-Alice-

The door exploded inward so violently that the shattered pieces of it covered the entire room, giving Tooth barely enough time to scream, giving me barely enough time to throw my hands out in front of me and give us a silver shield. The noises coming from the other side were horrific, and I knew what I'd find if I lowered the barrier between us and them. And I didn't move for a second. Just one second, I only took a second.

Leave me alone...

My fingers curled in fast, and the shield blew forward and whiped out the first wave of them. Without thinking, without looking back, I jumped the island and landed running, throwing myself out of the room and stopping only to look up.

Which, in itself, was a mistake.

It wasn't night, not for another seven hours. But you wouldn't know if you stood where I stood, looking up and seeing nothing but black covering where the outlook should have been. The hole that showed us the sun and the moon was nothing but the blackness that manifested itself into the creatures already in the Workshop. The creatures who were trapped in here with us. Who we were trapped with. Because, looking around, the windows were all blacked out, as well. And as strange as it was, I took a moment to appreciate whoever was doing this.

They were relentless. And they were terrifyingly good at this.

There were many of them, but they moved too fast to count, shooting through the air and leaving only swirling trails of black shadow behind them. Screeching, pawing, throwing their heads back, but never attacking. They were spinning, making circles and getting too close to terrified and furious yetis, smashing their teeth at them. But they weren't attacking. Not yet.

I turned and sprinted up the stairs, two at a time, because no matter what was in the Workshop right now, I had to warn Jack. I had to warn Pitch. I searched, for the first time, for the connection. I didn't wait for it to come to me, I didn't wait for it to pull or snag or jerk itself to let me know that it was still there. I looked for it. Because what if this wasn't the first place the nightmares had gone?

I almost didn't see it until it was too late. Black exploded in front of my face and I gasped, sliding wrong and rolling my ankle, skidding onto my hip and slamming an elbow too hard into the tiles below me, my other arm going up out of instinct. Through half-closed lids I saw a flash of silver against black, heard a roar that shook me to my bones, and when it dissapeared there was a tall, grey man standing behind the scene.

"Get up!" He shouted, and I rolled sideways and onto my feet. A sharp pain shot up my leg, a knot of nerves twisted on my right ankle, and I stumble backwards until my hands his the rail behind me, gritting my teeth and trying not to cry out. There was a rumbling behind me, and I looked up, Pitch standing in front of me, eyes caught between fury and concern, flashing between me and whatever was behind me. His eyes were wide, his pupils were dilated, and I felt as if the nightmares were gearing up now.

As if they'd been waiting for him.

"Pitch," I half-panted, "You need to get out of here. Now."

"And how exactly do you expect me to do tha-" He was cut off by a black flash to my right, shooting right towards him and condensing into the front half of a nightmare mid-way. Mouth open too wide to be natural, skin ripping on its lips, eyes wide and wild like fire. I may have screamed his name, I may have just screamed, or I may have mimicked the nightmare's face silently, but I felt my mouth stretch and my hands fly out in front of me. Pitch's hands moved at the exact same time, in the same fashion, in tandem.

Silver and shadows collided with the nightmare, and the three others that were surrounding it. My adrenaline was pumping, and the roars of the others were deafening me slowly, but I saw. I saw what happened when it collided, when it spiralled and danced and destroyed. And it was beautiful and terrible and amazing and horrific all at the same time. It was the kind of thing that paints itself on your bones, the beauty you wish you could forget but, if given the option, never would.

It was shadows and stars. It was the nightsky.

Home.

"Alice!" Jack's voice this time, and I felt like I was caught in a haze. Whatever I'd seen, the nightmares, the darkness, the dimness of the Workshop, all of the roars and the voices and the panic and the blood pumping into my ears, all of it was swirrling around a haze in my head. It felt stuffy, it felt like everything was too big and too much. Inside, I was trying to claw my way out of it.

I turned, clawing at one that was less than an inch from my face, seeing another dive-bomb Jack and freeze in mid-air, shattering loudly on the ground as the others stormed in. A wizz of wings. A Russian swear. The sound of a boomerang in the air. I couldn't concentrate, just seeing everything happen, just seeing them fighting and shouting and wondering why, why so soon after the last? Was this it? Was this the big battle?...

But it was too soon. I didn't know how I knew, or why it felt so solidly true, but this was too soon. This wasn't it. It was a small attempt. A warning bite.

That may be all he'd need. I pictured the man's face, his eyes, standing there and watching and shaking his head, thinking that we went down so easy. The Guardians. Pitch. I thought of the man and the nightmares around me and the chaos and the screaming. I thought of Toothiana's hug and Pitch and Jack. I thought of the Workshop and nights wandering and the smell of sugar.

My thoughts turned into feeling, and they built up in my veins, swarming through me as I stood there, still as a statue, hair moving in the wind that the nightmares stirred up. The shadows were twisting and they were alive, and so was something inside of me. A different memory. Something my body remembered from another lifetime, something it knew had to be done again. My skin buzzed, my breath caught, and the swirrling haze inside my head snapped long enough to see North being ambushed by seven nightmares.

His eyes were angry, his brows furrowed, two curved swords out in front of him, and doing his best not to look terrified. And I thought about his home, and his generosity, and his love for Jack. And I knew that I couldn't stand here any longer. My body moved upon decision, and all I could do to warn North was scream something that resembled his name. I couldn't hear myself, not with the roaring that I threw myself right into, blackness popping in front of my face and then just swatches of color.

Black. Red. White. Red. Silver. White. Red. Sequences, sounds and roaring and the hope that I could do this one more time, just keep them off one more time, and that would be good enough. That they would be safe and so would Pitch and this would all just stop.

There was a moment in time where I blacked out. I could have been the stress, or the noise was too much, or I was so poundingly terrified that my mind couldn't handle it. Or it was me falling back in time, body settling into another lifetime, another place where I knew exactly what to do. I didn't know what happened. I just remembered a flash of light.

-Pitch Black-

I watched every second, and the image was just as hard to believe as if I'd never seen it at all.

Because she was so small.

Because she was Alice. Tiny, timid, afraid, strange Alice.

And now, she was a force of nature.

There she stood, in the center of the nightmares, shoving North to the side and turning, face a mixture of sweat and fear and fury, and then they glazed over and her body erupted with light. I thought of Jack, of when he combated my nightmares the first time, of the impressive display of power and how astounded I was of such a small person weilding such large capacities of strength. And I couldn't compare them.

Because this happened so fast, so suddenly, that I wasn't entirely sure it had happened at all. She stood, her head tilted back, and light shot throught the entire Workshop so suddenly that it was like someone had turned the lights on high, and we were all blinded for a fraction of a second.

And then it was gone.

And then it was all gone.

The light and the shadows were washed away, and we stood there with the only evidence of anything having disrupted peace being Alice. Collapsing.

-Alice-

The floor came at me hard, and my arms buckled beneath me, catching myself on an elbow as I sucked breath in and out, feeling like I was about to be sick. My throat burned and my lungs were too tired, my heart rusting almost to a half and my blood on fire. I felt like I'd run all my life and was only allowed now to stop. And I was tired. I was so, so tired, that I would have fallen asleep right then had North not shouted above me.

"Alice! Es okay?!" Two massive hands wrapped almost completely around my shoulders and lifted me up to my feet, where I winced again because of my ankle. But after what I'd just done, the pain seemed trivial. It felt faded and just a dull ache somewhere in the background. I groaned, rubbing my face with my hands and then running my fingers back through my hair, holding them at the back of my neck and keeping my eyes closed.

"I'm...I'm fine, I guess. I'm tired. Is everyone-" I choked. I shouldn't have opened my eyes. And I shouldn't have asked. I really shouldn't have asked. "What happened to your hand?!"

He looked at it like he didn't know. He shrugged like it was nothing. Like it wasn't a large cut running from the crease between his thumb and pointer finger all the way to his wrist. Brushed off the silver dust like he didn't know how it had happened. Looked like he didn't see me blanch. My blood running cold. My stomach dropping. The world falling heavily onto my body.

"Es small scratch-"

"Did I do that?" He looked up, confused, holding his hand up and still gripping the curved sword. The red stung my eyes. My chest was locking up. The words were already mummbling in the back of my mind.

"Um...well, es accident, no? You saved me! Alice...Alice? Es no big deal, you-"

"I hurt...I..." I couldn't finish it. I couldn't stand there, I couldn't look at it, and I couldn't listen to the voices and what I felt was coming all at once. I needed silence. I needed myself. I needed a tree and a world where I didn't actually think that this was going to be okay. I needed lies that I told myself to be true and I needed to do anything differently. I needed sleep.

I needed to get out of this area, because the last thing I could take was any of them seeing North's wound on top of me and what I felt coming on. I was walking back slowly, at first, but when North sheathed the sword, I turned and ran. Ran fast, ran hard, ran past Pitch and under Tooth, ran away from their voices and how exceptionally pathetic I was right now. Ran towards my own room like a child.

Like a child who needed to escape the monsters in the basement. Except I was the monster, and I didn't know where to hide other than in this room, in my own head, and letting me rip myself to pieces. The hallway was a blur, the door was a brown splotch, and the slamming of a lock into place was background noise. My back against the wall was numb, sliding down to the floor and curling up until I felt that nothing could touch me, face buried behing my legs and hands pressing into my temples, fingers laced into my hair and holding me there.

And then it was dark and there was just my mind.

What did you expect?

I don't know. I don't know what I expected. I don't know.

Yes, you do. You know what you expected. What you hoped and how you just assumed that they would-

Accept me now. Because what had I done? Gotten ambushed with Jack. Put him in danger. Given vague details about every question they wanted answered. I assumed that was enough, after years and eons. I assumed. And who was I to do that? Who was I to think such things?

That they'd be your-

Friends. Maybe, even, family. That they would-

Forgive you for your past. Forget-

That I could have been such a horrible person, that I could have orphaned a child, and now-

Now you hurt one of them. Now you hurt Nicholas St. North, and that's the tipping point, isn't it? That's where you finally realize that no matter what you do, who you're with, how much they hug you, the smiles they give you, the love they claim, the warmth you feel, the trust you hold, the hope you have, how much you assume, the time that passes-

I will never be forgiven.

It settled in my stomach and caved me inward. I tried. I tried so hard. I tried and it wasn't good enough.

"Alice."

It was so short and so beautiful, and I was the fool who thought that this was something permenant. That I wouldn't ruin this.

"Alice."

Two hands settled over mine, and it was only then that I realize I was shaking. Because I felt their hands running smooth thumbs over the backs of my knuckles, felt a gentle voice saying something above the water that I was under. And even though I was pulled in tight together, they pulled a rope that brought me back, breaking above the water. And I breathed for the first time in a long, long time.

"Alice. Dear, look at me." His voice wasn't normall like this. It wasn't normally soft and concerned and so quiet that it fell between us only. Not in this lifetime, anyway. "Come on now, it's fine. This won't kill you." I took another breath that settled the shaking in my bones, and I sat back but did not look up. Because now the horrific embarrasement set in, and I realized just how pathetic I looked. Small and curled up over a paper cut. But it wasn't just a paper cut. It couldn't be.

"Well that's a start, I suppose... Oaf. Talk to her."

"But...vat should I say?"

"What do you think, you buffoon? Why do you think this happened to her?"

"I..."

"Tell her she didn't ruin everything. Tell her you don't hate her." It almost sounded like a challenge, and I wouldn't look up to see it. The silence was short and heavy, and the thumbs continued on the backs of my knuckles. Slight, going over only two or three, but it raised my skin and soothed my wrists. My hands were going limp, the fists unfurling. A deeper, coarser, worlds more gentle voice spoke.

"Alice, es...you think you are in trouble?" I didn't nod, just turned my head slightly to the side. I didn't want to see him. I didn't have to. I heard a deep, shaking, terrible sigh. "...We were so wrong. I did not realize..." The tears were fought back, my muscles relaxed, because hadn't I been expecting this all along? Hadn't I wanted them to go back on their word to Jack? Why had it taken so long?

"Not so nice, realizing that maybe you didn't know everything?"

"Look what we've done...Alice, babushka, look at me ja?" I swallowed. If I did this, maybe he'd end it faster, and no matter how hard it hurt at least I'd know that it was true. That I was looking in his eyes and knew without a shadow of a doubt that this was how it really played out. I looked up and opened my eyes, pressing my spine into the plaster of the wall.

Pitch knelt in front of me, his hands on mine, eyes looking at me hooded and angry and concerned and strangely gentle. He looked like he'd done this before. He looked like he was about to kill something. He looked like he was holding a child. He was two extremes put into a way that blended them. I wanted to grip his hands so tight, to not let go. I wanted to remember a time when he'd done this before.

North's face was so sad that it made me want to cry. Worlds of pain were in those eyes, looking at me and so, so heavy. And it was there. And I didn't want it to be there, wasn't ready to see it there, not in him. It laced into every line and scar. Guilt weighted the Guardian of Wonder's face.

"You are not in trouble Alice...we are." I tried not to listen, but the words caught me and held fast. "We...could not..." He paused and held his hands out below him, looking down into them as if he were reading from a book. His large, heavy shoulders fell, and he looked at me with the face of a man who knew what mistakes were. "You have had hard life, yes? We are supposed to stop that. We are supposed to protect children...protect our friends. Alice, am not good with words, but...you have saved us on so many an occasion. But we treat you so terribly..." He placed a large hand out towards me, hesitantly, afraid. But not of me. Of...himself, maybe, or his action.

My hand was in his before I knew it was moving, a large palm surrounding my fingers as his other hand closed over ours. Pitch's thumb ran over my other hand, still, his free hand in his lap. North squeezed lightly.

"If you will forgive, we would like to...start new?" He asked. It wouldn't happen fast. It wouldn't happen easily. In all realism, it wouldn't happen at all. I had no reason to believe him or any of his words, no cause to trust the Guardian who had orchastrated ways to keep me from the others, to keep me locked away and quarantined. I really shouldn't have.

I nodded, slowly and in segmented pauses, and North's entire face lit up. His smile pushed his cheeks forward and made his eyes all small and squinty, blue irises gleaming and hands squeezing mine just a bit too tight. He looked like he was about to burst, like he was keeping back some sort of war cry, and I fought the urge to push back into the wall. Because Nicholas St. North was smiling at me, and as much as I wanted to smile back, I was nervous.

I felt a thumb go over my middle knuckle, and when North let go over my hand I looked at Pitch. He was looking at North, as well, with shifting and suspicious eyes. Warning eyes. He was sitting almost hostily, though relaxed and composed. His eyes were darker, and they weren't quite seething, but they were an elegant warning.

And it was quick. It was a flash, a sudden glance North's way, but he wasn't looking. Pitch closed his eyes, breathed and composed himself, all the while me sitting there and wondering if he was still concious of his thumb on my knuckles. All the while hoping that it didn't matter, that he'd keep doing it.

North stood with a loud grunt, dusting off his knees and looking at me with a more toned-down version of his smile.

"Very good, very good! I will have to talk to others-"

"Like Aster?" I asked, knowing full well that he wasn't in on this deal. And I was okay with that. Five out of six wasn't bad, if Pitch counted. He gave a nervous laugh and ran a hand through his beard, holding out a hand and saying with a shrug,

"Vat is there to do, yes?" I nodded and paused, looking to Pitch. For assistance. For guidance. For the next words. Instead, he silently took his hand away(and I thought that he knew, the whole time, that he was comforting me) and stood, looking down to me with the hand half-out, as if waiting for me to ask. With a bit more pride than that, I pushed myself up the wall and took a step.

My knee crashed to the floor.

"Ow, ow, ow!" I exclaimed, feeling the shooting pain up my ankle and the extreme fatigue wrap its fingers around me again.

"Oh!" North stepped next to me, but Pitch's adept hands were already on my shoulders and lifting me up, removing themselves too quickly to have been stroking my hand just seconds earlier. Instead, I leaned a hand against the wall and lifted my ankle, rubbing a hand down my face and shaking my head. "Es okay? Your ankle?"

"Um, yeah...I just need a nap. Or something longer. I'm just really really tired." I said, slowly setting my foot down. The pain was ebbing now, just sharpening if I put all my weight on the foot. I shook it a bit.

"Ok, es fine-"

"No. We don't know if this place is safe yet, no matter what she did. One impressive display of power isn't going to keep them away. And, now that we know that they know where the Workshop is, I don't think letting her be vulnerable alone right now is such a wonderful decision." Pitch intervened, and I almost groaned. I was so tired, it felt like my bones were iron and my eyes were drying out. "How about we clean up whatever mess was made while you and your little hairy minions figure out a way to keep this place safe for more than five minutes."

Pitch said all of this as he walked out of the room, opening the door and looking back to me, an eyebrow raised in waiting. I paused, looked from him to North, who looked perplexed and a bit taken aback. I looked between them like a child and their parents.

"Um..." I articulated, but North nodded before I could speak and raised out his arms. I moved quickly to Pitch, fearful that North would, of all things, try and hug me. The thought was ridiculous, but that didn't keep me from quickly stepping past Pitch, into the hallway and trying to avoid the destruction all around us. I could have sworn he stifled a laugh.

-Pitch Black-

I heard the others speaking to her as I paused outside her door, running my thumb over my fingers. I felt her skin there, the cold fingers and the smooth skin. The shaking bones and the pulsing veins. I could feel the threads knotting between my thumb and her skin, and for a moment I let myself become intertwined. I let myself, for a moment or more, fall into that tugging, that insistance that this was how it had been once. For her, because no one should crack like that.

Because that's all she did. Crack. A fracture in a foundation that shouldn't have to be so damn strong. I heard Toothiana fretting, I heard Jack worrying, I heard sand from Sandman, and I heard mummbles from Aster. I soothed my own anger, thinking of making a lucky rabbit's foot to keep me safe in these coming days. Because, dear me, things were about to get very interesting.

I looked out the window, and wondered why I thought that I should have seen a man standing there and looking back. He knew where we were. No, not we. Me. He knew where I was, and that just so happened to be everywhere Alice was. If I had any shred of humanity left in me, I'd make this easier for everyone. North and the others were more shaken than they'd admit. He still stood in the room, thinking in his ancient mind, wondering what he'd gotten himself into. I hadn't even reached this caliber of threat before. Hadn't struck a blow at home-base.

Yes, if I had a heart, I'd have at least distanced myself from Alice.

Oh no, though. This tinman wasn't going anywhere very soon.