D.- Hey guys and gals! This one is for balseirocharmed, who hopes I am going to update soon. As you can see, I will. I update every time someone new reviews. I have approximately 33 chapters in this story, already typed, just waiting for a proof read. When I get a new review, which I check every time I get on my computer, I am just so pumped up and happy that I have to post a new one. When more than one person reviews, I post more than one chapter a day. Check back often and if you want a new chapter, send me a new reviewer!

Somewhere in the Casino, a Prince is feeling the strain of his punishment. All the eyes, watching, gazing, even staring at him, it makes him so angry. He straightens his tie, and tries to keep still. He takes some deep breaths to calm himself and then when that fails, he runs his hands over his hair to make sure it is still in place. A short while later, all of his fidgeting and fussing can't restrain his anger. He stands from his chair, sliding it back a little with the quick force of standing so suddenly. He looks around, his whole body turning as he tries to make eye contact with each eye.

"I was doing the right thing, I was saving Wonderland! And instead of gratitude, I am being judged. What right have you to judge me? I am a Prince, who fought injustice on behalf of his people. What have you ever done!" He gets so upset that he throws his chair away, not caring that it disappears into the veil of eyes. He takes a deep breath as the eyes began to blink out. A cold wash of fear runs down his back. Jack couldn't help but wonder 'Is it dawn already? Is my life over so soon?'

The door opens on the now pitch black room and Jack raises his fists, preparing to do anything he could, use any lesson he had retained from his time in the dojo to defend himself when Duchess steps into the room. He doesn't immediately lower his fists, not that he would hit her, but she may have been sent in to try to pry some secret from him and he needs to be prepared to dodge an attack. Duchess's voice is a little frightened by the look in his eyes. All she can feel from him is fear and despair, his eyes guarded but pained.

"Easy Jack. I'm here to help you get out. We haven't got much time. I bribed the guards but it won't last long. Put on this disguise." She throws him a jacket, slides a hat on his head and begs him to follow her out. Jack stiffens in suspicion but her pleading eyes make it hard to say no. He pulls on the black trench coat and adjusts the ridiculous hat, even though they do nothing to hide his identity. Following the always scantily clad Duchess into the hall and around the corner, he suddenly stops her and pulls her behind a large pillar, his arms gripping her upper arms tightly to focus her attention.

"Why are you doing this? Why are you helping me?" Duchess looks afraid and her voice cracks as she speaks.

"Isn't it obvious Jack? I care about you, I always have." Jack shakes his head as his arms tighten on hers, unable to believe that Duchess, his mother's perfect little spy, has any kind of feeling for him other than disdain.

"Oh come on! You're working for my mother. You've always kept tabs on me for her, you've always done her bidding. Why the sudden change of heart Duchess? And don't tell me that you care for me. I won't be fooled." His tone is accusing and he shakes her by the arms as he speaks, but Duchess is on full defensive mode.

"I did what I had to do to survive! I-" Jack hears some men screaming "This way!" and panics, forcing Duchess across the hall to the first door he finds. Duchess uses her access code to get into the room, so he assumes that it requires high clearance and the suits won't be able to follow them in. Once inside, Duchess continues her train of thought.

"I never wanted to spy on you Jack, but I was only allowed to stay in the palace if your mother wanted me there. Otherwise, I was going to be sent back to my uncle's home. I couldn't go back Jack, so I had to play her game. I didn't want to tell on you, to betray you like that. You were the only person in this forsaken land that was nice to me when I arrived." Jack turned away from her, unwilling to watch her cry and fall victim to her charm. Looking around the room for the first time, he realizes they are hiding in a tea storage room. Undiluted teas line the walls, in thousands of tiny, clear vials, no bigger than his thumbnail. They are stored in cabinets with labels like 'Lust, Greed, Passion, Excitement and Clear Conscience.' He takes a deep breath before replying to Duchess.

"Save your tears Duchess, I won't fall for your lies just because you start leaking." Duchess stepped back a step, obviously hurt that he doesn't believe her, when she realizes where they are. She knows exactly what she's doing as she turns and strides across the room, a determined look in her eye. Jack hears her move, hears the slightest growl of frustration and has to look at her, see her expression. He sees her open a cabinet, pull out a vial and before he can voice a sound, she drinks it down. Stunned, Jack steps up to her, grabs the vial from her and closes the cabinet to read the label.

"Truth." He looks down at Duchess, a small grimace on her face from the undiluted taste of the vile drink. Absolute truth isn't always the easiest to swallow. She notices him staring intently at her, so she speaks up warily.

"I'm not sure how long it's going to take, but I won't be able to lie soon and when I tell you all this again, you'll know I can be honest." She turned and marched to the door. "We need to go now, if they saw us come in, they will surround this room and we'll be trapped." Jack walks over to her mindlessly, stunned that she would risk herself just to prove herself to him. Duchess carefully opens the door, and when she sees the hall is clear, she grabs Jack's hand and they race from the room.

Duchess tiptoes around, trying to avoid letting her heels click on the floors and Jack plays the part of defensive bodyguard well, casual touches to her hip to rush her along while he watches for guards or shielding her from view while she opens locked doorways leading to the scarab floor. He knocks a guard on his ass with a flip Alice would be proud that he remembered, and then a single shot to the face renders him unconscious. Jack assists Duchess over the fallen body and into a scarab where he takes off and heads into the forest to hide. Deep in his heart, he hopes that Alice and Hatter have made good their escape already as he steals a glance at Duchess, resting her head against the co-pilot head rest, clearly suffering from her tea.

Alice manages to run herself safely all the way to the Game Room. She barricades herself inside with all of the controlled oysters and their dealers. She climbs up onto the stage, scaring off the few dancers there and drawing the attention of the two suits. They raise their guns as she raises her hands. They motion her off the stage just in time for Hatter to appear, taking one out completely with one punch and as the second changes his aim to Hatter, Alice chops down on the hand holding the gun, giving Hatter enough time to knock the second one out too. Alice is so relieved to see him; she can't help but blurt out:

"Hatter! You're ok!" Hatter is already standing up from where he bent to collect the guns, checking that they had ammo and are armed He tucks one into the back of his pants and one into the front, just over his hip. Alice sees the extent of his bleeding and bruised face and neck. "Oh my God!" Hatter figures that she is upset by his looks.

"Oh it's alright, it's just a few cuts and bruises, I'm fine." He hardly has time to finish his sentence before she leaps at his neck, wrapping her arms around him, squeezing just a little too tight for Hatter. But any discomfort is immediately suppressed by the feel of Alice finally in his arms again. He hardly hears her mumble into his neck.

"I thought you were dead." But when she clutches him tighter, his only thought is spoken aloud.

"Oh God that feels good." He takes a deep breath of Alice, calmed that she seemed unharmed. "We should save that until we're safe." He suddenly remembers March's threat. He pulls Alice back, looks her over, no cuts or bruises or any marks.

"You are ok, aren't you? No...uhm…Unpleasant experiences?" Alice looks at him like he's grown another head, and out of sheer relief, he pulls her close again, right tight to his chest, and kisses her hair. "Thank god for that." Breaking away, Alice looks into his eyes, pained by the dark skin around his right eye, but speaks very clearly to him.

"I'm sorry I didn't trust you." Hatter, thrown off guard, blinks a few times before following that statement with the necessary question.

"Do you trust me now?" Alice can feel his hope, like a tangible cord pulling her spirits up a little. She hears the tiniest intake of breath and she keeps her serious stare as she answers.

"Completely." Hatter takes a deep, rewarding breath and almost sighs.

"Good. Follow me; I'm going to get us out of here." Alice grabs his hand before he could walk away.

"No." Hatter, frustrated by her admittance of trust but her refusal to listen, turns to look at her.

"No?" He looks at her expectantly.

"I have an idea; do you see anymore suits in here?" Alice gestures to the room. Hatter looks quickly, and replies to the negative, so Alice leads him to the only other door in the place. "Find something to seal this exit." Hatter grabs a wide shop broom and props it into the door handles. Hatter then looks to her for direction.

"It's just something that Caterpillar said. Mix the wrong emotions together the wrong way and it's an emotion overload. And Charlie said the Queen only wants to feel the good. We need to stir up some bad emotions." Alice reaches for the gun Hatter has tucked into the front of his pants, pulling it out quickly and walking past Hatter to the stage, while Hatter, shocked for a moment, watches her leave. When she climbs onto the stage, he runs over to a tall podium, pulling the second gun out and leaping up. They both shoot a few shots into the air, drawing the attention of the dealers, who raise their hands. Alice threatens the staff and tries valiantly to wake the humans from her position on the center stage. At the mention of the word families, some come around, but when they are all conscious and speaking, they are most upset by the fact that they can't walk away because they are grounded to the floor through their bare feet.

Their emotions begin influencing the readings so Carpenter takes notice. Hearing Alice call for the oysters to wake up repeatedly seems to trigger his memories, one in particular, that of his daughter, young and wearing a blue frilly dress crying for him to wake up, telling him he was late as he glances at his watch. The watch he is still wearing. He leaves the control room quickly, but being followed by a giant of a man, a man carrying a gun. This man stops him in the very next corridor, calling out to him by his true given name. When Robert turns around to face the giant man, he attacks quickly and reaches for the gun, twisting his arm this way and that, trying to keep the gun from facing him. When the gun goes off, Robert has to check that he isn't hit. He kicks the gun away from the man's hand and continues racing to the Game Room. It is some time before the man stands and painfully makes his way towards the gun, stumbling a little when he reaches down to retrieve it.

Alice's situation is going from bad to worse as the suits finally manage to break down the door. Alice leaps from the stage to hide behind a game table just as the suits open fire on her previous spot. Hatter, sensing her danger, begins to try to draw attention to himself by shooting at the shooters. He doesn't think to leave his platform right away, just aims to shoot the people shooting at his Alice. When they start firing back, Hatter dives over the rail and down to the floor, hiding behind his own gaming table. They continue to shoot at each other for another few seconds before Robert arrives, ordering them to put down their guns, under the guise that they are frightening the oysters.

"I'll deal with this." He says as he lowers his arms in a gesture to cease fire for the suits, who stop firing and close the door. Alice steps out from behind the table but raises her gun to aim at him as she calls out:

"What do you want?"

"Put the gun down. It's me Alice, it's your father." Hatter's eyes blow up the size of dinner plates, but he crouches down and gets closer to Alice, preparing to jump in if her father does something rash. He is now behind the table that Alice had been hiding behind. Alice is shaking, her pent up anger at her father bubbling to the surface.

"You don't remember me. You don't remember anything." Robert worries his hands a moment, unsure how to convince his daughter that he now knows who she is. When he touches his watch, words flow from his lips.

"I-I do. Thanks to you, I remember everything." Alice's lip quiver as she speaks.

"I don't believe you. This is just another trick." She addresses the room. "You see this guy? He's the one who brought you here, He hooked you up, and when he's done with you…When he's done with you he'll get rid of you. Isn't that right? Daddy, Isn't that right?" Hatter silently cheers that she is finally learning some sense when it comes to trusting people because they 'used to be good' but he is also pained by the knowledge that Alice was hurting. He wishes he can step out and wrap his arms around her for support, but stays in his spot, ready to protect her. Robert decides to try a specific memory.

"It was a Sunday, and we'd just come back from the movies. You were wearing your yellow dress and those black shoes that always hurt your feet." He smiles briefly at the memory before continuing. "And Carol met us in the driveway, told us that Dinah had been hit by a car. And you ran into the yard and hid, and I came and found you, and held you for hours while you wept." He sighs "I should have known you the moment I saw you. I've been a fool Alice, I've missed so much, I've wasted so much time, Please forgive me." Alice bursts into tears and walks forward to be folded into her father's arms.

Hatter, unable to see her any longer, stands and turns to face them, but when he sees the door open, he raises his gun in defense. When the man takes aim at Alice and her father, Hatter lets loose four bullets, each hitting the new man in the chest. Alice and Robert jump apart, and Hatter notices with some satisfaction that Robert tries to shield her from where the shots came from. 'Better late than never.' He thinks to himself with a smile.