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.
They walked back to his flat, and they entered. Everyone was still there, and all seemed to have agreed not to speak a word to each other. Jean was sitting on the couch, slouching, with her legs stretched out and her arms folded across her chest, looking relatively irritated. Jessica sat on the other end, leaning on the arm and not looking at any of them. Rabbit was pacing by the wall, fidgeting with his gloves and throwing mean looks at Jean, which she promptly returned. Cheshire was on a chair, humming, and just doing everything in his power to subtly drive Jessica crazy. He was accomplishing marvellously.
They looked up upon hearing the two. "Ah, you could spare the time to join us," Cheshire drawled. "And, what is the time, Rabbit?"
Rabbit started. "Six twenty-three," he said quickly, looking over at Cheshire. Jean glanced at a clock. 6:23.
"Crazy bugger," she muttered. He hadn't even glanced at his watch! Rabbit rolled his eyes.
"It's only been an hour," Faith pointed out.
"And what exactly were you up to?" Rabbit asked crossly.
"Getting away from the noise," Halden answered coldly, "which you were making in spades."
Rabbit stopped talking, but he did throw several angry glares in Halden's direction. "So you were avoiding the noise," Cheshire said. "Did you do anything productive in the hour that you were gone?"
"What are you talking about, Cheshire?" Faith asked heatedly.
"I'm talking about your sanity," he snapped at her. "Did you work on that at all?"
"Ah," she said, embarrassed.
"Yes, we talked about it," Halden told Cheshire wearily.
"Did she make any headway?" Cheshire asked immediately.
"Some," Halden shrugged, "but how much progress can you expect to make in an hour?"
"Quite a bit," Cheshire said sceptically. "So you made some. How much?"
"As I said. Some. Not a lot. A little bit. I'm not God, Cheshire."
"How much did she remember?"
THUD. Faith's foot came down onto the floor (just missing Cheshire's) as she planted herself between Cheshire and Halden. "Hello," she said to both of them acidly. "I'd love to say that I'm in the room, but you two don't seem to realise that. So. Good-bye."
She turned and left, slamming the door behind her. Halden reddened, chagrined, and rather angry. Cheshire's expression didn't change, and he dismissed himself with a bow. "I'll be seeing you later, my good doctor," he said mockingly.
"You're just as much to blame as me," Halden shot back.
"Ah yes, but you're her trusted therapist."
"And you're supposed to be her friend!"
Cheshire's face hardened, and he vanished. Jean gave a cry of shock, and Jessica jumped. Rabbit smirked at them, amused.
Faith stormed up to the lift and pushed the button impatiently. The doors opened surprisingly quickly, and she stepped in, hitting the ground floor button. The doors slid closed and she leaned against the floor-to-ceiling window in the back, sighing. Ooh, that had hurt. Talking with him, then immediately, he's conferring with that other man, and she just ceased to matter! She wasn't sure whether she'd been insulted more by Halden or Cheshire.
The lift stopped at the next floor, and she was ever so delighted to find that it was Cheshire waiting for it. He stepped in.
"Oh, it's you," she said, far from pleased.
"Yes, it is." He didn't say anything for a little while. "What do you-"
"Stop."
"What is it?" he asked, rather startled.
"I want an apology first. You can't just pretend someone doesn't exist and then expect to engage them in civilised conversation."
He stood there for a moment, dumbstruck. Apologise? He didn't do that too much nowadays... apologise? Surely she was joking. She didn't seem to understand. Apologies are not a cat's strong points. "Are you certain?" he asked, in what he hoped was a tone of incredulity.
"Absolutely," she said coldly. This was not turning out to be one of his better days.
He was saved, at least temporarily, by the power going out. The lights flickered, and the lift groaned to a stop. They were still quite high, he realised, and they looked out the window, at the lights across the city blinking out. Now, the only light that they had was from the moon and stars, shrouding most of them in darkness. "Perhaps it will come back on shortly," he said calmly. She looked doubtful.
"Then I'm certain that in between now and when the power comes back on, you can apologise."
"What for?"
"Do you want the short list or the long?" she asked wryly.
"I'm certain that there's time for the long," he replied blandly, fairly certain that she wouldn't remember much beyond three grievances.
"You don't respect me or my friends, you make your contempt for others far too evident, you're rude, you're arrogant, you're frankly a know-it-all, you don't care if you're hurting feelings, you never come out and tell me anything when you're so insistent that I have some purpose for you, you-"
"That's quite long enough," he said quickly. She stared at him.
"Fine. But I still want an apology."
He walked around for a bit. It was so hard to get those words out! Especially since he knew that she wouldn't accept one of those nice, flat, meaningless ones. He sat down, and stood up. She was staring at him in amazement, mentally adding 'excessively proud' to her list. He looked out the window, at the ceiling, at the floor, anywhere but at her. She stood there, waiting patiently. "Damned if you'll get one out of me!" he finally growled, and turned away. She glared at him.
"Fine then. Don't come off your pedestal."
"What makes you think I'm on a pedestal?" his voice was all irritation and impatience.
"Well, you can't seem to condescend enough to offer even a simple apology to one girl... that doesn't seem terribly humble, does it?"
"Believe me, I'm not a humble person."
"And I'm not stupid. I could figure it out for myself."
"Impressive demonstration of your mental prowess," he said dryly.
"At least it's at a higher level than other people's tolerance for you." She was being amazingly calm through all this, he thought.
"I don't need people's tolerance," he said dismissively.
"Their respect, then." Here he froze, and looked at her totally disbelievingly. "I don't care if you can live without people's tolerance, that's fine with me. But you're the type that needs respect - I can tell that much. But these people respect you as little as you respect them. I don't know if you're from Wonderland, and I'd imagine that sure, you get a lot of it there, but here, that's not the case."
"What do you mean?" he asked coldly.
"Jessica hates you. I've never spoken to her, and I know that much."
"There's a difference between disrespect and hate," he said dismissively.
"There's no respect there, either," she said, still calm. "You don't scream at people you respect, Cheshire. Doctor Halden is really losing whatever respect you may have got out of him at first. You're overbearing and secretive. For people who are supposedly working with you to... to help me, that's not a very good combination."
"It's two people, and neither of them are terribly important," he snapped.
"...I don't feel respect for you, either." He froze. She went on. "You incited my curiosity when you told me that you knew what was wrong with me, and why. I still want to know, but you're not the one I want to hear it from."
She sat down, staring at the floor. "If you're going to respect one of us, respect all of us, Cheshire." Now that she'd got that nice little confrontation over with, it was his turn.
Cheshire thought back. Could Faith be right about the others? He thought back to Jessica. She certainly hated him, that was certain. But did it go so far as disrespect? "You don't scream at people you respect," he remembered that statement quite vividly. There was a very good chance that she was right, then. And Halden. Did Halden respect him? It didn't seem so. He thought back, to how his responses were generally shorter and colder. How he seemed more hesitant to volunteer information.
He slumped down, diagonally opposite her, and they stayed like that for a while, mostly watching the ground in silence.
"I'm sorry," he finally said.
She looked up. His face was still pointed down, and he looked quite desolate. "I suppose that I have been a proud, arrogant boor," he said, banging an elbow into the wall behind him.
She didn't say anything for a while. "I am too," she finally said.
"What, for exposing me to what a berk I've been?" he asked disbelievingly.
"No," she said, shaking her head. "I've let you down somehow, I think. Or I did in the past, and I never accounted myself for it."
He looked over at her. "All of this stays in here," he said quietly. "I've been knocked off my 'pedestal' - for now." He didn't say more.
"I didn't expect to change you for life, you know," she replied. He nodded. "But... did I let you down?"
"In some ways, yes. By your former cowardice. But you made amends, Faith."
"How?" she asked, not entirely convinced.
"It wasn't so much by the challenges you faced, it was how you faced them. You stood up to both Maggot and the General - something that's never been done before." She looked down at her knees, which were drawn up to her chest. Another long period of silence.
"Well," she presently said. "This has been a rather interesting day, hasn't it, Cat?"
"Indeed - quite interesting," he replied. It took a little while to realise that her calling him Cat was not normal anymore. He looked up.
"It doesn't look like the power will ever get back on, does it?" she asked. He shook his head.
"I can get you out of here, though, if you'll trust me." She looked at him warily.
"What d'you intend to do?"
"There is a way," he said quietly. "It's perfectly safe, just very disconcerting to those who aren't used to it. It wears me out over great distances, I'll tell you that much."
"What exactly is it?"
"Observe," he said, and stood in the light. Then he vanished. She jumped up, terrified, and felt the space that he'd been in before. Then she felt a hand on her shoulder and whirled around, ready... but with what?
But Cheshire stood there. "How did you, how?" she asked, unable to really get anything coherent out.
"It's merely teleportation. Few in Wonderland have it. None here." She looked at him, and he grinned. Something in the back of her mind sparked. "Will you trust me?" Nervously she nodded.
He wrapped her in his arms and she felt herself growing very, very light. Before she could blink though, they were on the ground floor, in a dark alcove. She felt quite woozy, and almost fell, but he caught her and walked her over to a chair, where she sat for a few minutes. "Thanks," she said quietly. He nodded and asked,
"Are you ready?" she nodded and they left. She glanced downtown. Just in the distance, she could see the point of Big Ben, and she heard its chiming nine o' clock. Had they really been in there for two and a half hours? It hadn't seemed that long, but oh well.
He walked alongside her, all the way to the manor, and stopped at the gate. "I think it's time for me to depart," he said, offering a slight bow. She nodded back, not an hundred per cent in agreement, but not entirely sorry to see him go, either.
"Good night," she said.
"Good night."
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.
They walked back to his flat, and they entered. Everyone was still there, and all seemed to have agreed not to speak a word to each other. Jean was sitting on the couch, slouching, with her legs stretched out and her arms folded across her chest, looking relatively irritated. Jessica sat on the other end, leaning on the arm and not looking at any of them. Rabbit was pacing by the wall, fidgeting with his gloves and throwing mean looks at Jean, which she promptly returned. Cheshire was on a chair, humming, and just doing everything in his power to subtly drive Jessica crazy. He was accomplishing marvellously.
They looked up upon hearing the two. "Ah, you could spare the time to join us," Cheshire drawled. "And, what is the time, Rabbit?"
Rabbit started. "Six twenty-three," he said quickly, looking over at Cheshire. Jean glanced at a clock. 6:23.
"Crazy bugger," she muttered. He hadn't even glanced at his watch! Rabbit rolled his eyes.
"It's only been an hour," Faith pointed out.
"And what exactly were you up to?" Rabbit asked crossly.
"Getting away from the noise," Halden answered coldly, "which you were making in spades."
Rabbit stopped talking, but he did throw several angry glares in Halden's direction. "So you were avoiding the noise," Cheshire said. "Did you do anything productive in the hour that you were gone?"
"What are you talking about, Cheshire?" Faith asked heatedly.
"I'm talking about your sanity," he snapped at her. "Did you work on that at all?"
"Ah," she said, embarrassed.
"Yes, we talked about it," Halden told Cheshire wearily.
"Did she make any headway?" Cheshire asked immediately.
"Some," Halden shrugged, "but how much progress can you expect to make in an hour?"
"Quite a bit," Cheshire said sceptically. "So you made some. How much?"
"As I said. Some. Not a lot. A little bit. I'm not God, Cheshire."
"How much did she remember?"
THUD. Faith's foot came down onto the floor (just missing Cheshire's) as she planted herself between Cheshire and Halden. "Hello," she said to both of them acidly. "I'd love to say that I'm in the room, but you two don't seem to realise that. So. Good-bye."
She turned and left, slamming the door behind her. Halden reddened, chagrined, and rather angry. Cheshire's expression didn't change, and he dismissed himself with a bow. "I'll be seeing you later, my good doctor," he said mockingly.
"You're just as much to blame as me," Halden shot back.
"Ah yes, but you're her trusted therapist."
"And you're supposed to be her friend!"
Cheshire's face hardened, and he vanished. Jean gave a cry of shock, and Jessica jumped. Rabbit smirked at them, amused.
Faith stormed up to the lift and pushed the button impatiently. The doors opened surprisingly quickly, and she stepped in, hitting the ground floor button. The doors slid closed and she leaned against the floor-to-ceiling window in the back, sighing. Ooh, that had hurt. Talking with him, then immediately, he's conferring with that other man, and she just ceased to matter! She wasn't sure whether she'd been insulted more by Halden or Cheshire.
The lift stopped at the next floor, and she was ever so delighted to find that it was Cheshire waiting for it. He stepped in.
"Oh, it's you," she said, far from pleased.
"Yes, it is." He didn't say anything for a little while. "What do you-"
"Stop."
"What is it?" he asked, rather startled.
"I want an apology first. You can't just pretend someone doesn't exist and then expect to engage them in civilised conversation."
He stood there for a moment, dumbstruck. Apologise? He didn't do that too much nowadays... apologise? Surely she was joking. She didn't seem to understand. Apologies are not a cat's strong points. "Are you certain?" he asked, in what he hoped was a tone of incredulity.
"Absolutely," she said coldly. This was not turning out to be one of his better days.
He was saved, at least temporarily, by the power going out. The lights flickered, and the lift groaned to a stop. They were still quite high, he realised, and they looked out the window, at the lights across the city blinking out. Now, the only light that they had was from the moon and stars, shrouding most of them in darkness. "Perhaps it will come back on shortly," he said calmly. She looked doubtful.
"Then I'm certain that in between now and when the power comes back on, you can apologise."
"What for?"
"Do you want the short list or the long?" she asked wryly.
"I'm certain that there's time for the long," he replied blandly, fairly certain that she wouldn't remember much beyond three grievances.
"You don't respect me or my friends, you make your contempt for others far too evident, you're rude, you're arrogant, you're frankly a know-it-all, you don't care if you're hurting feelings, you never come out and tell me anything when you're so insistent that I have some purpose for you, you-"
"That's quite long enough," he said quickly. She stared at him.
"Fine. But I still want an apology."
He walked around for a bit. It was so hard to get those words out! Especially since he knew that she wouldn't accept one of those nice, flat, meaningless ones. He sat down, and stood up. She was staring at him in amazement, mentally adding 'excessively proud' to her list. He looked out the window, at the ceiling, at the floor, anywhere but at her. She stood there, waiting patiently. "Damned if you'll get one out of me!" he finally growled, and turned away. She glared at him.
"Fine then. Don't come off your pedestal."
"What makes you think I'm on a pedestal?" his voice was all irritation and impatience.
"Well, you can't seem to condescend enough to offer even a simple apology to one girl... that doesn't seem terribly humble, does it?"
"Believe me, I'm not a humble person."
"And I'm not stupid. I could figure it out for myself."
"Impressive demonstration of your mental prowess," he said dryly.
"At least it's at a higher level than other people's tolerance for you." She was being amazingly calm through all this, he thought.
"I don't need people's tolerance," he said dismissively.
"Their respect, then." Here he froze, and looked at her totally disbelievingly. "I don't care if you can live without people's tolerance, that's fine with me. But you're the type that needs respect - I can tell that much. But these people respect you as little as you respect them. I don't know if you're from Wonderland, and I'd imagine that sure, you get a lot of it there, but here, that's not the case."
"What do you mean?" he asked coldly.
"Jessica hates you. I've never spoken to her, and I know that much."
"There's a difference between disrespect and hate," he said dismissively.
"There's no respect there, either," she said, still calm. "You don't scream at people you respect, Cheshire. Doctor Halden is really losing whatever respect you may have got out of him at first. You're overbearing and secretive. For people who are supposedly working with you to... to help me, that's not a very good combination."
"It's two people, and neither of them are terribly important," he snapped.
"...I don't feel respect for you, either." He froze. She went on. "You incited my curiosity when you told me that you knew what was wrong with me, and why. I still want to know, but you're not the one I want to hear it from."
She sat down, staring at the floor. "If you're going to respect one of us, respect all of us, Cheshire." Now that she'd got that nice little confrontation over with, it was his turn.
Cheshire thought back. Could Faith be right about the others? He thought back to Jessica. She certainly hated him, that was certain. But did it go so far as disrespect? "You don't scream at people you respect," he remembered that statement quite vividly. There was a very good chance that she was right, then. And Halden. Did Halden respect him? It didn't seem so. He thought back, to how his responses were generally shorter and colder. How he seemed more hesitant to volunteer information.
He slumped down, diagonally opposite her, and they stayed like that for a while, mostly watching the ground in silence.
"I'm sorry," he finally said.
She looked up. His face was still pointed down, and he looked quite desolate. "I suppose that I have been a proud, arrogant boor," he said, banging an elbow into the wall behind him.
She didn't say anything for a while. "I am too," she finally said.
"What, for exposing me to what a berk I've been?" he asked disbelievingly.
"No," she said, shaking her head. "I've let you down somehow, I think. Or I did in the past, and I never accounted myself for it."
He looked over at her. "All of this stays in here," he said quietly. "I've been knocked off my 'pedestal' - for now." He didn't say more.
"I didn't expect to change you for life, you know," she replied. He nodded. "But... did I let you down?"
"In some ways, yes. By your former cowardice. But you made amends, Faith."
"How?" she asked, not entirely convinced.
"It wasn't so much by the challenges you faced, it was how you faced them. You stood up to both Maggot and the General - something that's never been done before." She looked down at her knees, which were drawn up to her chest. Another long period of silence.
"Well," she presently said. "This has been a rather interesting day, hasn't it, Cat?"
"Indeed - quite interesting," he replied. It took a little while to realise that her calling him Cat was not normal anymore. He looked up.
"It doesn't look like the power will ever get back on, does it?" she asked. He shook his head.
"I can get you out of here, though, if you'll trust me." She looked at him warily.
"What d'you intend to do?"
"There is a way," he said quietly. "It's perfectly safe, just very disconcerting to those who aren't used to it. It wears me out over great distances, I'll tell you that much."
"What exactly is it?"
"Observe," he said, and stood in the light. Then he vanished. She jumped up, terrified, and felt the space that he'd been in before. Then she felt a hand on her shoulder and whirled around, ready... but with what?
But Cheshire stood there. "How did you, how?" she asked, unable to really get anything coherent out.
"It's merely teleportation. Few in Wonderland have it. None here." She looked at him, and he grinned. Something in the back of her mind sparked. "Will you trust me?" Nervously she nodded.
He wrapped her in his arms and she felt herself growing very, very light. Before she could blink though, they were on the ground floor, in a dark alcove. She felt quite woozy, and almost fell, but he caught her and walked her over to a chair, where she sat for a few minutes. "Thanks," she said quietly. He nodded and asked,
"Are you ready?" she nodded and they left. She glanced downtown. Just in the distance, she could see the point of Big Ben, and she heard its chiming nine o' clock. Had they really been in there for two and a half hours? It hadn't seemed that long, but oh well.
He walked alongside her, all the way to the manor, and stopped at the gate. "I think it's time for me to depart," he said, offering a slight bow. She nodded back, not an hundred per cent in agreement, but not entirely sorry to see him go, either.
"Good night," she said.
"Good night."