Chapter 2 Crash Landing

Gotham: April, 15, 1994

The man lay in the corner of the small apartment, curled in on himself and shaking in the throes of a cold sweat. His now raspy voice muttered over and over again.

"She's dead! She's dead… She's dead."

His frame of mind would shift between hysterical sobs and low gasps like that of a wounded animal. He had taken something that was supposed to calm him down, just over an hour ago, but it didn't seem to be taking effect. He decided eventually to take some more of his meds and a small amount of gin to take the edge off. He shouldn't have taken anything, his body began to shake and he rocked back in to the wall. His head felt like it was going to burst and right then the man wasn't sure he would have minded.

"No, No, No…" he began a chant of whispers that grew into ear piercing screeches.

"No." He half whined, half sobbed. "I-I-I won't let her keep me from my daughter any longer, I won't, I won't let the queen of hearts take my Alice away from me" The man's face was paled and tried as he stood almost toppling over himself from the momentum. He nearly crawled over to the box in the corner of the room where there was a rope, a strong rope for putting boxes in the roofs of cars for long distances, and it would do.

His hand shook as he fumbled with the knot. Sobbing, he fastened one end securely to the heavy metal curtain holder, but the sobs gradually turned to maniacal laughter as he fastened the rope around his own neck. He pulled the knot tight and sank to the floor; the smile on his face reaching his eyes for the last time.

Arkham Asylum, Gotham City: 3 days later April, 18, 1994

The man woke up to the blinding artificial light of white walls and hospital fixtures. This was strange because the man assumed he was dead and would never wake up again at all, but here he was in a hospital with IV's sticking out of his body and dozens of monitors surrounding his bed. He felt fine which was another shock given he was sure he had been dead, but no her he was now; wherever here was.

Hastily he got up pulling out the IV's and leaving the monitors in a mess of beeps, and shrill whistles. He didn't care; he wanted to get out of here. He shouldn't be here, he should be dead. He walks out the door of the white room its open and there's no lock; he assumes he's free to leave. The halls are fairly empty and nearly silent as he makes his way down the hall arriving at a tall desk with a rather bored looking woman behind it. He wants to talk to her and ask her 'What's going on?', 'Why isn't he dead?', when he sees a flash of blonde hair out of the corner of his eye. There a little girl being led into another room, but 'No' he considers the possibility 'It couldn't be her… it couldn't be. She's dead; just like he should be.' He looks back to the door, but it's closed now. He can hardly help but walk towards it in desperate hope.

The lady at the desk looks up.

"Sir…? Sir! You're not allowed there, Sir, stop! Step away from there!"

He doesn't listen; he looks into the room through the small window and her barely able to make out the back of the little girls head. The blonde hair that color and that cut, looks exactly like his Alice. The man was never one to believe in heaven or and after life but there's a part of him that wants to believe it's her. He begins to shout her name through the glass; willing her to turn so he can see the girl's face.

"Alice!" the girl turns ever so slightly as he yanked forcefully backwards by a set of strong men in hospital scrubs. He barely makes out her face but is enough for him to see. That's his Alice. He beings to thrash violently to escape their grasp. He screams her name over and over trying to get to his little girl. The doctor to the man's left asks for a sedative and the man fight harder, but the one on his right jabs a thin plunger into his neck. The black encompasses his vision; every part of his being is holding on to the single hope that yes, his little girl is still alive.

On the other side of the door the girl turns back curiously to Dr. James.

"Alice?" She says softly so it's almost a question.

"Hmm?" inquires Dr. James

"Alice, that man called me. The name sound familiar…" He blue eyes are blank and innocent but there something dangerous stirring beneath them and Dr. James can sense it. He does his best to smooth it over.

"It's quite a common name, Celia, I'm sure you probably heard it before in a book or something…?"

That strikes the right chord; the girl nods. "Yes, a book, that sounds right!" She shakes her head as if she's shaking away the confusion the earlier incident had caused and smiles brightly at Dr. James.

"Now, why don't you lay down; so I can take some blood and run some tests. Okay?" The girl lies on the little metal table and holds out her arm willingly. The man put the needling her arm but instead of drawing blood he pushes down on the plunger and the girl fades into a deep sleep.

Three hours later the man wakes up in a panic looking around the room. The IV's are al back in his arms and the monitors are creating a frantic melody. The man looks as if he been woken from the most terrible nightmare or rather woken up to a night mare much more terrifying.

There's a nurse he doesn't remember standing by the table looking intently at the blinking colors on the screen.

He grabs the nurse arm roughly shaking her intent focus. "Where is Alice; where is my daughter?"

The nurse looks frightened "Sir, what are you talking about?" she exclaims.

Slowly she collects herself before responding in a more soothing voice "You must be in shock. You tried to kill yourself but we revived you. You've been asleep since Thursday." She ties to go back to focusing on the screen but the man won't let her.

"No, I saw my daughter." He says the confusing in his tone pepper with the slightest hint of anger. "I'm sure of it and I was dead I'm, sure of that too"

"Now I'm sure this is all very confusing to you, but you were dead; as I said we revived you." The man's eyes flash with rage.

"W-w-why?" he sputtered "How?" he added as a afterthought.

"I don't know the specifics, but you were brought in by a woman who claimed she knew you. She told us to start you on some kind of intravenous fluid. Doctor Cameron wasn't going to do the procedure but the dean told her she had to and after the procedure you just stared breathing again. I swear, I've never seen anything like it before." The nurse turned back to the monitor again curiously.

"Name?" said the man through gritted teeth.

"Pardon?" asked the nurse confused.

"What was the name of the woman who brought me in here?" he asked his tone breaking ever so sharply.

"I don't know, Shannon at the front desk might know, I believe…" the nurse pause contemplating something.

"Oh, yes this was left for you when you woke up it's a phone number, I believe….?" She handed him a small slip of paper shaped like a heart torn almost in two with a string of numbers hastily scrawled on it.

He held it in his hand not yet bring himself to look at it, instead he turned back to the nurse.

"My-my daughter, I saw her flesh and blood. She was alive. There was a doctor caring for her."

The nurse looked confused, "Dr. Cameron said this might happen as a side effect of the chemicals."

"What do you mean?" asked the man incredulously "I saw my daughter…"

"Sir you must have been having delusions; the fluid they gave you is supposed to cause that. You couldn't possibly have seen you daughter." The nurse paused thinking over her words once again

"She was found dead this morning." The man looked down and began to mutter incoherencies that the nurse could just barely make out

"But I saw her,… I swear I did, No! ….she can't take her away, not again,… My Alice, the evil, evil Queen of Hearts… I'm not dead… why am I not dead?"

He finally brought himself to look at the heart and man began to weep as he noticed the number on the heart; it was his ex-wife's number.

Abandoned Warehouse in the middle of Nowhere: April, 3, 2012

One word bellowed through the mental link.
"Artemis!"
They had been connected for less than a minute when Artemis suddenly disappeared from the mental link. It wasn't like she was unconnected I was like her mind just didn't exist anymore.

Up until that point they hadn't been linked, because it turned out that the only person that seemed to be I the warehouse as a scared little girl who wanted to go home. But when they decided to search the surrounding area Kaldur had decided it would be best if the reconnected so they could search more effectively. Unfortunately before he could tell the rest of the team, they had already run off, and split up into their usual groups. Wally sprinted ahead through the throng of trees and Robin followed soon after. Zantanna went in similar direction trying to use magic to locate the unknown man. Megan had just stared to trail after Connor and wolf, when Kaldur had reminded her to link up the team.

The instruction was carried out with ease but the search was brought to a screeching halt soon after as one name froze its way through the mind link. Wally was the first to respond.
"What happened, Megan, is she okay?"
Megan's confusion spread over the mental link.
"She was in the warehouse and her mind just vanished suddenly..."
Wally didn't need any more confirmation than that, as he took off running at full speed towards the warehouse, ignoring Megan's warnings that something was wrong here and it might not be safe to go in. The next to respond was Robin who told Kaldur to have the team cover all the exits of the warehouse incase Artemis was still inside. Robin followed after KF asking Megan to try and explain what happen. Honestly Megan wasn't quite clear on that herself. She tried to think about all the past encounter she had with psychic powers before and she had never seen anything like this.

"I don't know," she said settling on an answer "I don't think it's possible for her to just have disappeared like that. If she had gone somewhere else I should still be able to find her mind but it's like her mind no longer exists. Who or what ever did this seems completely different from anything I'm familiar with. I think we need to be careful." At the last word Robin began to pick up the pace, Wally had no idea what he was running into. Of course at the moment rest of the team didn't either.

Wally bolted into the warehouse in seconds, his gaze scanning over the too quiet warehouse; before his eyes settle on something green lying on the ground. As he moved closer to it; his limbs began to feel unexpectedly heavy. He peered down at the bow suspiciously; it was broken completely in two. He looked up into the metal maze above him, taking in a deep breath; before calling out her name.

"Artemis…?"

There was no response. He went to taking in another breath but his head suddenly felt dizzy. He body began to sway a bit before sinking slowly to the ground. His conscious mind slipping as he began to pass out. As he closed his eyes he noticed something resting on the break in the bow. It was a small red heart torn almost in two.

Mount Justice: April, 3,2012

Kid flash awoke in the med bay, his head throbbing painfully. He looked around the empty white walled room. 'Where was everyone' he thought. 'What happened?'

He swears he just had the craziest dream ever. Artemis had been capture by some lunatic who was obsessed with Alice in Wonderland, but that sounded too crazy and terrible; it couldn't have possibly happened. 'Artemis kidnapped? There was no way would she ever let herself get kidnaped and even so, I – I mean the team wouldn't let her be…" Wally shook his head. It was no use to think about that now. He should find the rest of the team and maybe find out why his head kills so much. He hopped quickly out of the bed cot before stumbling back down with a sudden bout of vertigo. 'Really…?' he thought, 'What had he hit his head with? It felt like he had run into a concrete wall at full speed.'

He got up slowly this time trying not to chance another round of nausea. He walked at a semi-normal pace as he checked the main room, the training room, even the kitchen. Finally he reached the briefing room, where they receive their missions; only to find almost the entire team swarmed around the computer as the Boy Wonder sat typing furiously at the key board.

He glanced over to the center of the room where he saw Aqualad and Miss Martian trying to analyze a green bow broken in two.

"Wait" he thought "That's Artemis's bow and it's broken… which mean it mustn't have been a dream… which means…"

"Damn…" Wally cursed out loud. Everyone head's turned in his direction.

"What?" he said trying to draw attention away from himself. "Don't mind me I just realized I woke up to a nightmare that I though was all a dream" He said with the slightest hint of ire in his voice. Megan, being ever sympathetic, went over him to give him a small hug, before returning to her nervous pacing, or in her case floating, around the table with Artemis's bow on it.

Wally turned to Robin, who was still facing the computer typing away.

"Where is she?" asked Wally keeping his tine even.

Robin shook his head, "I'm not sure." He stopped typing for a second to look at his friend reassuringly.

"But we are going to find her, KF…"

"How?" he asked his voice cracked ever so slightly. "We're not even sure who took, her never mind,, where they might be… how are we supposed to find her?" Wally meant to tale a step towards Robin but instead he stumbled a bit.

"Whoa… KF you really shouldn't be standing…. you inhale a ton of knockout gas at the warehouse… your probably still pretty lightheaded."

"Rob, I'm fine. I think whatever it was, has mostly worn off by now." He said be for tripping over his feet again.

"You should still sit down…" said Zantanna "It'll help it vertigo go away faster."

She muttered some backwards words and a chair appeared. Wally sat down, but stood up again anxiously a second later.

"So what exactly are you doing" he asked the Boy Wonder watching him type several codes across the mostly dark screen.

Robin gave one of his trademark smirks before stating simply "This."

Before Wally could ask exactly what 'this' was. Robin held up the tiny red heart that Wally vaguely remembers seeing before he fell and hit his head.

"This heart" he said, "Is a tracking device. I found a way to reverse the tracking signal so I can track whoever is tracking it; which will hopefully lead us to whoever took Artemis…"

"Hopefully?" questioned Kid Flash.

Wally tried to look relived but honestly he only felt more worried. Artemis was still currently who know where, with a mad man, who was doing who knows what to her.

Location Unknown: Same day April, 3, 2012

The stranger dressed in red stood outside the warehouse. The week was wearing on her and she was running on empty, having fallen asleep for the third time that day. But that what happens when you hardly get any sleep for five days straight and insomnia hasn't kicked in quite yet.

She curse when she looked at her tracker screen realizing in the hour she been dozing off the Hatter had moved again. She looked at the small screen watching the little red blinking heart. The Hatter wasn't far off an aerial scan showed he was on some sort of island.

She knew should move now but it might not be the best idea she reasoned with herself. She was absolutely wasted from nights of nothing more than a few winks of sleep.

She had been chasing the hatter for a long time but his travels were growing erratic and she could hardly keep up with him anymore. Still the Hatter always stayed in a place for at least tree days. She had time.

She should sleep now and go back to tracking him, when she could think straight. But just as a caution, she decided to move closer to his location anyways. She hopped lightly off the roof of the warehouse before turning to the woods to find her bike. Her motorbike was camouflaged well but it took her a second to find it with her tracker. Truthfully she was only supposed to them for the Hatter but they were useful for other things too, like keeping track of the few things she carried with her while on the move.

When she found, her bike she made sure to check she still had a charge, and by the looks of it she would probably just make it.

It takes her almost 15 hours to get to "Happy Harbor"; the name even sound like one of Hatter's haunts.

She shudders at the thought, parking her bike by the edge of the harbor near a rusted building that smells strongly of fish. She hits the clocking device on the bike and scales her way up to the roof finding the least visible spot. She then sinks carefully to the ground trying to find a comfortable spot, before falling into a dreamless sleep.

I am so sorry it took this long to post this I was having trouble with migraines and other personal issues. So after a week I finally sucked it up and decide to get on with my life. I promise the next chapter will definitely be up this weekend. So yeah,… a lot of questions this chapter… who is the mysterious stranger? Why what up with the Hatter and his ex? What's with the heart shaped tracker? And where is Artemis during all this? Well most of those answers will be up next chapter… So for now Read and Review ;) - Song