"Are you absolutely sure that this will work?" Asked Hatter nervously. "If Scrub gets hurt by th' Bludy Begh Hid..." He left off, too depressed to try to continue.

Willy bit his lip, frustrated at this newest complication. Would he ever make it back to Dawn? Sarah merely patted Hatter on the arm and sighed heavily. "We've got to trust in Jareth's judgement. If he says that the best way to take down the Red Queen is to wait until the execution, then wait we shall."

"You don't understand. "Hatter said glumly, his eyes dull and glazed. "The guilt I feel...to think that the last memory of her that I have is one of her in tears...it burns me to my very core."

"I'm so sorry, Tarrant. I wish there was something that could bring her back right now instead of having to wait for so long." Sarah sank back into the quiet of the evening. It had been seven hours since Scrub's abduction and it was begining to wear on her patience. Scrub was her best friend and her loss was hard to take.

Willy sighed and took out a bottle of liquid. "I think we all need a little something to lift our spirits." He said with a weak smile that neither of the other three returned. Jareth just observed him overtop his crystal with a critical eye. Willy shook the bottle a few times to awaken the fiz. "This is a Fizzy Lifting Drink. One sip and you are filled with a gas that is so incredibly lifting that it lifts you right off the ground. You'll have to be careful about how high you go though. Be sure to burp a bit before you start floating off into the atmosphere."

Sarah stared at the bottle, with the tiny bubbles rising quickly to the top and bursting as soon as they hit the surface. Then she blinked and the wheels in her head began to grind. Suddenly, she jumped up and her depression was forgotten. "That's it! Eureka! That's it!" She grabbed the bottle from the chocolatier and held it up as if it were a first-place trophy. "We'll use this!"

"What do you mean?" Willy asked curiously.

"This makes us fly, right?" He nodded and she grinned. "Well, all we gotta do is gulp down some of, be careful of going to high, and we can float right overtop of the guards and land on the roof of the castle!" She started talking rapidly, excitedly. "Then we sneak in through a window or the chimney and we head down to the dungeons to find Mirwana and Scrub and save the kingdom!"

"That has got to be the craziest plan I've ever heard.." Jareth smirked. "I like it."

"Then it's settled." She said in a brave voice and held up the bottle. "A toast to the genius of our most amazing chocolate whiz!" She unscrewed the cap and chugged a big mouthful down. Hatter followed suit, but Willy hesitated.

"That has got to be the most unsanitary thing-"

Sarah glared at him and forced the bottle into his hands. "Drink it or I go swimming in your Chocolate River everyday for a month!" He paled and swiftly drank down his portion of the drink.

The tingling began in Sarah's belly and she felt her stomach expand, almost to the point where it would burst. The feeling was uncomfortable, but she soon got used to it, but the strangest part was the fact that she and her three male counterparts were leaving the ground rapidly.

Within a few minutes of manuvering (with the professional help of the one confectionary genius) they managed to reach the roof of the castle. They stood there for a few minutes, the excess burps from their ride surprising them every two or three seconds.

"What..URP.." Willy beat at his chest. "..should we do now?"

"I think that (blurp) now is a good time to start looking for an open window or a non-smoking chimney." Replied Sarah. She winced as she looked down. She didn't want to think about falling from this dizzying place.

Jareth, who hadn't needed to take the potion due to his ability to transform into a beautiful owl, swooped around the castle. He searched and searched until he found one that they could easily access.

"It's on the eastern side." He pointed in the direction. "Just a few feet down and you can touch the ledge. Don't worry, just imagine you're on a tightrope and that there's a safety net below you."

"One problem with that line of thinking, Jareth." Sarah snapped testily. "We haven't got a safety net."

The Goblin King seemed slightly abashed for a few moments. "Right then, just be very careful."

"Do you think I'm up to being reckless at over a hundred feet in the air on a 2-inch wide ledge with a nice view of what could very easily be my doom?" She gritted her teeth as her feet dangled off the edge of the roof and, for a heartstopping second, were supported only by air before she came into contact with the ledge.

She manuvered herself to fit through the opening the window left for her. Once she was in, she stuck her head out the window. "Okay, it's your turn, Willy!" She shouted.

Willy, then Tarrant, then Jareth as an owl came in the window. When they were all safe and sound on solid ground, they took a bit to revel in the fact that they hadn't ended up as greasy splotches on the ground below. "That was exciting!" Sarah said, smiling. "Let's agree to never do it again."

"Hear, hear." Agreed a wearied Hatter. "I lost one of my favorite hatpins." He said sulkily. "Ah, well. Scrubs worth more than a hatpin to me."

"And I'm sure she'll be ecstatic hear that." Remarked Sarah in an annoyed tone. She was still sore at Hatter for his earlier misstep. However accidental it had been.

"Now what?" Willy asked.

"Now we find Stayne and steal his keys." Jareth informed them.

"Couldn't we just pick the lock?" Sarah suggested.

"No!" Said the Goblin King sharply. "There are dangerous enchantments on the doors to their cells and they require the exact key to unlock them."

"And just how do we get the keys?" Hatter asked. "We can't exactly waltz right in and demand that Stayne hand them over."

"I think this calls for a distraction." Jareth's eyes gleamed wickedly as he summoned a crystal and danced along his arms and fingers. "Tarrant." He addressed Hatter with a dangerous smile. "Since it was your beloved who was captured, I think it would be most appropriate for you to take advantage of the chance we are about to gift you with."

"Just tell me what to do."

{Meanwhile}

Scrub's whole body hurt from the beating she had endured at Stayne's return. "Does he always do this?" She whimpered.

"Two times every day. Once in the evening and once in the morning." Came Mirwana's ragged voice.

"I said it before and I'll say it again." Scrub said, spitting out the blood from her mouth and staring down at her tattered dress. "This sucks."

{A few minutes later}

A huge explosion rocked the castle and jolted Stayne from his stance by the dungeon door. He stared upwards, but recieved no answer, but a lot of smoke. A whole lot of smoke. "What the-" He was took the stairs leading up and didn't even notice the pale hand that swiped the key ring from his back pocket just as he passed a particularly dark dungeon was damp and dirty, the drip of water from the storm outside was deafening in the silence. Tarrant hurried through one cell after another until he found hers. She was chained tightly to a wall with shackles that had spikes on the inside to prevent her from escaping. Her head was lowered and he couldn't see her chest moving. NO! He would have screamed if he didn't care that it would cause him to be discovered. His beautiful Martha, the love of his life, was not moving. Then a cough issued from her lips, now covered in blood where it looked as though someone had punched her. Hope and anger at once fought for dominence in his heart, with a turn of the key, the Hatter entered the cell.

"Who is it? Are you here to hit me again?" She looked up to see that Tarrant had come for her. He now got a closer observance of Scrub and he didn't like what he saw. Her dress was in rags and compeletly torn in some places, her hair was in snarling knots, her arms and face mangled by bruises and cuts of all kinds and worst of all the dead expression in her eyes. The eyes that had once been filled with light were now nearly lifeless. The blue-green eyes were darker as though stained by the hideous sights, trials and tribulations that she had survived over the past few hours. She sighed and a tear rolled down her cheek, leaving a streak there. "You shouldn't have come, she'll find and kill you. I couldn't live with that, go now, let me die."

His hands clenched, he imagined that they were locked around the The Red Queen's neck. Downal wit th Bluddy Beg hid! "I can not let you die. Scrub, I love you, I always have. Since the day you first had tea with me...only I didn't know it then." She jerked her head up and a spark of interest lit the dead eyes. He gazed at his broken love. "Do you remember...the night of the ball?" He drew a shuddering breath. "That was when I knew...when I realized that I loved you and when you left I swore to myself that one day I would tell you exactly how I felt and why. Machree, do you even know how special you are, how inexplicably wonderful? Martha, I love you!"

She laughed, light returning to those long dull orbs, the light that belonged to the stars. "Hatter...do you have any idea how a raven is like a writing desk?"

"You know I don't." He grinned, happy to see life in his love once more.

"Well, I've had plenty of time to think on it and I think I have the answer."

"Is that so? May I ask what it is?"

"A raven is like a writing desk...because no matter how hard either tries, both will always have a flat note." Tarrant couldn't help it, she made him laugh. It felt like old times, before she'd been kidnapped, like before he'd failed.

They laughed together for a few seconds, but Tarrant would not forget what he had come to do. From his pocket, he withdrew a small box and got down on one knee, no doubt soiling the fabric of his pants with grime from the floor. "Could we perhaps try this again?" He asked sweetly. "Will you marry me?"

Scrub studied the man in front of her. She'd been asked a similar question before and refused. This was the one she had waited for, this was the man for her. It didn't matter that he was as mad as a hatter. Oh dear, have I made a rhyme? She thought with giggle. Tarrant waited patiently for her to answer and finally...she did. "Why would my answer be anything but yes? Now let's get out of here before someone finds out you're here and we have the whole fludging castle yapping at our heels."

Tarrant went hurriedly to her side and with the thinnest of the bronze keys, unlocked her shackles. She fell into his arms, barely having the strength to support herself. He gritted his teeth, he was really going to have to kill someone for this. But also thank someone too, the contact she was making with him right now was heavenly, it felt as though he hadn't touched her in three decades, instead of only eight hours. She looked up to him with trusting eyes, knowing that he would never let her fall. "You know Scrub, I had supposed I would have to wait until after the wedding to carry you out a door, but I think sooner is better than later anyway."

She blushed, but surprised him with a linguring kiss on his jaw. To him, the feeling was enough for a lifetime. He growled and drew her nearer. She pulled away and the edges of her lips curled into a smile that Tarrant was absolutly sure would taste exquisite. "Slow down, lover boy, I am sort of indisposed at the moment."

"Right, terribly sorry." He was not sorry in the least.

"Suuure, don't act as if you don't want to burst into song." She teased, sounding more and more like her lovely self with every passing second.

"Ummm, that would put us a rather difficult predicament I'm afraid..." He said, grinning like his archnemesis, Chessur.

She cocked a head at him, and for a moment he could see an intense, unreadable emotion flashing in her eyes. He held his breath in anticipation. "You know, you are the greatest, most insane man I've ever met." And her lips collided with his own. Without a thought Hatter flung his arms around her in a passionate embrace. Her lips were as soft as velvet and tasted like his favorite kind of tea..raspberry.

When the kiss was finished, he sighed. "I've waited far too long for that, you realize." She giggled and shook her head.

"We're not out of this yet, you realize." She reminded him with a smile. "Mirwana, remember, love?"

"Oh, yes..right." He said, still a tiny bit dazed from their kiss. "Mirwana. The White Queen." He blinked a couple of times to clear his head. "Umm. Scrub?"He asked, embarrassed.

"Yeah?"

"What else was it you said that we needed to do?"

Scrub grinned at him and shook her head. What could be better for a girl's ego? "I love you."