Disclaimer: I own Abby, Cillian, Griffin, Samuel, and Samantha and nothing else.
Griffin was so hungry. It had been seven days and he had only found two of the Alice Hamilton's on his list. Neither was the correct Alice. He had never known that Abby's home was so large. While he had managed to come into the possession of a map, it was still difficult for him to determine where his destinations were. He was getting better about it, though and had managed to mark down all of the addresses on the map so that he would know where to go. He had also made a note about where the warehouse was.
One of the Alice's he'd visited had been nice enough to give him a sandwich, but that was the only food he'd had since he came through the Looking Glass. Even so, he wasn't tempted at all to go back through. He was staying in the warehouse, though. It was the only place that was familiar to him in this strange world.
That seventh night, he stared at the map. He had put an 'x' through the two Alice's he'd checked and he had five more to go. He started trying to figure out which of the other five was closest to the warehouse. The first two he'd visited had been the closest but it had still taken him the better part of a day to make his way there and back. He knew that it was only going to get worse. One of the places that he was going to check was all the way across the map. He truly hoped that wasn't Abby's house because he didn't know how to go about getting those precious bits of paper which were oh so necessary in this world.
He finished the sandwich that the nice Alice had given him and then plotted his route to the third Alice's house. It was going to be a long walk, but he hoped it would reunite him with Abby. He went to sleep on the cement floor, hoping that tomorrow would be more productive than today had been.
When he woke, he made his way into the city. He had become familiar with the few streets around the warehouse, but utilized the map anyway to make sure he wouldn't get lost. He was determined to make this trip as quickly as possible. Despite his determination, he didn't arrive at his destination until the early afternoon. When he did, he pulled out the page from the phone book and looked at the address again. It was an apartment building. He made his way into the building and to the apartment in question. He took a deep breath before knocking on the door.
Then he waited. And waited. And waited. No one answered. He knocked on the door again, but no one was home. Griffin didn't understand yet how jobs worked and ended up waiting in the hallway for a few hours until a woman came to the door that he was now sitting beside and, while eyeing him suspiciously, unlocked and entered the apartment without saying a word to him. He then heard the locking mechanism click into place again. He sighed and pulled out the map, putting an 'x' in the third house. That definitely was not the right Alice.
Looking at the map, he realized how close he was to another Alice. He weighed his options. On the one hand, he could probably make it back to the warehouse before dark if he left at that moment. On the other, he could find out if that other Alice was Abby's mother before heading back. He decided to see whether the other address was the correct one and walked for another five or six blocks to the next address. It was another apartment building.
He went up to the door and tried to open it, but it wouldn't budge. He looked around, wondering what he was supposed to do to get the door open and saw a numbered keypad next to a list of names. "101 Lance K., 102 Townsend B., 103 Harrison V…106 Hamilton A." he read aloud skipping a few names after he realized they must have been inhabitants.
He assumed that he was supposed to type the number next to 'Hamilton A.' into the pad, so that's what he did. Nothing happened. He tried again with the same result.
"Trying to call someone to buzz you in?" a woman behind him asked. Griffin turned quickly and saw a woman with graying red hair.
"I, erm…I guess." He said.
"You just punch in their number and hit enter." She said, demonstrating for him. She punched in 106 and hit enter. They then heard a ringing noise before someone came over the speaker.
"Hello?" a male voice came over the speaker.
"It's me, Carol." The woman said.
"Oh, uh…how do I get this thing to work again…Alice! It's your mum." The voice said over the speaker. It sounded familiar to Griffin.
"Who is that?" Griffin asked, figuring that the woman, Carol, would be able to tell him if it was Hatter.
"Oh, that's David." Carol replied. "Who were you wanting to get ahold of?" she asked.
"Oh, no one I guess…wrong address." Griffin said, his face falling.
A loud buzzing noise suddenly came from the door and Carol pulled it open before turning and looking Griffin up and down. "Are you okay?" she asked. The question caught Griffin off guard.
"I'm just…looking for a friend." He said.
"You look like you could use a bit of a hand." She said. "Look, here's some money and my phone number. If you need any help, just give me a call." She said, pulling out some pieces of paper and a small card that had her picture on it as well as a ten-digit number.
"Thank you." Griffin said.
"Oh, I'm Carol Hamilton, by the way." She said.
"I'm Griffin." Was all that he replied with as he put the money in his pocket. He then realized that it wasn't all that common for people to not have last names in this world. "Griffin….Heart." he said, coming up with the only surname he could think of other than Hamilton.
"Well, Griffin Heart, if you need anything, anything at all you just call that number between 8am and 7pm Monday through Friday and we'll do the best we can." She said.
Griffin nodded and thanked her again before walking back toward the warehouse. He looked at the little card she'd given him. "Health and Human Services…" he muttered as the sky grew darker. He was excited to use the money that he'd been given to buy some food. He was still so hungry. He went into the first 'store' he saw that had food in it. He looked at everything in the store, wanting to get something big for the smallest amount of money possible. He ended up buying a bag of chips which he started eating during his walk back to the warehouse.
When he got back to the warehouse, it was late at night. He counted the money that he still had which came to $42.79 before he pocketed it again and took out the map. He started to cross off the second address that he'd visited, but ended up putting a question mark next to it. He just couldn't get that voice out of his head. It had sounded so much like Hatter.
Over the next few weeks, he managed to finally make it around to the other addresses. He hadn't figured out that those yellow cars would take him places for money or that those stairways going underground would take him to a train that could get him across town quickly. So, he'd had to walk. For the longest trip, he'd taken five days to get to the address because he kept getting lost. That was the last one on the list. It ended up being what the Oysters called a 'nursing home.'
Alice Hamilton had been excited to receive a visitor and they had played checkers for a little while, but she still wasn't the right Alice. He left the building feeling hopeless. He had completely forgotten about the lone question mark on the map during his weeks of traveling around the city. He had also nearly depleted the money he'd gotten from Carol. He was down to $3.27 which he decided to save until he at least managed to get back to the warehouse.
When he did get back to the warehouse a few days later, he looked at the map again. His brow furrowed at the question mark next to one of the addresses until he remembered that 'David' had sounded a lot like 'Hatter.' "That's got to be where she is. If she's not there, then I've got no choice. I'll have to go back to Wonderland." He said aloud, looking around at the mirror. What he didn't know was that Abby was just on the other side of the mirror, having just arrived back in Wonderland.
When the morning came, he walked back to the apartment, sure now that it was the correct one. He used the keypad to connect to apartment 106.
"Hello?" it had to be Hatter's voice. It just had to be. Griffin decided to take a chance.
"Hatter?" he asked. A loud buzzing noise came from the door and Griffin opened it. This was the right place! He rushed to apartment 106 in time for the door to open and Hatter to come out looking pissed.
"Where's Abby?" he asked angrily. Griffin hadn't realized that he'd been smiling until his face fell. "What have you done with her?" Hatter questioned.
"S-she's not here?" Griffin asked.
"Oh, sure, pretend you don't know what's going on. Abby went missing last night after telling Alice and me that she was going on a date. And now you show up on our doorstep? Where is she?" Hatter asked, glaring at Griffin.
"I-I haven't seen her since Wonderland. I've been trying to find her. Wonderland isn't…it's bad." Griffin said.
"And you thought that you'd take Abby back to fix it, huh?" Hatter asked.
"No. I figured that I would come and live here. It's too dangerous in Wonderland for her." He said. Hatter narrowed his eyes at Griffin and moved, indicating that Griffin should go into the apartment. "Do you have any idea where she went?" he asked, worried. He knew that Samantha had been going to destroy the rabbit holes, but what if she didn't? What if they kidnapped Abby for some reason? No, that was absurd. What would the Sams want with Abby?
"She didn't even leave the house. She was getting ready and then she was just gone." Hatter said. "When you showed up, I figured you had something to do with it." He added.
Griffin shook his head solemnly. "No, I thought she would be here…" he trailed off.
"How did you get here?" Hatter asked, suddenly realizing that Griffin shouldn't have been able to come through since the plan had been for all routes to and from Wonderland to be destroyed. Griffin held up the string around his neck, revealing the Stone of Wonderland. Hatter sighed, "You're even more trouble than I was."
Cillian and Samuel hadn't really spoken since their patrol in the forest. They didn't have a plan for how to separate Samantha from the sword, but she was getting worse. Now that Abby was back, Cillian couldn't just sit around and wait anymore. They had to do something. Either they needed to get Samantha away from the Vorpal Sword or they had to find a way to get Abby back to her world. He didn't want Abby in danger. This was why he found himself knocking on the door to Samuel's room after he left Abby's.
"Hello, Cillian." Sam said. It was obvious that he'd been waiting for Cillian to come to him.
"We need to do something." Cillian said as he entered the room.
"Sh." Samuel said as he closed the door. "Look, I know that you're worried, but there's no way we can get that sword away from Sam right now." He added.
"Then we need to find a way to send Abby home." Cillian replied.
"There is no way, Cillian. We destroyed all of the rabbit holes and the Stone of Wonderland." Sam replied.
"What if we dig out the rabbit holes? Or at least one of them?" Cillian said.
"That is not going to happen, Cillian. Did you figure out how she came here in the first place?" he asked.
"She still thinks it was the shoes. I don't even know what she's talking about when she goes on about them." Cillian replied.
"It's the Wizard of Oz. It's a story from her world." Sam said. "What if it was the shoes? What if they need…time to recharge or something?" he asked.
"What did it say in the story?" Cillian asked.
"I never read it. Samantha did. In the movie, it was never mentioned that the shoes had any kind of limit. I wonder, though, if she's not supposed to do something before she leaves. Perhaps whatever magic brought her here did so in order for her to help us." Sam said.
"No. Absolutely not. She is not going anywhere near Samantha." Cillian said.
"That's up to her, not you." Sam replied.
"There has to be some way to get her home. Maybe we could make a new rabbit hole?" Cillian asked. Sam responded to that question with a glare.
"I think we should see if she can help us. She might be able to distract Samantha long enough for us to relieve her of the sword." Sam replied.
"And how would Abby go about distracting Samantha?" Cillian asked.
"Just trust me. Abby might just be the key to getting the sword." Sam replied.
The next morning, Cillian brought Abby to Samuel's room for them to plan. He and Sam had argued about using her to help them, but Sam had insisted that they needed to at least ask her. As much as Cillian hated to admit it, Abby did have a choice about whether or not she helped them. Once they were there, Sam explained the conversation that he and Cillian had the night before briefly.
"So, how would I be able to help?" she asked.
"Samantha hasn't been around any girls really since we came through to Wonderland over a month ago. What we need for you to do is to buddy up to her. You know, get close and maybe go out and have a little bit of fun." Sam replied.
"It's a stupid plan is what it is." Cillian replied.
"Even if I buddied up to Samantha, how would that help you to get the sword? She takes it with her everywhere, doesn't she?" Abby asked.
"Exactly" Cillian said.
"I don't know, you could figure out a way to get her to take it off maybe…see if she wants to go swimming or…whatever girls do." Sam replied.
"See, stupid plan." Cillian said.
Abby shook her head. "I don't think that's going to work. What if we just wait until she's sleeping?" she asked. Cillian and Sam looked at each other for a moment. "Did you guys seriously not think about that in the last month?" she asked. Both men shook their heads.
"We were just waiting for a good opportunity." Cillian said. Abby sighed.
"Okay, how about we plan to sneak into her room tonight after she falls asleep and steal the sword?" Abby asked.
"There are suits outside her room every night." Sam replied.
"There are also servant's passages into her room." Cillian said.
"Brilliant. Now, who's gonna do it?" Abby asked.
"I will." Sam said. "She's my sister. She might not kill me if she catches me trying to steal it." He said.
Author's Note: I thought about writing more, but I'm tired and I figured I should just get this out. I hope you liked it, especially the part with Griffin. Anyway, as always please review. I love all criticism as all criticism helps me to become a better writer.
Kelleyj: It is very possible that she's supposed to help straighten out Wonderland. I hope you enjoyed this chapter as much as you've enjoyed the others.