The Time has Come, the Walrus said.

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimers: I don't own any of these characters. They all belong to other people who are much smarter than me. The Alias characters obviously belong to JJ Abrams. Full credits will follow at the end of the story. The quotes are from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

Part 1. Down the Rabbit Hole

The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well. Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next.

Sydney sat down in one of the chairs around the conference table and pulled out the briefing folder that she had been given on her way in. She scanned it briefly and tried not to roll her eyes. She was not looking forward to this. She had so many other things she could be doing.

Around her other agents were filling into the briefing room. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Yeager; the Agent leading the investigation against Vaughn, come in and sit himself down in the corner. Shocked, she glanced up at Vaughn but he only smiled at her. Before she had a chance to ask him if he knew what was going on, Kendall walked in and demanded their attention.

She heard Kendall's voice drone on in the background but she wasn't listening. Her mind was racing through the various reasons why Yeager would be in their briefing when she looked up and saw the light fixture wobble.

She closed her eyes and shook her head in an attempt to clear her vision but after she opened her eyes again she realized that the wobbling had traveled to all the other objects around the room and Kendall was shouting loudly. Sydney tried to understand what he was saying but a loud crash distracted her.

There was not a moment to be lost: away went Alice like the wind, and was just in time to hear it say, as it turned a corner, `Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting!'

Sydney looked around and was startled to see herself in a field. The grass was yellow and dry and the air felt heavy and still. She looked around in all directions but she could see no landmarks or buildings of any kind. She was completely perplexed. She was pretty sure she hadn't just been in this field, but she couldn't quite remember where she had been, either.

When she looked up into the sky to judge her direction she saw that there was no sun in the sky, only gray, undefined clouds. She felt the back of her neck tingle and had to fight the momentary surge of fear that coursed through her body.

Where was she?

She felt a restless energy within her and she knew that she had to do something. So she set off walking at a brisk pace in the direction she happened to be facing.

Sydney walked and walked with no change in the scenery to mark her progress. She had realized that she had forgotten her watch today and so she had no way to mark the time. Her keen sense of timing, which she had always depended on, seemed off as well. Her mind told her that she had been walking for hours but her body was not tired at all. She looked around at the unchanging landscape and she had to fight a momentary pang of panic, which shocked her. She never panicked. She had learned to control her fight or flight reactions a long time ago.

She pushed aside her thoughts and concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other. She had to. Every time she let herself think of the absurdness of her situation, the panic returned along with an insatiable desire to scream at the top of her lungs just so she could hear something.

Because that was something else she noticed. There were no birds chirping, no insects buzzing and no crickets creaking. There was no sound at all. In fact, she was hard pressed to hear herself as she stepped through the grass.

Finally she stopped. "This is ridiculous," she said out loud before she could stop herself. But her voice sounded muted and hollow and her panic returned in force. She spun to her right and started to flee. She didn't get more that a few paces though, before she saw a large stone wall a few hundred feet in front of her. The wall stretched parallel to the path she had been walking for as far as she could see, but she could have sworn that there had been no wall there a moment ago.

Her mind struggled to comprehend the contradictory sights that her eyes were relaying and finally she had to be content with just pushing her thoughts aside. She could make no sense out of anything that she had seen recently, so she continued her sprint to the wall. The wall seemed to approach her much faster than her feet were taking her, but she pushed aside those thoughts as well. When she reached the wall she stopped.

She had first assumed it to be a stone wall because it was gray, but upon closer inspection she noticed that it was perfectly smooth with no breaks or cracks within it. She lifted her hand to touch the wall because she was so mesmerized by its smoothness. As she placed her fingers on the wall she snapped her hand back immediately when she felt an intense burning pain. She stuck her finger in her mouth and as she nursed her burn, she lifted her other hand and put it close to the wall. She could feel no heat radiating from it. She moved her hand closer and closer until she was a whisper away from it, but still she felt nothing.

Sydney shook her head and stepped back from the wall. It was all very disorienting for her. She was a girl who trusted her senses without question but her body seemed to be giving her conflicting information. She didn't know what to do.

"Well, I can't just stand here…"she spoke to herself again without noticing. She picked the direction that she had originally been walking and continued in that direction, always keeping the wall in her peripheral sight.

Again Sydney continued to walk for what felt like hours, with no change in the scenery and no break in the wall. The light of the day remained at the same intensity and the air seemed to be pressing down on her shoulders.

Sydney stopped and crouched to the ground to relax for a time. The moments of panic were coming to her at closer and closer intervals and they were becoming harder to push away. She looked down at the yellow grass and inhaled deeply. The air smelled stale. As she regained control over her mind once again, she looked up and saw a bend in the wall.

Without stopping to think, Sydney sprinted to the corner. As she rounded the edge, she was astonished to see a large crowd gathered by what appeared to be a gate.

She couldn't help herself. She raced to the crowd, happy to believe that she could put this craziness behind her.

As she approached the crowd, she felt its restlessness as she heard its muted voices fill the air. She looked around and was shocked to find that she recognized most of the people. She saw Kendall close to the wall trying to wave somebody down.

Relief flooded her system at the familiar face. She went towards him but as she was moving through the crowd she bumped into a short man. He didn't seem to notice her and as she moved around him she noticed that it was Marshall.

"Marshall!" Sydney exclaimed as she hugged him, so happy to see a friendly face. Marshall looked up, but not at her and pulled a metal device from his pocket. Sydney stepped back, confused by his non-reaction to her and let him extend the device. She shook her head and stifled a small laugh. It looked like he held a tricorder from an old episode of Star Trek in his hands. He held it at arms distance and it looked like he was scanning the environment that they were in, but he did it so seriously that the laugh died in Sydney's throat.

A movement close to the gate caught Sydney's attention and before she could stop her feet, she was pushing through the crowd to move closer to the gate. As she approached the entrance she saw a small stage set up with some stairs in the center so that people could ascend it. Sitting atop of the stage was a man that looked suspiciously like Yeager.

"That's it." Sydney said to herself as she forced her way closer to the stage. "I'm going to get this resolved once and for all!" She stomped up the stairs and went directly in front of Yeager.

"What the hell is going on here?" she demanded.

The man who looked suspiciously like Yeager turned his face fully towards her and she had to suppress a gasp. His face was the same, mostly, but his hair held no hint of gray; instead, it was jet black. He had a black beard as well that tapered to a point and his eyes were like coals burning in his eye sockets.

"Miss Bristow." He exclaimed almost joyously. "How good of you to join us!" Small flames flickered in his eyes and Sydney had to bite back a scream. "Oh, it's ok the scream Sydney. Most people do here. I've grown quite accustomed to it. In fact there are some screams that I find rather soothing, in a disturbing kind of way."

Sydney tried to take a step back from the horror in front of her but she found that her feet were rooted to the floor. She was forced with no alternative but to voice the panic rising in her head. "W-where am I? Who are you? What are you doing here? What is everyone doing here?"

The man who looked like Yeager smiled at her and Sydney almost did scream. Instead of teeth, the man had fangs, but by far, worse of all, were the insects and maggots that were crawling around inside his mouth. "You are at the Gates of Hell Sydney. Where did you think you were? Where did you think bad people went when they died?"