Hey everyone! YOU GUYS DID IT. Over 15 reviews for the last chapter! You know what that means, right?
DOUBLE UPDATE! YAYAY! I was so happy to see how this story is going and to know you all have enough time to say you love it. It makes me love it even more. So, forgive me on the lateness of these two chapters. Note. This chapter is a lot of paragraphs and explaining. But it's the good kind :)
"Dad.... DAD?" Alana hollered, her mouth dropping wide and her hands crumpled into fists. Slowly, they wrapped around her body as her eyes dropped to the ground. Her feet instantly became glued to the floor beneath her. The suits can walk ahead for all she cared. "How are you my Dad... That makes no sense!!! You are NOT my Dad!"
Jack stared at her with hard look on his face. His expression was clearly expressing that Alana's reaction wasn't prime to what he wanted to achieve in this conversation. He inhaled deeply, replying,"In Wonderland, nothing is ever as it seems... Nothing... Alana, you've been lied to your entire life to try and hid you from this world."
A deep breath surged through Alana as she glanced up. Her eyes were like crystals, wet. She was about to cry. "Why... why would you lie to me?"
"Your protection was always first."
"And what about my own feelings!" Alana shouted, her arms flailing up. This made the crowd ahead of suits and Cheshire stop. "Did it ever occur to you that I have emotions? I can experience them, breathe them, feel them! I am NOT from Wonderland! I can't be."
"You realize what you say is the reason on why I protect you the way I do." Jack said calmly, trying to ease down the girl,"You are from Wonderland, a place that is bare of emotions but of draining them. Yet, you've grown in a world that flourishes in it. You don't need a tea to have a rush of emotions, you just do. And it's not because you are the holder of the Stone, but because you are different. Something precious."
Drip.
A shiver.
"So why do I feel so alone?" The girl whispered, her dark eyes watching Jack carefully as she shook her head before resting it on her shoulder and casting her gaze off into the dark tunnel,"I don't want to stay here anymore..."
Jack peered behind him to see Cheshire sigh, sadly too, looking at the rightful king of Wonderland. The cat paw fell on his shoulder before giving and encouraging smile. Jack tilted his head, watching his daughter sob.
"None of us do. At least, not with Alice ruling." Cheshire said aloud, moving over to Alana. He gave her a small grin as he wrapped his arm tightly around her shoulders. "Come, walk with me and your fa- Jack." She wasn't ready to say Jack was her father. Not yet.
Jack moved to the other side of Alana, gently pushing her along as the 3 began to walk. "Where to even start on this long story..."
"The very beginning." Alana whispered.
Jack nodded and inhaled deeply,"It started out with my mother, the Queen of Hearts, being overrun by a girl named Alice. Now, her mother, my grandmother, was also overrun by a girl named Alice 150 years ago at that point in time. So, my mother, was overrun and I helped. So, I took the throne. Alice, in whom is the current Queen was who I loved.
"Hatter, loved her as well and took her to your world for a good, 10 years. She got bored, and, saw her first "wrinkle". She hated it. She noticed she was getting slightly slower, her body hurt more, and, she saw an imperfection. This imperfection, was what Hatter could not fix. She thought, somehow, that the Stone of Wonderland could fix it. So, she left Hatter and came back to me where I welcomed her with open arms.
"From there, she played me. She stole the ring, hid it away from me, and somehow became attuned to it, that she was able to bend it's power to her will and remove her imperfections, as if that 10 years with Hatter never existed. Duchess, your mother, told me of this. Together, we investigated, for I knew she was loyal to me. I did end up discovering she was saying the truth. And because of her honesty, I fell in love for real.
"Alice, became jealous and then banished us from Wonderland. She, took the title as the Queen and most followed her, because they felt she would be a wonderful ruler for Wonderland. She enacted a rule of immortality, that everyone must remain immortal. Unfortunately, it fell on Duchess and I. Either way, we needed to leave.
"So, we left, but with the stone. Together, we had you. In your world. When you were born, I showed you the Stone to say that it belongs to you one day, and as soon as it touched your skin, it disappeared into a sparkling mist. I grew worried, that the stone as been lost...
"Yet I knew where it was when I gave you to Cheshire as you were an infant. We wanted you to grow up in Wonderland. Alice wasn't aware of you, and, only the Duchess and I were banished. Cheshire watched you for 50 years. 50 years..." Jack whispered softly, smiling a bit as he brushed Alana's cheek. "We wanted to make sure that less people would be around if we ever came back. But we realized, we were older. Wrinkles, gray hair... We were aging outside of Wonderland. And you, you were still a baby. You were not aging."
"Duchess then couldn't stay away from you and demanded for you to be brought to her, and it was done. But, it killed her to know you were so young and she was so old. You'd barley have time with one another as a mother daughter relationship. You'd have no mother. So, that is why we put you up for adoption. We said, your real parents died and us, the grandparents, could not take care of you. We were able to keep relations with you, and set up a small deal with your adoptive family, to never reveal that you were adopted. They let us visit, and we even became like actual grandparents to the family..."
Alana's eyes widened... It all seemed, so right... All the small side conversations Grandpa and Grandma would have. The way her family worked. All of it. Jack wasn't lying.
"And so, Duchess then died. Not truly, of course. She was put under a medicine almost like what Juliet had in Shakespeare's play. She was then put in her grave with a small looking glass and a very expensive false stone, just like what Alice is using now. When she was buried, she woke up and passed through, only to find that she kept her old body... But, it began to crack off into her old, young self. However, with help, she kept it on. She wanted to wait for you to come to Wonderland, Alana."
Alana gasped, her mind flickering back to something...
Alana's Grandmother's face was that of Hatter's shock. "This is bad." She whispered, her heart thumping. The girl's eyes narrowed. What was bad? The small girl moved forward, shaking her head,"I don't know why you would think he would do something."
The grandmother's face was nothing but of pure perplexity. Alana shook her head slowly, her hands forming into fists,"You don't understand, Hatter is not a bad person!"
"Alana, you don't know-"
"What don't I know?" Alana fired back, her body language was that of a tiger. "I know enough to think that you judge people too easily."
"And you too lightly..." Grandma whispered, her crystal eyes reflecting shame,"You should know better then to wander the house."
"You should know better than to hid secrets from your Granddaughter." Alana yelled, her teenage hormones for fighting, kicking in. "You know, grandma's are suppose to be kind, caring, and understanding because they are wise. But you! You are more like a mother than a grandmother! You question me and disbelieve everything I try to say and do!"
The grandmother's face seemed to morph into sympathy. She sighed a bit, shaking her head,"You are in a far far different world than you know, Alana."
The girl glanced up to Jack, nodding her head as she took it in. "I on the other hand, instantly tore off my old age and went about, setting up plots and such to bring down Alice. Then, I was notified that you were in Wonderland. And, to make it worse, fell into the hands on Hatter. I spied on you in the tea shop for some time, watching to make sure nothing went wrong. And then, I saw Alice enter and that is when I went after Cheshire and told him to get you. Does it all make sense now?"
"That was you! The man in the shop that would always stare at me?" Alana asked, perplexed.
"Yes."
"I-it's all seems like it makes sense now. Everything kinda just, falls into place." Alana said aloud her hands now by her side as the end of the tunnel was beginning to open. Light. They were almost out.
"One question..." She asked, trying to get one more in.
"Yes?"
"Why do I look like Alice?"
"You look similar to her because of Alice's attachment to the ring." Jack simply stated,"But clearly, you are nothing alike. I rather think you look very different from Alice. I find the way she looks very... strange. Her eyes are light, normally associated with things like purity. But they are not. Yours, are dark and mysterious, yet you lay your emotions right out for the world to see. I find it funny."
Alana smiled to herself before suddenly, the dark tunnel ended.
"Well, Alana, bite your tongue. You are going to now learn the real ways of being evil." Jack said aloud, laughing.
"Why evil? What do I need to do?" Alana asked, wondering why her dad was saying this. Cheshire chuckled and chimed in,"In order to beat evil, you need to see it and became just as bad."
The teen scratched her head, her eyes narrowing,"How in the world am I going to become evil?" Her hands creating air quotes around "evil," as she spoke.
Jack laughed,"Well, you're going to learn from Grandma. Your real one."
Alana's eyes widened. "The Queen of Hearts."
Yay for double update? I'm sure all of you are like,"WHERE IS HATTER!" But, don't worry. Just don't worry. Now, you must review to BOTH chapters of this double update to make me happy :) Please read and review!