Title: Ghost in the Machine

Author: Ameonna1

Rating: R, adult stuff

Pairings: Glitch/OC, Glitch/Wyatt, Glitch/OC/Ambrose, Glitch/OC/Wyatt/Ambrose, this is sooo not as complicated as it sounds.

Disclaimer: I don't own Tin Man, but I am glad for the inspiration.

Obligatory Author Drivel: Part one of two! Maybe, you know me. Right now were going for a two parter. Kseda is to be blamed for the original plot bunny that now lives in the hutch with the rest. Fail at life skills are to be blamed for it taking so long to post, and I’m pretty much to blame that I couldn’t pick a paring so this is ending up with a four way relationship.

In the end it was Azkadellia that found Glitch, curled up in the dusty muslin furniture covers with his knees pulled tight to his chest in the very highest bedroom of the house in Finaqua. The windows were still shuttered and there were clothes strewn about half heartedly along with wrappers that had once contained cookies or crackers.

The palace had been searching frantically for weeks. DG had gone to the Northern Palace while Cain went to check the Realm of the Unwanted, Raw and Tutor were scouring the countryside and Jeb, along with any spare Tin Man on the force, was knocking on every door in Central City.

But here he was. Sitting in the dark and Az bit her lip as she followed the trails he’d made through the dust, coming to the wall that he sat against. It was a moment of strangled silence before she decided that words weren’t welcome here, so she joined him. Her dark skirts pooled out across the rumples nest of sheets that he must have been sleeping in, catching the smallest slivers of sunslight that slipped between cracks and scattered murkily across the floor.

Glitch didn’t say a thing, simply staring ahead and frowning, Az followed his gaze to a mirror that leaned against the wall. It lay on its side and it was the only piece of furniture in the room that looked to be cleaned. Glitch had polished it until it shone, bright and clear, reflecting Glitch perfectly back at himself.

Az swallowed, looking from the mirror to Glitch, was this what he’d been doing for three weeks? Staring at his reflection while everyone worried themselves to death? What was wrong?

“It was like talking to a stranger.”

Glitch stopped talking when she turned to face him; it was only when she turned back to the reflection that he started speaking again.

“I thought, I thought that I’d recognize him, me as soon as I saw him. But I didn’t. It was cold and dark and strange. It wasn’t me at all. He was so afraid and it made me afraid too.”

“Glitch…” Azkadellia almost breathed his name, she had this unsubstantial fear that if she spoke to loudly he’d break, like cracks in the mirror.

“If I get him back, will it be him or me? Who are we? Who am I? One and one isn’t one. I thought it was but now… Now I’m scared and it ‘ill be counting down from one hundred all over again and…”

Az was shaking when he turned to finally look at her, his face pale and his eyes red and raw.

“Will you miss me when I’m gone?”

It was too much when the tumble of memory hit and Az threw her hands up to covered her face as she screamed,

“Glitch!”

A second passed or maybe it was longer and then her hands were being pulled away from her face and a very confused Glitch was looking at her.

“Are you alright, Azkadee? What happened?”

She blinked as he looked around and frowned as he dusted off his pants.

“Where are we? Az? Say something.”

“I… We’re… We’re in Finaqua.”

“Finaqua! Strange, you’d think we would have cleaned it up a little bit more…”

“Glitch… you...”

“Me what?”

His face fell as he reached out and brushed her hair back, “I did something, didn’t I? Did I glitch?”

Az nodded as he helped her to her feet.

“What kind of glitch? I didn’t say anything stupid in front of important people, did I?”

“You, we aren’t supposed to be in Finaqua… We’ve been looking for weeks…”

Glitch froze as he pulled his coat off the dusty shape of a chair.

“Did you say weeks?”

Az nodded, “You went missing after first solstice. Glitch, what happened?”

He stood there, silent for a moment, fingering the braiding on his new coat as his gaze went back to the mirror.

Slowly he shook his head, “I don’t remember.”

Azkadellia couldn’t let the silence go on this time, she held her hand out, “Come on, let’s go outside.”

His familiar smile was a pleasant reward but there was something behind it that Az couldn’t place.

What happened to Glitch, a month after the eclipse was referred to by a lot of names in the palace. The Queen called it ‘a vacation’, DG called it ‘The Epic Glitch’ and Az just referred to it as ‘an incident’. Perhaps Raw was the closest to actually knowing exactly what had happened but he wasn’t good with explanations or titles.

Cain didn’t call it anything at all.

In fact he went out of his way to not talk about it which was why he was staring blankly out the window trying to be anywhere but where he was, as DG and Az went on like hens about Glitch like he was a danger to himself or sick or something…

He’d just about had enough of it for good when he saw a golden speck making its merry way through the rosebushes outside in the garden.

“Who’s she?”

DG and Az fell silent as DG bustled to the window, “Who’s who? Oh. I don’t know. I’ve never seen her before.”

There was a glint as the woman turned a corner, a glint of gold and… silver.

Cain was down the hallway in a flash as DG called after him.

It was brilliant timing whoever she was. Cain went over the one way the garden was accessible from the outside and the three ways it was accessible from the palace. The only way she could have gotten in was for someone to have either, let her in, not been paying attention, or… she climbed a wall. Which seemed unlikely as you had to have been an idiot to pull something like that and why hadn’t any of his men noticed her? Even if she was supposed to be here he should have at least been notified…

“Miss? Excuse me, miss?” He called out when he came around the corner and found her bent over, smelling flowers.

Cain blinked, for a moment, oh yeah; she was definitely not supposed to be here.

She was clad in motley layers, a multicolored patchwork skirt made from an amazing array of mismatched fabrics. A large dirty coat that may have been a lighter color at one time covered her thin frame and fingerless gloves covered hands that were currently filled with what looked to be every dropped rose petal in the garden.

Her hair was blonde and went well past her waist, braided neatly into pigtails that were tied off with blue string that matched her eyes.

But Cain wasn’t looking at her hair; he was looking at the zipper that neatly bisected her scalp. She blinked at him and smiled prettily,

“Hello!”

“Uh, hi. Do you know where you are?”

A frown and then, “I’m almost certain it’s a garden. Oh! Am I in someone’s backyard again? Cause that happens to me sometimes…”

“Well, Miss…”

“Goldfinch!”

“Pardon?”

She rolled her eyes and took a step forward shoving all the petals into Cain’s hands and then yanked her coat and shirt off a narrow shoulder, where a rather small but intricate tattoo of a bird in flight sat right below her collar bone.

“Someone once told me it’s a goldfinch, so that’s what I go by. You can call me Goldie if you want.”

“Okay, Goldie,” Cain started again as she began to pick all the petals out of his cupped hands, flicking away the ones that had gotten bruised or smashed in the hurried exchange, “You’re currently in the royal gardens behind the palace in Central City.”

“Royal? So like the Queen lives here?”

“Yes.”

“Oh good, I need to talk to her. Is it after the eclipse?”

“Yes. Wait, you can’t just go up and talk to the Queen.”

Blue eyes blinked, “Why not? I’m supposed to go talk to her after the eclipse but not if it’s Azkadellia.”

Cain blinked for a moment, “Who told you that?”

A shrug and Cain frowned at her, rather fiercely until she frowned back and shoved all the petals back into his hands. Then she started to wriggle out of her clothes.

The petals scattered to the ground as Cain made to move forward before he had a naked woman standing in the Royal gardens. Instead he stopped short as her coat hit the ground, revealing creamy skin.

She was covered in words.

He blinked for a moment as his eyes traced letters tattooed in neat lines and patterns down her arms, disappearing into the lines of her blouse. They weren’t just words, they were instructions. People to talk to, things to stay away from, places to not go; everything a headcase should remember but never did. She held her left arm out and there from the crook of her elbow to her wrist were the lines,

After the eclipse, if the sun comes out and Azkadellia is gone, go to the palace. Tell them Ambrose sent you. If proof is needed look to the fifth pillar in the Northern palace. Speak to the Queen, make sure she sees you. .

“See? I guess that’s why I came in the first place but I kind of forgot when I saw the roses.”

“Ambrose sent you?”

“Yeah, do you know him?”

A strange low feeling dropped into the pit of Cain’s stomach as the possibilities started to surface. Ambrose sent her, and there on her right wrist was a very detailed royal crest along with some numbers Cain recognized as a personnel number, everyone who worked in the palace and got paid had one.

“Come on.”

She yelped as he grabbed her wrist, pulling her along into the palace with a trail of rose petals in their wake.

“Wait! My coat’s back there!”

“I’ll have it brought up.”

“You let go right now, I’ll scream!”

“You won’t scream.”

“I certainly will...”

They stopped, Goldie crashing into Cain’s back as DG rounded a corner with Az leagues behind her,

“What in the world Cain?”

“Where’s your mother and where’s Glitch?”

“Um, Mom’s having tea in the conservatory and I think Glitch is in his room… Wait! Who is she?”

Cain left DG in the hall, pulling the grumbling headcase down the hall and up a flight of stairs until he came to the conservatory door where he politely knocked, giving Goldie the look to stay quiet. She frowned and crossed her arms over her chest when her wrist was released but didn’t make any other move.

“Come in.”

Cain pushed open the door shooing Goldie in as he started,

“I’m sorry to interrupt your tea, your majesty, but I found…”

“Leona?”

The room fell into silence as Queen Lavender stood, her hand coming up to cover her mouth. Ahamo also had a look of surprise but his was mixed with a growing grin.

The headcase that called herself Goldie smiled a bit uneasily and took a step back,

“Uh, sure?”

She had shuffled back until she collided against Cain and then looked up at him with a look of quiet desperation.

“Its fine, no one’s going to hurt you.”

“Right, then does someone wanna tell me what’s going on?”

“That’s the Queen, you know, the person you came to talk to.”

“I didn’t know what I was supposed to talk about! That isn’t written down!”

“That’s because it didn’t need to be.”

Cain watched as the Queen crossed the room and took Goldie’s hands in hers.

“Your name is Leona Price; you were one of the assistants to my advisor.”

A nibbled lip and then blue eyes lit up, “Ambrose! Right? He’s the one that did all this.”

She wiggled her shoulders a bit, gesturing to the words that stained her skin as the Queen smiled.

“Yes, I’m certain he did.”

Two days later Cain watched, Goldie, well, Leona doing cartwheels in the garden while DG and Az laughed and clapped. All her information had checked out. She had been one of Ambrose’s assistants and apparently had been head cased a few weeks before Ambrose. They had checked out the fifth pillar in the Northern Palace and after some arguments over which one constituted fifth, a hollow was found in one of them. There had been documents and letters from Ambrose. A journal of what looked like his last days and a final effort to protect someone he loved. The sorceress had gone after Leona first when he’d refused to part with the plans for the sun seeder and then left the bleeding woman on his doorstep.

Cain frowned; Ambrose had known exactly what the sorceress was going to do to him. She’d left him a preview.

Movement down the hall caught his eye and he watched Glitch peeking through the curtains, watching the same scene that Cain had been. He made his way down the hall, exchanging small smiles when he stopped next to Glitch.

“Long time no see.”

Glitch grinned, knowing full well that the tin man had seen him at breakfast, not lunch though. He fallen asleep and had some horrible dream though all he could remember of it was that it was horrible and so he decided he was leaving it at that.

“Are you going to stay inside all day?”

Cain was patient; he didn’t ask Glitch fifteen times if he was going to be ‘alright’. Goodness, you have one major glitch and then everyone was on your case.

“Maybe, I haven’t decided yet. They look like they’re having fun, though.”

“Well, Leona’s a character, I’ll give you that.”

Glitch looked up at Cain, and his eyes traced the frown that the tin man’s mouth made.

“She can’t be that much trouble.”

“She was in my bed last night, lost her room.”

Glitch chuckled, “Maybe she likes you.”

“I can live without being liked by her.”

A moment passed between them before Glitch bit his lip, “I feel like I should know her. I think that if I… If Ambrose went through so much trouble to make sure she stayed safe for as long as he could well… I guess, I just thought I’d know her or something.”

“You’ve been saying that a lot, about different things.”

“Have I? Sorry, you have to tell me when I’ve said something twice…”

“It’s not a glitch,” Cain voice rose in the empty hall, “I think you’re just pushing yourself too hard,” strong fingers tugged on Glitch’s sleeve, “no one’s asking you to remember everything at once.”

“I-I… Maybe I am. I mean, I can’t really be fixed, the whole rebrainment thing…”

“Will not be attempted; it’s been done in six cases and whatever ‘results’ came out of it didn’t live past a month. You were there when the alchemists came back with the tests.”

“Yeah, I know! I just… I dunno Cain, what do I do now?”

Cain shrugged as they watched Leona tumbled down in the grass and try to get DG to join her.

“Just be you, Glitch.”

Glitch nodded as Cain made his way down the hall and Glitch watched him crossing the lawn to join the girls.

Glitch sighed, “Yeah, and who’s that?”

Glitch decided very much that he did not like dances or balls or anything that had to do with him shoved in a corner staring into the same glass of water for over an hour. His hand was numb from holding it and the new red dress coat itched. This was unfortunately a familiar feeling. He barely remembered faces and names but he was pretty sure he’d been in this same position before. Heck, it may even be the same corner. He sighed and ditched the water on a windowsill, shoving his hands in his pockets. He’d only seen DG for a little bit before she’d disappeared into the crowd and he’d spotted Raw and Az dancing which was really sweet in its own way. Cain was upstairs prowling about the balconies and overseeing security, which left him to… wallflower. Glitch closed his eyes trying to not see the same bubbling darkness that had been haunting his dreams.

He was remembering now, slowly, bits and pieces of when he’d run off, the nightmare that had driven him to run. He’d stood in the brain room this morning, just staring and tracing the machinery with his eyes. They were going to move the whole shebang, Ambrose, tank and all to the Northern palace in a month, so that he’d be there when they settled in for the summer. Glitch supposed that he should be excited but well… he wasn’t. Ambrose was just…

“Hey!”

Glitch’s eyes shot open to Leona, dressed resplendently in silver with her hair braided around a circlet that sat around her zipper.

“Have you been hiding from me?”

Glitch blinked at the unrecognizable flutter that accompanied her presence. The same flutter that he had indeed been hiding from for the last week. A few days ago she’d beamed at him over the dinner table and he’d glitched so hard he didn’t remember anything until Cain shook his shoulder a few minutes later.

“Uh no, I’ve just been busy and um... stuff.”

“Okay, dance with me.”

“I-I shouldn’t…”

Leona simple laughed and grabbed his hand, “I didn’t ask silly.”

He was stiff at first and she was leading but after a few moments it seemed his body remembered what to do, rhythm and all that he recalled. He didn’t say anything as they worked their way through a waltz but as the next song started a memory flittered through his mind.

She wasn’t wearing silver; she was wearing blue, dark midnight blue as well as the sapphires he’d brought her from the Ev kingdom that morning. Her hair was shorter, curled for the night, and there was no zipper. He’d missed her so terribly while he’d been away. Of course all he got to do during dinner was smile and talk shop, it wasn’t until later when they’d gone back to their room that…

The song ended and they both stood motionless, blue meeting brown and Leona was blinking like she had something in her eyes before she stammered and turned.

Glitch watched the flash of silver make its way out of the ballroom and he stood there, maybe for a moment longer than he should have before he gave chase.

“Leona!”

He caught her in the open French doors that led out to the gardens and she was crying so hard she sagged to the ground when he grabbed her arm. His arms were around her and she was sobbing into the collar of his damned coat and his synapses were firing all over the place. So it wasn’t too much of a stretch when they sunk to the floor and then he couldn’t remember who kissed who first but the itchy coat was off and Leona had stopped crying which in Glitch’s book was at least two wins.

Her blonde hair had come loose and was sprawled in a halo across the tile floor as lips crushed together with gasping breaths and something very, very right ground together inside of him. His mouth was on her neck when he heard shouting.

“Glitch! Leona!”

His head shot up and Cain was standing in the hall with his eyes so wide they looked like they were going to fall out. His expression was a bit priceless, in all the time he’d known the tin man he’d never seen him look so gobsmacked and then he’d never seen him so mad.

“Not in the hallway! Go! Before someone else sees you!”

There was a flurry of silver and burgundy, her hair was in his mouth and he practically lifted her up by her waist as they thundered down the hall before he yanked her into his room.

It was quiet and his heart was beating a mile a minute as he looked down at her, her dress was loose and he could see the words that crept up onto her shoulders as she breathed heavy from their flight. They’d left his coat behind and the circlet that had been in her hair, but she looked up at him and grinned. Not that silly empty grin of forgetting but that sweet grin, the grin that meant ‘remember’.

The rest of night was a blur of words and familiar curves. He didn’t dream of darkness or the mirror, he just woke up warm and comfortable cuddled in a nest of sheets and limbs. Leona arched her back like a cat as he ran his fingers across her zipper and smiled.

“Hi,” he whispered.

“Hi,” she grinned.

It wasn’t until he went down to the garden entrance that afternoon to find his coat that he found her silver circlet bent nearly in half and a pane of the French door cracked. Surely they hadn’t done that?

Leona watched the world go by from the window seat in the conservatory. She’d been sitting there like a cat since the palace went into a hissy fit over breakfast. Wyatt Cain was leaving for a week on business and the ‘core’, that’s what she’d called them, Glitch, DG, Raw, and Az were acting like it was the end of the world. It was silly. The tin man thought it was silly but he was touched, you could see it in his eyes. Her eyes tracked DG and Az following Cain to the garden exit, Glitch was close behind them with Raw walk slow and somber behind them. The viewer was frowning which Leona had learned was ‘not a good thing’.

She avoided the viewer. He scared her. There was too much that you didn’t know if he knew. Of course he never said anything so you had to give him points for respecting privacy.

Shoulders slumped and hugs were exchanged at the gate. She watched with careful eyes as Glitch threw his arms around the tin man. The hesitation, the want to linger… Leona hadn’t been a psychology major for nothing. She watched the tin man leave, never looking back, and she counted the seconds until…

Glitch wrapped his arms around her from behind and she leaned back with as contented a sigh as she could manage.

It was far into the middle of the night when Leona rose, careful to not wake her… lover? He’d been that once. They’d never told anyone, they simply carried on like it had meant nothing, which it hadn’t at the time. Not with the royalty falling into shambles as the witch crawled her way into the heart of the palace. She kissed Glitch’s brow, her lips brushing the edge of his zipper. She shouldn’t have slept with him, shouldn’t have started carrying on like that with him. That wasn’t what she was here for. She should have been the one to put her foot down and realize...

No. She couldn’t let this bother her right now. Wyatt Cain was away on business which meant she could finally do what she came to do without a tried and true tin man prowling around every moment of the day. Boy scout.

She bit her lip until it almost bled and then slipped out of the bed, snatching up one of Glitch’s shirts; she slipped out into the hall as she slid her arms into the sleeves. It was almost three in the morning, and Marke would be guarding the brain room and by now he would be fast asleep. Bare feet moved quickly, passing the sleeping guard in the hall and silently moving into the room next door. She made her way through furniture storage, the path long since memorized during the last two weeks, bending slightly to scoop up a bag she’d hidden the second day she’d been here. It was no trouble to step from balcony to balcony and even less trouble to slip a thin knife into the latch of the doors that led to the brain room.

Her heart fluttered as she regarded the glowing green vat. There he was, sitting pretty; hers for the taking just like he’d always been. In a matter of moments she was at an access panel, splicing wires with a few deft motions of her fingers. It took another moment for the small machine in her hand to flash to life. Lights and a receiver, that’s all it was. She tapped a message out onto the pad. Dot. Dot. Dot. Dot. Dot. Dash…

HELLO LOVE.

The moments of waiting after that were too long for her but she let her breath out as the light flashed back a single word.

LEONA?

There was laugher in the hall, love, sweet bubbly pink and white. Raw opened his eyes from the divan in the library that he’d been napping on and tilted his head, listening. Leona was laughing, Glitch was laughing too. Words and words, he frowned when he caught a flash of black, but both Leona and Glitch had that in their heads, that wide empty… guilt? He still wasn’t sure how to name things in the conventional tongue. They were tangled balls of yarn that kept themselves busy tangling together instead of undoing their own knots. Raw didn’t have enough time to trace the strands all over the palace where Glitch had knotted himself to other people. Right now he could only feel two humming, the tight snarl that was Leona and the stretched too thin strand that was Cain far off over the mountains, on ‘business’.

He didn’t think it was polite to tell the tin man that he could see every demon that Cain shoved deep inside himself, the glowing green eyes, the thousands of scrabbling hands, new demons to keep his old ones company. Raw fingered the leather on the book that had slid off his lap onto the divan. He would have to watch Cain closely when, if, the tin man returned. Then he would have to untangle the snarls and the… ivy holding a gate closed. He focused on that image for a moment, a large fenced estate; you only saw what was on the outside. You only saw what it wanted to show you and you couldn’t get inside…

Raw sat up as the image faded and laughter echoed down the hallway.

“Ow!”

“I haven’t even touched you yet.”

Glitch frowned, still damp from his bath, hunching over on the plush covered stool that Leona had dragged out into the middle of what he supposed was now their room since Leona never had made it back to her room after that night. Now other things had started to gravitate in. A vase of pink lilies on the mantle, a pair of white slippers with a tiny heel and feathers on them were kicked halfway under the bed, and a sheer blue robe embroidered with daisies hung from a bed post.

He frowned at the daisies, possibly blaming them for his current predicament, which happened to not be longcoats or alchemists, but Leona with a hairbrush and her hands on her hips.

“Look,” she said, shaking the silver gilded thing in his direction, “I’ll give you a choice. The brush or scissors?”

Brown eyes went wide as he sat straight up and grinned, “On second thought the brush is fine.”

He listened to her sigh and walk around him, carefully tugging on tangles despite Glitch grumbling and wincing. He reached up and caught one of her pigtails in his hand, paying more attention to petting the tuft at the end of it.

“How come your hair doesn’t have any knots? You have a lot more of it than I do.”

Leona giggled and kissed the top of his head.

“Someone gave me a comb some time ago and whenever I found it in my pocket I’d start brushing my hair. Then I’d usually forget what I was doing or how long I brushed it for.”

Glitch grinned which was broken by another wince as Leona resumed her ministrations.

They rarely compared stories about wandering the land head cased. It was awkward and then Glitch would get that little frown and Leona would wrinkle her nose. Luckily it only took one of them to forget or pretend to forget what they were talking about.

Leona was humming as she brushed out his hair and he leaned against her, closing his eyes. He was remembering more, bit by bit now, in familiar surroundings. He knew her laughter and the feel of her mouth on his. He remembered why she kept her hair so short before. The scream along with the flash of flame and the pouting as he had to cut it straight again while the lab aired out.

“Do you think Cain was mad when he left?”

Glitch blinked out of his reverie trying to fumble back to the question Leona had just blurted out like she was talking about cake and cream.

“Mad? No. I don’t know. He looks mad a lot though.”

“He didn’t look too happy to catch us on the floor.”

“Well, Cain embarrasses easily and we really shouldn’t have been doing things like that on the floor in the first place. We agreed, remember?”

Leona grumbled and rolled her eyes, she was far to pleased to remain naked despite who knocked on the door. Raw had gotten an eyeful the other day but the moment was saved by Az who fell down laughing so hard she had to fan herself while Glitch got her a glass of water.

“There!” Leona clapped twice, “I pronounce your hair fit for public enjoyment.”

Glitch grinned as there was a knock on the door and DG’s voice carried through,

“Are you two in there!? There are blackberries down by Elfa pond! We have to hurry before the geese get them!”

A look of glee was exchanged before Glitch ran into the bathing room to get dressed and Leona opened the door.

Halcyon days,

Cain pondered the sentence he’d been given a few miles back at a corner store where he’d stopped for a sandwich. An old man had laughed and called him young, said that summer would bring the halcyon days back. He supposed the old man was right, the sorceress was gone and the Papay fields were in full bloom. He’d even gotten a hat brim full of peach blossoms when he’d taken a shortcut down through the Eastern forest.

He stopped for a moment, to adjust the knapsack over his shoulder as Central City came into view and he picked out the palace gleaming between towers and spires.

Gods, he’d run out of there the first chance he got. Glitch rolling around with Leona had caught him completely off guard. He’d expected to be embarrassed but he hadn’t expected to feel so… angry. So hurt. It had confused the hell out of him and there was no way he was going to work through anything with Raw hanging around and DG asking questions.

The patrols through the Gillkin Mountains had done the trick. Clearing out the last of the rebel longcoats had been satisfying and necessary. It had also given him time to think. It made sense, those two. He’d seen pictures of Leona and Ambrose, silly things with her hanging all over him and him grinning like a loon. So it made sense that she would… with Glitch. It made sense that he’d remember a woman like her eventually.

He’d resigned to that fact, to knowing that Glitch was happy, because that was enough. It didn’t matter how confused Cain got. It didn’t matter…

Cain swallowed as he crested a hill and somehow, by magic or coincidence, the very person that had forced him into a week’s long leave was ambling idly down the road in front of him. His hair was brushed and for once in his life his clothes were neat, although his jacket was missing and Cain could see the way his vest was tight across narrow shoulders. Glitch was humming, with his hands in his pockets staring back towards Central like Cain had been doing moments before.

Half his mind went logical, calculating, why was Glitch out here alone? His eyes went to scanning the horizon until he spotted a car and people in the royal colors milling about several yards away.

The other half, well, the other half tried to ignore the sudden flutter in his chest as Glitch turned with a blinking look of surprise on his face.

“Hi,” Glitch whispered.

“Hi,” Cain grinned.

Leona sat in a tree, swinging her bare feet and licking berry juice off her fingers, seemingly occupied with that and the basket of berries that she had washed in the stream that fed into the pond. But she really watched the road and the two men dance around each other.

It was like a dance really, their body language that was open and closed at the same time. Glitch didn’t take his hands out of his pockets but he gestured with his shoulders and let the tin man know what he was feeling when he laughed. Cain was much more still; Leona would almost say ‘reverent’, the way he looked at Glitch. He probably wasn’t aware if it but there were times when he looked at Glitch like the head case had all the answers in the world. Usually he caught himself and shook it off but not now, not today.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, she supposed.

Cain wasn’t much of a mystery to her as he was a jumbled mess. It didn’t take more than two questions to get DG to start talking about what she knew of the tin man’s past. Glitch was a little more detailed but a little less forthcoming. Leona sucked berry juice off her bottom lip as Cain shifted from foot to foot, inching just a little bit closer. She shouldn’t have played with him. If she hadn’t she wouldn’t have utterly destroyed herself by making Glitch dance with her. If she hadn’t been watching the tin man watching his best friend from the balcony with that look on his face…

Was she jealous? Maybe, but not nearly as she was guilty.

“Oh tin man, why couldn’t you have waited one more day to come home? He’ll need you tomorrow.”

“Did you say something?”

Leona turned as DG came out of the brush with her basket and she grinned brightly at the princess.

“Talking to myself, hey, Cain’s back!”

The palace was dark and silent, shadows crept along the walls while Raw tossed and turned. Something was not right. Something was… Something was in his room. He sat up, not recognizing the presence for a moment, it was not Azkadellia or Glitch or anyone else he would think would find their way into his room and be welcome.

With a startling grace the shadow by his window unfolded, revealing itself in the moonlight with the stink of desperation and the throbbing ache of fear.

Blue eyes that became black in the darkness, and a silver zipper that gleamed in the moonlight.

“Pardon the late intrusion Mr. Raw, but I am sorely in need of your services and it is with great regret that I must inform you ‘No’ is not an acceptable answer.”

The moonlight flashed over the small blade in her hand, enough to show that she was serious.

But Raw already knew that.

Cain frowned as he looked over the darkened estate from his room. He should be asleep. Cain huffed as he slid into his shoes, if he had a platinum for every time he’d told himself that since he’d fallen out of that suit…

The hallways were quiet as they should be; everyone else had the sense to be in bed. But wasn’t that how it usually was? He was always the one that couldn’t sleep, that wandered the hallways looking for…

A ripple of apprehension ran up his spine when he turned a familiar corner and didn’t see the familiar palace guard standing there. He forced himself to breathe, if someone was being lax on duty well then that was much better than… He broke into a run when he spotted the crumpled figure on the floor.

“Welsh!?”

The guard was unconscious but looked otherwise unharmed.

Information tumbled through Cain’s mind. Numbers of doors, layouts, guards, what else was on this floor besides living quarters…?

It was another second before he was down the hall in a flash and his eyes widened at the doors to the brain room that were wide open. He only got a fleeting image of the darkened and empty tank, Marke on the floor, breathing…

A noise and his eyes shot to the balcony door, they’d gone in the front but not out the same way, the balconies on this floor were close, you could move around almost the entirety of the building without being seen. Then out to the back hall where there weren’t any guards and from there…

He was out the side door and down the stone pathway that ran alongside the palace. He heard the slamming of a car door before he saw the truck, parked conveniently to close to the palace wall, another guard lying under the magnolias. A head snapped up when he came into view, a man he didn’t recognize getting into the driver’s seat, white hair and… white eyes, what in the hell?

“Mistress!”

A blur shot from behind the truck and Cain fumbled as it crashed into him from the side.

“Go! Take the viewer and go! Castor knows what to do!”

The viewer!? He twisted the figure on top of him aside as he spotted Raw, wide eyed and unresisting being tugged into the passenger seat by the man. A flash of rage and helplessness rolled through him as he heard the truck start up, but a whirl of limbs caught him just as he was trying to stand and he toppled. He grabbed a ankle and yanked, there was an ‘oof’ and when he rolled over to pin his attacker he caught the glimpse of blonde and then the flash of silver as their head whipped back and Cain saw stars.

A scramble brought him to his feet and Leona to hers as she stayed between him and where the truck had once been. He recognized that stance and for a moment he wondered who had taught who back in the day. He felt warmth trickle down over his left eye, and he gritted his teeth. She’d cut him with her damned zipper and now she was looking like… She looked like she meant business. The empty tank, the tattoos, Raw, those eyes… Some of the night started to click together,

“You aren’t head cased.”

He got a grin for his effort and a, “Good call, gorgeous.”

Then she leapt and he didn’t know if he could blame skill or sheer luck as he grabbed her hand just as he saw the knife. Though he should have known something was up when she didn’t struggle, just twisted, barely, until the blade dug into his palm and he was half a second to tossing her off him when the world started to go spotty.

She caught him when his knees gave out and he heard the blade clatter against the stone. Numbness roiled up in him as he felt her ease him to the ground, carefully holding his head so he didn’t hit it. There was a scrape and something brushed across his lips. He thought he heard a ‘sorry’ before everything went utterly black.

He woke up dry heaving and it took him a moment to realize that he was on a couch in the patio and the only reason he hadn’t fallen off was because Glitch was holding him from behind, stroking the back of his neck until he calmed and DG was in front of him with a glass of water, looking about as worried as she got. There was murky sunslight coming over the hills, dawn.

“How do you feel?”

“Nauseous,” he confessed, accepting the water and ignoring the fact that he had leaned back against Glitch.

“Yeah, the other guards too. Dr. Fraser said that it’s a side effect, shouldn’t last too long.”

“Great. How many other guards did she get?”

“Five, not counting you, they’re all alright just Stimson went to check on Marke and got a black eye before she knocked him out.”

“Does anyone know what she’s doing?”

A chorus of shaken heads and Cain felt Glitch tremble behind him. There wasn’t a bit of hesitation on Cain’s part as he slid his hand down and captured Glitch’s fingers beneath his own.

“Well, then we’ll find out.”

Glitch rubbed at his eyes as he fought to not slide down the wall in his room and fall asleep. He hadn’t touched anything that belonged to her. Cain hadn’t wanted him to at first, not until they figured out that nothing was missing. Everything was still there just not her… They had been going over everything all day. Papers, clues, the route, and he just stood there and watched. He watched the Queen unlock Ambrose’s lab, he watched Jeb go through stacks and stack of paper, he watched the guards, still dizzy, recount everything that had happened. He watched Cain with his bandaged hand and the cut across his eyebrow. He watched until the room was spinning, until he felt Cain’s warm hand on his elbow, his voice telling him to go lie down.

He hated this, he felt lost and stupid. She’d been lying to him; she’d been lying to everyone. But… but none of it had felt like lies. Cain said she wasn’t head cased but… Glitch gave in and slid down the wall, settling his face in his hands. She was a stranger and not a stranger. Had he been like that for her? Did she look at him and constantly see someone else? An advisor? A brain in a tank? She hadn’t been here for Glitch, she came for… for Ambrose, for the plan.

He lifted his head.

Wait.

What plan?

There was something off in the corner of his mind, teasing him like things usually did before he forgot them. No! He couldn’t forget this! This was important, the plan, what was the plan? She… He’d…

She was crying again and he couldn’t remember what she was saying, like a video loop with no sound. She was throwing things, screaming in the lab and he’d grabbed her from behind, held her until she went limp against him.

He wasn’t leaving. He couldn’t leave the Queen but she could.

Oh Gods, he needed her to leave before…

His memory skipped and he was counting backwards.

Another skip and Leona was sobbing but nodding, her fingers tight in the lapels of his coat as if she held on tight enough she’d never have to let go.

He had to know what he was going to tell the Queen. Lonot had…

He was in his lab watching the suns rise and wondering if he could kill himself before the guards were at the gate.

Glitch swallowed, this was all the darkness that he fought to push away, all the hurt that he forgot on purpose. He’d meant to forget Leona. If he forgot her then…

Leona there, standing in their room, frowning at the mirror, a bandage running along the center of her scalp. He’d come up behind her and kissed her cheek. She hadn’t been able to do anything in those last few days but sob.

The zipper…

The zipper will protect you…

They won’t be looking for a head case…

You’ll be safe…

Oh Gods, he’d done that to her! He… Instructions and the same image of a roll top desk… He didn’t have a roll top desk did he? He’d seen the desk in his old lab and… It wasn’t… A shape in the corner…

Cain’s head snapped up as the lab door slammed open and Glitch breezed past him heading towards the back of the lab. What the hell? Cain scrambled to his feet, slipping a bit on papers as he hurried after Glitch. He was the only one in the lab currently; he’d sent Jeb and another detail to follow up on a tip that the truck had been stole from a local grocer and someone had seen that man with white hair the other night, making inquires.

He though Glitch had gone to bed but instead here he was, yanking sheets off of furniture and kicking aside chairs.

“Glitch…” Cain trailed off; he’d rarely seen his friend like this. So focused and determined.

“Ha!” Cain jumped as Glitch yanked the sheet off a battered roll top desk that was shoved in a corner of the lab that looked like Ambrose hadn’t even gone back there when he used it.

A few more moments of fiddling before Glitch turned in a wide circle and seemed to spot Cain for the first time.

“Crowbar!” he cried and Cain scrambled to the workbench. The tool was snatched out of his hand before he even crossed the room and Cain winced as the wood splintered around the lock on the desk. Papers and other debris hit the floor along with a dried out bottle of ink that shattered when it hit.

Without a second thought, he watched Glitch jam the crowbar into some dark recess in the desk and lean down on it. A pause hung in the air before there was a very audible ‘clunk’ and Glitch jerked down two inches.

The frantic look eased off of Glitch’s face and he frowned, going around to the backside of the desk and nudging it away from the wall with his hip. Cain took a few steps forward to see the panel that had popped out and Glitch dip his hand inside. Glitch turned with his prize, a small battered journal, flipping it open as he tucked the crowbar under his arm.

The he frowned.

“Cain, I don’t suppose you understand code?”

The tin man blinked as he crossed the room and frowned down at the journal, it was indeed in some sort of shorthand he’d never seen before.

“I don’t know. It looks like a mix of Gillkinese and God knows what.”

Glitch growled, “I didn’t remember that far, I just remembered the desk and…”

His voice trailed off as a he idly flipped the pages in the journal in quick succession and a yellowed piece of paper fluttered out.

Cain caught it before it hit the ground.

On it were three symbols that Glitch frowned at and Cain frowned at very differently.

“We need a map.”

A quick search uncovered what they needed and Glitch nibbled at his lip as Cain rolled the map out on the floor.

“What are we looking for?”

Cain held the paper up and tapped one of the symbols, “This is a road marker for a map, an old one mind you, but it means the southern old road, the one that goes out of Central. The other two are key symbols, mountains and a river.”

“There closest mountains south of Central City are… They’re in Quadling country, aren’t they?”

Cain nodded, “Right next to the Winkie River.”

He put the bit of paper on the map and Glitch watched the symbols match up.

“Do you think that’s where she went? It’s not far.”

“It’s a lead,” Cain said, getting to his feet, “I’ll call in a detail and…”

“Cain,” Glitch’s fingers snaked around the tin man’s wrist and tugged gently, “Do we have to take a bunch of tin men? Can’t we just…?”

“We?”’

“Please.”

Cain hesitated, until his blue eyes fell to scan the ground he stood on, “We’ll drive by and scout it out. But I’m sending word ahead to Jeb. Someone needs to know where we’re going.”

They sat in the car they had ‘borrowed’ from the palace, Cain leaned back and Glitch leaned forward, smushing himself on the inside of the windshield.

“There’s nothing there…” Glitch sighed.

“Well, maybe, it’s dark and…”

Cain gritted his teeth as Glitch ignored any rules Cain had laid down on the drive over and got out of the car.

Cain followed quickly watching Glitch grumble, stalking towards the small triangle of land that sat between those three mysterious symbols.

“There has to be something here! Something! Anything! Between all of Leona’s lies and that stupid journal there has to be something!”

“Glitch…” Cain took a step forward as Glitch cursed and kicked rocks around.

“Oh, don’t ‘Glitch’ me. I head cased her, did you know that? I put the zipper in her head and told her to run. No one’s gonna look twice at a zipper head. Brilliant idea, wasn’t it? Y’know what, I think I told her to do all this too. I probably told her to get a viewer and Raw was super convenient! I told her and she’d do anything for me, for Ambrose.

All for some stupid plan that I DON”T REMEMBER!”

With that said Glitch took a step back and his eyes widened, “Cain, I’m standing on something.”

Cain shot forward, his hands in the dirt around Glitch’s feet until…

“It’s metal; it’s not really ground here.”

Glitch frowned and then he bounced, a soft noise issued from somewhere deep beneath him and then they started to sink down.

Cain got to his feet as they watched the square of the sky grow away from them.

“Um, Cain, I think something’s here.”

It took only a moment for Cain to draw his gun as the strange elevator stopped at a large metal door somewhere close to thirty feet underground,

“Glitch, I think you’re right.”

Cain moved forward silently, willing Glitch behind him to be just as silent. It was all long hallways and dim blue light down here, what was this place? So far, a lot of shadows and glass windows into rooms that looked like laboratories or… medical centers? What in the O.Z.?

There was a gasp from down the hall and Cain trained his gun on the shadow that had appeared.

Leona, who was sitting on the floor, facing one of those windows in the walls stood quickly and took a step forward before she saw the gun and froze.

“Now, I’d like it if you’d dropped all those little knives you have on you.”

“I bet you would, tin man.”

He hesitated when she moved forward. A part of him didn’t want to shoot her, not here, in front of Glitch and there was something in her voice that was brittle, fragile, not a trace of malice or anger.

Luckily, it happened almost instantly, his hand was pushed down so the gun pointed at the floor and Glitch had caught Leona around the waist. Cain winced as he slammed her back against the wall, pinning her off the ground, with her toes scraping the metal floor.

“That is quite enough of that.”

Maybe three seconds passed as all the fight went out of her and she melted, limp against Glitch, blades scattering to the floor.

Cain holstered his gun as Glitch held her, and he could see her trembling, could barely hear her voice,

“I-I didn’t think you’d remember…”

“Me either. But I did, though not all of it. What the hells, Leona?”

Slowly she nodded towards the window and Cain watched Glitch turn. The head cases eyes went impossibly wide and he paled.

“Oh,” his voice was shaky, “That plan…”

A step forward and Cain paled along with him.

It was an operating theater, not a big one but big enough. Two men with white hair, boys, robots Cain realized seeing dull metal on one of their arms, were cleaning up.

Raw was there, impossibly calm, running his hands over the head of… Of their patient.

It was an impossible feeling, to see the figure prone on the table and the man he was standing next to. Identical.

“Is… is that…?”

His voice trailed off as Leona shook out of Glitch’s grasp and stepped forward to press her hands to the glass.

“Ambrose.”