The Tulgey Wood was cold. Cold, damp, and full of noises that had once seemed comforting in their familiarity, in their tangibility, in their ability to confirm that all of this, all that had happened here, was real. She'd clung to these sounds, in her other life, in the asylum, but now they made her skin crawl with fear. A jub-jub bird screeched, announcing the presence of a stranger in the wood. Alice rolled onto her back and stared up at the stars through the branches of a tum-tum tree and tried to imagine she wasn't alone, that she hadn't just left him. Will… Her throat constricted and she curled both hands into tight fists until the sharp sting of fingernails biting into palms overwhelmed the urge to cry. "He's safe." She formed the words with her lips, though no sound escaped. She'd used one of her wishes to ensure that. Somehow, in that moment, with Will dangling in the air before her, even as he looked to the Red Queen – her brain skittered over the name Anastasia like a newborn fawn on ice, unable to find purchase – for help, she had forgotten wishes always come with consequences, she'd just wanted to save Will's life. Now the consequences were all she could think of.
Will. Again her throat tightened and she felt a traitorous tear prickling at the back of her eye. No! she wouldn't break down now, she couldn't, there was too much at stake. Setting her jaw she redirected her thoughts to the one subject that had always given her strength: Cyrus. But there was no comfort in those thoughts tonight either. He would know. Cyrus would know she'd used a wish. What would he think? She'd promised never, and she'd meant it. Only… Will needed her.
But it was more than that. Cyrus would understand why she'd saved Will's life. He would understand, even if she didn't. Well, that wasn't quite true. She understood all the rational reasons: that if one can save a life, one should; that Will was her friend and that he'd only ended up in this situation because of her, so she'd sort of owed him one; and that foiling whatever Jafar did would help Cyrus. What she didn't understand was what had made her choose that wish. Those specific words, where had they come from?
"I wish if the Knave of Hearts dies, then I die."
It had been a good wish. It wasn't small, like wishing for a cupcake with pink frosting, but it was contained. If she'd wished the Knave couldn't die, Jafar could have maimed him horribly and then left Will to suffer forever. If she'd wished Jafar couldn't hurt Will, he would just have made someone else do it. Tying Will's life to hers was a good move. Jafar needed her alive. What puzzled her, and made her stomach churn as turbulently as her troubled mind, was that none of these good, logical thoughts had governed her tongue. In that moment, when those words had tumbled from her mouth, all she'd thought was that she needed Will, that if he died she wouldn't be able to push on, it wouldn't be worth it not even for Cyrus. Somewhere in the last few days, running and fighting their way through Wonderland, she'd begun to lean on him.
She thought back to that day in the asylum, when she'd almost given up. She could almost hear Will's voice, "Cyrus, he's alive!" In a heartbeat she had made up her mind that she had to find him. Now, lying here alone, in the Tulgey Wood because that was where Will had told her they would meet when he ran off to protect her and almost got himself killed three times in the span of an afternoon, she wondered, for the first time, was it worth it?
If she had never come, if she had let that doctor take her memories of this place, of Cyrus, everyone would be safe. Will would be living his other life, the one that he'd griped about being torn away from every chance she gave him, instead of decorating the Queen's garden. Cyrus too would be safer, he would have to. She couldn't wish if she didn't remember she had the wishes, right? Wishing was more than saying "I wish" you had to wish it, you had to believe and desire something. Jafar and the Red Queen brought her here, and though she believed she would save Cyrus, and that together she and Cyrus could save Will, for a moment, watching a shooting star cross the sky, she wished she'd never returned to Wonderland.
"Can you free him?" Lizard asked, stepping out from behind the hedge.
"Didn't I tell you to run away?" The Queen asked without turning around. "I promised my people a beheading, and I do so hate to disappoint them."
Lizard ignored her. "Well, can you?" She was scared of the Queen, everyone in Wonderland who valued their head was scared of the Queen, except perhaps the Caterpillar and Jafar… and Alice. But in that moment, starlight refracting into tiny rainbow in the tears clinging to her eyelashes as she reached out a trembling hand to run over the stone lapels of Will's coat, she wasn't the Queen, she was Anastasia and that gave Lizard courage.
"Why would I?"
"Because you love him."
The Queen's mouth twisted into a contemptuous sneer. "I don't love anyone."
"He loved you."
Anastasia laughed. "You're young and naïve. Will Scarlett never loved anyone but himself and his purse. You were his little partner in crime, I thought you would have realized that."
Liz felt a flush cover her cheeks. Of course she'd loved Will, but she never told him, what would have been the point? "Save him, your majesty." She took several steps backwards, seeking safety behind the hedge once more. "He would save you" she added before turning and breaking into a run. The Queen may have been shocked into doing nothing to harm her for a moment, but Liz knew enough to know that when the moment was over, her head was as good as gone unless she got away first.
The Queen barely noticed Lizard's departure. She caressed Will's cold stone cheek once, looking into his blank eyes as if he could look back. "You should have run when I gave you the chance."
Will couldn't move, couldn't talk, or breathe or laugh or see or scream or cry. But he could hear, and he could feel, and most of all he could think: an activity he had been actively avoiding for years. There were too many memories, painful horrible memories, that he didn't want to remember. Now he had little choice. The only reprieve was when someone touched him or talked near him, the sensory stimulation pulling him from his own maudlin thoughts for a blessed moment.
Alice hadn't touched him, but she'd whispered "I'm sorry" and he'd thought he heard tears in her voice. He'd wanted to shrug it off, make a joke, or tell her to go find Cyrus and not to worry about him, he'd always wanted a quiet sort of life, but of course, he couldn't. All he could do was ache to wrap his arms around her and reassure himself that she was okay and so was he. But they weren't okay. He was a statue and Alice was alone.
What could have been seconds or months later, he felt something, someone, brush against his chest. He thought it was Alice and a sharp pain shot through his chest. He was supposed to be helping her, not holding her here, in the Red Queen's garden. She'd sacrificed a wish for him, he knew how much that had cost her. How many times had she told him she was never going to make a wish?
It wasn't until Anastasia answered Liz's question that Will realized whose hand was resting gently against him. Anastasia. A fresh knife of pain, crueler and more bitter than the last. He honestly hadn't thought she would do it. Somehow he had fooled himself into believing that, despite every bit of evidence pointing to the contrary, she still cared for him, that she wouldn't be able to hurt him. Even as he was dying at Jafar's hand after Alice saved him from the beheading Anastasia had ordered, Will had looked to Anastasia for salvation. He was the worst kind of fool, to think that Anastasia would save him, to be willing to give his life so Alice wouldn't have to break her promise to Cyrus.
Will Scarlett, the Knave of Hearts, had been in love twice in his life and neither woman would ever love him back. Alice because she already had her one true love, and Anastasia because she was so consumed with her thirst for power she could never love anything but herself. Stuck there, in the Queen's garden, alive because of Alice's sacrifice, Will didn't know which was worse. But it sounded like he was going to have plenty of time to figure that out.