She wants to say Curiouser and Curiouser, but that would be cliché. Already used. Redundantly redundant. She's only a quarter-part mad, not halfway or completely around the bend. She can tell the difference between a proper statement and stating the obvious.
And yet, the words are on the tip of her tongue. Hovering. Gently brushing against the wet muscle she uses to communicate with the world.
Her mouth opens, closes, opens again. The brush of air that whooshes in and out is drying. She makes a sharp inhale, and it isn't Wonderland or Underland or Anyland she can taste.
Just copper tang, thickening the air and pooling in her lungs.
Curiouser and Curiouser she wants to say as she looks down at the crumpled man before her.
Instead she leans down, places a hand on his still-bleeding throat, and checks to see if Stayne has a pulse.
# # #
One eye glitters in the light and the gaping hole where the other should be swallows it. The light, she means. She doesn't know what she means. She could be talking about swallows and their effect on Sailors in the Arctic for all she is being effective right now.
The handle on the butcher knife is slippery in her grip, and she doesn't understand why the prospect of killing him makes her upset when he very clearly would rise up and kill her if he could. She brandishes it at him the best she can anyway, with the tip pointed to his heart, and the edge of the blade facing down.
"I don't know why you are here," she says softly. Tightens her fingers. Looks him in the eye and ignores the gaze into forever that she could get lost in if she shifted her gaze just a smidge to the right. "But I suggest with the utmost best intentions that you return to Underland as soon as possible."
She expects him to snivel, to whine, to plead like he did with the White Queen in all her maniacal "yes I am related to that awful screech over there, would you like some biscuits with your tea" smiling glory.
She does not expect him to say, in just as soft a tone as she used, "No" and smile not quite unlike a cat named Chess.
# # #
The hem of her dress is dirty. She didn't notice when it had dragged through something unpleasant, but there you have it. It is dirty, a bit ragged, and she peels off her gloves with something like disgust at the fuss it will inspire when she returns.
He is where she left him, knees drawn up to his chest and back against the wall. He's dressed in his mended clothing this time, at least. He was up and around at some point, then.
"Will you return now?" she asks, to get formality and routine out of the way.
He doesn't look at her as he gives his customary response-No again, always No, No, No-and picks at a loose thread in the cuff of his shirt.
The sigh she used to use after that doesn't come for the first time, and instead of being surprised, she places the basket of food on the small table in the centre of the room, picks up her book from the floor, and begins to read.
# # #
He looms over her, knife to her throat, and she really should not have left that there oh dear.
"It is all because of you, child," he says, breathing down onto her face with shallow puffs to force each and every rasp out into the air. There's a speck of blood seeping through the bandage on his throat, and the knife trembles in his hand, against the tender skin of her neck. "Why should I not have my revenge upon you for this heinous act?"
"Because-" and she has to pause there, because the pressure on the blade increases enough to make her breath hitch, "-if you do, no one will be here to see your spiral into madness."
"I am nothing," he snarls down at her, the hand bracing his leaning form against the wall forming a fist by her head, "like that hatter."
It doesn't take as much effort as she would think to meet his gaze and say, "Perhaps you ought to modify your aspirations, then."
# # #
Her family is beginning to question her whereabouts, and the sinking feeling in her lower extremities-lower than her Muchness, higher than her skirts-tells her quite firmly that she can't continue with this much longer.
However she's going to tell this to him, she's no idea.
The novel she is reading today is not as engaging as the last, and she peers over the pages to see him sitting with legs crossed, head bowed, hands braced on knees. He's breathing deep, not in sleep because he never sleeps when she's there except for the first night, but in... focus.
"I can't come here anymore," she says, as simple as she can manage. "I don't know why I started in the first place, but I can't come anymore."
His posture does not change, but the index finger on his left hand twitches. One more breath, and then another one.
There are a lot of words she has bitten back over the course of this adventure, but she doesn't bother this time.
Spitting out as she closes her book with a snap, "Thank you so much for being the most gracious patient all of England-nay, London-could ever hope for."
Almost growling as she kicks back the chair to stand tall and tower over him for once, "I hope your future travels hold less bloodshed on both your and your attacker's parts."
Outright snarling as she whirls to the door, skirts twirling around her ankles, "If you ever find your way back to Underland please do look up Hatter and let him know I miss him."
She's almost to the door when his hands slam around her, boxing her in and keeping the door solidly shut all in one not very subtle motion. She does not turn to face him, though his breath is warm and stuttering on the back of her neck.
Instead, she stares at the grotesque scratchy scar on his right wrist, pink and shiny and brutal looking with every tremble he makes.
"You shouldn't be up yet, if you need the wall to stand up," she says. "Please return to the bed, and let me on my way."
The sound of him licking his lips shouldn't make her breath hitch, but it does. So there.
"I am banished to the outerlands," he says into her hair, voice soft enough to be taken away in a breeze if there were to be one in this stale hole of a room.
"And yet you still speak to me." One hand pulls away from the door, and the tips of his fingers lightly press the back of her neck where bare skin ends and her dress begins.
"And yet you still show me kindness." His touch withdraws. "Please forgive me for my silence, I have become unused to your proclivities towards generosity in the years since we were last sharing the same company."
His other hand withdraws from the door, taking the scar catching all her vision with it. The warmth of his body retreats, leaving her cold and shivering. She can hear his steps over the floor, back against the opposite wall, near the window. Near the mattress she desperately procured weeks ago as he was slowly bleeding out in the bare room as he had been left.
It is her turn to lick her lips. "I will attempt to visit once a week, for a while."
The doorknob is cool to the touch of her sweating palms, and she has to grip it tightly to get it to turn.