A/N: This chapter was particularly difficult to write. Please let me know if the Major seems out of character; also, please let me know if Elizabeth is becoming a bit "too perfect", if you know what I mean.

There was no way for the men to know how long they'd been locked up. It seemed like hours. It might have been. The dungeon was cold and dark, and the only window looked out onto the corridor. They couldn't see the sky. There were no benches or even bedpans. The prisoners didn't even have access to the whole dungeon; about half an hour after they were thrown in, they'd seen the Mouse King standing outside. He didn't say a word; he just pointed his sceptre at them and they were smacked against the wall. Later, they would get to their feet again and discover there was a barrier there. Why, they had no idea, but it meant they couldn't get near the door. The odds of them ever getting out had decreased dramatically.

"We still have Clara," insisted the Nutcracker. "She escaped, remember? She'll know where they've taken us."

"How can she help?" asked Captain Candy. "She can't fly, can she?"

"She'll find a way. Clara won't abandon us."

Major Mint didn't dignify this with a response. He was sitting as far away from the other two as possible, right next to the invisible barrier. The sheer closeness of that door taunted him. He'd pushed against the barrier, even banged his fists against it at one point, but it wouldn't budge. Filled with despair, the Major had slumped down onto the floor with his legs drawn up to his chest. He knew now that he was going to be here for the rest of his life. He'd either be left here to rot, or he'd be taken away to whatever ghastly fate the Mouse King had in store for him. And this time, Mint knew he wouldn't be able to fight them. He had no strength left. He hated this sense of hopelessness; it almost brought him to tears, but Mint never cried, not in front of anyone, and he certainly wasn't going to start now.

It was all that blasted Nutcracker's fault. If he hadn't dragged them on his fruitless search for that princess, the Major wouldn't even be in this dungeon. He'd be back in his office in the Treetop Village, where he could see the sky and there was no dirt to cling to his uniform. If he was back there, he'd finally come up with the plan that'd knock that Mouse off the throne he'd stolen, and then... then...

Major Mint was good at planning ahead, and although he hadn't quite figured out how he was going to defeat the Mouse (but he would, of course), he knew exactly what he was going to do afterwards. Marrying Elizabeth was on the list, and Mint was sure he'd be rewarded for his bravery in some way; maybe a promotion? Well, he certainly didn't plan on retiring. Either way, his plans for the future involved Elizabeth, a gold medal and maybe one of those nice cottages by the Spearmint Lakes. He'd worked hard all his life; he had a right to these things, didn't he?

Well, thanks to the Nutcracker, he wasn't going to get them. There was no one around to give him a promotion, he'd give those lakes another week before the Mouse King destroyed them, and as for Elizabeth... well, thinking about her made the Major feel more depressed than ever. Now he was trapped in here, craving the outside world, he couldn't seem to get her out of his mind. He wanted her, but at the same time, he wished he'd never met her. Then his head would be full of something else; something with more pleasant memories attached to it. Even the memory of what they'd done before he left made him depressed; it reminded him of when he was a free man, how good his life had been before he'd gone on this pointless expedition, and how he'd been foolish enough to go on it in the first place. Still, he tried to make the most of it; there were worse things he could think about, after all.

Oh, yes; Mint realised that soon enough. No sooner was he reliving a particularly nice memory of the woman he loved – the softness of her skin, the way she smiled at him – than another image forced its way into his mind; the Treetop Village, covered in flames. The people whose lives depended on his protection screaming in terror, trying in vain to escape the fire that was destroying what passed for their home. The lucky ones falling to the ground and breaking their necks; the unlucky ones suffocating as the fire trapped them. The hideous sound of the Mouse's soldiers laughing from the ground below. Even as Mint tried to force the image out of his mind, he heard the Mouse's voice, more vicious than ever:

"I know where it is. I've always known where it is."

Captain Candy had tried to talk to him about it. Not straight away; after he'd untied the rope that bound Mint's wrists together, the Major hadn't felt like talking about anything. For a while, Candy had respected that; and then, just after the Major had finally given up on the barrier, the younger man had moved a bit closer.

"Major," he'd said gently, "I know what you're thinking..."

"No, you don't," Mint had muttered.

"Major, the Mouse was trying to hurt you. There's no way he could possibly know where the Village is. We kept it well hidden, remember?"

Mint thought of the bats flying the cage across the Sea of Storms. He remembered the little bat with the cockney accent, perched on the Mouse's throne.

"We never watched the skies, Captain," he'd said, staring at his feet.

Candy looked away for a moment, and Mint realised he'd remembered the bats too. Then he turned around again.

"If he really knew where we were, why didn't he destroy the place?"
"Because we weren't a threat," Mint snarled. "Didn't you hear him, Candy? We never came close to defeating him. He had no reason to destroy that village."

"He still doesn't, Major," the Nutcracker pointed out. "Those people aren't going to hurt him anytime soon."

"You know nothing about it!" the Major glared at the wooden man. "That rodent has destroyed hundreds of villages! None of those people would've hurt him, but that didn't save their lives, did it? The Mouse King doesn't need a reason to destroy things; he just does it because he can! And now he knows where our Treetop Village is, he'll reduce it to a pile of splinters; just because he can."

Candy dared to step a little closer. "Major, you don't know that. That's exactly what the Mouse wants you to think, don't you see? That's why he said it in the first place; he wanted to get to you, and it's working. You can't let him do that to you."

He sat down beside Mint.

"They'll be perfectly fine," he told the Major. Then, as an afterthought, the Captain put a hand on the other officer's shoulder.

"She'll be perfectly fine." He added quietly.

"Get off me," Mint hissed at him, and turned his face away. Behind him, he heard Candy walking back over to the Nutcracker. He didn't care. He thought of the village again – all those people, completely defenceless – and he realised he'd failed them. He'd failed to protect them. He'd failed to defeat the Mouse King. All those years he'd spent in the army, all the time he'd spent studying and marching and obeying his superiors, and it all amounted to precisely nothing. He'd failed to achieve his goals, and now he never would.

He still didn't cry – it wasn't in Mint's nature to cry – but during that time in the circular dungeon, he came extremely close.

And then the door opened.

The three prisoners scrambled to their feet immediately, bracing themselves for the arrival of one of the soldiers. Maybe only one of them would be taken; maybe they'd all be executed at once. Either way, they were in for a shock.

It was Clara.

She entered the room uncertainly, clearly not sure what she was doing. She glanced around the room once, and was just about to leave when the Nutcracker called her name. Clara spun around, but she still looked extremely confused.

"What's wrong with the girl?" asked Major Mint.

"We can see her," the Nutcracker explained, "but she can't see us."

Candy tapped on the barrier. "Or hear us, apparently."

So that was what the barrier was for. It almost worked on Clara, but clearly Mint had underestimated her intelligence.

"Why would the Mouse King post guards on an empty room?" she asked herself as she stepped towards the centre. Her hand stretched out and touched the barrier. On the other side, the Nutcracker smiled.

The girl frowned a little as she figured out what she was up against, before grabbing a torch from the wall. The men just had time to shield their faces before she swung it at the barrier, smashing it instantly. They were visible again. They were free.

"We've to get out of here!" insisted Clara. "The Mouse King's building a bonfire!"

The Nutcracker frowned. "I doubt it's to warm up the palace."

The four of them hurried out of the cell and up the stairs to the balcony overlooking the courtyard. All the while, Mint was concocting a new plan. First, he'd get his sword back. Then, he'd make that Mouse pay.

Thinks he can scare me off with his talk about the villagers, could he? Well, when I'm through with him, he'll wish he'd never said a word to Major Robert Mint!

Now he was out of that cell, with a purpose and a new-found appreciation for fresh air, Major Mint found the Mouse's threat no longer disturbed him. As they reached the door and crept out onto the balcony, he was almost prepared to dismiss it. Candy was right. That evil rodent had just said it to upset him; an insult to add to the injury of being locked up in the first place. He'd never known where it was. The civilians were safe, all of them, and Mint would get back to them just as soon as he'd wiped out every wretched rodent in this blasted-

Then he looked over the balcony and his train of thought slammed to a halt.