Warning: this chapter contains explicit rape.
Everything was falling into place for Jefferson. He was still in Storybrooke, but so was everyone else. He was still living on the outskirts of the city in the house that Regina had made for him, but he wasn't alone: he had Grace, and they were happy.
For twenty-eight years he had watched her. For twenty-eight years she had remained the same. For twenty-eight years he was wracked with agonizing regret, his every breath and every heartbeat pushing him closer and closer to a claustrophobic insanity that the Mad Hatter was uncomfortably familiar with.
But the Mad Hatter was dead.
Jefferson remained.
The curse had been broken, and he and Grace had been reunited. They were a family again.
At first he'd been worried that Grace would hate him for leaving her all those years ago. She had seemed happy enough in the family that Regina had given her. Would she still need him? When he'd voiced those concerns as he sat with his daughter and her surrogate parents, for Grace had of course invited him to dinner after their reunion, his daughter's Storybrooke mother had shaken her head.
"Maybe for those who had truly wronged the Evil Queen, things here sometimes changed." Sighing, she looked to her husband. "For the rest of us, it was just like a very, very long day."
They were still on good terms of course, but everyone was still recovering from the curse being broken. Grace's surrogate parents had their own family to find: their own lost children.
Grace had moved into his home, and been thoroughly impressed. For over a week, they'd gone unbothered. The new sheriff hadn't come calling. The reason was obvious: as far as he knew, Emma and Snow White were still missing. The "Mad Hatter" was the least of Prince Charming's problems.
Finally, things were looking up.
For the ninth day in a row, he tucked Grace into bed. She was eleven, and perhaps too old for such things, but they were both willing to make up for the time that they'd lost.
More blissful than he'd perhaps ever been, Jefferson went to his own bedroom, two doors down. Tired after a long day of walking through the forest with Grace, showing her his maps and watching her face light up, he was eager for rest.
Changing into his pajamas, he buttoned his shirt up to the throat. Even in his sleep, his throat wasn't' something that he liked to have exposed.
Getting into bed and under silk sheets, he closed his eyes. Since he'd found Grace, no nightmares had troubled him: what a difference from the last twenty-eight years. What relief.
As he slipped out of the waking world, however, his voice began to jump around Jefferson's skull.
The Mad Hatter.
xxx
"I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then!"
Years, years, years he's been here. Yesterday was weeks ago. Years, or days? Days, or no time at all? He can't tell: there's no way out. There's no way out. There's no way out.
Furiously shoving a needle through a piece of felt, the Mad Hatter worked tirelessly to complete another hat for Her Majesty. His mind was a fever, his thoughts fragmented and his heart pitter-pattering with the irregularity of rain.
Except, there wasn't any rain: it didn't seem to rain in Wonderland. Not at his window. Time dragged on and on, unchanging and unstopping. Years, months, weeks, hours, days!
He paused only when he felt something wet rolling down his wrist. Mouth opening in a dry shriek, he looked down to see that the needle had impaled his palm. For a moment, he was absolutely still. He didn't move, he couldn't: red was her color.
But the hats! Springing up, he flung away the bowler he'd been working on and pressed his bleeding palm to his chest, the needle, tinted with his blood, falling to the floor with a soft ping.
No blood could get on the hats: blood was red, and red was her color, and the queen's magic was too heavy for hat tricks.
It hadn't taken long for Jefferson to fall into madness: the anguish of abandoning his daughter had set his madness into motion; from there it had only escalated.
But he was bleeding. That was no good. Hands shaking and hair wild and tangled from a lack of care, he made his way to the window. He could see freedom, but the window, he knew, would not break. He'd tried.
When a royal guard came to check on him hours later, he was unmoved, still standing hunched over with his hand at his chest.
"Alright, hatter." The guard said gruffly, approaching the strange man who had seemed to walk into Wonderland from nowhere at all. "The queen will see you now."
"I'll take my tea with Alice." He chattered. "Alice is late." He turned his face to the guard, eyes wide with a lunacy that all around him prayed would soon pass. For a brief instant, sadness passed through his gaze, but in another moment it was gone again. "Alice is very late indeed."
"Come on." The guard grabbed the other man's elbow and began to lead him out of the room. The hatter followed him willingly until they reached the doorframe. There, his heels dug into the ground and he refused to budge. "Move." The guard growled, impatient. No one liked taking the Mad Hatter to the Queen of Hearts: it was a difficult task reserved for only the less popular of those working under Her Majesty.
Remaining silent, Jefferson's gaze was on the door, though he didn't acknowledge it. All that he knew, in his crazed state, was that bad things always happened when the guards came. His hats, for as senseless as they made him, kept him safe. They kept him alive, though in his better moments he thought that perhaps it would have been better to die.
"Move!" Exasperation on his face, the guard pulled hard on Jefferson's arm. "You wouldn't want to keep Her Majesty waiting, would you?"
Something in the hatter clicked, and for a split second he saw reason. Unblinking, hands shaking, he exited the chamber and stepped into the hallway. Feeling detached and listless without the mountains of hats that usually surrounded him, he kept his gaze on the floor and let the guard pull him along.
He went through the second doorway more easily when the guard pulled him forward. For a moment, he forgot the danger that lay in store for him.
"Failure doesn't sit well with me, hatter." Her voice was deep and dangerous. That wasn't unusual, but it still made him cower. "Do you know how long you've been trying, and failing, to please me? How long I've been merciful?"
He could only shake his head, eyes open and facing his feet. He couldn't look at her. Don't look into the eyes of the devil. Don't look.
"Answer me!" Her voice dropped even lower, and he flinched. He knew the pain that could accompany that voice, and he feared it.
"I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then!" Certain phrases had been repeating in his head for days. Weeks. Months. Years? They were often the only things that he could conjure up to say, especially when faced with the thing that terrified him most. Her Majesty.
"Don't play games with me."
He was on the floor in the next instant, and he felt the tip of her shoe against his chin. It forced him to look up.
"No games here." He whispered. There was no part of his gaze that wasn't consumed by madness. "No games at all. Not here. Not anymore." He made no move to get up, frozen on the ground before her.
"Mad man." She scoffed, pulling her foot back for a moment before moving it forward again, kicking him swiftly in the jaw. He tasted blood. "Mad Hatter."
"That's my name!" He laughed, though there were tears in eyes and blood in his mouth. "That's what they call me!"
"No matter how many times I call you here, " She seemed to have chosen to ignore her prisoner's insanity, at least for the moment. "you never learn your lesson. Even children are more intelligent than you. Even your daughter must be."
Jefferson started to tremble in earnest, distant, blurry pictures of a pretty little girl flitting past his vision.
"Please. Please." That was all that he could say. He didn't even know what he wanted anymore: just that the Evil Queen could give it, but refused to.
When he had entered the room, her face had been covered. The guards were gone. They were alone. With no one else to see her, she had removed her mask, and her face was bared to him.
"Yes. That's right." Slowly, Cora stepped out of her ruby red shoes and knelt down next to Jefferson, her touch gentle as she turned his bloody chin toward her. Gently, too gently to be anything but terrifying, she pressed their lips together. They had been red before, and now they shined with blood. "That's right."
The room was small and narrow. It was the smaller of Her Majesty's two throne rooms: the one reserved for more private consultations.
"Beg me." She growled, standing and walking proudly to her throne. Their eyes locked together, hers narrowed and his wide, and she began to raise her skirts.
"Please." He whispered again, his voice suddenly dry and less high-pitched. In his crazed state, routine was the only thing that kept him balanced. This, the queen's skirts and knees, was as regular to him as his hats. On his knees, he crawled toward her. If he could please her, then perhaps he could reach redemption.
As he came within a few feet of her, she held out her foot to stop him, her toes against his forehead.
"Not yet." Drawing a handkerchief from her bodice, she tossed it to him.
Though he understood little, the Mad Hatter understood what he was meant to do. Hurriedly picking it up, he wiped it over his mouth and chin. Soon enough the blood was very nearly gone, though his lip was still swollen where he had bitten it when Cora had kicked him.
A small wave of her hand, and what little blood remained had vanished. Only when Her Majesty inclined her head in a small nod did he continue his approach. His mouth was open: watering.
Slowly, she continued to hike up her skirts, though the rest of her undergarments covered her and kept her modest.
Reaching out shaking hands, Jefferson slowly hooked his fingers in what still covered her, and pulled down. He was almost immediately met with a nest of dark curls.
The last of her undergarments fell to the floor, and he stared between her legs. He could already see and smell dampness there: evidently her earlier aggression had not gone unrewarded between her thighs.
"Well?" She whispered. "Are you going to beg me or not?"
"Your Majesty." He leaned down and pressed his lips to her feet. "Your Majesty. Please."
"Very well." She sighed, as if she was rewarding him and not punishing him, not pushing him further to the brink of an insanity that he could never truly come down from.
Lips still parted, he leaned in and put his mouth over the warm, wet heat between her legs, tasting her and taking her in. After a few moments, he seemed to realize what was happening and his attitude turned from caution to hunger.
He eagerly moved his mouth over her folds, shoving his tongue between them and taking in the wetness there. A deep, throaty groan above him reminded him of the pain that would come from displeasing her, and he moved his mouth to the ball of nerves above her labia.
"Good."
Sucking hard, he pushed his tongue desperately against her clitoris, and felt her push down on him. A hand reached down to grip his hair, and she began to rut down against his mouth.
Jefferson couldn't breath. Her heat, her scent, engulfed him. He didn't care. Being suffocated by the Queen of Hearts was no worse than being choked by his own growing madness.
He could feel her wetness against his chin, and knew that if he pulled away it would glisten there.
All too soon her movements against him became stronger and more erratic, and her thighs were crushing the sides of his head as he felt her tense and then relax in spasms, slowly finishing until she lay back in her throne, legs still spread.
He looked up fearfully at her, his chin and mouth slick and wet. "Your Majesty?"
"Get down." She growled, her voice still low with arousal. The Queen of Hearts always got what she desired. Pain was no exception, and neither was pleasure. She held out her hand, and Jefferson found himself flat on his back. Her fingers curled and she pulled down, and so his trousers were ripped from him. He was flaccid, his lack of arousal evident and limp between his legs. "What is that?"
Face heated, still tasting her, he swallowed and looked to the side.
"Are you that pathetic, so much of a weakling that pleasuring The Queen of Hearts cannot arouse you?" She growled. "Is that brat even yours? Could you raise yourself even once, or are you incapable of fathering a child?"
"There's no way out. There's no way out." He whimpered, tears running down his cheeks.
"You're pathetic." She reached down between her legs to slick her hand, and then grabbed him, jerking him to a forced arousal. It was minutes before he was hard, but for every moment that went by he felt another part of himself die.
She mounted him, and consumed him. Jefferson felt her heat devour his involuntary hardness, and let out a ragged sob. "Please…"
They didn't speak: they only breathed. Cora's breaths were deep and quick, occasionally accompanied by deep groans and gasps. Her hand moved down to rub herself, and Jefferson continued to cry.
His own breaths were ragged and broken. Sometimes he stopped crying. Sometimes he forgot that he was there at all. When Cora called him away from his hats and took his body, his mind often escaped it. It was easier to watch from a distance: to pretend that he wasn't there.
Eventually, she pushed down hard against him, taking both his arousal and his will inside of her, and he felt her begin to convulse again. She tightened and relaxed around him, and he turned his head to the side so that he could look at the wall instead of the ceiling.
He'd once heard that a change of scenery could relieve stress.
A breathless smile on her face, she looked down at Jefferson.
"You haven't come yet." Her voice is still throaty and full. "You don't deserve it, but I will show you mercy."
Though her orgasm was done, she was still wet, and easily continued to ride him.
With all of the free will that he had left, Jefferson resisted his own release. Unfortunately for the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts refused to be denied.
Choking from the force of his resistance, Jefferson came quickly. His orgasm was unsatisfying and unwanted. He couldn't even move his hips: her force kept him down. Finished with him, she dismounted and stood, her skirts falling to her feet as if they'd never been up to her waist.
"Go."
Violated and shamed, Jefferson walked by himself back to his hats, his trousers in tatters and his spirit faring no better.
xxx
Jefferson didn't dream: he remembered. His nightmares had been real once.
Hours after laying his head down to sleep, he woke up in a cold sweat with tears on his cheeks: a silent scream on his mouth and his eyes wide with shock and fear.
In a moment, the expression of the Mad Hatter deserted him and he was left shaking and afraid. His lip was throbbing: evidently Cora's kick in his memory had triggered his reaction a second time. There was blood, some wet and some dried, on his lips and chin.
Sometimes, the anxiety from his nightmares—his memories—left him quickly and he was able to spend his time as if he'd never woken up in a cold sweat. On other occasions, a lingering fear stayed with him throughout the day, but he was able to overcome it.
Cora's presence only haunted him in dreams. In the waking world, he was usually able to suppress thoughts of his time as the Mad Hatter.
This time, nothing changed: he was just as afraid as he'd been in Wonderland. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.
"She's here." He whispered, raising a hand to the buttoned collar that covered his neck. A final tear rolled down his cheek, and he bit down on his already swollen lip.
Nothing could save him now.
For a moment, all he thought of was himself. What would he do if she found him? What would he do if she found him?
In the next instant, he was tumbling out of bed and to the door. Grace.
Wiping his mouth of blood, he flung the door open and ran down to her bedroom. She'd been so pleased with it: it was enormous, and bright, and filled with everything that she could ever want. He needed her to be happy.
His whole body was wracked with relief when he saw her sleeping. In the next few moments, he calmed down.
Cora couldn't be in Storybrooke: his hat was destroyed. Charming had showed it to him. Taking away Emma and Snow had been its final act.
On his way back to his bedroom, he nearly began to panic again at a vase of roses in the hallway. Red roses. Her flower. Her color. Then, he remembered how much Grace had liked them. His love for his daughter had been more than his fear of Her Majesty and he had bought them for her.
Cora couldn't be in Storybrooke. That was impossible.
The Queen of Hearts was only a memory.
