Disclaimer: I own nothing in the Tin Man 'verse. Nothing and no one. Because (at the moment) I'm playing only with the Sci-Fi original characters.

He paused after walking past her. The words he'd just spoken echoing in his own mind,

"Since that was a sapling."

Years had passed while he'd been imprisoned within that tin suit. Endless days of watching the looped images of Longcoats beating him senseless while his family watched in helpless horror, struck whenever they turned away or called out. Endless nights of imagining what his son would have looked like had he lived, for Zero had surely killed both his wife and son not long after Cain had passed out from the pain. Grief being his constant companion, but not a lone traveler. Guilt and shame at having brought such pain down onto his family for having resisted Azkedelia's reign.

Pride and thirst for revenge kept him sane however. Despite what had happened, he could not regret having fought for the Queen's cause. The Crown Princess had been destructive and callous of her people and their pain. He'd have rather gone down fighting as he had than have submitted, or worse yet, joined the Sorceress in leveling the O.Z.

His savior from the tin suit he'd spent countless long years in had been surprising. A thin young woman, swinging a pathetic stick at the images of the Longcoats, foolishly rushing in to try to save complete strangers.

And the images finally stopped, flickering out of existence. The startled look on her face revealed the simple truth that she hadn't known it had been all an illusion, but had truly believed she'd been about to attack several armed, sadistic men. With a stick.

She'd looked around confused, finally catching sight of his prison and wandered over with a new curious expression on her heart-shaped face. An expression that quickly turned to determination with a tinge of horror when she'd knocked upon the metal casing he had supposed long ago would be his eventual tomb and he'd knocked back.

And she let him out, setting him free.

What was there to say after she'd done so much for him in just a few short minutes? How could he encompass how all he felt over her simple kind-hearted actions into a few short words? He shifted his shoulders while he thought, for once grateful of the suit's magic that held him in a kind of stasis all those years, no muscle degradation or aging meant that he was perfectly fit to carry out his plan unhindered. With a slight shake of his head he focused once more on how to best capture his thoughts into clumsy speech.

"Much obliged for the help."

He grimaced slightly as he heard the words, knowing they fell far short of what could have, should have been said. But, damn it, no one ever accused him of beinf an eloquent or verbose speaker.

So he kept walking away.