had been holding back any . . .

He noticed he was still watching Ambrose dress and quickly turned away, sucking in a breath and hurriedly pulling on his own clothes, though he couldn't dismiss the fact that the inventor winced when he pulled on his shirt.

"You can ask, you know," Ambrose said quietly. Cain turned towards him, and the inventor met his gaze soberly.

"Ask what?"

"If they still hurt."

The tin man clenched his jaw, looking down towards his bare feet. "Do they?" He questioned softly after a long pause. He looked up warily, finding a small, sad smile on the other man's lips.

"Sometimes," Ambrose replied, fixing the collar of his shirt. "I don't really think about them much anymore. Not even when I'm around Azkadellia."

Cain nodded, wanting to end the conversation but not knowing how. "Have you asked her to try and remove them?"

"No," the adviser said firmly, his lips tightening into thin lines. "No, I couldn't ask her to undo what the witch did."

"Why not?" Cain asked, his eyebrows knitting in confusion.

Ambrose absently rolled back the cuffs of his shirt, staring at his smooth, pale wrists – the only scars that Raw had been able to remove, and the ones that Ambrose had been glad to see gone. "Because I see the looks she gives me. She's tormented by the fact that she had to sit in her own mind and watch what was done to me by her own hands."

"All the more reason to let her do it," the tin man argued, pulling his coat on and looking around for his hat.

"All the more reason to make her believe I don't need fixing," Ambrose countered, rolling his sleeves up to his elbows and tucking his shirt in. "You think having her remove the scars would ease her conscience?"

"Why wouldn't it?"

"Because it would only serve as a reminder. And what if her magic isn't strong enough to remove them? How will she feel then?"

"Then why not ask her and DG to do it together? They're pretty powerful when they combine their magic." Cain could not see the point in arguing. He knew Ambrose would have an answer for every point he made, and he knew that it was only because the inventor had thought this through very carefully. But still, he wanted to know.

Ambrose shook his head. "Az will not want her sister to know what the witch did to me."

"But DG knows it was the witch, not Azkadellia."

"Of course she does," the inventor smiled. "But Azkadellia only has the memories of doing it herself. It may have been the witch that performed the Dark magic, but it was through Azkadellia that she performed it."

"You blame Azkadellia?" Cain asked accusingly, his hands resting on his hips as he stared hard at the other man.

"Not at all," Ambrose said matter-of-factly. "The point is she blames herself, and until she can learn to forgive herself just as everyone else has, I cannot ask her to help me."

The tin man sighed. The adviser's logic was confusing and seemed to make sense only to him, but Cain was far too occupied with their current crisis to be dealing with another.

"Have you tried asking Raw?"

Ambrose ran a thumb over his right wrist, a far away look taking his eyes. "Raw has done his part," he replied quietly. "His healing powers are not strong enough to counteract the Dark magic."

"So . . . You've just given up?" Cain demanded, crossing his arms and frowning.

The inventor looked up into his icy blue eyes with a forced smirk. "I've learned to live with it."

"Doesn't seem to be much of a difference," the tin man commented, turning and scanning the area for their next direction. "I think we can follow the river for a while, maybe make camp along it later. I wouldn't mind some fish for dinner."

Ambrose nodded, rolling his aching shoulders. The swim had done him some good, but he was definitely going to pay for it soon enough. "All right."

The two began their arduous journey up the river bank, the suns beating down on them from above.

AN: See you later!