"Faith," he said, in a very relieved voice, before he could stop himself. Rabbit looked up immediately, and Jean's fist connected with his jaw. He stared at her in shock, then, looking very dignified, slid off a glove and slapped her across the face with it.
"Faith," he said, much in the same tone as Cheshire.
She looked warily at the two of them.
"Faith, the albino is a nutcase!" Jean called. Faith looked at her, surprised.
"So is she," Rabbit said, with an angry look in Jean's direction.
"Wait," Faith said, holding up a hand. "Names."
The two looked at each other. "Sorry?" Cheshire asked.
"What are your names?" she asked.
"I'm Cheshire," he said calmly.
"I'm Rabbit. Do you remember us yet?"
"No... I came to see Halden," she said, looking uncomfortable. "I didn't know you had company, though."
"Rather accidental, in all cases," he said, turning a little red around the collar.
"What are you doing here?" she asked Jean.
"Well... you remember that I told you I'd visited him?" Jean flushed, embarrassed.
"Heh, heh, heh," Rabbit cackled.
"Shut up you berk," Jean snapped.
"Why don't you, and save us a bit of hot air?" he replied. She moved away from Faith and started toward him. Halden groaned.
"Not again..."
"And you," Jessica said to Cheshire, looking peeved. He glared back at her.
"What about me?" he sneered.
And within minutes, everyone was fighting again. Halden took Faith by the arm and led her to a part of the flat that was at least somewhat quieter. They sat down in two chairs, in what looked to be the dining room.
"Faith, do you remember Wonderland? Anything at all?"
"That's really what I came to see you about." She sounded troubled. "You see, I ran into Emelia the other day, and she brought up Wonderland. Then..." she shuddered.
"What?" he asked gently. "What happened?"
"This huge, grinning cat appeared. I ran home, and I don't know what happened... I just called out 'Cat' and suddenly the huge cat was sitting in front of me... then I told him to go and he left."
"What do you remember about Wonderland? Did she bring up anything?"
"I'd rather not go by what she brought up," she said tartly. "I remember... there was a Cheshire Cat. And a Rabbit. Was he black? No... maybe... no, I think he was white. Yes! The White Rabbit!" Then she paused, startled. "Rather like the albino in there."
He nodded encouragingly. "Who else?"
"There was, um, a bug. I didn't like him much. What was... what kind was it?" she leaned forward now, putting her head into her hands. Halden let her think; try to discover it on her own. "A Caterpillar!" she said triumphantly. "He always had a hookah with him, and he never gave me a straight answer for anything."
"Do you remember anything about the place? Anything recent?"
She frowned. "I dunno. Why are you so curious about it, though?"
"Faith, you're not better."
"Yes I am," she said defensively. "I'm much better. I don't have nightmares, I don't-"
"What nightmares?" he asked quickly. "And if you're better, why did you see the Cheshire Cat last night?"
"I don't remember," she said desperately. "But they were why I was put in there."
"No," he said calmly. "Why you were put in is beyond the point. It's why you went insane, Faith."
"My house burned down, I went into shock," she said flatly.
"And what happened to your mind? What happened to Wonderland?"
"Why is Wonderland so important?" she burst out. "It's just a bunch of stories I told when I was little!"
"Then tell me one," he said gently.
"All -all right," she said. She started telling one, the first that came into her head, but slowly it got more demented, more twisted. "The Vorpal Blade went snicker-snack, and cut through the flesh, and... er, that doesn't sound quite right." She stopped mid sentence. "No, I know that's not right. The croquet game, then." She started again, but this one ended with someone's head getting bashed in. She froze. "What is going on?" she whispered, burying her face in her hands.
"What do you mean?"
"I could feel it; I could feel the mallet in my hands, I could hear that cracking, I could feel the blood splashing on me," she was growing frantic. "Why is this happening to me?"
"Because you aren't cured," he said reasonably. "Reynald's hypnosis is wearing off."
"What hypnosis?"
Halden paused. "He put you under hypnosis," he explained, "that essentially makes everything - but mainly Wonderland - seem little more than a memory, and a really fuzzy one, at that."
She thought for a moment. "And there's no way to reverse it?"
"None that I've discovered," he confessed. "I think it's just really trying to remember."
"What do you know, at this point?" she asked.
"I know that we had a total of twenty meetings over several months. During that time we didn't really discuss Wonderland. But at our last meeting, you told me that Jean would know something about it. She's helped, but I spent a lot of time convincing her to trust me, so I still don't know that much."
Faith nodded. "What did I tell you? About anything. About Jeremy, about Wonderland, about-"
"Alice."
She nodded. "Definitely Alice."
"You told me that she essentially created Wonderland as a little girl. It was somewhere where anything could happen. Her journal also said a lot. She described it, even though it's a seven-year-old's description. Then her house burned down. A nurse smuggled in her journal. Wonderland became progressively darker, until she just stopped writing for a number of days. Then, all of a sudden, she wrote in it again. I believe that she was hypnotized as well, because... she's just so blasé, but she always wrote about never feeling 'correct'."
"And she wrote down a poem before she went," Faith remembered. Halden nodded, smiling.
"Now... I think we need to start your business," he said practically. She nodded in agreement. "Now, just assume that Wonderland is real, and that you've been there. You've met the Cheshire Cat, the White Rabbit, and the Caterpillar." She nodded again. "Okay. The Cheshire Cat came here. He told me that you had started in the Village of the Damned, and that you didn't do too well."
"I think I can remember some things about it," she said earnestly. "There was this big house, far off in the distance. There was-" she stopped and paled. "Oh shite (Ooh, sorry about that). I don't want to know what's inside it."
"It'll help," he encouraged.
"No, I want to wait," she said firmly. "After the house, there's a... a tunnel, I think. Then a village. Half of it's just ruins, really."
"All right," he said. "And after the village? We're going for barebones description."
"There's a mine. I ride a cart down to this other tunnel... peanut butter." Halden did a double take. Peanut butter? What did peanut butter have to do with anything??? "Then there're doors. Lots of doors. I go through one, and I'm in this fortress..." and she went on to list the places she thought she'd been. Most of the time she wasn't sure of herself, and she really had to think to remember a few. Several times what she said didn't match up with the account given to him by the Cheshire Cat. Faith was getting frustrated.
"Calm down," he said quietly. "This isn't something that can just up and leave. It's something that's going to take time, okay?" She nodded, frustrated. "Have you had enough for today?"
"Yeah, I think so," she said wearily. "I'd rather go see why everyone in there seems on the verge of murder."
Halden laughed, and they quitted the room, going back to the sitting room. Jessica (who Faith didn't know) was following Cheshire around the room, yelling at him, and he was generally either ignoring her or making some reply with barely controlled irritation. Jean and Rabbit were back to how they were when she'd entered: less than two feet apart and screaming in the other's face.
"Oh lord..." Faith seemed at the point of laughter - they were rather funny sights. Jessica's face was bright red, and her eyes were flashing dangerously. Cheshire was pale, his eyes slits, though when she made a particularly snappish comment, he would go red and make an equally vicious response. Jean and Rabbit were also red... well, Jean was; Rabbit was more of a pale pink colour. He was standing stiffly, his hands clenched into fists that he would hold close to his sides, and his left eye was beginning to twitch, very rapidly. Jean was slightly bent towards him, and was making excellent use of her diaphragm. It would have been totally hilarious, if Faith and Halden weren't terrified at the prospect of bloodshed.
"See?! I knew you were crazy, look AT YOUR EYE!!"
"Did I ever DENY it?! I THINK NOT!!"
"Well it's not something to be PROUD OF!!"
"Come off it," Cheshire told Jessica. "Sanity is highly overrated."
"It IS not!"
"It is."
"And how could you be so certain?"
"Look at yourself. That's answer enough." Jessica let out a strangled scream, but restrained herself from hitting him.
"You are SUCH a frigging BASTARD!!" Jean yelled at Rabbit.
"If I am, the pole up my arse is probably TEN TIMES shorter than the one UP YOURS!"
"Probably because someone stuck a very long, sharp pole up her ass," Faith remembered suddenly. The voice was the same, if a little less impassioned... but who... it was talking about someone. If only she could remember more!
"Will you go with me for a walk?" she asked Halden. "I don't want to be responsible for them when blood is spilt."
"Sure," he said, with something of a relieved smile. He grabbed his coat and they left.
They walked up the street for some time without saying much, until she finally said, "How much about Wonderland do you know?"
"The bits and pieces that Cheshire told me," he replied regretfully. "Not much, but I've been able to piece together a bit."
"So, when I was in Wonderland, I was fighting for..?" she wondered aloud. "Probably my sanity, no?"
"Is that what you honestly think?" at her inquiring look, he went on. "I just want to make sure that you're totally positive, because doubting is only going to impede your progress." She nodded.
"I'm not a hundred per cent positive," she confessed. "But that's what I've come to believe, at least. I mean, if Wonderland is in my head, and if it represents my mental state, then it makes sense, doesn't it? And since I haven't... visited, I suppose is the best word, visited it since I was deemed cured, it makes sense." They crossed a street, and continued up the sidewalk. It was cold and blustery that night, and Faith was glad she'd worn a scarf.
"Yes, it does," he said after a little while. It started to snow. "Do you want to go inside somewhere? There's a cafe just ahead." She nodded vigorously, a bit chilly. "Anyway, Reynald's been getting on my case lately."
"Reynald? What for?" She looked disgusted by the very mention of his name.
"He thinks I've been encouraging you to miss your appointments."
"Hah!" she laughed bitterly. "I can be the first to say that I've missed them on my own... and that I haven't seen you in eight months."
He nodded. "Why didn't you see me before now?"
She flushed slightly. "I... well. Er, I didn't want to. I wanted to forget everything about my insanity."
He nodded. He was a little disappointed in her, but he told himself several times that it was normal, but he couldn't go so far as to say acceptable. "I suppose I can understand," he said, not sounding happy.
"It's my fault," she confessed. "I've been wanting to see you for the last few months, but I haven't been able to find you. I got your address a month ago from Jean, and every time I came over, you weren't home."
"Sorry," he said, grinning. "I've been going around, looking for those two."
"That'll be an interesting venture," she said wryly. "Considering that, if they are who they say, then they're in my head most of the time."
They stepped inside, surprised to find it fairly empty. They walked up to the counter, where a cheerful-faced girl greeted them. "Hallo!"
"Hi," Faith said. Halden echoed her.
"What might I get for you? Something hot, I daresay," the girl, Corinne, grinned. They both nodded.
"I'd like mint tea," Faith said.
"Coffee for me," Halden said. Corinne filled Faith's cup, and asked,
"Either of you want sugar? Cream for you, sir?"
"Just a bit of sugar," he said quickly, seeing her about to break out the cream. Faith declined anything in hers, and they waited for Halden's coffee as Corinne gossiped away, about the day's customers, and the ruder ones yesterday, and that ever so polite young gentleman the day before that had given her a VERY generous tip.
Finally the coffee was freshly boiled, and presented to Halden. He paid for the two of them, and they went and sat at a table rather far from Corinne. They sat in silence for a few minutes, sipping their drinks and getting warm again, and watching the snow falling down on the pedestrians and cars outside.
"What did Cheshire tell you about me in Wonderland?" she finally asked in a low voice.
"He told me of your progress, mostly. He told me some of the places you'd been, and what you'd done there."
"I'd imagine I was something of a coward when I started out," she said, smiling but not really looking at him.
"He didn't recommend you too highly," he confessed. She laughed again, still avoiding his eyes. "But he said that you got better. You stopped trying to run away from things."
"I've always run away from things," she said quietly. "Even when... especially when my family was alive."
"You didn't in the asylum," he pointed out. "I couldn't call attacking Emelia monthly running away from things."
She looked up this time, amusement in her eyes. "No, I suppose not," she confessed, trying to hide a chuckle. "Besides, she deserved it, anyway." He agreed heartily, and took another sip of his coffee. "So... what exactly did he do to me? Reynald, I mean. How did he hypnotize me?"
Halden sighed. "I'm not a hundred per cent sure," he admitted. "There was a pocket watch, and two injections. The second hand spun really fast counterclockwise, and..."
"Wait, counterclockwise?"
He nodded blankly. "Opposite of clockwise." She laughed, earnestly this time.
"Oh! You mean anticlockwise!" she laughed. He chuckled.
"Anticlockwise to you, then. I'm not British, don't forget. Anyway, then he administered the first drug, and your eyes popped open. It was rather alarming, I'll admit." He described the rest of the process, until she woke up.
"I remember that part," she admitted. "I remembered that I really didn't like Reynald, or Emelia, but I didn't exactly remember why."
"Do you now?"
"Mostly," she set her cup down and thought for a moment. "I remember not liking any of the doctors, at least until I met you." Here she stopped. "Not romantically, of course," she added quickly. "I think I was glad to finally meet a doctor that I couldn't help but like," she confessed. "I was really quite determined not to, especially after that horrible Hamilton! Or Jacobson. I didn't mind Doctor Davidson, really," she added reflectively, "but he did come to be quite annoying after a short while."
"Then I'm glad that I was able to escape your disgust." He was smiling, and she stared across the table, studying him. He looked a little older than she'd remembered him. Grey at the temples. More tired. Then she remembered what she'd seen inside the table.
"I saw something, a few months ago. That was really what made me realise that I needed to talk to you."
"What did you see?"
She described the vision in the table to him, and told her what the cat inside it had said. "It said my name and to save Wonderland, and I fell back," she explained. "I think that's a bit of an understatement, actually."
They spent about an hour just talking, not necessarily about Wonderland, but it was Halden that decided that it was probably time to get back. After all... if everyone inside had, in fact, killed each other, they may want to get back to clean up somewhat.
"Faith," he said, much in the same tone as Cheshire.
She looked warily at the two of them.
"Faith, the albino is a nutcase!" Jean called. Faith looked at her, surprised.
"So is she," Rabbit said, with an angry look in Jean's direction.
"Wait," Faith said, holding up a hand. "Names."
The two looked at each other. "Sorry?" Cheshire asked.
"What are your names?" she asked.
"I'm Cheshire," he said calmly.
"I'm Rabbit. Do you remember us yet?"
"No... I came to see Halden," she said, looking uncomfortable. "I didn't know you had company, though."
"Rather accidental, in all cases," he said, turning a little red around the collar.
"What are you doing here?" she asked Jean.
"Well... you remember that I told you I'd visited him?" Jean flushed, embarrassed.
"Heh, heh, heh," Rabbit cackled.
"Shut up you berk," Jean snapped.
"Why don't you, and save us a bit of hot air?" he replied. She moved away from Faith and started toward him. Halden groaned.
"Not again..."
"And you," Jessica said to Cheshire, looking peeved. He glared back at her.
"What about me?" he sneered.
And within minutes, everyone was fighting again. Halden took Faith by the arm and led her to a part of the flat that was at least somewhat quieter. They sat down in two chairs, in what looked to be the dining room.
"Faith, do you remember Wonderland? Anything at all?"
"That's really what I came to see you about." She sounded troubled. "You see, I ran into Emelia the other day, and she brought up Wonderland. Then..." she shuddered.
"What?" he asked gently. "What happened?"
"This huge, grinning cat appeared. I ran home, and I don't know what happened... I just called out 'Cat' and suddenly the huge cat was sitting in front of me... then I told him to go and he left."
"What do you remember about Wonderland? Did she bring up anything?"
"I'd rather not go by what she brought up," she said tartly. "I remember... there was a Cheshire Cat. And a Rabbit. Was he black? No... maybe... no, I think he was white. Yes! The White Rabbit!" Then she paused, startled. "Rather like the albino in there."
He nodded encouragingly. "Who else?"
"There was, um, a bug. I didn't like him much. What was... what kind was it?" she leaned forward now, putting her head into her hands. Halden let her think; try to discover it on her own. "A Caterpillar!" she said triumphantly. "He always had a hookah with him, and he never gave me a straight answer for anything."
"Do you remember anything about the place? Anything recent?"
She frowned. "I dunno. Why are you so curious about it, though?"
"Faith, you're not better."
"Yes I am," she said defensively. "I'm much better. I don't have nightmares, I don't-"
"What nightmares?" he asked quickly. "And if you're better, why did you see the Cheshire Cat last night?"
"I don't remember," she said desperately. "But they were why I was put in there."
"No," he said calmly. "Why you were put in is beyond the point. It's why you went insane, Faith."
"My house burned down, I went into shock," she said flatly.
"And what happened to your mind? What happened to Wonderland?"
"Why is Wonderland so important?" she burst out. "It's just a bunch of stories I told when I was little!"
"Then tell me one," he said gently.
"All -all right," she said. She started telling one, the first that came into her head, but slowly it got more demented, more twisted. "The Vorpal Blade went snicker-snack, and cut through the flesh, and... er, that doesn't sound quite right." She stopped mid sentence. "No, I know that's not right. The croquet game, then." She started again, but this one ended with someone's head getting bashed in. She froze. "What is going on?" she whispered, burying her face in her hands.
"What do you mean?"
"I could feel it; I could feel the mallet in my hands, I could hear that cracking, I could feel the blood splashing on me," she was growing frantic. "Why is this happening to me?"
"Because you aren't cured," he said reasonably. "Reynald's hypnosis is wearing off."
"What hypnosis?"
Halden paused. "He put you under hypnosis," he explained, "that essentially makes everything - but mainly Wonderland - seem little more than a memory, and a really fuzzy one, at that."
She thought for a moment. "And there's no way to reverse it?"
"None that I've discovered," he confessed. "I think it's just really trying to remember."
"What do you know, at this point?" she asked.
"I know that we had a total of twenty meetings over several months. During that time we didn't really discuss Wonderland. But at our last meeting, you told me that Jean would know something about it. She's helped, but I spent a lot of time convincing her to trust me, so I still don't know that much."
Faith nodded. "What did I tell you? About anything. About Jeremy, about Wonderland, about-"
"Alice."
She nodded. "Definitely Alice."
"You told me that she essentially created Wonderland as a little girl. It was somewhere where anything could happen. Her journal also said a lot. She described it, even though it's a seven-year-old's description. Then her house burned down. A nurse smuggled in her journal. Wonderland became progressively darker, until she just stopped writing for a number of days. Then, all of a sudden, she wrote in it again. I believe that she was hypnotized as well, because... she's just so blasé, but she always wrote about never feeling 'correct'."
"And she wrote down a poem before she went," Faith remembered. Halden nodded, smiling.
"Now... I think we need to start your business," he said practically. She nodded in agreement. "Now, just assume that Wonderland is real, and that you've been there. You've met the Cheshire Cat, the White Rabbit, and the Caterpillar." She nodded again. "Okay. The Cheshire Cat came here. He told me that you had started in the Village of the Damned, and that you didn't do too well."
"I think I can remember some things about it," she said earnestly. "There was this big house, far off in the distance. There was-" she stopped and paled. "Oh shite (Ooh, sorry about that). I don't want to know what's inside it."
"It'll help," he encouraged.
"No, I want to wait," she said firmly. "After the house, there's a... a tunnel, I think. Then a village. Half of it's just ruins, really."
"All right," he said. "And after the village? We're going for barebones description."
"There's a mine. I ride a cart down to this other tunnel... peanut butter." Halden did a double take. Peanut butter? What did peanut butter have to do with anything??? "Then there're doors. Lots of doors. I go through one, and I'm in this fortress..." and she went on to list the places she thought she'd been. Most of the time she wasn't sure of herself, and she really had to think to remember a few. Several times what she said didn't match up with the account given to him by the Cheshire Cat. Faith was getting frustrated.
"Calm down," he said quietly. "This isn't something that can just up and leave. It's something that's going to take time, okay?" She nodded, frustrated. "Have you had enough for today?"
"Yeah, I think so," she said wearily. "I'd rather go see why everyone in there seems on the verge of murder."
Halden laughed, and they quitted the room, going back to the sitting room. Jessica (who Faith didn't know) was following Cheshire around the room, yelling at him, and he was generally either ignoring her or making some reply with barely controlled irritation. Jean and Rabbit were back to how they were when she'd entered: less than two feet apart and screaming in the other's face.
"Oh lord..." Faith seemed at the point of laughter - they were rather funny sights. Jessica's face was bright red, and her eyes were flashing dangerously. Cheshire was pale, his eyes slits, though when she made a particularly snappish comment, he would go red and make an equally vicious response. Jean and Rabbit were also red... well, Jean was; Rabbit was more of a pale pink colour. He was standing stiffly, his hands clenched into fists that he would hold close to his sides, and his left eye was beginning to twitch, very rapidly. Jean was slightly bent towards him, and was making excellent use of her diaphragm. It would have been totally hilarious, if Faith and Halden weren't terrified at the prospect of bloodshed.
"See?! I knew you were crazy, look AT YOUR EYE!!"
"Did I ever DENY it?! I THINK NOT!!"
"Well it's not something to be PROUD OF!!"
"Come off it," Cheshire told Jessica. "Sanity is highly overrated."
"It IS not!"
"It is."
"And how could you be so certain?"
"Look at yourself. That's answer enough." Jessica let out a strangled scream, but restrained herself from hitting him.
"You are SUCH a frigging BASTARD!!" Jean yelled at Rabbit.
"If I am, the pole up my arse is probably TEN TIMES shorter than the one UP YOURS!"
"Probably because someone stuck a very long, sharp pole up her ass," Faith remembered suddenly. The voice was the same, if a little less impassioned... but who... it was talking about someone. If only she could remember more!
"Will you go with me for a walk?" she asked Halden. "I don't want to be responsible for them when blood is spilt."
"Sure," he said, with something of a relieved smile. He grabbed his coat and they left.
They walked up the street for some time without saying much, until she finally said, "How much about Wonderland do you know?"
"The bits and pieces that Cheshire told me," he replied regretfully. "Not much, but I've been able to piece together a bit."
"So, when I was in Wonderland, I was fighting for..?" she wondered aloud. "Probably my sanity, no?"
"Is that what you honestly think?" at her inquiring look, he went on. "I just want to make sure that you're totally positive, because doubting is only going to impede your progress." She nodded.
"I'm not a hundred per cent positive," she confessed. "But that's what I've come to believe, at least. I mean, if Wonderland is in my head, and if it represents my mental state, then it makes sense, doesn't it? And since I haven't... visited, I suppose is the best word, visited it since I was deemed cured, it makes sense." They crossed a street, and continued up the sidewalk. It was cold and blustery that night, and Faith was glad she'd worn a scarf.
"Yes, it does," he said after a little while. It started to snow. "Do you want to go inside somewhere? There's a cafe just ahead." She nodded vigorously, a bit chilly. "Anyway, Reynald's been getting on my case lately."
"Reynald? What for?" She looked disgusted by the very mention of his name.
"He thinks I've been encouraging you to miss your appointments."
"Hah!" she laughed bitterly. "I can be the first to say that I've missed them on my own... and that I haven't seen you in eight months."
He nodded. "Why didn't you see me before now?"
She flushed slightly. "I... well. Er, I didn't want to. I wanted to forget everything about my insanity."
He nodded. He was a little disappointed in her, but he told himself several times that it was normal, but he couldn't go so far as to say acceptable. "I suppose I can understand," he said, not sounding happy.
"It's my fault," she confessed. "I've been wanting to see you for the last few months, but I haven't been able to find you. I got your address a month ago from Jean, and every time I came over, you weren't home."
"Sorry," he said, grinning. "I've been going around, looking for those two."
"That'll be an interesting venture," she said wryly. "Considering that, if they are who they say, then they're in my head most of the time."
They stepped inside, surprised to find it fairly empty. They walked up to the counter, where a cheerful-faced girl greeted them. "Hallo!"
"Hi," Faith said. Halden echoed her.
"What might I get for you? Something hot, I daresay," the girl, Corinne, grinned. They both nodded.
"I'd like mint tea," Faith said.
"Coffee for me," Halden said. Corinne filled Faith's cup, and asked,
"Either of you want sugar? Cream for you, sir?"
"Just a bit of sugar," he said quickly, seeing her about to break out the cream. Faith declined anything in hers, and they waited for Halden's coffee as Corinne gossiped away, about the day's customers, and the ruder ones yesterday, and that ever so polite young gentleman the day before that had given her a VERY generous tip.
Finally the coffee was freshly boiled, and presented to Halden. He paid for the two of them, and they went and sat at a table rather far from Corinne. They sat in silence for a few minutes, sipping their drinks and getting warm again, and watching the snow falling down on the pedestrians and cars outside.
"What did Cheshire tell you about me in Wonderland?" she finally asked in a low voice.
"He told me of your progress, mostly. He told me some of the places you'd been, and what you'd done there."
"I'd imagine I was something of a coward when I started out," she said, smiling but not really looking at him.
"He didn't recommend you too highly," he confessed. She laughed again, still avoiding his eyes. "But he said that you got better. You stopped trying to run away from things."
"I've always run away from things," she said quietly. "Even when... especially when my family was alive."
"You didn't in the asylum," he pointed out. "I couldn't call attacking Emelia monthly running away from things."
She looked up this time, amusement in her eyes. "No, I suppose not," she confessed, trying to hide a chuckle. "Besides, she deserved it, anyway." He agreed heartily, and took another sip of his coffee. "So... what exactly did he do to me? Reynald, I mean. How did he hypnotize me?"
Halden sighed. "I'm not a hundred per cent sure," he admitted. "There was a pocket watch, and two injections. The second hand spun really fast counterclockwise, and..."
"Wait, counterclockwise?"
He nodded blankly. "Opposite of clockwise." She laughed, earnestly this time.
"Oh! You mean anticlockwise!" she laughed. He chuckled.
"Anticlockwise to you, then. I'm not British, don't forget. Anyway, then he administered the first drug, and your eyes popped open. It was rather alarming, I'll admit." He described the rest of the process, until she woke up.
"I remember that part," she admitted. "I remembered that I really didn't like Reynald, or Emelia, but I didn't exactly remember why."
"Do you now?"
"Mostly," she set her cup down and thought for a moment. "I remember not liking any of the doctors, at least until I met you." Here she stopped. "Not romantically, of course," she added quickly. "I think I was glad to finally meet a doctor that I couldn't help but like," she confessed. "I was really quite determined not to, especially after that horrible Hamilton! Or Jacobson. I didn't mind Doctor Davidson, really," she added reflectively, "but he did come to be quite annoying after a short while."
"Then I'm glad that I was able to escape your disgust." He was smiling, and she stared across the table, studying him. He looked a little older than she'd remembered him. Grey at the temples. More tired. Then she remembered what she'd seen inside the table.
"I saw something, a few months ago. That was really what made me realise that I needed to talk to you."
"What did you see?"
She described the vision in the table to him, and told her what the cat inside it had said. "It said my name and to save Wonderland, and I fell back," she explained. "I think that's a bit of an understatement, actually."
They spent about an hour just talking, not necessarily about Wonderland, but it was Halden that decided that it was probably time to get back. After all... if everyone inside had, in fact, killed each other, they may want to get back to clean up somewhat.