a/n (and spoiler warning):
this was a story that was born out of thinking about Alyss and Alice; and the constant flashbacks of Rapunzel that I keep getting whenever Pandora flashbacks to the past. So.. obviously, because of the product of my wonderings came from something that's far into the series, there are spoilers! For anything up to chapter 32. Also, might be incredibly confusing, but I wanted it that way, somewhat. There are also some hints of Jack/Alice and Jack/Alyss.
As for which Alice is she and which is She, well--that's for the reader to figure out!
Enjoy.
Me is She
and She is mE.
--
These are the Dolls.
they are Her DollS.
It's been raining for three days, two nights— maybe thirty-three seconds, if her counting is right.
Thirty-four, now.
But no, maybe that's wrong, if the rabbit doll three from the right is anything to go by. It doesn't have a name; she doesn't name them all, they don't need it. Names are for identification purposes and as far and her and hhHer Friends were concerned, they could identify each other just fine without them. So they didn't need names. Besides, there were too many of them. Too many names, too many words she didn't know. And she wants to name them things no one else would have, and there are too many names she doesn't know.
It's been raining for far longer than that, Alice, so much longer!
She blinks. Maybe the rabbit is wrong. Certainly it's been raining for at least three days, five days at most. And five is not much longer than three, just two days, so he is certainly mistaken. Alice walks to the shelf to perhaps confront hhHer friend and correct him, but he seems set on proving her wrong—on the basis that if he is right, no one else could be.
Hasn't it always been raining, Alice?
Her fingers curl around the front of the shelf, and the rabbit's eyes dig into her soul. They are wide, a black void. "What do you mean by that?" she asks, but there is no response from the rabbit any longer. She turns to the dolls beside him. "What does he mean by that?"
They make clicking noises, abrupt things that dig into her ears. But it's nothing she can understand—doll talk, it's all doll talk, and she's no doll!
She bites her lip, but turns back to the window in her tower, a world all her own. It's Alice's Wonderland, where it's been raining for three days, two nights. She's lost track of how many seconds, but it wouldn't feel right even if she did know. That's the feeling she has, right now.
--
This isn't my Cat.
this is Her CaT.
The Cat has not come out from under the shelves since the beginning of the rain.
She catches a sight of its beady yellow eyes in the darkness of the cozy nook it's in. They have a sort of unreal shine to them, the kind that pierces through anything and yanks her attention— forces her to look.
Cats don't like water. They must also not like rain. Alice isn't stupid, she knows why it's hiding under there. It's not her Cat.
"It's my turn," she tells the dumb thing.
It's only response is a hiss. Her response is to hiss back, like an animal instinct. That makes the Cat dive up from the solitude of the shelves, leaping up to the nearest thing off the floor. The bell around its neck goes ring a ling, ring a ling.
Alice sits up to look up at the cat on the table. It's baring its fangs now. Back arched up high and proud. Like it's actually a threat. She scoffs at its bravado. "You're Cheshire, right?"
Another stupid hiss.
"Don't worry, I won't start getting all friendly with you," she mutters, leaning now against the side of the shelf with a 'humph'. The Dolls rattle somewhat at the impact, making those damn clicking noises again.
Ring a ling. Clack clack clack. Pitter patter.
Alice throws her head back, the shelf rattling again. That only makes the Dolls click even more. Wonderland is getting less and less wondrous, more and more suffocating.
She's sick of Wonderland.
--
This is my favorite book.
this is HerS.
The rain stopped ten minutes ago. The Dolls are still clacking. The Cat can only hiss so much, so it's now curled up on the shelf, alongside the feminine looking toy four from the left. Alice knows which one that is. That one is male, and sort of a creep. Cheshire is wasting its time.
The sound is still digging into her ears. She's been sitting for a while, and her rear is sore from it.
She's tired.
The little girl stands up, dusts herself off. Looks out the window just once, like a reflex. At least the dolls suddenly stopped clicking. At least it's quiet. At least the stupid Cat isn't trying to scratch her, instead minding its own business.
She walks to the bookcase beside Cheshire. The cat feels her coming, leaps up to hiss again. Adorable, really.
"I'm just getting a book," Alice informs innocently. It just never stops threatening her.
When her fingers brush over the spine of Her favorite Book, the hissing gets even worse. She takes it out just to spite him, throws it on the floor. The cover peers open to an 'alice' in fancy, childish cursive on the lower-right of the first page, all flowery and girly and not her penmanship.
Alice takes another book out. The others tilt slightly, threatening to spill over the shelf and the floor, and she certainly wasn't going to clean that up.
Her eyes meet Cheshire's. "I wasn't going for that and you know it."
Its lip curl upward to reveal small, sharp teeth. She ignores it, walking back to her comfortable little space by the window. She feels the eyes of the Cat on her during the entire way. Another thing to ignore.
"I'm not interested in Wonderland," she tells it, matter-of-factly, and opens up the cover of her, not Her, favorite book. The first page has the title, simple and to the point, her name in the upper right. Blocky. It might even be considered a little bit boyish. But that's fine.
This story is of a tower. A girl locked up. There is freedom in the form of a long, golden braid.
--
This is my dream.
this is her lifE.
She catches glimpses of a man in her sleep. They're running outside, doing fun things, picking roses, being free. She hears Names.
jack, jack, jack.
alice, alice, alice.
Her eyes slide close, but she still hears them. The names taunt her, laugh, make fun.
The next thing she sees when she gets her turn, finally, is the tall walls of a tower.
--
this is my jealousy.
this is Her joY.
When she wakes up, she finds her story on the table.
Obviously enough, she knows that She read it.
"That's mine," she mutters to the air, and lifts the mattress of the bed to hide the book where she thinks She can't find it. Cheshire is watching her again; she can feel its stare. Alice's hands clench tighter around the mattress. It's just as much Her room as it is hers, so She would find it eventually. The book is hidden anyway.
Cheshire meows, knowingly.
"Remember it's there," Alice sits on the bed, crossing her legs with annoyance. "You want to save Her time, right? Stupid cat."
They stare each other down. There's a spark of something in Alice's eyes, to which Cheshire leaps away, obviously frightened.
"Scaredy cat!"
She looks back to the table. Reaches her hand under the mattress, pulling out the cover of a tower. A girl looking out to the scenery, with yearning. There's not much to the cover like there is not much to the tale; it's a simple little thing.
She clenches her teeth. It's been her favorite longer. Why did She get to play it out first? Stupid Alice, stupid Alice.
Go back to Wonderland.
It's where you belong.
--
This is my rebellion.
this is Her losS.
Alice hides the book before Cheshire can find out where. Places it sneakily in the thin space where bed meets wall. Then she walks to the bookshelf, scanning the contents. And she feels it.
Her head turns to look over at the Feline, as it watches her pretend to change her preference. "Remember it's there," she reminds him, smiling sneakily. "You stupid cat."
Its tail whips.
--
This is my reason.
this is Her battlE.
She wakes up one day to tussled sheets and a room that looks like a hurricanehit it, the Cat mewling in the corner. Alice doesn't need to ask what went on. Judging from the fact nothing was clean, Alice also didn't need to ask whether the outcome was favorable.
There's a strange clenching around her head. Brings a hand up to stroke it, and she feels some sort of foreign textur—
Braids?
Ah, that's right. She remembers now, the man that She had suddenly become so enamoured with, so obsessed, enough to change her book tastes and thoughts. Wonderland wasn't so nice anymore, but she realized that long before She did.
She frowns, brings her hands to her lap to wring them together, like some sort of n-nervous girl in love, like the books say. With him—only She has gotten time with him.
But she is She, and There is here, with them, so she thinks that she obviously should have as much right to him as She does.
Her hands dismantle the braids, running through it slowly. The cat is hissing again, and really, no matter what she does it always seems to be wrong somehow.
"Why do you do that, you stupid thing?" she asks it, honestly. Her eyes flash again, with that look the cat hates, some hidden animalistic glance that the Brat doesn't have, that She doesn't have. "I'm Alice, too."
The cat leaps onto the highest shelf it can manage, the second one of the ground. One of the dolls begin to clack, and then all of the other dolls begin to clack, a chorus of clacks, and Alice tries to silence them with a wave of her hand, like she has seen Her do so many times.
A couple of them are silenced, the feminine looking one four from the left being one of them.
She finds herself favoring him a lot more now.
--
this is She.
She is thiS.
She is awake to see him.
"Jack!"
She is awake to leap into his arms—to take share of what She has had for so long. They share most everything: books, bed, body; it is only right She shares Jack, too.
So, this is the first time she meets him. It is sunny; it always is when he comes to visit. When he comes the dolls stay quiet and Cheshire stays in the corner, licking his paws and rejecting her, as per usual. But he is not making useless threats.
He looks her over for a moment. "Who are you?" he asks, hugging her back regardless. "You are not the Alice I know."
There's that flash that Cheshire so hates. A giggle in her mind, a pull, and she breaks the embrace to look him over carefully. She turns her back to dig her heel into the sofa, throws her glance over her shoulder. Obviously he would notice; Jack! Jack is not blind. Jack is wise, and kind, and Theirs.
"That's right," her eyes take in the shocked and shocking features of his face, eyes like calm water, untouched. She decides on a whim to hang on the back of the sofa, hair pooling around her and over the cushions of the seats, black tendrils like darkness. "I'm not."
"But I'm also Alice!" she adds. "The Alice you know. That Brat is from the deepness. The only way She," there is a special way she accentuates that word, like a special way it would be written, to show they are separate yet the same. "Can even communicate here, is through me."
Alice's eyes close, and then open. The look is there again. The look is the only thing They do not share. "We are both Alice! I am She, and She is me."
--
He, for me,
and for ShE,
To Jack, it suddenly makes sense. When he comes over, he is almost always doing things twice. Reading books that are sometimes worlds apart, some twisted, others happy, read in succession day after day because she suddenly can't remember the ending. It's the same with playing the piano. The same pieces, back to back, because she suddenly doesn't remember hearing them.
But no, it's not that she doesn't remember. It's that she hasn't heard them.
And he's reading Rapunzel again, only because he hasn't read it to her yet, not like he's read it to Her, over and over.
"Is this your favorite book?"
She fiddles with the braids he's done for her—because he is almost always doing things twice, and they 'came off in her sleep', she had said. After a while, Alice nods.
He smiles kindly. "Would you mind sharing why?"
"Reminds me of things," she admits, blushing lightly. Somehow, she feels like She might have given the same answer, too. "Locked in a tower—that's a familiar setting."
Alice doesn't mention that She has friends that she does not, there are things and then there are Things, there is the Pet and then there is the cat. dolls and Dolls. In a way, Alice has less than alice has.
For fun, she gives a quiet yank to Jack's braid. The way he makes that sound of surprise humors her.
--
a home.
a home.
There is a story; it is a very simple thing.
There is a tower, not a Tower. loneliness, not Loneliness, as well. There's two cats, two sets of dolls, save for a few that They both share.
A girl and a Girl, poor little things, caged. Freedom is in the form of a golden braid.
There is only one Jack.
and then there is none.