White Rabbit, by Jefferson Airplane
One pill makes you larger And if you go chasing rabbits When the men on the chessboard get up
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all
Go ask Alice, when she's ten feet tall
And you know you're going to fall
Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
To call Alice, when she was just small
And tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving low
Go ask Alice, I think she'll know
First there was pain, as there always was. Confusion and anger, as there always was. Hatter knew he should have expected it; being summoned by the Queen very rarely meant sitting down to fancy tea. But her questions confused him. Mad March had tried to kill him only days ago, why would he know where that madman was? Why would he hide him?
After the pain was the pill, shoved down his throat so that he nearly choked on it. This was new, and Hatter didn't like it. He thrashed and cursed, but it was all wasted effort. As it always was. And now there was a cramping pain in his gut that made him grit his teeth and squeeze his eyes shut.
"I don't…know…anything," he hissed out between his clenched teeth. His hands were fisted so tightly that his fingernails bit into his palms. There would be blood there later, he knew.
Quite suddenly, the pain lessened. The feel of the Truth Room changed around him, and he cautiously opened his eyes. Gone were the Doctors and their sickeningly-swirly room. Hatter was standing in a clearing that was surrounded on all sides by trees. In the center of the clearing was an oversized pink mushroom, and sitting atop the mushroom was a little girl with short brown hair, wearing a simple blue shift.
"What is this?" Hatter asked. He walked towards the mushroom. He knew it couldn't be real, but it felt real. The breeze on his face, the rocking horse flies bobbing around the flowers – it was all so tangible.
"You called me," the little girl said. She was sitting cross-legged, elbows on her knees and her chin resting on her hands.
"Who are you?" Hatter stopped a few feet away, afraid to go any closer. He didn't know what the Doctors were playing at; this was something new, and nothing good came from something new. Not when they were involved.
"You'll know me soon enough," the girl said. Her eyes, a smoky blue color that was rather startling, twinkled. "Are you going to tell?"
"I don't know anything," Hatter responded automatically.
"You do. But you won't tell." The girl smiled down at him. "You aren't what you think you are. And that will change soon anyway."
Hatter's head was starting to hurt. He didn't understand any of this. How was this supposed to make him tell where Mad March was? Even if he knew? He studied the girl with a critical eye. She was young, maybe seven or eight, but her eyes held knowledge far beyond her years. Who was she?
"Do I know you?" he asked. For there was something familiar about her, but the feeling was wispy at best and he couldn't nail it down.
"She is me but not me. Your answers will lie there."
"I don't understand!" And now Hatter was feeling desperate. The pain was coming back; he could feel it biting at him around the edges. He felt that if he could only understand what this girl was telling him, everything would be okay.
The girl slid down the mushroom like a slide, landing gracefully on her feet in front of him. She tugged on his sleeve, pulling him down to her level, and put her hands on either side of his face.
"You're better than you think. Trust yourself." The girl kissed him on the forehead, and Hatter felt himself slipping away from the clearing, away from her.
"Please. I don't want to go back there."
"There are great things to be done," the girl said. "You'll be a part of it."
"No…wait!"
But it was too late. The clearing, the trees, the flowers – they all began to swirl together. It made him sick to look at. But in the center of it all stood the little girl, unchanged while everything around her began to melt away.
"Take care of her," she said.
And then the pain returned, sharp and burning, and Hatter couldn't help but cry out. He tried to wish himself back to the clearing, even though none of it had been real. Anywhere was better than here. The room swirled a sickening green and black around him, making him nauseous.
"That's enough," the Queen said dismissively. "He doesn't know. Get him cleaned up and back to work."
"Yes, Your Majesty," one of the Doctors said.
"And tell Carpenter the new pills aren't working."
"Of course, Your Majesty."
Hatter was released from the chair, and roughly manhandled until he was dumped unceremoniously outside the Casino. He'd have to find his own way home from here. When his legs stopped trembling, when he'd stopped shaking so violently, Hatter put his hat back on his head and started walking.
And already the vision of the little girl was starting to fade away.
AN: Okay, I just had to include this song. It's been a troubling earworm for days, but hopefully now it will leave me alone. Given the nature of this song, it only seemed fitting that the Doctors were involved. Though they had nothing to do with Hatter's little…shall we call it hallucination?
Thanks to everyone who has been reading and/or reviewing my little song fics. I kept thinking I'd be running out of steam on these soon, but that doesn't seem to be the case. ::grins::