"What are you doing?" Hatter knew that she was risking everything, but, at the moment, she didn't care.
"You should know better than to question me", she said to Morris. He probably thought that she had lost her mind, but he would never say that out loud. He stared at her for a moment, as if to make sure that she wasn't joking. "We'll?" She asked impatiently, abs he ran off to do her bidding.
Hatter walked quickly to the gates of her palace. She looked our into the dark dreary world that she had ruled over for the past few years. The land beyond the looking glass fit her. They were both only a reflection of a pitiful reality, and they both could be so much more.
She waited a few more minutes, before Jack, The White Knight was tossed at her feet. She dismissed the guards who had brought him, one of them handed her the key to the hand cuffs Jack was wearing before they left.
"You look different kneeling like that", Hatter said once her guards were out of earshot. "So weak. You're nothing but a shadow of a tale from years ago."
"That's where you're wrong", Jack's eyes were fixed on the spot where Hatter's shoes met the ground. "I'm not the weak one here."
Hatter laughed, "I could kill you in an instant, and you think I'm weak?"
"You're not going to kill me, are you?"
"No", the cold tone of her vice masked the true emotions that she was feeling.
"Then why am I here?"
"Stand up and look me in the eye, I promise you won't turn to stone." Jack couldn't help but grin at the joke, but his grin didn't last longer than two seconds. He rose to his feet, bracing himself for the hatred that he would see in Hatter's eyes.
Too his surprise, he saw a heart-wrenching despair and a hint of the warmth that he used to see everything he looked into her eyes. There was a time where he could see everything worth living for in those eyes. That was before life had ruined all hope of him ever finding real happiness, back when he still believed in happy endings.
Hatter took his hands in hers and slipped the key of his hand cuffs into it's lock. "Go", her voice came out as a whisper.
"I don't understand", Jack didn't let her release her grip on his hands.
"Yes you do", she wore a sad smile as she said this.
"Hatter, I can't leave. Please, just kill me." He could hardly believe what he was saying.
"No", she shook her head, trying to keep the fear from her voice. "I can't watch you die. Winning isn't worth loosing the only thing that I ever cared about."
"Everything comes with a price. I thought that what we had was lost years ago."
"I thought that too, but then I saw you and..."
"And?"
"And I miss you more than you'll ever know", Hatter's voice broke and tears began to stream down her cheeks.
Jack whipped her tears away, suddenly consumed by the guilt that he had ignored for to long. "I'm sorry. We can't together, please don't make me end it all over again."
"I'm not asking you to. I'm asking you to leave Looking Glass Land."
Jack wished that he could leave. He wished that he could let himself love Hatter, but he didn't want to get hurt again. "I'm not leaving Alice."
Hatter tried to force the look of complete disbelief from her face. She told herself that this was her own fault, but that only made the pain worse.
"I'm sorry, but you're going to have to kill me", Jack hated how heartless he sounded, but he knew that this was what Hatter needed to hear. Or, at least, it was what he needed to say. "Despite what you think, I am not a coward."
"No", Hatter's voice didn't hold the anger that Jack had excepted to hear. She sounded as if she had excepted the fact that even if she won she was still never going to be happy. "You are a coward, just not in the way that you think."