Title: OZ Matchers
Characters: DG/?(guess….), Cain, Glitch, Az, and some of the Tin Man crew and a random-non-interesting OC.
Timeline: Post eclipse
Rated: PG - One bad word! o.O
Genre: Romance, Drama/Humor (fluff)
Summary: DG learns what an OZ Matcher is, and why it's sometimes better not to cross the line

A/N: Here's another one that is forever and a day old, finally seeing the light of day in my sudden bout of spring cleaning.

TMTMTMTMTMTMTMTMTMTMTMTMTMTM

DG was pestering him again.

"Explain this to me again?"

It was the day before the first OZ Matcher there had been since before the Witch took over. Needless to say they were too dangerous to have during her reign because OZ Matchers were a way for couples to announce their relationship which would have been basically saying to the Witch, 'Hey! Here's the best thing to threaten us with.'

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, willing his headache to go away. He looked up to tell her to go ask her sister, but found her curious blue eyes too hard to refuse.

"An OZ Matcher is where everyone shows up and their outfit turns white, and when they go through a magical barrier on the dance floor, it changes to a certain color depending on their relationship status-"

"Well, I know that part, Cain," she interrupted, plopping down beside him on the couch in his room. "I wanted to know more about the specific colors and little things that people don't mention in the broad explanation of it…"

He took in a deep breath, trying to remember all of the colors and their meanings. "Well," he began, not believing that he could remember all of this. "Married couples are purple, courting relationships are green, engagements blue, singles are brown or black, and matches made at the dance are orange, yellow or pink," he nodded as it all came back. "And secret romances are red, but you hardly ever see those because…well, they're trying to keep it a secret," he added with a wave.

DG's eyes looked slightly glazed over with this overload of information. "How do you tell the couples apart if they have the same color?"

"Each couple has a different shade that shows up when they cross the barrier. That has something to do with how long they've been in the relationship too."

She raised her eyebrows in a 'please elaborate' look. "What do you mean?"

"Well, the longer you've been together, engaged, or married, the darker the color."

"Oh," she said, and then looked down, trying to process all of this information. She looked up after a moment, "Why are there colors for singles if the whole point of the dance is to pair people up?"

Cain looked out the window and took a moment before answering. "Well brown is for people who refuse to be matched, so they aren't necessarily 'single.' And black appears for relationships that have ended, whether they broke it off…or their wife or husband died…Which I'd expect to see a lot of tomorrow after the Witch's reign," he said with a somber tone.

DG's expression had instantly softened, and she mentally kicked herself. "I'm sorry, Cain," she whispered. "I should have thought of that…"

"It's alright, DG. You didn't know."

DG still looked like her puppy had just been kicked and Cain felt bad.

"Was there anything else you wanted to know?" He gave her an encouraging smile, trying to let her know that it didn't bother him that much.

She glanced up at him, but refused to keep eye contact. "Once you have a color are you stuck with it the rest of the night? Even if you don't like who you're paired up with, or they don't like you?"

He quirked an eyebrow. That's what she's worried about? "Pretty much yeah. Though I've never seen a pair matched that wasn't rightly put together. I guess that's part of the magic charm – it can tell who the person should be with, even if they don't know it."

She nodded thoughtfully. "That could make for some interesting love triangles. People being paired with someone who they didn't come with…"

He nodded thoughtfully in agreement, remembering more than one fight breaking out at Matchers. Maybe that's why he wasn't too fond of them. "Although if you cross by yourself and you're not dubbed "single," you can cross again and lose the color. But I think if you bump into your matched, you both get the color."

"Huh…thanks for the warning."

He looked at her curiously. "You expecting to be matched with someone, Princess?" The idea sounded alarming to him for some reason. He never did trust that magic charm to make the right choice…

"No, I just – hate being thrown into situations without knowing all of the rules and bi-laws." He knew what she meant. More than once they had been thrown into meetings and were expected to know all of the customs right away. Yeah right. "Alright, well I'll see you tomorrow…I don't know about you, but I can't wait," the latter tinged heavily with sarcasm.

"See you there, Princess."

TMTMTMTMTMTMTMTMTMTMTMTMTMTM

The next night, DG found herself standing just before the barrier, eyeing it wearily. There were already some happily matched couples dancing, and some happy reunions made all around the room as everyone mingled freely without a care in the world for the first time in years. Although there were quite a number of people in black wandering around the room, reminding them of how much had been lost in that time.

DG was nervous, and for the life of her, couldn't figure out why. It's not like she'd be matched with someone.

Would she?

She looked around again, and saw her parents in a deep purple with gold accents, and off to the side of them was Glitch in a warm brown with silver. And talking to him was Cain decked out in black with the slightest bit of gold buttons and trim. Out on the floor, Jeb and a girl from his resistance cell twirled around in a bright orange and silver. If that hadn't made her blink and snap back to reality, the hand on her arm would have.

She spun to find Az smiling knowingly at her. "Shall we, little sister?" she asked, offering a hand. DG smiled up gratefully and took her hand.

"We shall," she said, taking a step through the barrier with Az.

They both glanced down to see similar light chocolate shades of brown, but where Az's sash was silver, DG had a gold sash wrapping around her waist and up over her shoulder.

"Looks like we're a matched-unmatched pair," Az laughed and DG joined her.

Cain forgot to mention the difference between the gold and silver accents. Therefore DG had no idea what she had inadvertently announced to everyone with her gold accent.

Dorothy Gale, Princess of the OZ, was in love.