A/N: It's ALIIIIVE! Okay, so I know it's been forever, and I apologise most heartfeltedly. I just couldn't find the drive to finish this particular piece for some reason. But the creative juices have been rolling about for some backstory jibber jabber as of late, so look for that in the future. Also, I made a discovery when I was idly staring at my Hatter background on my computer, which will probably appear in this chapter. I'll try to be nonchalant about it, but see if you can spot it next time you watch the show/see a picture. It's really quite something to find it. I

As always, I own pretty much NOTHING which sucks a bunch of lot, but at least I have the liberty to write this drivel down for your perusal. Speaking of which, I'd like to thank all of you (and that is quite the number we're talking about here) that have taken the time to read this bunk and review it. You are all lovely and cherubic and make my ego esplode.

Read on, dear lovelies, and please review!

As always,

|ACP|

Chapter 7

"You'd think you'd know the way back to your own shop." Alice grumbled for the nintieth time. It is immoral to leave poor defenceless Oysters on street corners. It is immoral to leave poor defenceless Oysters on street corners. The refrain kept on in my head as we made our way past the bleak grey buildings and overgrown Corners. "I mean, you do own the place, don't you?" I coughed and walked faster, avoiding her accusatory glare. "Wait, don't you?" she pressed, keeping pace with my hurried gait easily. "Sort of." Her eyes widened and her eyebrows practically disappeared into her hairline, but this was a titchy subject. "Technically it doesn't belong to anyone." I said airily, waving a web out of my face and brushing a fingernail shaped spidabittle of my jacket. "Then how can you have a tea shop there if it isn't yours?" She almost sounded interested, which was a refreshing change from the prattling on about being lost again. I shrugged and pulled a branch from a tree out of the way so she could step past. "A lot of businesses here are like that. As long as the Queen gets a steady flow of customers, squatters are welcomed with open arms. Now if there was a recession for Tea-production, that would be a different story altogether." I explained, and she half-laughed wryly. "That I can relate to." she agreed, sparing me a rare grin.

I reveled in how easy it was to talk to her then. She seemed to have no problems with me for the first time in the whole four hours she'd known me. But she sobered quickly, the unexpected spark in her eyes extinguished and brow furrowing. "With the ring gone, won't that pretty much end your shop?" she asked slowly, and I was careful to keep my eyes forward. "I guess it would." I said nonchalantly, nudging a twig out of my way with the toe of my shoe. "You guess? This is your job, right? How can you just 'guess'?" Her disbelief spoke volumes about her world. Obviously their job market wasn't the land of plenty. I looked her square in the eyes and said seriously, "There are more important things in the world than a job, Alice."

She was quiet then, which only minutes before I would've been thanking every deity with ears for. But just then I had the strange desire for her to ask more about what I'd said, for her to show some sign that she was understanding what I was saying to her. Because I sure as hell didn't.

After a few more wrong turns, which Alice so graciously refrained from commenting about, we finally came to a narrow Walk I recognized, and started down it. "Isn't there some other way out?" Alice asked, though I had a sneaking suspicion she wasn't talking to me. After a few moments I decided I wanted to answer anyway, regardless. "The Looking Glass is the only way to get you back home. And it is here, in the city, but it's the most heavily guarded piece of kit in Wonderland." And for good reason. If an addict or the Resistance got their hands on access to the Oyster World, then the Queen's entire system would fall flat on its face. Well. Flatter. "I've got to find Jack first." she reminded me. I'll admit that rankled more than a little. Had I been talking to the tree trunk when I said how dangerous this place was? Seriously, was her Damsel Jack that much of a catch? "Have you not heard a word I've said?" I asked irritably, turning to face her. "Look, I don't know how he got mixed up in this, but I know that he's not a theif." To my surprise, and more than a little annoyance, she was almost pleading, voice layered in complete sincerity. He must mean a lot to her, the prig. The more she went on about him, the more I was assured of his complete and utter pansiness.

"He was trying to surprise me or sweep me off my feet and..." she trailed off and looked at the ring for a moment with an unreadable expression before continuing, "so somehow he got ahold of this ring and it has landed him in a pile of trouble..." She sighed and I looked away, my resentment for this guy building with every word she spoke. By all rights this should've been a sweet story of female empowerment and I should've been jazzed to be a part of it. But really it was just annoying. When she spoke again her voice was filled with an unreasonable regret. "If it wasn't for me, he would be home safe." I looked at her, meeting her eyes and finding them more intense and upset than I'd seen them yet, which was saying something, considering. But there was that catch at the back of my mind, the problem I couldn't reason through with his supposed undying devotion for sponteneity. "How did he get hold of it?" I asked her, keeping a careful eye on her reaction. She fidgeted for a moment, probably uncomfortable with the idea of her precious Nancy Boy being involved in the wicked, wicked workings of Wonderland's inner circles, however unwittingly.

To break up her apparent discomfort, she moved around me, having to get quite close to avoid the terrifying edge of the Walk. In the split second that she was reaching around me to press her hand back to the wall (as if that could save her should she fall), I noticed, too late, that she was now completely dry, and giving off an odd scent of fruit. Note to self: ask Alice why she smells like food. "Well I don't know," she said as she went, not meeting my gaze. She strode off, hand moving along on the wall, saying loudly, "The point is, I'm the only one who can get him out of this mess." Even her logic was infuriating! "How did you figure that out?" I asked, exasperated. Even walking as fast as she could in her completely unsensible shoes, it was cake to keep pace with her. "Well, I've got the ring. I can use it to negotiate his release."

That woman would be the death of me. Just those words caused me mental anguish with the amount of frustration I was being caused at her hands. "Ah, no, no." She stopped, turning back to face me with confusion splayed all over her face. "No?"

"No, you can't negotiate with the queen- she's crazy..." I tried, but she was looking away, once more fixed on the distance between us and the ground with her arms splayed out behind her. "You have to cut your losses, get the hell out of here while you still can." I reasoned, even though I had the faintest impression she wasn't going to particularly take to that idea. "No, I can't just abandon Jack. I mean, he's innocent." she insisted, looking at me earnestly, brow creased with her presumed sincerity. "And besides, I like him." Oh as if that excused suicide! "Oh, you like him?" I was half mocking her. Liking someone was not a reason to risk your neck. She was, predictably, incredibly offended. I swear this woman had two speeds with me: offended and pissed. I stared at her for a moment, trying to process the fact that this woman was going to risk everything for a man she "liked". Then I moved past her and walked on.

I got half a step before she felt the need to practically shout, "A lot!" at my back, pulling me up short. Trying to keep my mind in check, I steeled myself for a lot more affronted glares and turned back. "Trust me, I-I know a thing or two about liking people. And in time, after much chocolate and creamcake, "like" turns into "what was his name again". "

"No, not in my world." Brushing it aside and barely looking me in the face? I got the feeling Miss Alice of Legend was telling a fib. "Look, I have a bad record with liking guys-"

"There's a shock." I quipped, moving to walk on. We were nearing the Teahouse and the sooner I got back there the sooner I could go nurse the raging headache this conversation was giving me. "And this is the first one that has meant anything." she called out indignantly, storming after me, but she was pulled up short by a treefern hanging particularly low off the building. She skirted it carefully, saying half to herself, "And there is no way I'm going to give him up now."

For the record, I did have a response. It was witty and clever and scathing, I assure you. But I was stopped by the sight of my Tea Shoppe standing just beyond the old red tele box. I held my hand out to silence her. There were Suits standing on my porch, probably having gone through my stuff, and they were in the process of interviewing my Dormouse. "Stay close." I muttered, moving off carefully to the land bridge and pressing myself against the tele box. One of my Tea pushers, a regular by the name of Pinnsi, was being shaken around roughly by the front of his suit, and the one doing the shaking was no Suit himself. Whatever it was, the voice was metallic and oddly familiar, but definitely not human. "Hey, hey, did you see her?" it demanded of Pinnsi, but when he could only stare at the atrocity aghast, he got thrown bowler-hat first off the porch, clearing the edge of the bridge and tumbling down to the levels below, while the machine thing with the rabbit's head said spitefully, "Get outta here."

It went to interview Dormie, who refused to talk with it but shrunk away before it could throw him over as well. The machine walked away and my eyes and attention were drawn to the club Suit that was interviewing a very compliant-looking Ratty. The Suit wasn't as loud as the machine was, so I didn't catch every word said, but I got enough to know that Ratty was in the midst of selling Alice out. I'd always known I shouldn't trust men like Ratty. People don't smell that bad if they're trustworthy. "You work with rats long enough and you turn into one." I remarked to Alice bitterly, but she was still stuck on the rabbit machine. "What is that?"

"Nothing I've ever seen before." It was true. I'd seen a lot of crazy stuff in Wonderland, but this particular character took the cake. I mean, I was pretty sure I'd seen the head before, but that's just because there was one like it in every decor store around for awhile. Except those were cookie jars, and no right-minded person would make a cookie jar a head of a robot. That would just be stupid.

Still, for a robot it dressed remarkably well. The head was obviously machine, but the rest seemed to move like a human's body. It was even shaped like someone I'd known-well, okay, someone I'd fought once about a year back. Poor old March Hare, from the infamous crime family the Chess'. He'd happened upon me in a Shoppe fight over a bottle of Ecstacy, back when the thing was rare. Caught the bastard in the face with my right hook. Guy's head never stood a chance, and yet... The robot's sensors must have picked us up, because the thing's head swiveled around. "Wait... no, it can't be..." Even the air about it held a certain Chess family jackassery.

But there was no time to linger on the similarities between the ridiculous cookie-jar robot and the dead Hare. The thing had obviously spotted us and had begun walking down my front porch steps with deliberate intensity. The Suit noticed and looked over at the robot, addressing it as "sir". I pushed Alice back behind me a bit more and she got the message to move, going quickly back the way we came. I followed her after a moment's more lingering to try and puzzle through the possibilities of March Hare having a cookie jar head.

Alice half-ran through streets she didn't know, and I was too distracted to correct her path or even suggest a better one, so I let her lead for a time. She was doing pretty well: we hadn't hit a dead end or anything, but we were in an area of the city that I didn't know, one overgrown with tall stalks of lavender and various forms of ivy creeping up the plain walls of the empty building she worked her way towards. It looked like a raided home. All the windows were empty of glass, the furthest one on the upper floor even open some. I glanced behind us periodically as we went, just to make sure the rabbit robot and his Suitly friends weren't giving too fair a chase.

But some days, you just have zero luck.

The second time I looked back, I was drawn to a stop in surprise. Alice, who had gone a ways before noticing my halt, came back to my side just as the fear and adrenaline really started to kick in. "We should run." I suggested as calmly as I could, and then turned on my heel and moved forward as fast as I could with Alice in front of me. I could hear the machinery working to move the robotic rabbit along far more clearly than I should've, but they were directly on our trails. They'd caught up to us, and I didn't want to know what would happen if they actually managed to catch us. Yelling for Alice to run, we shot off at a sprint, ripping through the tall weeds in what was feeling suspiciously like a futile attempt to save our skins.