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Recommended Reading: Of Tea and Chess by Skye 10, in the rated M section. A deep, twisted plot that takes Alice and Hatter to the oldest parts of Wonderland, and into Hatter's past. Madness abounds as the original players of Wonderland's deadliest game return to power, and our heroes must somehow turn the tide!!
Lol. And even better, its updated frequently. Right on.
On with the fic!!
Chapter 14
Hours later, Robert Hamilton was sitting in a cramped waiting room, his hands clasped together in prayer. He prayed for his daughter to recover, he prayed for the surgeons to work miracles, he prayed to see his little Jellybean one more time. For the chances of her survival, even with Wonderland's advanced technology, were not good. A fractured vertebrae and damaged spinal cord, a collapsed lung filled with blood, a pulverized kidney, severe internal bleeding, and multiple punctures to the small and large intestine from fractured bullet pieces were disastrous injuries each by themselves. All together, it painted a very grim picture.
They'd been in surgery for more than six hours, with more than seven hours to go. Three surgeons were working dilligently, several more on stand-by to take over if needed. For the Alice of Legend, they were almost tripping over themselves to serve. Although, it did help that she was very good friends with the new King of Wonderland.
Robert even found himself praying for the poor man that had protected his daughter in her adventures in Wonderland. That Hatter boy had been knocked out by the Minister of Clubs, who'd explained his actions with the knowledge that since Hatter had been a Mad Man once, he could be triggered into it again by a strong Emotion. It wouldn't have to be Tea, but his own Emotions that could cause it, and by Hatter's reaction to her injuries, it would have been more than enough. Robert didn't understand why they said it like 'Mad Man', and not insanity, so there was obviously some difference, but no one would tell him what. They'd taken Hatter to the Hospital of Dreams for treatment to subdue the encroaching Madness, and to treat the many physical injuries the poor kid had.
He shuddered at remembering the list of Hatter's wounds. Not as bad as his daughter's, but still horrible. The boy was being treated for multiple contusions and lacerations, several requiring stitches, fractures in the bones of his hands and fingers, and dozens of burns and welts on his body from liberal use of electric shock torture. Dehydration and extreme exhaustion were also on the list, and he was hooked up to three IVs, two with nutritional fluids and another with the various anti-biotic and painkillers the boy needed.
The former Carpenter glanced around the room, noting the many people who'd met his Alice. She kept interesting company. A King, and his Duchess, (note to self, find out if rumors of him keeping Alice as a mistress are true, and if so, shoot him, Robert thought to himself), several of the Suits that she'd impressed in a battle with Mad March of all people, and the quietest one of them all, an old man that apparently was a Knight of the old Kingdom named Charlie. Well, it was a much longer name, but Charlie seemed to suit him much better.
Charlie had also been seen by the doctors; a severe concussion, contusions, dehydration, and a shocking amount of physical exhaustion by the sound of it. He'd been the one responsible for distracting the majority of Suits from coming after his Alice in the Casino, and for that alone he would have had Robert's eternal gratitude. But he'd also fed and sheltered Alice in the forests, keeping her safe and even helping to rescue her from the Casino before! Robert thought he was going to like this man, especially after he'd convinced Charlie to play some poker with him to help pass the time.
Robert wasn't surprised when the King and Duchess left after three hours. Jack had far too much to do, as a change in governmental regime never went smoothly. It sounded like the man had some definite plans to change Wonderland, and Robert wished him luck. He'd need it for the efforts in cleaning up the mess his mother had made.
In the rafters of the room, the disembodied eyes reappeared, blinking slowly. They closed sleepily. It was almost time to wake up.
In the Hospital of Dreams, Hatter stirred. The bed in the sterile room had a thin sheet and no pictures or colors besides white. The windows were barred, and the door of this room was reinforced with steel. He blinked against the bright ceiling lights, trying and failing to cover his eyes. He pulled at his arm sleepily, waking up quickly when he felt the restraints at his wrists and ankles, heard the iron chains clinking. His hands were covered in bandages, and four of his fingers were splinted and braced. His hat and clothing were gone, replaced by a white hospital gown, and he had several IVs dripping fluids into his arms. What the hell--- "H-Hey, what's going on?!" he shouted. "What's going on?! Let me out!!"
A nurse ducked her head in, saw him awake, and hurried back out. "Hey!" he cried. "Hey, let me out of here! Don't just leave me, get me out!!"
"There's no need to shout now," said a low, controlled voice. "We'll have you out shortly." In walked a small old man in clothing that had clearly seen better days. Round colored-lens glasses were perched on his nose, and his dark hair was peppered with grey. His skin was weathered and tan, and he moved like one of great age. "Hello, Hatter. Its an honor to meet one that has helped so much to change in Wonderland. I'm Caterpillar."
"C-Caterpillar?" Hatter repeated in shock. "The Caterpillar? The leader of the Resistance, that Caterpillar?"
"Not what you expected?" he drawled.
Hatter suddenly found his mouth running away with him, "Not as tall as I'd imagined."
The old man found a smile at that. "I said the same to the young lady that was here not too long ago."
"Alice? Alice! How is she? Where is she now? Is she alright?! Is she still alive?!" He tugged uselessly against the restraints as he tried to sit up to talk. Unknown to him, black veins had already begun to faintly reappear near his eyes.
"She's alive, yes," Caterpillar answered, inwardly relieved as the veins receded back into his skin at the news. "She's still in surgery now. You've only been unconscious for a few hours, to our surprise. The medications you'd been given, you should have been out for a few days."
"Days? Medication? What the hell is all this about?" Hatter asked, bewildered. "And why the hell am I trussed up like an unlucky bird?"
"The Minister of Clubs told me that you escaped from Professors Dee and Dum, killing both of them and Mad March. While you've done Wonderland a service in ridding it of their evil, I can see from your face that you don't remember much of it. Tell me, did they make you drink anything? Inject you with anything that you can remember?"
"No, nothing," Hatter said, frowning.
"No Tea, then. How much do you remember?"
Hatter thought back. "I remember being dragged into that torture chamber, and they took my knives, and--oh, bloody hell, they took my body armor," he groused. "Had to smuggle books out halfway past Willowswood to get that, and now its gone. Well, then they tied me to a chair and had their fun." At Caterpillar's look, he bristled, "Not that kind of fun! None of that, just your basic torture. I guess? I'm not that big a fan, so I don't know if its standard procedure to use a cattle prod, but I suspect it goes something along those lines, yeah?"
Caterpillar nodded for him to go on.
"Well, then March comes in, talking about"--here Hatter swallowed hard, "talking about how Alice was dead."
"But she's not."
"I know that now," Hatter said with a flat look. "But he showed me her hair, and there was blood still wet on his knife. He attacked me and then"--he paused. Things were surprisingly fuzzy in his memories at that point. "I punched him out, shattered that head of his. And I remember something about seeing one of those Dee guys come in when I was beating the hell out of the body, so it wouldnt' get back up again, and then..."
"And then?"
Hatter frowned. He'd killed March and didn't remember killing the crazy twins. That's not good. "Then--the next thing I remember is waking up with Alice in my arms in the Game Room."
"But nothing of the time between then?"
"No," Hatter said worriedly. "Is--is that why I'm tied down? I did something then?" Oh god, did I kill someone? Someone that didn't deserve it, rather?
"No, that's not the reason," Caterpillar said. "You went Mad, Hatter."
Hatter froze, his eyes widening in shock. "Mad? What do you mean?"
"Madness, Hatter. You succumbed to Madness. Have you ever wondered about the black marks around your eyes?" The doctor asked.
The younger man gawked a bit at the drastic shift in conversation. "What? I've had them since I was a kid, why?"
"When did they appear?"
Hatter bit down on the angry retort that he wanted to spit at the man. Its not a good idea to insult the man with the keys to the handcuffs. "After my uncle died."
"So Grief is your trigger. You were Frozen in Grief," the man murmured. "Did you have memory blackouts after your uncle died?"
Hatter frowned, trying to figure out the man's 'explanation' and failing. "No, none. Unless you count passing out from chasing the Cheshire."
Caterpillar have him a considering look at hearing the slang term for--"You used Tea? For a long time?"
Hatter looked away, "Yeah. Forgetfulness. After he died, I just wanted to stop feeling."
"And you succeeded," Caterpillar said thoughtfully. "Its possible that you blocked the Madness for a time with the Tea, but as the black marks around your eyes attest, you did not cure it. Those marks are typical for Mad Men, as a sign of their Madness. Prolonged use of Tea slowed your return to emotional feeling, and delayed the affect of the Madness from manifesting. But after your time with Mad March, the Madness returned in full force.
"The Minister of Clubs described to me how you tore through the Casino after killing those three men. You destroyed almost ten different Emotion Rooms and dozens of crates of Tea. You claimed it was for the tea party with the Hare later. Several Suits were severely injured trying to restrain you. Many of the Oysters claim that you kept looking at all their women, calling out for Alice."
Hatter gaped at him. "I did all that? Did--I didn't hurt any of the Oysters, did I?" Alice will kill me if I did!
"No," the doctor answered. "Several of the children said you led them out of one of the Rooms that was designed to draw out Innocence. One of the girls said that you were absent-minded and kept calling her Alice, but that you took her by the hand and helped her escape before you wandered off. It is most fortunate that you rescued them, as drawing Emotions from Oyster children has a tendency to kill them very quickly."
"So...I did a lot of good then?" Hatter asked.
"Yes," Caterpillar nodded. "And the answer to your question of why you are still here is this. According to all accounts that we've heard, nothing seemed able to affect you while you were Mad. The Teas were all over your skin, fully absorbed into your body, yet none of the Sweet Teas affected you at all. You were so far gone to Madness that unless you'd received the Alice that you screamed for, you would have gone Mad permanently.
"And that Madness can still effect you now."
"What?" Hatter asked in horror.
"Once you've been touched by the Madness, it can return by the means of powerful negative emotions," Caterpillar explained. "When your uncle died, the grief you felt triggered the Madness in you. All the people of Wonderland have a touch of Madness, but it is dormant. It sleeps so long as we do not feel too strongly. And it is not in our nature to let our emotions be so powerful. But a child, suddenly all alone in the world with their family lost to them, could easily fall to Madness with Grief."
Hatter suddenly understood why his uncle would always sound derisive whenever he quoted the motto of Wonderland, 'We're all a little mad here.' It suddenly had a whole new meaning.
Caterpillar went on, "We've managed to drain as much of the Grief from you as we could, but the Madness will always have some part of you. There is no cure for Madness once it has been awakened, Hatter. But it can be held back, through the opposite emotion that triggered your fall. Or through whatever it is you wanted from Alice."
"So she saved me," Hatter breathed. She was there in my arms and that's all that saved me. Thank god she'd found him and woke him up, or he shuddered to think what he would have become without her. Now that he knew what happened, he could remember the feeling of the blackness grabbing him and sucking him down, with Grief as the trigger. Anger, Fury, and Hate had blended with it, turning it to Vengeance. It was beginning to scare him, the powerful emotions that she could evoke in him. But the feeling of something else, something stronger, that she had showered him with in her touches and her kisses, he knew that could save him.
He rather hoped it might be Love.
"That still doesn't explain why I'm still tied down," Hatter said. "I'd really like to get up now. You know, since I'm mostly sane and everything."
"Ah, but please indulge us a little longer," Caterpillar said. "If you need Alice to stay sane, then you need to be in restraints until you can get back to her."
"But I can go now, see? Up and talking and lucid and everything," Hatter replied with a look that tried to be reassuring but came across as nervous. It was hard to be cocky when strapped down to a bed in the Wonderland equivalent of the psychiatric ward.
"But the fate of Alice is still unknown," the doctor said, nearly crashing the world down around Hatter. "Her injuries were very severe. I will not lie to you, it is still too early to tell if she will live. And if she dies, you will go Mad. Until we know for sure, its too risky to let you loose. Please stay still and rest for a bit longer. You're not recovered from your own injuries yet, and the rest will do you good. We will keep you posted about her health."
Hatter sent the man a bitter look. "You're going to lie like hell to stop me going Mad."
Caterpillar gazed at him. "No, I will not. If Alice dies, you will find out somehow. And you will go Mad. You will be a danger to everyone around you, because we cannot cure you."
He said nothing after that, leaving the rest up to Hatter to figure out. Hatter blinked in understanding. "You'll kill me, then."
"Yes," the doctor answered, turning and walking out the door, but not before his last words were heard. "It would be mercy."
"Yeah," Hatter whispered despondently. The memory of how it felt to think he'd lost her, that cold, sharp pain in his chest that had made him burn with Vengance and beg to end it all and find her again as he died, made him flinch. "Mercy."
In the window, a small brown-mottled cat sat on its paws, staring with bright green eyes. It made a soft mewling sound, almost like it was chiding him. Hatter glanced over at it and looked away, startled badly, and immediately did a double-take. But nothing was there. Oh god, maybe he really was going Mad. For a minute there--
--he would have sworn he saw that cat grinning, literally from ear to ear.