Author's Note: So I happen to share the rather common feeling that the end of Tim Burton's otherwise brilliant 'Alice in Wonderland' was complete shit. Seriously, what the hell were they thinking? Anyway, after reading several angry forum posts wandering around the net, I came up with the idea for this story: Alice does go back, and she says everything she says to everyone, but instead of them being understanding of her (which they would not have been in that time period), they instead do what would have been done in that time period and throw her into an insane asylum. Now she's screwed herself over and is stuck in solitary confinement unless her Hatter decides to come rescue her.

Hope you enjoy. :)

—

Prologue

—

Leaving was her first mistake.

Not turning right around and diving back into the rabbit hole was her second.

Of course, she knew nothing of the price she would have to pay for her decision to return to London—had she known, the aforementioned mistakes would surely not have been made.

It couldn't have really been entirely her fault—in her defense, the effects of Jabberwock blood on an Otherwordler were unknown and could have surely contributed to her lowered inhibitions and preposterous behavior. But she had willingly drunk it in the first place, after willingly deciding she ought to return home.

"There are questions I have to answer," she'd told him, the man whom she secretly adored and wished to spend her life with. "Things I have to do."

It was a lie.

There were no questions she had in mind that needed answering, nor were there any things she felt she was obligated or even wanted to do. Her words, her lie, had painted his lips into a frown and burned the back of his eyes, and she'd drunk the vibrantly purple blood to affirm her lie and seal a deal she never needed nor wanted to make.

Going down, the Jabberwock blood had an almost slippery consistency, and warmed her throat like hot tea. She'd made the wish—take me home—and smiled, actually smiled at him, as if she had not just struck his cheek with her ugly gesture and her senseless lie.

She'd fully intended to remember him, if nothing or no one else. And yet when she found her fingers caked with dirt as she pulled the last of her out of the rabbit hole, it was all a dim recollection in the back of her mind, like a dream that slips further out of remembrance the harder one tries to grasp it.

She'd been foolish not to look back. For surely just the sight of the rabbit hole should have been enough to trigger a memory: him, with his wild orange hair and his ever-changing eyes, and the love and grief that had smoldered in them as she broke his fragile heart with her selfish, senseless whim. But alas, it would not be so, for she then barely recalled even climbing out of the rabbit hole mere moments ago; and then she was walking back briskly along a path she remembered not and forgot as soon as she passed through it; and then she was back where she had started many turns of the sun ago—or, hadn't it only been one tick of the hour hand?

And yet, when her state and very appearance were called into question, to which she replied, "I fell down a hole and hit my head"—the confidence she'd gained in the world she could not remember lingered enough to weave foolish, deadly words, more words that would haunt her in the too-near future.

"I'm sorry, Hamish," she said, to none else but the lord whom everyone meant her to wed, "I can't marry you." As if enjoying her foolishness and thinking herself titillating, she had the audacity to add, "You're not the right man for me." As if she thought she in fact had a say in whether or not she would marry the miserable man! As if she thought herself above him and in some position where she had the choice to refuse his marriage proposal! Atrocious and incredulous as these words were already, she had even further audacity to add, offhandedly, for everyone to hear: "And there's that trouble with your digestion."

All were frozen in shock at the cheek displayed by this lower-class girl—who did she think she was?—and so none stopped her as she moved forth and continued to seal her fate.

In her mind, her sister smiled, and was understanding when she took her hands and said, "I love you, Margaret. But this is my life." And the girl had the nerve to say, "I'll decide what to do with it."

The shock was palpable; several women fainted, and disdainful sniffs rang throughout the crowd. Hushed murmurs and whispers began, sounding quite along the lines of: "This girl is mad." After all, what right had she to decide her own life? Who was she to have such an unthinkable privilege?

And she would simply not stop. She approached her sister's husband with a glare and thought to stare him down—she, a silly girl nowhere near his social stature or even his height—and insult him: "You're lucky to have my sister for your wife, Lowell. I know you'll be good to her. I'll be watching very closely."

She insulted her aunt next, the poor spinster: "There is no prince, Aunt Imogene. You need to talk to someone about these delusions." Delusions! Who was she to speak of delusions? She was speaking of deciding to do with her life what she wished and believed she could reject the marriage proposal of a lord and insult all manners of people and not be punished for it! She was expecting to be understood! Who was she to speak of delusions!

And she glared at the wealthy woman whose son she'd just turned down—why, she was a pauper compared to this lady and her son!—and, bringing up a conversation the woman had long forgotten and cared nothing for, the girl expressed her indignation for this woman's opinion, which mattered far more than hers—who was she to have opinions, really?: "I happen to love rabbits, especially white ones."

Was there no stop to this madness? The girl was in a pitiable state of affairs anyway, without any of this, and yet there she stood, coated with filth with an unavoidable scratch on her arm, expressing opinions and throwing insults around as if she thought herself higher than all those present. Some more women had fainted, and the rest of the crowd looked upon this wretched girl with growing hostility in their eyes, and the whispers of "She's mad" became more fiercely exclaimed. And yet she noticed none of it, and instead moved on to her mother—her poor, pitiable mother, whose reputation was forever shamed by this outrageous display—to whom she said consolingly, "Don't worry, Mother. I'll find something useful to do with my life."

Something useful! The people's eyes flashed with anger and some with fear; this was nothing they'd ever thought they'd have the misfortune to experience!

"You two remind me of some funny boys I met in a dream," the foolish girl told the Chattaway sisters. So the girl had dreams, too! And expressed them freely, as if anyone so much as wanted to know…

"You've left me out."

She turned to face now the father of the lord she'd rejected, and smiled at him, as if he were her dearest friend, as if she didn't realize how bitterly sarcastic his words had been.

"No I haven't, sir," she told him, adding impudently: "You and I have business to discuss."

Business! What business had she to discuss with him? Was she completely daft to the fact that she'd just turned down his son's marriage proposal?

Somehow, his contemptuous "And what might that be?" registered in her mind as "Shall we, ah, speak in the study?" And instead of answering him, she merely grinned and turned to walk through the crowd, now livid and completely mortified, which parted for her in jumps of terror at her approach.

What finally sealed her fate and, consequently, the padlock on her ward's door, was not something she next said, but rather what she next did—

"Oh, and one more thing." She hiked up her skirts, showing her legs which were without stockings, and moved her feet about in the most absurd and puzzling way, in the oddest… movement—surely they wouldn't call it a dance—they'd ever seen. What were in reality gasps of horror she somehow heard as approving giggles, and she turned on her heel and strode through the throng of appalled people, her head held high, as if she'd made herself so very proud.

The pride wouldn't last long. For, in fact, she would that very hour find herself accused of and taken away on a charge of madness, and that very night find herself wrapped tightly in white and thrown into a dark room with stone walls she could not yet see. Her ferocious and loud resistance in the process had gotten her additionally deemed harmful and out of control, which landed her in the sorry state of solitary confinement.

It was when she screamed until her throat was torn that she began to cry, and it was when she cried that she finally put herself to sleep, and it was when she slept that she dreamed of the madman she for whom she had fallen, and had out of fear abandoned.