The glass shivered in its ornate gold frame, with a mechanical keening like a heavy piece of machinery starting up. However, it still worked as a mirror, and Alice couldn't mistake the shape she saw at the back of the hall. She turned, unable to believe it. Had he really come? "Hatter!" she called in excitement.
He turned back to face her, which struck her as odd. Why had he been facing towards the door? Had he been trying to leave? "Alice! Hey!" he said with a laugh, half-jogging back towards her. "Hey, I was... I was afraid I might have missed you."
"Yeah, you cut it a little close," she said, glancing around. Why had he been trying to leave? Didn't he want to say goodbye?
"I... I guess I was trying not to think about it-anyway, I wanted to say goodbye," he replied, seeming to rush the second half.
Alice raised her eyebrows. "Goodbye?" she repeated, making it sound like a question.
"And if you... you know, ever fancy coming back...?"
"You want me to stay?" she asked, suddenly hopeful again. He wants me to stay? I know I need to go back, but he wants me to stay-
"Hell no!" he said with a laugh, his voice a bit higher than usual. Her face fell. "No, I... I think you should go home," he said.
She tried to hide her disappointment as she glanced around again. "Yeah, I think I've had enough of Wonderland for a lifetime," she said jokingly, trying to lighten the mood.
He laughed. "Yes, I am sure you have. Still we... we had a laugh, you know? Had some good times. Obviously, among all the... bad times," he said, his face making her chuckle. He looked down at her and spread his arms out from his sides a little. "We... we should...?"
She hesitated for a moment, then they hugged for a second. It was tense and awkward, not like it had been back at the Casino. What had happened between them? Had she said something? Had she not said something? Was it something she had done? She pulled away and looked up at him, confused. "You know, you could always visit my world," she said with one last, fleeting hope. "You might like it."
"Yeah," he said, but it seemed that he was faking his enthusiasm. "We could... we could do pizza."
She smiled at his attempt to amuse her. "And lots of other things."
One of the lab techs came over and grabbed her arm. "Alice, please."
Hatter raised his eyebrows. "Really? I was just-"
Alice turned back to look at him as she was led away. For just that second, she saw something in his eyes-reluctance, maybe? Concern?
Or was it something more?
The man in the lab coat led her up to the mirror, and her breath started coming in nervous gasps. "Just force yourself to breathe," the man instructed, and then she was shoved roughly through the liquid surface of the mirror.
Her thoughts were scrambled. Sounds and colors swirled by her in a confusing blur, an invisible force pressed in on her from all sides, making it difficult to breathe, and she was falling through the tunnel again...
Then, with a terrible screeching noise, she was jerked to a halt. Confusion and panic gripped her. What was going on? The colors and sounds confirmed that she was still in the tunnel...
A rough force, like a careless hand, flipped her around. Now, colors and sounds swarmed in reverse, and she felt a searing pain on her left side. Instead of falling, she was being pulled upward again, and there at the end of the tunnel was the ornate gold-framed Looking Glass. Through it, she could see the Oysters waiting to go home, she could see Jack and the lab techs, and she could see Hatter, staring at her with shock and concern.
She broke through the end of the tunnel, landing facefirst on a hard stone floor. "Ow," she muttered in shock. Her side hurt like hell, and it felt hot and sticky too.
Like blood.
She started to feel dizzy. She was aware of someone by her side, holding her hand. A familiar voice spoke worriedly. "Alice. Alice, love, I'm here, it'll be okay."
And then she was falling again, but not through a tunnel. This time she fell into blackness, into a blissful escape from the pain. She fell into peaceful black unconsciousness.