Disclaimer: Must I say it? Alice doesn't belong to me. It belongs to SyFy and Lewis Carroll. And now I feel depressed… *sniffles*

A/N: Yes, I'm finally updating again. I lost my fan fiction mojo there for a while. O_O It was a dark time, friends, a dark time indeed. But I'm back now, so no worries! :D

Here's a bit of a recap, since it's been roughly SEVEN MONTHS since I last updated…
One morning at breakfast, Alice sends Hatter to buy milk, and speaks harshly to him. Hatter goes to get the milk, and on the way back, is attacked and mugged. He's knifed repeatedly in the abdomen, and hit very hard on the back of the head. When he doesn't come home, Alice doesn't know where he's disappeared to, and thinks that she made him angry at her, and maybe even caused him to go back to Wonderland. She doesn't know it, but Hatter has been taken to the hospital by Emily Cabot, a girl who found him bleeding in the alleyway and called 911. Emily lives with her mother and her mother's boyfriend Zach, who constantly forces sexual advances on her. Hatter has amnesia, and can't remember a thing about himself, or her. While talking to Carol on the phone, Alice sees on the news that a man matching Hatter's condition has been admitted to Good Hope Hospital. Hatter meets the girl who saved him, and she gives him his hat, which has his name stitched on the inside. He asks the girl, Emily, to break him out of the hospital, because being there is driving him mad. The two escape, just as Alice and Carol arrive, and Alice can only watch helplessly from a window as the taxi speeds away. Hatter and Emily reach her apartment, and he changes into a big pair of gray sweatpants that belong to Emily's mother's boyfriend. Hatter lying on the bed in her room, she takes the bandage off his abdomen, and sees that he's bleeding way too much. He refuses to let her take him back to the hospital. And so she says she has something she can try…


Chapter Six

"Are you sure?" Emily asked, biting her lip. "I'm not lying when I say it's going to hurt. A lot. So this is your last chance to back out, Hatter. Or whatever your name is."

He nodded. "I can't go back there, I just can't. There's too many people, too much machinery. And too much green." He shuddered, then winced as pain ripped through his abdomen.

She sighed, then started for the door. "Okay, I'll be right back. You just, uh, stay there."

"I can't exactly go anywhere, can I?" Once she was gone, he lay very still on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. It hurt even when he breathed, so he tried not to do much of that, either. He was so very tired. It seemed like ages ago since he'd woken up in that terrible hospital place, with that doctor asking him so many silly questions. All he wanted was to go home, and find the wearer of that blue dress he'd seen inside his mind.

If only he knew where his home was.

Emily was back. She dropped a plastic box at his feet and pulled several objects out. Nervously, she glanced at him, then back at whatever she was doing. "What color?" she asked.

"Color?" he said blankly.

"Green, red, or black?"

He still didn't have the foggiest idea what she was talking about, and was in too much pain to bring himself to care that much. "Red," he said after some careful thought. Definitely not green, and black was simply too bland. Out of the choices, red sounded best.

"Okay," she said, and cleared her throat. "I'm going to stitch you up again."

"Do what?" he said, craning his neck in an attempt to see what exactly she was up to.

She showed him the needle in her hand, glinting wickedly, with a long strand of red thread trailing from it. "Lucky for you, I've been taking home economics in school," she said.

"I hate to tell you this, but that's not exactly reassuring," he said.

She glanced around, and reached for a tank top balled up at the end of her bed. "Bite down on this," she said.

He was dubious about this plan to say the least, but it was much better than the alternative. He knew he'd teeter off the brink into a sea of madness if he so much as had to see the inside of that hospital room again. He let her put it in his mouth, and bit down as hard as he could into the fabric. He nodded to show that he was ready.

"Here goes," Emily said nervously, and pushed the needle in.

A scream tore itself from his throat before he could stop it, mostly muffled by the shirt stuffed in his mouth. His back arched up from the bed, and some dim part of him was aware that Emily was shouting for him to stop moving! He couldn't bring himself to comply. There was so much pain

And then he blacked out.


"Alice, dear, please calm down. All this crying won't help you get David back," Carol said, opening the door of the apartment her daughter shared with Hatter. The two women went inside, and Alice collapsed on the living room couch, tears rolling down her cheeks with incredible speed. Carol tsked a few times, and made her way into the kitchen.

"I'm never going to see him again, am I?" Alice wept, covering her face with her hands. "This is all my fault!"

"I don't see how any of this is your fault," Carol said from the kitchen. "You didn't attack David in that alleyway. And his escape is solely that hospital's fault, as far as I'm concerned. How could they not see him running off with that girl, right under their noses?"

It was like she hadn't heard a thing her mother had said. "If I didn't have to have milk on my damn cereal every morning, none of this would be happening. He wouldn't have left this morning, and everything would still be just fine."

"Alice, you can't think that way. Stop beating yourself up and think of something we can do to get David back."

She sniffled a few times and went into the kitchen. Carol was at the counter, slapping together a pair of sandwiches. She gave her daughter an encouraging smile as Alice dropped heavily into a chair, which creaked under her weight. "Here, eat this. It's been a long day, and you need to keep your strength up."

"I don't want anything," she moaned, looking through her hands at the plate on the table in front of her. "All I want is for Hatter to come home." In her mind's eye, she saw herself snapping at Hatter about the milk, and him cheerfully going off to get it. He'd waved and blown her a kiss as he left, but instead of doing the same, she'd acted like he was stalling, and wished he would hurry up. That was the last time he had seen her. At the very thought, a stray tear slipped from her eye.

"For God's sake, don't be like this, Alice!" Carol exclaimed, uncharacteristically slamming a fist into the table. Alice jumped and stared at her with wide eyes. "Sobbing your eyes out won't find the boy! Get up and do something!"

"Mom," she said, still a little startled, "I don't know what I can do. I have no idea who that girl was, or where she's taken Hatter. How am I supposed to find him when he could be anywhere in the city by now?"

"We'll come up with something. You sifted through all the results on Parent Finder trying to locate your father, didn't you?" She paused for a moment, forehead wrinkling at the thought of her husband, lost to her forever now. Then she sighed and met Alice's gaze. "Can't you do something like that?"

"Hatter probably won't be in any databases, Mom, especially not Parent Finder," she said. A thoughtful frown creased its way across her brow. Her eyes abruptly brightened. "But maybe we could get some pictures of him, and pass them out around the neighborhood. And we could get a picture of that girl from the hospital surveillance system. Maybe someone will recognize her, and know where she lives."

"That's a good start," Carol said, taking a neat bite of her sandwich. "Alice, where are you going? At least eat your sandwich first."

"Not now, Mom," she called over one shoulder, racing into the bedroom. The sight of so many hats, hanging from doorknobs, the bedside lamps, and even the ceiling fan made a lump rise in her throat, but she swallowed it down and went to the dresser, where several photos that had been taken in the last few months adorned the gleaming wood surface. She picked up one of them, of her and Hatter at a piano concert a few months ago.

He grinned at her while holding her close, brown eyes sparkling, while she laughed and tried to shove him away. A deep sadness bloomed inside her heart just looked at the photo. He loved her so much, as much as she loved him. But she was constantly pushing him away, raising her voice like she had that morning. How had she let herself be so blind and stupid?

Never again, she vowed silently, tracing Hatter's beaming face through the glass. Once she found him – and she would find him – she was never going to fight with him again, especially not over something as trivial as a jug of milk. She was going to hold him close, and tell him often just how much she loved him. That was a promise.

"Alice?" Carol hovered in the doorway. "I just had an idea, honey. And I think it might work."

She clutched the photo frame to her chest. "What is it?"

"What if we go to one of the news stations? We could ask to go on and talk about Hatter, and show pictures of him and that girl there. That would get the word out much faster than simply going door to door, wouldn't it?"

"Mom, you're a genius!" She gave Carol a big hug, and started for the front door. "Come on, let's go!"


When he woke next, he had no idea how long he'd been out. The pain in his abdomen had become a dull throbbing. His head felt muzzy with sleep, and the ceiling above him was a bit blurry. He tried to sit up, moving carefully as he swung his legs over the bed. The room was empty; Emily had vanished.

A white t-shirt had been left at the foot of the bed for him. He moved slowly and carefully to lower the shirt over his head, gritting his teeth to keep from crying out. The shirt was too baggy on him, but he felt better having it on. He left the jacket hanging from a bedpost, but picked up the hat and settled it firmly onto his head.

It took some maneuvering to get off the bed, because his legs were weak, and the throbbing in his abdomen was hard to ignore, but he managed it after a few minutes. Gripping the wall with one hand, he made his way to the door and opened it. The hallway outside was also empty. He was definitely alone in this strange place, and he didn't like it.

"Emily?" he called thickly, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. "Emily, are you here?"

He hobbled down the hallway and into the kitchen area, where there was still no sign of Emily. He thought about calling out for her again, but spied the refrigerator and headed for it instead. Opening it up and bathing the dark room with a circle of golden light, he spied a pitcher of cold water just inside and pulled it out. He tried to find a glass, but the unfamiliar room was too difficult to maneuver, especially in the dark. He ended up sitting in one of the creaky wooden chairs and drinking straight from the pitcher. The water tasted good to his parched throat, but he longed for something else. He couldn't think what, but knew it should be warm and drunk from his favorite chipped mug.

He finished drinking and put the pitcher down. A chorus of cars and passing people filtered in from outside through the window over the sink. Hatter remained sitting for a few minutes, thinking of what to do next. It was fairly obvious that Emily had gone, leaving him here. Why, he didn't know. But one thing he did know was that he needed to get out of there, as soon as possible. Emily might never come back, and he needed to search for the wearer of that blue dress.

He closed his eyes, and could again see it there in his mind. This time, some features of a figure wearing the dress could be seen. Long dark hair, blue eyes… He frowned, but the hazy image didn't become any clearer. He muttered a curse and ran a hand through his hair in frustration. The back of his head was tender, but not bad.

Suddenly, light flooded the kitchen as someone flipped a switch. Hatter whirled, almost falling out his chair, and saw a mountain of a man standing in the doorway, hands clenched at his sides and eyes blazing.

"I'm sorry," Hatter stammered, staggering to his feet. "I didn't mean–"

"Who the hell are you?" the man bellowed.


Sorry about the long wait, everyone. Life's been crazy! Anyway, I'd appreciate some reviews, if any of you are still reading. Thanks so much. :D