Notes: Much of the discussion in the flashback here is based on the same one from Batman: Arkham Asylum. If I owned that game, and its sequel, I probably wouldn't be here...and Joker wouldn't have died.

Chapter 37: Opium Dreams

A small boy stares at the ground, looking at nothing. His eyes are wide and cold and empty. He shuffles like a living corpse, a hand on his shoulder.

"Come on, kid...take a seat," says the officer in the glasses with the moustache. Behind him is a younger officer – only about a month on the force – with curly red hair and pudgy cheeks.

The small boy just nods, barely visible, as he is guided to a chair. He sits down mechanically. The redheaded rookie shuts the office door.

On it is written "Captain J. Gordon."

There is silence for a minute or two.

The boy stares at his lap for a moment. The last few hours have been a blur. The Hatter and the Hare...the bats...the rain...the gunshot...the man in the tweed coat...

A hand finds its way across the captain's desk, and touches his own gently. He glances up quickly at the officer, but then his eyes fall again.

"Hey, you okay?" whispers Gordon.

The boy almost snorts with laughter. "Okay?" How could anything ever be "okay" again?

The rookie sniffs behind him.

"Oh, come on...a kid like him? He's got all the money in the world! He'll be fine."

The boy whimpers at the bitterness in the man's voice.

"Shut up!" snaps the captain. "He's just a kid, and he's alone now! You can't buy happiness, rookie."

The other man just rolls his eyes.

"Whatever...did you know his butler's on his way to pick him up? Can you beat that, boss? He's got a butler!"

"Get out," growls Gordon, "before I have you suspended, Lewis."

The small boy hears the door open and shut behind him.

Gordon sighs, and smiles at him.

"I'm sorry...he's new, and he doesn't understand. I do, though."

The small boy glares at him doubtfully for a second, and then gazes at the floor again.

"Look, I need to ask you some questions. Your name is Bruce, right?"

The boy nods.

"Great. My name's on the door, so..."

He trails off.

"Look, before we start, you want me to get you anything?"

Besides my parents back? the boy thinks darkly.

He shakes his head.

"N-no...sir. It's just...just..."

He can't continue. Gordon cocks his head to one side.

The boy gulps. He looks up, eyes watering once more.

"Wh-why did they do it, officer?"

The captain looks away sadly.

"I wish I could tell you why half the people around here do what they do," he says, a steely edge to his tone. "It's like this city's got something wrong with it...makes so many people sick."

The boy just sobs and looks away.

Gordon stands up and comes over to the boy. He turns him around in the swiveling chair and meets his gaze, hands on both his shoulders.

"I know you don't feel like answering me, but I need some leads if I'm going to catch who did this. I can't give you your parents back...if I could, believe me, I would. But I can help you get the bad guys. You have to trust me."

The small boy sniffles, and wipes some tears away.

"He...he wore a tweed coat..."

Gordon smiles.

"Okay, good. And listen, son...just call me Jim, all right?"

The boy smiles slightly, sadly.

"Y-y-yes, sir."

Gordon smiles a bit wider, stand up, sits down, and writes something down inside a notebook.

"Now, what was he after?"

The boy shakes his head slightly.

"It's all a blur now, sir...Jim...I just...I just remember the coat...and the gun...and..."

"And what?"

The boy looks up again.

"The rosary. My mother's rosary. He grabbed it."

"Up and at 'em, Batman!"

Batman sat upright. He groaned, rubbing his eyes, trying to figure things out.

It wasn't just a necklace...it was a rosary. Strange has one just like it...

Coincidence? Not likely...

"Bad dream, eh?"

He looks up, wearily. His dark eyes meet the emerald eyes of Alice Liddell.

"Hattress," he sighs. "Where are we now?"

"The Vale of Tears...or what's left of it," Alice said grimly, and pulled him to his feet.

Batman looked around...and his eyes widened in shock.

The sky of the Vale had turned orange...the thin, swampy mists were replaced with smoke, as the vegetation burned with unnatural slowness around him. The water was dirty and black, and the earth was charred and – he shivered – flowing with scarlet streams, the source of which was painfully obvious due to their coppery odor.

On the edge of a cliff nearby, he spotted the Cheshire Cat, gazing up at the smog smuggered sky. The cat cocked his head, an ear twitching, as he watched something approach in the distance.

Batman and Alice glared as the massive, black, fiery form of the Infernal Train flew across the sky, a rain of embers and tar dropping from its wheels as the rails of flame appeared before it and vanished behind it. Its hideous whistle pierced through the sound of the wildfire, and then it vanished.

"Cheshire!" called Batman.

The cat turned. His glowing, golden eyes narrowed, and his ubiquitous grin widened.

"Ah, there you two are. Seeking refuge from a wicked, watery world? Perhaps things only LOOK like they've gone to pot..."

"You aren't that good a liar, and neither of us is that stupid."

Cheshire shrugged, and gazed skyward again.

"I was beginning to think that the Walrus had managed to grab a bite out of you after all..."

"You knew?" Alice snarled.

Cheshire rolled his eyes.

"My dearest Alice, you should know by now that I know plenty. What happened down in the Deluded Depths was a mystery to most...so, naturally, I found out. Now come: Caterpillar awaits once more."

Without another word, the cat swirled away. He reappeared – frustratingly enough – behind them.

"Shall we?" purred the feline, and sauntered off into the dark, smoky woods.

Alice and Batman glanced at each other, and then walked after him.

Alice took out her blade, gazing around with unease.

"Scotland's burning, Scotland's burning! Look out, look out! Fire, fire, fire, fire...more water, more water..."

"You don't like flames, do you?"

"I have reason not to."

"Mind telling me those reasons?"

The Hattress shivered.

"It's...not a pretty story..."

"I'm used to that."

Alice bit her lip, sighed, and began.

"I was fairly young when it happened...a lout by the name of Angus Bumby, studying under my father to be a psychiatrist, took a fancy to my older sister, Lizzie. She spurned him, but Bumby would not be denied: he raped her, stole the key to her room, knocked her unconscious, and left all of us to die after throwing an oil lamp into a wastebasket filled with flammable paper my father used in his photography hobby."

Alice paused.

"That's when you stopped seeing the Mad Hatter," Batman guessed. "He told me about that the first time I met him."

The Hattress nodded sadly.

"I went...crazy," she said. "That's all I can use to describe it: I felt...guilty. Helpless. Useless. I was locked away in Rutledge Asylum for many years...then Rabbit came. He told me I could help Wonderland, and myself..."

She wiped a tear from her eye with a metallic finger, then glared at her cyborganic arm as if it was somehow to blame.

"I couldn't. I'm sure Hatter told you what happened."

Batman nodded.

"I lost my parents, too. Mine were murdered by..."

He paused.

"...Somebody."

Alice raised an eyebrow.

"We're here," purred Cheshire, and sat on his haunches.

Batman and Alice looked around. They had come to a spot in the Wonderland Woods that had not yet been burned down. The trees were adorned with oriental ornaments, including paper lamps. Batman looked around for some sign of the Caterpillar.

"Where is he?"

"In the Oriental Grove, naturally."

"Which is where...?"

"Here," Cheshire said, and pointed with one claw.

Batman looked where he pointed.

There was silence.

"That's his hideaway?"

"What did you expect?"

"Not something the size, shape, and appearance of a smoking, moss-covered, model volcano, I'll tell you that..."