In just a day, the group returned to the Emerald City. At the gates, Dorothy sent the flying monkeys back off, and the group had been given the special contacts and the robots had been tampered with sufficiently for them to be able to enter the Emerald City.

The guards saw that Dorothy was carrying the broomstick that had belonged to the now dead Wicked Witch of the West, and immediately went to the Emerald Palace of Oz so that she could have an immediate audience with the Wizard.

She, Bo, Luav, Effigy, and Toto were all taken to the throne room in the center of the palace.
The door was shut behind them, and the holographic head of the Wizard appeared and peered down at them down its long, haughty nose.

"So you have returned. You have killed the Wicked Witch of the West?"

"Of course," Dorothy said, nearly spitting. "I have her old broomstick right here." She lifted the broomstick up with her hand to show him.

The Wizard's head gave a bent down twice to give a nod. "Now that you have killed the Wicked Witch of the East and the Wicked Witch of the West, you shall all be rewarded with your individual requests. Go back to the hotel you stayed at the first time you had been here, and I will call back each of you later in the weeks, individually."

And so, they returned to the hotel they had stayed at when they had first been in the Emerald City. Dorothy was just as nervous about having another audience with the Wizard of Oz again as she had been about the first one. Five days had gone by since Luav had been seen the Wizard, and still the Wizard had not requested Dorothy's presence.

On top of that, many people would crowd around Dorothy and her friends whenever they were out and about in the City, wanting to know how exactly she had killed the Witch, and what it was like to have killed her. What it was like to have liberated the Planet of Oz from the wickedness from both of the Wicked Witches.

Luckily, though, Effigy had been sent to be connected to the data network and be given a memory chip, Bo had not gotten a new heart of flesh but had been given an improved artificial one that would last over a hundred years, and Luav... Well, Dorothy did not know what Luav had been given, or what had been done for him. When asked, he simply stuck his nose up and told her that it was far too important for her to know about.

She and Bo just stayed in the hotel with Toto and Effigy. Luav however, left the hotel frequently. Dorothy figured that he just adored the amount of attention they had received, though he had nothing to do with the accidental killings of either of the Witches.

Truthfully, she didn't really like having him around, though he had been at least a bit helpful during their first journey to the Emerald City. Besides his inflated ego and his cowardly nature, the Lion was just... off-putting, somehow. Dorothy was not sure what way he was, but she knew that something suspicious was up.

Bo was quiet and a bit mopey, upset that Dorothy had not been summoned by the Wizard, nor had they heard anything from him or any of his closest workers, including his secretary, who had told them that she would notify Dorothy whenever the Wizard said anything about any way he could help her.

Dorothy, however, had not been summoned by the Wizard at all, and it had been several more days since Luav had been summoned by him.
What if he was putting things off because he could not get her back home to Earth?

The entire situation felt fruitless to Dorothy, and she hated it. Every moment wasted was another moment in which her aunt and uncle could be dead. If they were not already dead.
She just really wanted to get home. Home to a place she was familiar with. Home to a place where she had family.

Dorothy sighed as Toto jumped up onto her lap as she sat on the green couch against the longest wall in the sitting area, just staring off into space.

Bo came in and sat down beside her as she began to stroke Toto's sleek metal back.

"Want to go to the palace with me and force the Wizard to have an audience with you?" he asked her in a rush.

Dorothy looked up at him, her eyes suddenly wide.

"How would we do that?"

"We'll go to the Emerald Palace, and we'll refuse to leave if the secretary asks us to leave. The guards won't remove us from the premises unless we are actively attempting to assault and or kill the Wizard, especially since you're the Witch killer," Bo said, pounding the side of his metal fist in his other metal palm.

"What am I going to do, kill the guards?"

Dorothy asked with a playful roll of her eyes as Toto jumped off of her lap. "I'm a Witch killer, not a guard killer."

Bo laughed. "You know what I mean. Probably."

Dorothy laughed and nudged him a bit. He laughed a bit too, but seemed to stiffen a bit.

Was he getting nervous?

Don't play yourself like this, Dorothy, she scolded herself quickly as their laughter died down.

"So, okay, let's go get into our fancy clothes, yes our fancy clothes, Gale--" Bo said with a laugh as he noticed her glower at the word "fancy" before "clothes". "Then we get to the Palace and force the Wizard to have an audience with you."

"You would make a fine strategist," Dorothy said with a huge grin.

"I was one, once," Bo said quietly, "You know, with..."

"Oh, really? Well," she laughed a little.

He nodded and rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah... Well, let's go get ready, now." He stood up and dropped the arm that he had been using to rub his neck.

Dorothy stood up as well and nodded back at him. "I will go do that, now. See you when I'm finished. Fifteen minutes tops!"

She then dashed off to the room she had been staying in.

Was she just kidding herself and working herself up and psyching herself out about this? Did Bo actually like her? Did she like him in return?

She could not dare to wish. She couldn't  even dare to even start.

Even just wishing would shatter her heart.
Dorothy knew that she should keep Bo out of her mind and out of her affections, because if she did not, she would be very heartbroken to return home, especially if he would not go with her. And, if they started anything and she was able to go back home to Earth, they both would be heartbroken.