Running from his mother Henry goes through the crowd rushing to his friend. Alice steps off of the monster and walks away from it the fighting and the constant thoughts in her head catch up to her and her eyes start to close. "He-hey, Alice!" Henry calls making it just in time to catch his friend. The girl pries her eyes open and weakly laughs. "I'm not used to fighting Jabberwockies," She mumbles watching what's left of the Spade soldiers retreat. "You know since you came to the castle you've always ended up in medical," He points out laughing with his friend.

Sliding down onto the ground Alice's hands travel under the boys arms and hold onto his back as if she'd never wake up if she let go. "You're right…we sh…should change…that…" She mumbled her voice drifting off her head now resting on the boys' chest. "So you're the one that had her other cuff." A soft voice points out. No one was listening to the twos conversation, busying themselves with helping the wounded or heading back to the castle. "She shouldn't have been this tired." Henry said fighting the worry out of his voice. "It is because the Vorpal blade puts pressure on the users mind; she's one out of the two people alive to be able to use the twisted blade and be lucky to just suffer this consequence."

"How'd you know that she gave me her cuff," The younger asks his eyes looking up to the white haired queen. "The amount of magic it has is still radiating off of you; you should be grateful the stunt that she pulled just by lending that to you could have hurt her." The Queen of Diamonds voiced quietly. "How?" He asks urgently moving his friends head up to his shoulder with her arms still hanging onto his back. "She told you her mental hospital story correct?" Upon the nod she continued. "She was still crazy when she came back and sure she was getting better but she was still so crazy that it became dangerous to have her around." The queen says.

"Eventually she became too much to handle but we all cared about her so much; I decided to create the wrist cuff-knife-guards, there's no official name for it. One of the many enchantments and seals to be put on it was to push back her insanity and to have her mental health become stable. It works entirely as long as she has both the cuffs on." She quietly finishes.

"So you're saying that without both of her cuffs, Alice goes back to her insane and schizophrenic ways but with only one on she becomes half insane?" Henrys words were met with a nod of confirmation. "That is enough for now." The Queen of Diamonds states leaving Henry and his friend in silence.

It was raining when Henry finally got back inside the castle. Some of the more religious villagers that had stopped by the castle thought that it was the gods weeping for the dead. There was a funeral for spirits of the dead but the families took the bodies away for a more personal burial. The army went to the infirmary and left going back to their quarters. Now all that was left to do is wait. Wait and plan because the council has Alice and Alice has the pieces to the puzzle that they're missing; another interrogation.

"I'm awake I'm awake," a murmur which belonged to the girl slightly lifting her head up. "We want answers." Demanded Regina. "You don't need them," The brunette answers coldly. "And why not?" Stepped in Snow White.

"It's simple," The teen mumbles standing up, "I'm going to finish this on my own." She starts leaving the room until Henry grabs her wrist. "You aren't going alone,"

"Yes, I am."

"No you aren't,"

"Yes. I. Am." She hisses out her annoyance boiling over. 'Why can't he just let me do this? Why does he have to put himself in danger? When will he see my reason? Why can't he just let me protect him?' The thoughts chased each other in her head. Pulling her arm away from the older teen she moves her hand and the signature light blue cloud came back. "Wait!" Henry shouts latching onto the girl and sees the familiar blue wrap around him. He ignores his friends' angry words at him and the second they got back, they were surrounded by Spades men.

"Henry…why?" She mumbles not liking the situation at all. "I'm sorry okay!" He shouts in his small cell. The situation is that the King of Spades surrounded them the second the cloud had disappeared into thin air and detained them immediately.

Throwing them in the dungeons small cells they were separated and the cells were right across from each other; on the good side of things the King of Spades men didn't touch Alice's wrist cuffs. They must've thought that they were some piece of jewelry. "You're families going to kill me…" She whispered trailing off. Hell, if Henry got hurt or worse down here his family didn't even have to try looking for her she'd kill herself.

"Look Alice it's been two days and this all that you've been doing why can't you just act like you normally do or better yet go crazy because that's probably how you're better off anyways!" He shouts at her. This takes her back; sure Henrys gotten exasperated by her before for her independence and protectiveness but he's never…never…

"A…" The nickname cut her out of her own reverie and she felt tears start streaming down her face and slowly drop off of her chin. He opened his mouth again but she cut him off. "No Henry just stop." Alice says standing up with the chains around her feet making a quiet sound. "You've been putting up this…this brave hero shit since day one! Can't you just get it through your thick, thick skull that people just want to protect you! Can't you understand that people don't want to let you die!" She screeched her voice staring to go raw; no she wasn't done yet.

"You put on this face…this dumb stupid hero face as if just because you're there, because it's you that you've instantly got a free 'Oh I'm going to spare you pass!' Henry you can't seem to put it through your head that because you want to protect the ones you love they want to do the same exact thing with the same exact thought!" She was full on sobbing, her shackles bouncing off each of the chain links and her voice started to go sore.

She starts to quiet though and as she sits down she says, "Can't you understand that I just want you to live?"

"A…"

"And what's with that name all of sudden?" Laughing through my sobs I felt like I wanted to go crazy again so that I can stop crying. "Because I'm sorry…I shouldn't have said anything that involved those words and I-I…" He trailed off noticing that my sobs stopped but the tears kept falling. Silenced enveloped the two of them leaving them in their thoughts.

After a few minutes Alice's tears finally subsided and just in time as a guard walked in bringing them their food. Shoving the ugly food inside the cells Henry immediately picked up the spoon and took a bite from the pasty soup that was given while Alice just sat there. "Oh the untraceable and meniacle Alice can't eat this?" Mocked the guard; said girl just sat there not moving.

"Maybe if I fed her," The teen suggested acting small and innocent. "Oh and why do you think that I'd let that happen?" "I'm no threat anymore," "True enough; besides even if you escaped here then the Jabberwocky would kill you on the outside." This caught the girls' attention; there wasn't supposed to be anymore Jabberwockies. "Oh really?" Came the male teen's voice. "You know they use magic to duplicate them right? Well of course they're so powerful that the strongest and the original is the main guard."

"What would happen if it died?" Alice whispered being answered with, "All of the duplicates would die with it of course!" He said merrily unlocking Henrys cell and pulling out the key for Alice's. 'Idiot!' Closing in on Alice's door she moves up in a fluid motion unlocking her left knife and stabbed the guard in his chest. He fell over of course but he broke her key with him. "Come on," Henry mumbled behind the guard his shackles unlocked and holding the broken key "Damn it," The girl cussed. "Now the enchantment won't be able to let me get out." Henry just looked at her as if asking why she attacked so soon and replied by explaining that the guard would have closed the door behind Henry immediately and it was their only window of opportunity. It was a long ten minutes.

The last chapter is next, I'll see you then-Happy Valentines Day