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The Sixth Dance
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The official celebration of Az and Jeb's engagement was followed by an unofficial celebration in the barracks of the palace. The former Resistance Fighters turned Royal Army were famously renowned for their ability to throw a party and the engagement of their leader-turned-Captain to the Sorceress-turned-innocent-Princess was as good a reason as ever.

DG was invited and only attended because Az insisted.

It was a strange turn around in events; even as much as an annual ago, DG would have been the one dragging Az along, insisting her sister would be welcome amongst them. Now it was Az who begged and pleaded for her little sister to join her outside of the palace walls, to dance and drink and laugh and smile amongst the soldiers who swore allegiance to their family.

Wyatt watched her from the corner of his eye, aware his role was to play proud father but unable to break the habit of what felt like a lifetime when it came to DG. She looked pale and tired; she'd lost weight and there were shadows under her eyes he really didn't like seeing.

She stood on the outskirts of the chatting groups instead of in the middle as he was used to seeing, looking every bit the outsider instead of the person he knew was in truth responsible for bringing them all together.

He felt someone jostle into him and turned his head away from DG for a moment. Margaret gave him an apologetic smile, her eyes overly bright. She was a good woman, a kind woman. She'd been dealt a bad hand by the fates when her husband had been killed and deserved a good life, a good future.

She was the kind of woman that, had he lost Adora under other circumstances and not met DG, he could have seen himself settle down with. She reminded him a lot of his late wife, but then maybe that was why he knew that there wasn't even the smallest of chances for the two of them despite hopes others might harbour to the contrary.

Others who did not include his son, or his soon-to-be daughter-in-law, both of whom had made their feelings perfectly clear to him of late, giving him their blessings when he'd been unaware he'd needed them.

As Margaret was swept away by the dance in the arms of someone else, and as Wyatt pretended he didn't see the disappointment in her eyes, his gaze shifted back to where he'd last seen DG.

The space against the wall in the corner of the room was empty.

He tried to tell himself the pang in his chest had nothing to do with the dance he was planning to collect from her, their long-standing tradition to share the last dance of the evening. He tried to tell himself the disappointment didn't come from the place inside himself, his heart, where he'd promised that tonight would be the night he finally told her how he felt.

He'd thought their last dance tonight would be the first of many, the first of the rest they'd share for the remainder of their lives.

He'd thought wrong.

Az and Jeb joined him as he moved to the space DG had formerly occupied. The eldest Princess looked distraught as his son did his best to comfort her.

"I'm losing her, Jeb," Az told him mournfully, her dark eyes damp with tears that were perilously close to being shed on what should have been the happiest night of her life. "I'm losing my baby sister and I don't know how to stop it."

"She just needs time, Az." Jeb kissed her temple softly, his arm anchoring the princess to his side. "She's going to be Queen. We've all got to give her time to get used to that." This was said to include him in the conversation, Wyatt knew. He inclined his head in acknowledgement that he was listening, even as his eyes scanned the people gathered, hoping to spot DG amongst them. "DG's still there, Az. She'll still be your sister even when she's queen."

"But she's so unhappy." Guilt caused the first tear to fall from Azkadellia's eye. A tear caught by her fiancé as he kissed it away. "I can't remember the last time I heard her laugh," she confessed. "That's not like my little sister. That's not like... DG!"

Her name was as a gasp and a scream, ripped from Az's throat as her eyes widened and she clutched at her chest. Eyes wild, unseeing, the elder Princess tore herself from Jeb's arms and ran out of the tent that had been hosting their engagement party.

Sensing more than knowing that something was wrong, Wyatt and Jeb followed, a dozen of their men on their heels.

Azkadellia led the way towards the maze on the outskirts of Finaqua, a maze that had been magically programmed to allow only those on the guest list to attend the royal celebrations. She started to run through it, wholly unaware of those who tried to keep up, and came to a stop with a wail that pierced the night air as she dropped to her knees.

She pulled DG to her, cradling her sister against her as she screamed out into the night, a blast of magic leaving no doubt as to her distress as those miles away would later swear they felt the hairs on the back of their arms and neck stand on end in response to the cry.

"Baby sister, no. DG. Please. Please, don't leave me. Stay with me."

DG didn't hear her pleas; she'd stopped hearing anything the moment the enchanted blade had been plunged into her stomach by a stranger she'd followed into the maze, a male presence she'd instinctively knew meant harm to her family.

"I claim the blood debt owed by the House of Gale," the man had told her, before disintegrating into an unnatural mist that was swallowed by the shadows in the maze cast by the full moon ahead. "The debt is now paid in full."

Pain swarmed her, both dulling and sharpening her senses. She was only slightly aware of Azkadellia's presence as her sister moved her from the pool of blood that had settled beneath her. The heat of her sister's body didn't register; all she felt was cold.

Her mouth filled with the metallic taste of blood and her unseeing eyes suddenly started to see again.

Just in time to see Wyatt Cain, Tin Man and General, friend and what might have been, drop to his knees beside her.

The agony in his cool eyes would have been enough to break her heart had it still been whole.

"DG." Her name, his lips. Spoken with a reverence, on a prayer. A plea. "Gods. DG."

Darkness crept in slowly on her vision, then suddenly all at once.

Cain's blue eyes faded into endless black, and DG's dance with death began.

He barely left her side.

Wyatt helped his son track down the would-be assassin, but once the deranged son of a former Duke who had been stripped of his title and his land by Queen Lavender after his association with the Sorceress had been revealed was in custody, he took a seat by the bedside of the youngest Princess and would-be Queen and never left.

He couldn't.

He'd taken his eyes off her for a moment and this is what happened.

She lay fighting for her life, despite the help of the best Healers the Realm of the OZ had to offer. The Viewer tribe had done their best, with Raw spending many an hour by her bedside trying to will her back to consciousness.

Still DG lay, lost to them in every way except the physical.

The blade that had been used against her had mystical properties but no one, not even the Queen, knew what they were. They were being blamed for DG's inability to open her eyes and come back to them but Wyatt watched her sleep and wondered if that were true.

She'd started slipping away from them long before the steel had pierced her skin.

He'd watched it happen and had been powerless to stop it, believing he knew his place and that it wasn't by her side.

Seeing her now, watching her chest struggle to rise and fall, he wondered if that was true or if it had been something else telling him to keep his distance all along.

"DG." Her name was a breath, a whisper that barely stirred the still air in the room. "Please."

There was no one else present, which was a rarity; Jeb had insisted Azkadellia leave her sister's side to rest; Ahamo and Lavender had reluctantly retired to discuss the situation with their advisors; Raw was trying to meditate somewhere to shield himself from the pain of those around him and Ambrose was distraught, seeking comfort he wouldn't find in his lover's arms.

Only Wyatt had nowhere else to turn, no one else to turn to.

His safe place, his harbour from the storm, his heart...

... They were all wrapped up in the slip of the woman on the bed in front of him and he marvelled at that just as much as he wondered why it had taken this for him to realise it.

DG hadn't just taught him how to reuse his old beaten heart; she'd taken it from his chest and repaired it but somehow neither of them had realised she'd failed to give it back.

"You have to come back to me, Darlin'." He lifted her hand, pressed her palm against his lips. "I don't know how to do this without you. And then there's Az, and your parents, and the realm. We need you to come back to us, Deege. Don't leave us now."

There was no change, no shift in her breathing.

Nothing.

"If I made it an order, would you listen? Probably not." He ran his finger over her knuckles. "Damn it, DG. You don't know how much we need you here. How much I need you." She didn't reply, though he could easily imagine the denials if she could. He stared at their hands, hers small and pale, his calloused and tanned. There was no white line anymore, the ring removed long enough ago that the mark it left was gone. "I took it off for you," he told her, his voice hoarse. "I know it's not seemly for the Queen-to-be and a commoner, but your father was a Slipper and I thought... I hoped..."

A dozen memories that hadn't been made his mind spin.

Two daughters with light blue eyes and raven black hair, a son with dark blue eyes and blond curls... A flash of white, a glint of gold, words exchanged and a dance that should have lasted a lifetime...

Dreams, maybe. Fantasies.

Memories of a life not yet lived.

A life that might not be lived.

"Come back to me, DG." It was less of an order, more of a plea. Tears stung his eyes and made his vision swim before sliding unchecked down his face. "I love you. I need you. Come home to me."

She heard them all, but most of all she heard him.

Her heart broke at first at the pleas she thought weren't sincere, then broken all over again when she realised they were.

He was on the verge of breaking again, her strong Tin Man, and it was all because of her.

The murkiness surrounded her, darkness that weighed her down. She tried to swim against it, to head towards the light flickering on the edges of her subconscious, but the weights around her legs pulled her down, kept her from rising upwards.

"I hoped..."

Visions assaulted her, distant ideas that weren't hers but were so very similar to those she'd tried to force herself not to dream...

"Come back to me, DG. Come home to me."

'I'm trying,' she thought, and renewed her efforts.

The fuzziness started to fade, the light at the edges growing just that little bit brighter and then...

... then...

Pain.

Oh, Ozma, the pain...

Her hand twitched in his. Wyatt moved to the edge of his seat, his grip tightening.

"DG?"

Her eyelids flickered, her dry lips parted.

A sharp gasp escaped her.

It took a week, over a week, for her to come around fully and start to recognise the others around her.

It took twice as long for her to start speaking, even though the words that escaped her initially were just names, mostly one name, a question and a prayer.

He didn't leave her side; whenever she opened her eyes, he was there.

He vowed, with his words and his eyes, that he always would be.

After two cycles, the magic in the blade that had been used in the would-be assassination finally abated. DG felt strong enough to get to her feet, though not without help. Having been moved to the palace in Central City at some point – she didn't know when – she insisted on being led to the balcony, where the sight of her people gathered outside with their candlelight vigil brought tears to her eyes.

She couldn't speak to them but they could see her and that was enough.

It was also enough to exhaust her, so she didn't protest when her mother and father insisted she return to bed.

Az was another constant, present more often than not, climbing on the bed beside her and talking about everything and nothing, the conversation drifting sometimes to her wedding plans but always with the adamant insertion that nothing was set in stone and wouldn't be until her baby sister was strong enough to take part in the proceedings.

Wyatt – she couldn't call him Cain any more, not even in her head, and she didn't know why – was often there for those conversations but didn't contribute at all. He just watched them, watched her, and only spoke up to advise her visitors quietly but firmly that perhaps she'd had too much in the way of excitement for one day and needed to rest.

That would leave just the two of them.

Her to sleep fitfully, aware of his gaze on her at all times. Him to watch and wish and wonder.

"I heard you," DG said, breaking the silence one night almost three cycles after the attack. She kept her gaze averted, not sure she was strong enough to see his response to her words. "I thought I heard you, but maybe I dreamt it. I..." Her voice trailed off for a moment, the side of the bed dipping under the unexpected weight. She turned her head to look at him, his expression unreadable. "Did you mean it?"

Wyatt took her hand in his, her fingers so small and delicate wrapped up in his own. Lifting her hand to his lips, he turned it so he could press a tender kiss to the palm of her hand, to the place a glowing mark had once been burned to help her in her quest. "I meant it, DG. I love you. I... I want more than just the last dance with you. I want more. I want everything."

She was silent for a long moment, her eyes searching his. After what felt like a lifetime to him, she smiled despite the tear that slid unchecked down her cheek. "I want that, too."

End