The Time Has Come, the Walrus Said Chapter 3: Through the Looking Glass, an alias fanfic

Ok, first to answer a few questions. The second chapter was based on Dante's Divine Comedy. I didn't intend to portray the characters as being of a certain religion, but I figured that Sydney would have read this book during her studies. And yes this is a challenge entry for the April Challenge at the sd-6.com boards. I have to incorporate sporks, April Fool's jokes and rain.

And thank-you for telling me about the correct spelling for tricorder, I've fixed it. I actually had tried to look this up on the internet, but apparently I picked the site with spelling as bad as mine! lol! Well here's the rest of it. I will include all my references tomorrow probably, but I wanted to get this up.

Thanks again to everyone who reviewed. I realize that this is a crazy ride that I'm taking you all on. At the end, I hope you will think that it was worth it.

Part 3. Through the Looking Glass
Come, there's no use in crying like that!' said Alice to herself, rather sharply; `I advise you to leave off this minute!' She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it)… `But it's no use now,' thought poor Alice, `to pretend to be two people! Why, there's hardly enough of me left to make ONE respectable person!'

Sydney was transported directly in front of Satan at center stage. She found herself staring directly into his horrible eyes and she fought the urge to tremble openly. Suddenly off to her right a small green man approached them slowly but it was only when he spoke that she recognized him.

"I sense much anger in her." Yoda said to Satan.

Satan nodded as Yoda looked her over. Sydney had no choice but to allow his examination of her, though she felt like a piece of meat up for sale.

"But I'm not a bad person!" Sydney cried in her defense, though that defense had not worked when she'd spoken it earlier for her father or Vaughn.

Yoda looked at her directly and continued. "Much anger and much fear inside her."

"Is that any excuse for the things that she's done?" Satan asked.

Yoda shook his head. "No. For anger and fear are what always lead us down the dark path."

Sydney looked at them both in disbelief. But she had no time to ponder the words of the Jedi Master or the meaning of Satan waving his hand in front of her eyes before she was transported once again.

Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question. `What sort of people live about here?'

`In THAT direction,' the Cat said, waving its right paw round, `lives a Hatter: and in THAT direction,' waving the other paw, `lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad.'

`But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.

`Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'

`How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.

`You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'

Sydney opened her eyes and found herself in a small round room; it was probably no more than 5 paces across. She looked around it quickly but there was nothing to see. There was no door and there were no windows but the walls seemed to be made of the same smooth, cold gray that she had seen somewhere else before. She brought her hand up to touch the wall, mesmerized by its smoothness but she pulled her hand back before touching it. She remembered suddenly that she had done this before and that it had brought her great pain.

She fell down to her knees in the cold, colorless room as pictures filled her mind. The image of two angels ripping those beautiful wings off of Vaughn's back haunted her along with the memories of the demons taking her parents away. She cried and tried to hug herself for comfort

After some time she looked back up and was shocked to see a large, gold framed mirror on the wall in front of her. She looked at it curiously, she could have sworn that it had not been there when she had last looked. Also, and even more curiously, it sat flush against the curved wall and yet when she looked into the mirror she saw no distortion in her reflection.

"Where did you come from?" she practically wailed as she felt the madness taking its toll on her.

Surprisingly (or not, anymore) a face that was not her own appeared in the mirror and spoke.

"Oh dear girl, I show the truth,

often overlooked in the bloom of youth."

Sydney felt a momentary flash of pride as she managed to stop herself from sobbing openly. "Well, I don't know why a talking mirror should bother me after everything else I've seen today. Can you show me anything?"

The face in the mirror nodded regally.

"Fine. Show me my father." She demanded.

The face in the mirror wrinkled its face in disgust and then shrugged shoulders that it didn't have. "Well if you're going to be like that!" the face spoke as if insulted. "I would have settled for anything that rhymed. I'm not demanding. It's not like you had to start with Mirror, Mirror on the wall or anything!"

Sydney stared at the mirror in confusion, which only frustrated the face even more.

"You know! Snow White? The evil queen? Any of this ring a bell?"

"Yes, of course, but I'm not going to rhyme my sentences for you. It's bad enough that I'm talking to you--" Sydney stopped herself as she realized that not only was she talking to a mirror, she was now arguing with it. "Show me my father." She repeated firmly.

Through the mirror she saw a small room, similar to the one she was in except that it was square. There were several people in it, some sitting on the floor, some talking to each other. Her father stood in the corner facing the wall.

She saw a raggedy man with few teeth approach him. "Well you can't stay alone in here you know. We're all in here together." Her father continued to look at the wall.

Another man, smaller and sickly looking approached her father from the other direction, but instead of stopping by his side he squeezed himself between Jack and the wall. "Hez right yu'know," he slurred.

Jack turned around so he was facing the room and the first man danced around him. "You think you're so much better than us don't you? Don't you? Smarter maybe? But you're not!"

Jack finally looked at the man directly but his stare didn't stop him from dancing. "You think you're a martyr don't you? Did it all for your girl? Did it matter? Did it matter?"

"Of course it did." Jack responded plainly, lifting his chin in pride.

"No, it didn't, no it didn't," heckled the dancing man as he spun around Jack.

"Hez right. Didn't madder. She nev'r forgave you. You lied to hur too offen," the second man chimed in.

The dancing man chuckled as he finally stopped his dancing around Jack. "Right I am. Of course I am! You didn't help her, you caused her pain. You took away her choices in life! You programmed her to be a spy and she will never forgive you for that!"

The chuckling and the dancing resumed as they tossed about all the horrible things she had ever said to her father. She watched, transfixed as their battering began to wear away his pride until he fell on the floor and put his face in his hands.

Sydney had to turn away as she heard them heckle "…Who are you to come and act like her father? If you wanted to help her, you would have stayed away from her... She'd like to believe you, but she doesn't trust anything you say"

She sat down in the middle of the floor, with her knees bent up so she could rest her head on them. She heard her words rephrased and used to beat her father and she cried.

`I quite agree with you,' said the Duchess; `and the moral of that is--"Be what you would seem to be"--or if you'd like it put more simply--"Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise."'

After some time Sydney regained her courage and went back up to the mirror. The face reappeared and looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

"Show me Vaughn." She demanded hoarsely.

The face looked at her skeptically and then faded away without any argument. She saw darkness fill the mirror and for a second she didn't know what she was looking at. And then she saw that it wasn't darkness that covered the mirror, it was blood. Deep, dark red blood. And in the middle of the pool of blood was Vaughn, submerged and drowning. She saw him struggle and flail about trying to get air until finally he managed to break through the surface and take a deep breath of air. She saw centaurs standing on the shore with incredibly long whips that they used on his face until he resubmerged again.

Sydney covered her face and fell to her knees.

It was some time before she was able to look up at the mirror again, but the sight of Vaughn had vanished. She grabbed the mirror by the edges so tightly that her knuckles started to turn white.

"Ow!" cried the face in the mirror, reappearing with a grimace.

"Show me Vaughn again. I need to see him again."

The mirror shook his head sadly. "Sorry, laddie. I can only show you each scene once."

Sydney clasped the mirror even harder and her face twisted in desperation.

"Ouch! Stop that!" the mirror cried. "Ok, ok! Maybe I can show you something else…"

The face dissolved and the scene returned to the dark, murky red of before. But this time she didn't see Vaughn floating in the middle.

"Where is he?" she practically screamed at the mirror. The face returned briefly superimposed over the scene as it lifted a disembodied finger to its mouth, in a gesture to indicate that Sydney should stop talking.

Sydney closed her mouth and allowed the silence to settle around her. That's when she realized that there was actually another voice in the room. Vaughn's voice. But it was very quiet and disjointed.

I love you Sydney…

I love you some much Sydney…

…pain…

…I love you Sydney…

Sydney stared in horror at the mirror, as she watched the scene change and the sky slowly appeared. Then she saw the whip coming towards her and she flinched as she saw it hit the mirror. Then she understood. She was seeing this through Vaughn's eyes. She was listening to his thoughts.

"Ahhhhhhhhh" she heard his scream and gurgles as he was forced back under. "I love you Sydney….oh God, how I love you…memories, he can't take them away from me…"

She stood transfixed as she listened to his thoughts and then watched him resurface for another gulp of air, only to be whipped once again. Over and over again, the cycle repeated itself.

'I love the zamboni' – breath – whip!