WARNING: FILLER. EEEWWWW. Filler. Too. Much. Filler. PEOPLE, PLEASE, PLEASE, I NEED SUGGESTIONS.

Author's Notes: Hi people! Uhm… hi! Anyway, thank you for the wondermus reviews. Yes, I'm glad the story didn't just go on with monotonous bloodshed and the like. I do like where this is going very much and I can't wait to work with Darren more.

Oh… BLACK SKITTLES! I love you. Relaly I do. You care about my name! As it were, yes, there is going to be a LOT more of Darren.. and I'll never tell you where I'll go with him and Alice… though I've got it darkly set up. In any case, reviews like yours inspire me. Just what I needed to speed me up.

BY THE BY…. The mention of periods and menstruation and stuff…. Will be present in this chapter, because it would be really senseless to ignore. If you're a childlike person and can't handle it… leave. --;

Disclaimer: Come ON people, get the drill. Or I'll hurt you.

If you happen to take any of my characters, I will hurt you MORE. In fact, I will draw my Spork of DOOOOM and stab you repeatedly.

Chapter Five: A Pretty Little Girl

Darren always loved how things were in Wonderland. Everything was so old fashioned, and yet… So different from anything in history, at least as far as he knew. It wasn't as if he really paid attention during history class. It was too bad he had to be back before dinner and his dad came home and actually had a mind to wonder where he was. He did that spontaneously. The boy wasn't going to take any chances. Sprawled out on his bed on his back, he stared up at his ceiling contemptuously as though it possibly could have had something to do with the lack of friends.

Darren was warring with something else as well. When was he going to tell Bridget and Mason about Wonderland? He heaved a sigh as a cop car blared down the dirty street outside his window, allowing his eyes to fall shut for one blissful moment before a car pulled up in the driveway and the front door slammed open. Dad was home. Fuck that. He rolled onto his belly and propped himself up, yawning languidly and glancing at a pile of unfinished, unopened homework next to his bed. Things would happen as they always did. Dad would come in, pretend to care about how school went and how bad his grades were, and then go back downstairs and yell at his drunk wife for God knew what reason.

Then he would, quite predictably, go to a night club, drink himself into a stupor, and drive himself into the unkempt bushes in front of the house at three in the morning. Darren would have to go outside and get him into bed. Or he'd just let his dad puke himself to sleep in his car. There was nothing wrong with that, as far as he saw it. It wasn't his job to raise his parents.

Darren slid from his bed and pushed his untouched homework under it, rubbing his forehead wearily. He heard his father storming down the hall, growled as he attempted to open his son's door without knocking, customarily angered at the fact that it was locked- as if it'd been locked specifically against him. Indeed, it had.

"Darren, open that damned door up before I knock it down!" a sonorous voice roared outside, as it did at least once a week in that precise tone, using those precise words.

"Right, right," Darren managed in a resigned tone, unlocking the door against an impenetrable, bipolar force just outside.

His father slammed open the door with a force that almost knocked Darren backward, making deeper the dent in the wall created by the door knob. He flinched, but for the most part, his shoulders hunched forward. He had learned early on not to fight back…. He didn't dare look at the scar on his arm, lest his father think he was… implying something. It didn't matter that it wasn't fair. He'd learned this too. Life just wasn't fair. Sure, he had Bridget and Mason….. But they couldn't be at his house. He wouldn't allow them to. He roughed this alone. All alone. Today, his father wouldn't even relent when his son submitted, and Darren caught the fire in his eyes. He rubbed his own as though there was nothing her could do about it and submitted tiredly. Tonight, he would call his closest companions, if he survived this beating, of course…..

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Crow watched as Alice looked around, pleased at the bloodletting. Pleased indeed. The dead forms of her mutilated family hung about the room in a manner that was strikingly pretty to the young woman. Smoothing her skirts with her small, pale hands, Alice smiled down at the blood on her previously bleach white apron. The giant corvidae hopped uneasily from one taloned foot to the other, noticing that none looked particularly pleased with Alice's work. She was an enigma, alright. Even as the little army in the room filed out, still pouring from the mirror, she confused him. Alice's step was graceful, yet something about the way each joint slid in and out of place was wrong somehow. Her childish skipping could not be seen as blissful. It was oppressive and it was dark. Everything about this girl was strange and corrupted and he felt it pour from her, thick and repulsive as the blood of a sick man pouring from a gaping sore on his body. Her eyes were glazed, as though she was trying to focus on something that was just out of reach of her gaze and her mouth was always quirked in this insufferable, insane smile. It gave Crow the nasty feeling that he didn't DARE let her from his sight. That would be dangerous.

"Red Knight, get me the looking-glass in the front room, won't you, dear?" She asked lazily of the red knight. He knew better then to question her. Crow realized that Alice's voice was not much better then the rest of her. Soft and silky, her voice rang past her lips with a quality vaguely reminiscent of bells, and yet, beneath the soothing tones, a cold, crazy, bloodthirsty sort of vacancy lay, like a pit with spikes at the bottom concealed by a picknik blanket and very good food. Everything about this girl was distorted. She was a broken girl, and Crow knew very well that he was the only one that saw this so clearly. When he bent to her wishes, it was with the knowledge that he was humoring a person who was no more aware of what she was really doing then a blind person is of dark and light.

Crow was also learning rapidly that Alice had more friends then "Dinah." There was Lucy, too, but there were others. Elise and April, whatever they were, were to be taken seriously. When Alice went inside to find her kitties, whom he was certainly surprised to find were real, she began to talk rapidly to what was obviously a pair of people. Well, it wasn't before long that everybody from the Looking Glass House had come into this strange world where there were no talking flowers. Crow had suspected that there would have been more like Alice. He didn't even see a single talking beetle. This perplexed the great bird, even as much as Alice's strange actions next. The girl crouched down in the field as if searching for something…. What could it be? Hopping around in confusion and scaring a great many of the talking flowers and toves from the Looking Glass House into a small hysteria, he blinked, cawed a little. After a few minutes of this, Alice stepped back. Crow relaxed. Why did he feel relieved?

A massive tornado burst from the ground where Alice had been standing mere moments ago, causing the girl to giggle. Why indeed.

"Dinah, Dinah! Look, Dinah! Just where you said it would be…. Just where you said it would be. Now," Alice turned finally on the terrified mass of creatures that stretched across the field, filled the house, and she picked up two small cats, one black and one white, "Come, come down to Wonderland. And don't forget that looking-glass, my lovelies!"

Crow noticed how careful they were not to forget as each one filed down into a pit. For some reason, he felt that it was a lot like the pit that hid beneath Alice's picknick blanket of blissful carelessness.

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"Why did I survive?" Darren moaned painfully to himself, sprawled out back-down on his bed, staring vacantly up at the ceiling and beyond trying to ignore the black and blue pain that speckled his pale body. His mind was past searching for a solution when he knew there was only one. Police had not helped much, only made everybody mad. He didn't want to be put in foster care again. The family had tried to force religion on him. With a deep sigh that hurt his lungs, Darren knew Wonderland was the alternative. The only one. Tonight he would call Bridget and Mason. Bridget was the only one who ever made him really truly smile, really truly laugh. She always had this sunny gleam in her eye that most would not guess would appeal to him. Mason always had his sense of twisted humor and always sided with him. They didn't have anything to disagree on. These two people were the only ones he cared about.

Leaning up with a painful moan, Darren picked up his bedside phone, and began to dial his best friend's house.

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"Wonderland… When do we go?" Bridget had picked up her cell phone with one of her winning smiles when she had glanced at the caller ID. Darren had finally called, and she'd been worried about him. What had his father done this time? What had he done to himself? She always had to wonder. His voice on the receiver relieved her entirely. He sounded… what…. Happy? Didn't he always sound happy when he called her? Yes, but something was different, and she sensed it with immediacy. When he had mentioned going to Wonderland with her, she had laughed and responded in mock-enthusiasm. When he started to sound serious, though, she got a little confused.

"What? Darren, c'mon. What's going on? Mason's there too? Oh, hi Mason! Tell Darren that there isn't a Wonderland, will you?" She laughed a little, " He's being crazier then usual."

Bridget had sounded a little relieved when Mason had taken the phone from Darren. Darren was always doing or saying convincingly insane things around Mason, right? Of course. That was all it was. But then Darren's voice sounded. He wanted her to come over, and suddenly, he didn't sound so content. She realized with a shiver that Mason had never confirmed that he would tell Darren to stop sounding so crazy.

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"She's here," Mason said with one of his lazy smiles as he glanced out the window of Darren's bedroom, "and I have to wonder how she snuck out like she did." He raised a brow in that same casual languidness as he always had, running a hand through his chocolate colored hair that hung just past his ears, waving outward at the end. His lazy brown eyes, always glazed with this lack of caring to do much of anything that took energy, managed to look a little more intent this evening. Tonight, his eyes did not smile. Tonight, something weird had happened. He didn't think fireplaces could be portals to different worlds….. Apparently, he was wrong. And Darren did look a little crazy.

Darren, meanwhile, sat up intently, looking out his window and hailing Bridget over with a, "pssst!" She had looked around, her thick, deep orange hair following the movement. Her bright eyes found him. She looked a little distressed and he cursed mentally. She was always so happy, so why had he done something stupid and got her so worried?

"Darren," she whispered heatedly, the smile that came with such usual ease not touching her small red lips as she darted up to his window and slid into his room with the kind of stealth that came with a panicked purposefulness, "what's going-" Her words were cut short by the bruises that she saw on Darren's face when they came into the light. It was horrific… and he was bleeding, even had a black eye. He silenced her with a finger to his lips as though he'd been expected just that reaction.

Mason, who was leaning on the door of Darren's room, arms crossed carelessly over his chest, shook his head lightly. "Better sit down. He idn't gonna tell you anything you're gonna believe right away." She sat. Most of the time, Bridget found herself laughing at anything Mason told her to do, but the oppressive atmosphere of the bedroom itself shocked her into obedience. Darren sat down next to her with a soberness that he saved only for the worst of occasions.

"We can't stay here."

"What?" She looked at him, brows furrowing.

Darren found it difficult not to smile at her with her little pout and her dusting of freckles; the effect was cute. But the occasion called for a different attitude.

"Sweets, we have to go to Wonderland. Now. It means leaving your family… everything you ever knew."

"What?" She repeated, staring at him in complete disbelief.

"He's not kidding you," Mason said with a matter-of-fact shrug, opening the door and pointing down the hallway to the living room- at the fireplace.

"What?"

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Mason had been particularly easy to convince about the existence of Wonderland. It was kind of odd, true, but there wasn't much he wouldn't believe. Darren had survived, of all things. That had seemed impossible, though for a change he wouldn't voice what he thought. There was no point in making things for his friend worse, as he saw it. Now he had to focus on getting Bridget to believe… and then get her to go to Wonderland and leave her family, leave everything. Eh, for him it wasn't too hard to believe and living with a crappy foster family wasn't exactly what he considered a great thing- he could go anywhere he wanted without strings attached.

But Darren would not leave without Bridget. If he did not leave, he would die. Lazy Mason usually wasn't the one to care about anything or anyone, but Darren was different, and so he got up off his lazy ass and rose as far as it would allow him to the occasion. This wasn't just any occasion, so he was almost standing up straight. Besides, Bridget had a big enough imagination, right? Right? Indeed….

The repeated "what" was not promising, though, and so he'd done the only thing he knew how to do. Already he was striding down the hall and standing in front of the fireplace. Darren followed at a mincing pace, glancing around nervously as though his drunk mother could comprehend a thing they were doing even if she was in the room.

In moments, they all stood there, facing the fireplace. Darren looked nervous and very tired. Bridget looked confused. Mason sighed.

"Okay, in there is Wonderland. Darren showed me. Darren, you gonna show her inside? C'mon, breathe, man. Bridget, listen up," he took on an air of commanding that surprised the pair of them into action. Darren took Bridget's hand and she gave him a worried look. Usually, they were so loving and giggly and affectionate around each other. Even around easy-going Mason, this kind of tension stoked the flames of his own doubts. He had few, so that was all very well and good, but…..

Darren was gone in a flash. Mason heard Bridget cry out in surprise as she was dragged through the scorched, old brick wall of the fireplace. He followed them.

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"Oh Dinah, look!" Alice clapped her hands together quite with glee as she landed neatly on the floor of Wonderland, glancing around dazedly. This was her world… Or soon it would be, at the very least. Smoothing her bloodied skirts as many of her army of… creatures landed about her in quick succession. When she looked down to see Dinah, pick her up, pet her, she almost dropped the feline.

"Oh my, Dinah, I don't mean to be rude, my dear, but I do believe you've gained weight… you feel a touch like Black Kitty or White Kitty…"

She felt Crow hop up behind her and turned with a slow, lazy smile. She began lightly, "Dear Crow, doesn't Dinah look well fed to you?" Crow looked down in surprise. Why did this cat, striped and grinning from ear to ear, suddenly look REAL? Why was he THERE were before he was a mere figment of the girl's imagination? He bobbed up and down.

"Yes, Alice….. You always wanted to know where I went when I died…where all of me went, and now I'm here. Oh, Alice, dear, why don't you take me down that hall? Yes, that one. Make sure the others are following. There's a good girl…." Alice carried the cat in the crook of her arm with an eerily loving smile, her two other cats as well as a multitude of creatures followed her closely.

"Now, dear, you know what needs to be done…" the Cheshire Cat leapt from Alice's arms and looked up at her with a wicked grin. She looked at him with sharp recognition blaring in her mind.

"Oh, my… Dinah, I do believe you've changed, Dinah…" Tension lingered in the air and Alice, in a state of confusion that did not bode well, lobbed off the head of one of the mutated, uprooted flowers following her….. and yet… when she looked at the cat again, her voice had not changed from that of a loving, dear old friend.

"Oh dear, Cheshire kitty, I know what I must do… Bring me the looking-glass!"

A number of knights and pawns of various colors who looked increasingly contorted, with spikes growing from their bodies in random places and snakes replacing their tongues, stumbled forward with the mirror in tow. Dainty Alice danced forward and plucked up the thing as though it weight nothing and threw it to the ground. It smashed into nothingness, but not before everything that she'd left behind expanded and stretched the very essence of Wonderland… No… the World of Wonderglass. Alice's house was somewhere in there, and so were the forests which she had so cleanly distorted. The fourteen year old giggled and skipped in the direction of a certain glass table, and nobody behind her dared protest where she went, did not dare impede her. They simply followed.

When she dusted off her hands that night, laying down on a patch of grass blackened by her own feet, she knew, somewhere in the vagueness of her mind, that things were really looking up. For her, at least. She did not know that there was somebody else who had the same thing she did, the power to change things about them to their own liking. Well, she was going to find out.