Author's Note: I realize it's been too long but I hope this chapter was worth the wait and I want to thank you all for your support of this story because you really made this chapter happen.

It took Hatter awhile to wonder back to camp but they still had to wait for dinner. Charlie had some sort of wild pheasant roasting over the fire pit and Alice decided she wasn't going to ask what it was this time and just eat it. Hatter sat across from her like he had the first night but tonight whenever they caught each others eye they smiled, as if they had a very amusing secret that was hard for them to keep.

During dinner Hatter made light conversation by asking her about her life back in the other world, about her job, about her mom. She noticed he kept tip toeing around the question of Jack but it was slightly obvious he wanted to know more about him and her relationship with him. He refused to simply ask the question though so she refused to answer him and instead answered the questions he asked in dept and told him all about her mother and her job and her childhood and friends and a bit about her father even though it hurt. Hatter listened attentively and so did Charlie.

Dinner was over quickly and even though she had had a very, very long day she didn't want to go to bed yet. Charlie began straightening up the camp for no particular reason and Hatter started becoming more and more silent signaling it was getting time for bed but she didn't want this night to end yet. "Hatter…" She said quietly gazing into the fire.

"Yes." He said brightly at the sound of his name.

"Tell me more about Wonderland."

"What do you want to know?"

"Tell me about how things were before the queen took power."

"Alright, although I don't know from experience. I was born long after the glory days were gone."

"How long has it been?"

"About two hundred years."

"Wow… but I thought Charlie said he was just a kid when the Queen took power. That would make him 200 years old."

"Yeah, he probably is. We have much longer life expectancies than you Oysters do. 200 is about the end of our natural lifecycle, but none of us usually last that long or anywhere close, what with food being so scarce and medicine being scarcer than food. No ones lived that long in quite a long time, except the Queen and her family, and that's just because they have the best of everything."

"How old are you then?" She asked beginning to worry about a possible large age gap between her and the man she was falling for.

"Just twenty five. I told you I wasn't alive anywhere near the good old days. Neither were my parents, but I know lots of stories about the old days. When you hang around the resistance as much as I have that's pretty much all you hear about, and my parents used to tell me stories when I was little which was why I decided to help the resistance when I was old enough. I've never experienced a life but what the Queen of Hearts has given us, and it upsets me to think that I may never see a better life than this." She wanted to say something to him but she didn't know what so he continued. "Well you already know about the Kingdom of the Knights but we had another ruler."

"Who?"

"The White Queen. The Knights ruled over this land and governed themselves and the White Queen ruled over everyone else and we had peace in all the land. Back then there was no inner city like we have now. We were more farming folk back then. Small hamlets with farmland far and wide and people only came into the city to trade or for a pint and some gossip. The Queen had her castle upon a hill far north and looked down upon her people with a smile. It is said she was a fair Queen and always had time to listen to everyone. They also said that she was beautiful beyond all reason, that men sometimes forgot there speech before her but she would always humor them and have patience to hear there business with her. She loved her people and they loved her."

"I bet her husband loved more than all the rest." She said thinking about every fairytale she had ever heard back home.

"She never married. She was our chaste Queen. Pure as fallen snow. They said she was married to the land and that we were all her children for she loved everything so much and had such great compassion and our pain was her own."

"She sounds amazing."

"Yeah. Now that's what everyone says about her, but I've heard even more fantastic tales. My mother was always a dreamer and she used to tell me that the Queen had magic powers." Her ears perked up at this. This was the kind of story she had been waiting to hear. Something that sounded at least slightly like a fairytale.

"She told me that the Queen never used her powers to influence peoples lives because she thought that it was wrong to interfere with people in that sort of way, but whenever anyone went to her and complained about that crops were beginning to fail because there was no rain she would say with a smile that she would see to it and then the next day it would rain. Or if the crops were a little too wet one season the clouds would part and the sun would shine bright for days. Then some people said that she taught the animals in the woods to talk and the birds to sing with words. Then others say that they would see her wondering the woods talking to the trees and that sometimes they would answer her. Others say she could conduct her garden flowers like an orchestra and have them sing to her special guests. I've even heard people say she used forest animals as messengers and she had a rabbit as her adviser."

"That sounds amazing."

"It does. If only it were all true."

"You don't believe it?"

"I know there was a White Queen and that she was beautiful, amazing and kind but I don't believe in her magic. She's been gone a long time, Alice, and people want to believe the good times were better than they actually were. We want to believe in magic and have hope that these dark times will pass, but nothing in my life has shown me that Wonderland is magical or that it ever was. There is nothing magical in a half drunk ruffian refugee spouting off about the good old days that have been gone 80 years before his parents were even born."

"What about your mother?"

"My dear mother was a dreamer. She wanted to believe it so she did and elaborated the stories when she told me. I was a child after all and even when I was little The White Queen was a legend and a story to tell your children before bed. Legends are never true. Yes they are based in reality but the story gets told so much who knows what's true anymore. When I was little I believed it all but our world has taught me that things like that don't actually happen. Fairytales aren't real."

"What happened to her?"

"Well, there is more to our world than just Wonderland. To the north is Winterland where it is eternally winter and uninhabitable. A world of ice and snow and absolutely void of life. To the south lies Underland. Truly a dreadful place. Not much is said about it except it is a desolate place. Barren planes and muddy pits. A few people live there but it's not a very prosperous land. That's where the Queen of Hearts came from. She ruled down there with her family, but over time all of her people left and came to Wonderland because they had heard rumors of how good life was here. The Queen of Hearts became angry and resentful about why she had such a desolate Kingdom and the White Queen had such a fertile prosperous Kingdom. She became envious to the point of madness and decided to declare war on the White Queen, only she never told the other side. She gathered her army and marched into Wonderland. The White Queen was eventually alerted because you can't be ignorant of a large army of Suits marching across the Kingdom. The White Queen called upon the Knights to protect the Kingdom and they served her and there was a terrible battle. And we lost. We lost everything. The Knights were all wiped out and The Queen of Hearts took The White Queens thrown."

"She killed her didn't she," she said with much more distress than she thought she would have about something that happened so long ago.

"Actually no. It is said The King of Hearts fell in love with The White Queen like every man did when they looked upon her. The King of Hearts, as it's said, is a very compassionate man, unlike his wife, and it upset him deeply that his wife was going to have such a beautiful innocent woman killed so he talked her into agreeing to simply banish her, telling her that banishment was so much worse than death. For some reason she agreed and simply banished the fallen Queen instead. She was banished to Winterland and on a particularly cold fall afternoon the Queen left her castle and began walking north and she's never been seen again. It's said her servants watched her off but they were all forbidden by pain of death to follow their mistress, she had to go alone. They said she left with only a smile as her parting grace, and that she walked slowly and with determination and such dignity even though she was crying. The only possession the Queen took when she left was a pot of her favorite flowers from her garden.

"The Queen of Hearts soon made it illegal to go within a hundred miles of our Queens palace because she wanted to discourage any love for our former Queen and she thought if we were allowed to walk the beautiful grounds of her manor we would remember what a beautiful Queen she was and the Queen of Hearts hated that she was renewed as more beautiful than she was. Then some of the housemaids began starting rumors that every tear the White Queen had shed as she departed from her beloved land grew into a beautiful white Lily because the Earth dared not let even a single tear of hers diminish. There was no way to discover if this was true or not since no one was allowed up there and there were set guards to make sure no one tried. This is where all of the rest of the stories first began to grow for we all missed our queen and things immediately started getting worse. The Queen of Hearts started stripping the land to build a large palace for herself. She wanted one grander than that of The White Queens, one at the center of everyone. One that would inspire aw and fear and respect among the people."

"The Casino."

"As it's known now. Then it was known as the Great House of Cards. The Queen of Hearts ruled with an iron fist, she wanted everything her way and she didn't care about the troubles of others. Then the crops began to fail and the rumors of our old Queen and her magic began to flourish and grow, for that had to be the reason the crops were failing as they never had before. The people looked to the Queen of Hearts for answers but she gave them none and so the crops failed and the anger we had all been holding onto for so long began bubbling up and riots started happening. That's where the resistance started and a man named Bill Lizard famously said that The Queen of Hearts would only truly rule Wonderland when the people forgot about their true queen. That's when the Queen rose up against knowledge and…"

"Tried to destroy your history and the Great Library was build."

"Salvaged actually, it wasn't built until a few years later, but I'm glad to see you remembered." He said smiling at her. "You remember you once asked me why couldn't we build our city on the ground? Well, that was all the Queens doing too. She was afraid of knowledge and she was afraid of us so she moved us all into one location but there were too many of us and she couldn't have us spread out over the land like we had lived for thousands of years so she built up and up and up and she thought that made it easier to keep an eye on us but it actually made things more difficult as the years went on and the city grew taller and more mangled and without direction. It made it easier for the resistance to hide and thus the Great Library was born, deep in the heart of the city where no one can find it unless you know where to look.

"Since we were all forced to live city lives there were very few people allowed to farm anymore. You had to have illicit permission to live outside of the city and the most important fact was at least a generation of undying family loyalty to the Queen, which was rare so very few families were allowed to farm, thus food began becoming scarce and we had all been unhappy for a long time but we tried to be strong and take it telling ourselves we were just moving forwards and that things were going to get better. Food shortages began being outrageously common and we began to riot more than ever before. The Queen needed a solution, a way to control us. So she came up with...."

"The Teas."

"Precisely. The Great Ring of the Knights had been in her possession ever since their downfall and she decided to harness its power and use it as she knew it could to rip down the fabric of reality and puncture a hole between our two worlds. It had been done before, by the Knights, but they just were curious about you. They observed you, just to try and figure you out in the same way we look at the stars and wonder what's out there. But the Queen of Hearts decided to use you to her own advantage. She knew emotions were a powerful thing and that it was because of emotions that the people were all against her. Then she had a wicked idea. She thought if she could control peoples emotions then she could control us and we wouldn't be against her anymore and that we would love her in the way we loved our former Queen. She couldn't use us to harvest emotions, that would have sparked an enormous outrage. But we didn't know much about you humans, so none of us really cared about you all so the Queen used that and began steeling you away and doing experiments on you until she found out how to tweak you just right to get shiny purely pure emotions from you. And the emotions were good, better than we'd ever felt ourselves out of our own will, and it was instantaneous. You wanted to be in love with someone you felt nothing for, boom love. You wanted to be happy but just couldn't make yourself, snap, happiness. So people got sucked into her world of instant gratification and began to rely on Teas to feel, but there were those who knew it was wrong what she was doing and didn't want to feel things unnaturally."

"Refugees."

"Yes. The resistance took them in and helped them even though it was and still is a dangerous life to lead. We have to find those good old days. We have to learn to start feeling for ourselves again."

"That's such a sad story." She said resting her elbow on her knee and resting her cheek in her palm and she realized that she had been crying silently along with his story.

"Yeah. Now you understand why I feel like I have to do something. I have to stand up for my people, for my family, for my mother, for our lost Queen. If we all just conform and become obedient and do nothing, then nothing is ever going to change. The old days are probably completely lost and gone forever but anything is better than what we have now. We have to fight back, I have to try."

"You're a good man, Hatter. I know your going to do great things."

"I'm glad u think so. I just really don't know how anymore. I just don't know what to do, where to start." She saw how much this upset him so she got up and went and sat by him putting her arm around his shoulder. "I do know one thing though."

"What's that?"

"It doesn't matter if I do anything else with the rest of my life, because I saved you, and as long as I keep you safe that's enough."

"Why? I'm no one important."

"My mother always used to say everyone is important, that's why my family was aligned with the resistance. Everyone matters, and you may not mean much to my world now that the Queens taken back the ring, but you mean all the world to me."

A silent tear fell down her cheek as that was the most beautiful thing anyone had ever said to her and it was astonishing to realize how much she meant to this man.

Hatter didn't hesitate this time and simply leaned in and kissed her. His kiss still held all that it did the first time but she also felt his need for her. His desire to be loved and wanted as much as he did her and she tried to give him everything he asked for because it was the very least of everything he deserved. She had waited her whole life to feel like this when she kissed a man, went through many boyfriends trying to find this kind of love she desired so strongly ever after her father left, and here it was in the most unlikely person imaginable. He wasn't even human but she felt a deeper connection with him than she had any human man, or any man at all for Jack hadn't even inspired half this passion in her.

They kissed for a long time before a loud snore startled them and they quickly pulled away from each other to look over at Charlie who had laid in his hammock to listen to Hatters tale and apparently promptly fallen asleep when neither of them was watching. They both silently thanked God that he had long since fallen asleep so they didn't have to worry about him having seen them. They looked back at each other and Hatter gave her a weak smile and gently touched her cheek. "I think its time we got to bed. It's very late." He said rubbing her cheek lovingly before standing up and stretching.

"One more story."

"Tomorrow I'll tell you all the stories you want to hear, but I'm tired. It's time for bed." He said starting to walk away towards the post he had slept against a few nights ago which seemed like forever now.

"Hatter." She called out to him and he stopped and turned.

"Yeah?"

"You know the bed is plenty big enough for two people, and I feel bad about you sleeping on the ground."

"You didn't feel bad about it three nights ago." He said with a mocking smile and a light laugh as he walked back to her. "Are you sure though? I don't mind the ground you know."

"I am sure." She said and he just smiled in reply and walked towards the old bed and threw himself down on it, his head facing the baseboard, but not before placing his hat on one of the bed posts. She walked to the bed slowly and laid down next to him but the right way on the bed because she was somewhat a stickler for doing things the proper way and she felt like being obstinate even though she knew Hatter probably couldn't care less, especially since she felt he was at least half asleep right now from exhaustion. She turned onto her side and looked at his brown shoes lying next to her and she began thinking about the story he had told her. She felt so bad for them all now and what they had suffered. How much they were all still suffering because of the Queen. Then she began thinking about their real Queen. Their poor lost Queen, out there in the cold, all by herself and a terrible thought came upon her. Even though she already felt she knew the answer deep in her heart and she knew what he would say, she could help it.

"Hatter…" She murmured his name softly but he didn't respond. "Hatter." She said in her normal voice but he still didn't reply or make any motion that he had even heard her. She felt a little bad about it but she touched his leg and shook him gently until he grumbled in his sleep at being disturbed but didn't move much more that than. She gave up her obstinacy and turned around in bed so that they were laying the same direction and she gently shook him by the shoulder while whispering his name.

"Hummm… What is it? What's going on?" He mumbled as he woke up. "What's wrong?" He asked looking at her though heavy eyelids with as much concern as he could muster as he was at the brink of falling back asleep.

"I was just wondering what do you think happened to the White Queen? I mean do you think she's still alive?"

"Ummmghh…" He mumbled at the reason he was woken up and closed his eyes again but still answered her anyways. "Some people think she's still alive and living in the Winterlands, but I think its complete poppycock. She'd be over 300 years old by now. She's gone, and she's never coming back no matter how much people want her to. It's been far too long. If she were alive she would have come back by now. Don't worry about it though, it was truly a very long time ago. Just think about what Bill Lizard said though, and you'll feel better, at least it helps… me…" He said as his words drifted off as he slowly fell back asleep. She stayed awake awhile still as her mind went over again and again the horrors of the past few days but how lucky she was to have this makeshift home to come back to and truly the kindest man in the whole of Wonderland as her protector who was starting to become so much more. She thought about her mother and how she longed to truly be at her real home that was slowly completely slipping out of her grasp. If she could only tell her mother she was okay, that she had good people looking after her, that she loved her. She knew her mother would be worried sick. She had been gone days, at least 4 now. She couldn't believe how much her life had changed in such a short period of time. There was no part of her life was the same and that frightened her but just the sound of Hatters soft breathing reassured her. At least she wasn't alone, and he had said he would stay with her and she believed him. She trusted him and that was a nice feeling. So she drifted off into a deep sleep feeling happy and safe in their sanctuary and dreamed about a beautiful Queen who was talking to a frog about Shakespeare's Sonnets.