That Jack, what a pain in the ass, eh? Well, now we find ourselves headed to the Hospital of Dreams and Alice's father. I changed it up just a little, hope you enjoy it.
"Come, Alice, we have to hurry," Jack urged gently, but Alice all but ignored him.
"Charlie, are you alright?" she asked the old knight, who nodded.
"The only permanent injury is to my pride," he chuckled. When he reached up to rub the back of his skull, however, the girl was unappeased by his assurances. She walked to him, pulling his hand away and bade him to let her see. Though obviously embarrassed, Charlie complied, bending forward. Very lightly running her fingers through the man's downy white locks, she felt a rather large knot on his head. She scowled at the prince.
"Was this really necessary, Jack?"
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your friend, but when he came running through the forest, shouting for battle and wielding a sword…" he trailed off insinuatingly and Charlie's blush deepened. So, he had finally gotten his sword out of that sheath, only to be disarmed by his opponent.
"Because he was trying to protect me," she pointed out, still seething over the injury he had dealt the two hundred and ten year old man.
"I am sorry, sir," Jack said to the White Knight, laying a hand over his heart and tilting his head forward in a small bow. It was enough to placate the paladin, but not the girl still fussing over him.
"Are you sure you're okay?"
"I swear, My lady, I am entirely well and fit." She had no choice but to leave him be after that; continuing to fret like a mother hen would only injure his dignity in addition to his head.
"Charlie…" Alice began, drawing him further away from Jack and speaking in low tones. "You've done so much to help me."
"It is my honor, My lady," he insisted firmly, with a little nod of his head.
"Thank you. For everything." She wrapped her arms around the man then, knowing this was the last time she would ever see him. Her throat tightened, but she tried not to let the tears fall, understanding it would only upset him to see her so upset.
"You are welcome, Justalice," he replied gently, returning her embrace. She let out a laugh at the name.
"I'm gonna miss you, Charlie," she smiled at him with glittering eyes as they parted. "Take care of yourself, please; for me." He nodded and bowed to her wish, his own eyes suspiciously bright in the firelight. She turned back to her new escort, knowing if she didn't leave now she would break down and cry. "Okay. Let's go."
Jack led her to a pair of auburn mares, saddled and waiting near the edge of the city. She accepted his help in mounting the animal, hoping she could copy Hatter well enough to control the thing. As for Hatter, she could feel his eyes on her the entire time, until they were well away from the Kingdom of the Knights. There was so much he hadn't given her a chance to tell him; she hadn't even been able to say goodbye. Her chest ached horribly and she felt sick. It was all she could do to not wheel the horse around and go back. She couldn't, he had told her to go and go she must. It was what the girl was supposed to do, had been trying to do since the beginning - going home. So, why did it hurt so much?
Because Hatter was watching, she didn't let herself cry until they were far enough from the ruins that he would not longer be able to see her. Silent tears streamed down her face as she followed Jack - his form outlined in silvery moonlight. It was strange how quickly she had gone from hating Wonderland and thinking of nothing but getting out, to crying because she had to leave. And it wasn't the choirflies or the talking purple cats, either. It was her friends.
Jack was beautifully mute, for which Alice was exceedingly grateful. She did not want to have to deal with speaking to him, not when she was so angry and sad. Her tears had dried by the time they reached the halfway point and stopped at a creek to water the horses. Only then did the future king break his silence.
"Who was that man?" he asked. He must have been holding that question in since the second Hatter had walked out of the clearing.
"I told you who he was," the girl said irritably. "Hatter. He's the one who's been keeping me safe the last two days. He's the reason the ring is in your pocket. And if the Resistance manages to reclaim Wonderland from your mother, he's the one you have to thank for it."
Even in the moonlight, she could see that her words had struck home with him. Good. Maybe he'd start showing Hatter the respect he deserved instead of acting like a jealous, spoiled brat.
"I'm sorry I insulted your friend," the prince apologized, his tone sincere. But she didn't let up.
"I'm not the one who deserves the apology," she remarked, turning away to watch the reflection of the moon sparkle on the shallow rushing waters.
"When this is over, I will find the man and make every effort to make up for my behavior," he promised. She nodded. Jack was a man of his word. Or was he? Hadn't he spent their entire time together lying right to her face?
"So, who's the Duchess?" Alice asked tightly, turning back to watch his face as he answered.
"My mother's creature," the blonde replied, looking her in the eye so that she might believe him. "An arrangement. I have no feelings for her, nor she for me."
"No?" The Duchess was beautiful, tall and svelte, glamorous and well bred - in short, everything Alice was not. It was hard enough for her to understand why Jack had chosen her when he was just a sales executive, but a prince?
The man stepped closer, his expression one of sincere longing and tenderness. "My heart belongs to you, Alice, completely. You believe that don't you?"
She took a breath, taking his words into her and holding them, turning them over and over before releasing the air once more. "I don't know, Jack. I want to, but all this… I can't even sit and think long enough to figure anything out."
"I'm sorry for putting you through this," he apologized, taking hold of her hand and covering it with his other. "I promise, once you are home safe, I will give you all the time you need."
The girl nodded. His touch didn't thrill her the way it had two days before, when she thought he was perfect. But she couldn't rush to judgment, not yet. There was still so much to be explained, to talk over. She couldn't take anything at face value, especially here in Wonderland where nothing could be taken for granted.
"You must be freezing," the future king remarked, releasing her hand, obviously having noticed her icy fingers. He shrugged off his suit jacket and held it for her to put on. The garment was warm from his body and smelled like him, the same rich scent she knew so well. It still made her want to sneeze. She longed for the lush velvet coat, but that was Hatter's and she'd left it behind.
The second half of their journey was as wordless as the first. When they reached the city limits, Jack and Alice dismounted and made their way into the crumbling metropolis. It turned out, the city did have a bottom after all, but, unfortunately, they weren't going to stay on solid ground for long. The prince guided his charge to an elevator that took them up and up and up, high above the ground where the only pathways were narrow strips of concrete and grass and nothing stood between you and oblivion.
"Why is the city like this?" she asked as they traveled upwards.
"The tea has spoiled the people," Jack explained. "We've become even more obsessed with instant gratification than your own society. No one wants to wait to do things properly anymore. When a building is too old or out of fashion, a new one is simply built on top of it."
"While the city rots from below?" Christ, the place was even more of a death trap than she'd even guessed.
"Another of my mother's great contributions to Wonderland," Jack nodded. "You see why I'm with the Resistance. She must be stopped before it's too late."
She did understand. Jack, like Hatter and Charlie and herself, was only trying to do the right thing. Might have done if not for Alice. The elevator doors opened and Jack led her carefully through the dying metropolis. The prince knew about her fear of heights, if not to the degree that her mother and Hatter did, and held her hand as they traversed the high wire web of pathways. He didn't choose an easier route for her, however, didn't keep looking back to check and see if she was okay. Of course, they were in a hurry and she was a big girl, she could handle it.
"This way," Jack said, nodding towards a building at the end of the walk they were following. It was huge and well maintained, done in red brick and cream colored plaster. Set high above the main entrance was a massive clockwork, the gears open to the world.
"What is this place?" Alice asked. It was certainly one of the most interesting structures she'd seen. Not so strange as the casino, but still. The clockwork mechanism was quite impressive.
"The Hospital of Dreams," the prince told her, then headed them into the building. "Stay close by me. And keep your mark covered. If the inmates realize what you are, I won't be able to help you."
Alice stopped. "What do you mean you won't be able to help me?" Surely he hadn't meant that the way it sounded. "You'd just leave me to the wolves, Jack?"
"No, of course not," he protested, a slight air of impatience to his demeanor. "You'll understand in a moment."
He urged her forward and she let him pull her inside. Not for the first time in the last twenty minutes, she wished Hatter was there with them. The unease in the pit of her stomach was telling her she shouldn't be doing this, but she had to. Her father was so close. She couldn't let anything stop her now.
The doors of the hospital opened into a great, vast hall of a lobby, large enough to contain her whole house two or three times over again. The only thing in the empty space - which was floored with amber shades of marble and lit by lamps set into the ceiling so far above them, the light had dimmed by the time it reached the floor to the point it barely cast a glow on the tiles - was a receptionist's desk. Behind the desk sat a woman, a bit older than Alice and resembling a nurse from the forties. The desk was decorated with small glass boxes, each one containing a different type of insect mounted on a board with pins and neatly labeled.
The receptionist was on the phone, popping her gum boredly and poking at a very large, very live cockroach in a plastic dish. Jack brought them to a halt before the desk and waited quietly, but anxiously for the nurse to finish her call. Eventually, taking her sweet time about it, the woman hung up the receiver and looked to the prince.
"He's on the third floor," she said without even being asked a question. So, "he" knew Jack was coming, which led Alice to believe it was Caterpillar they were now going to meet. Even though they only went up three floors, the ride in the hospital's elevator seemed somehow longer than the one up from the city floor. On the third level, Jack guided their way unerringly. He'd been here before. Down a series of hallways and, finally, into a room marked Pompeian Pool. There was a strange smell in the air, but no chlorine, which she had always and would always associate with pools.
Alice stopped on the threshold to the room, which indeed housed a small swimming pool. What caused her to pause was the sight of a man in the middle of the pool. Not odd, in its own right, but the fact that he was sitting in a rowboat was a little off. The boat was loaded with various junk, books, a lamp and type writer, gramophone , and… a hookah? Well, he was called Caterpillar. The little man in the boat was not what Alice would have imagined the leader of the Resistance to look like. He was small and bird-like with a beak of a nose and a scrawny neck. His hair was a nest of gray cobwebs tangled atop his head, his eyes would have been beady were it not for the thick coke bottle glasses he wore. He was dressed in a great, green overcoat that looked like someone had sewn it out of the comforter off a bed.
The man looked up as Jack and Alice entered the room. "Do you have the ring?" Unlike Charlie, this old man sounded old, his voice quavering and dull.
"Yes." Jack started to reach for his coat, still worn by Alice, but the man in the boat stopped him.
"No, no," he said quickly. "Should the moment arise, I must be able to swear under oath that I have never laid eyes on it." A small, but important exploitation of the difference between what one says and what one means. He pointed at Alice. "Ask the girl to come closer."
"Alice," Jack touched her arm as though she had not been standing there and able to hear the old man the entire time. "Come closer."
Oookay. Weird, but she didn't protest, just moved with the prince to the side of the pool, parallel to the little rowboat. The old man took a hit off his hookah and the girl rolled her eyes. Just what she needed, a pot head controlling her fate.
"Oh… you're not as tall as I imagined."
Well, you're not as sober as I imagined. She wanted to say it, really, really badly, but didn't. She clenched her hands into fists at her sides and tried not to judge a book by its cover, no matter how bad that cover looked.
"Ask her if she's scared," the man told Jack. The blonde actually turned to her to follow this ridiculous command.
"Alice, are y-"
"I can hear him, Jack," she snapped, cutting him off sharply. Then, turning her irritation on the weirdo in the raft. "I'm standing right here. If you want to know something, ask me."
"When did you last see your father?" Not the question she was expecting, but fine.
"When I was ten."
The scrawny man showed no reaction. "Ten. A long time ago," he said, almost without inflection.
"Where is he?" That's what she wanted to know, all she wanted to know from this person. Instead of answering her, he just took another hit off his hookah. Alice turned to Jack, eyes flashing in burgeoning outrage. The prince laid a hand over his heart, giving her an apologetic look that begged for patience at the same time as forgiveness on the old doper's behalf.
"This is Caterpillar?" she hissed the question.
Jack shook his head. Thank Vilnius! "This man is called Turtle. Caterpillar is with your father."
"You're father is a very difficult man to reach," the words came out with a puff of blue-green smoke. "We've been tracking him for a long time, but never got close enough to pop the question. Never once." He shrugged, the first sign of affect from him since their arrival. "And, do you know what it is we want to ask him?"
Alice frowned, brows furrowing in confusion. She looked to Jack, who had no answers in his eyes that she could see, and back to Turtle. "No." How the Hell would she know?
"Not even ready to hazard a little guess?" The girl huffed out a breath of annoyance and looked to the prince again.
"What the Hell is he talking about?"
But the old nut answered her instead. "Horizons, my dear. I'm talking about bright new horizons." She was about to tell him she wasn't his "dear", when the man added, "and that's where you come in."
"Where do I come in?" She wasn't following.
"When you first met Jack, did you think it was a happy accident?" Turtle inquired meaningfully. "The fickle finger of fate?"
That stopped her. Something was going on here, something big and she, apparently, was the only one out of the loop. "Jack? What is he saying?" she demanded quietly, annoyance overshadowed by confusion.
"Alice, there is something you must see before-"
"No!" she snapped, her voice raising as the feeling that she had been even further in the dark about what was going on between her and Jack than she knew grew inside her heart. "You tell me right now. If it wasn't just chance, what was it?"
"Please, you need to see so you can understand," he insisted, his expression entreating. "Trust me, just a little longer. I promise it will all be clear."
"When have you given me one God damn reason to trust you?" she challenged hotly, jabbing her finger towards him.
"He brought you here, didn't he?" Turtle chimed in with his unwelcome two cents. The frail old man had rowed his boat to the side of the pool and climbed out. The weirdo had commented on her height, but he wasn't even as tall as Alice!
She was so sick of Wonderlanders. "Just show me what you want and then take me to my father," she ground out. Turtle nodded and shuffled away down the hall, Alice and Jack - separated by a few feet of air and miles of anger and betrayal - trailing behind. The trio entered a ward bearing the signage for Emotional Overload.
"You see, the effects of your powerful emotions on our frail senses are devastating," Turtle proclaimed, leading the little oyster passed glass fronted cells. Each cell held a patient, each patient was a new and different kind of twisted wrong. A woman sitting at a table, upside down, on the ceiling; a man literally bouncing off the walls like a superball; another sitting in the middle of his cell, in a chair, shaking and chewing his lips as he held a wrapped gift in his lap - the edge of the ribbon bow was pinched between his fingers but he never moved to open it.
"Patient 243 couldn't get the precious high of Flying High out of her system," he said, gesturing at the closest cell, where a woman was suspended by nothing in mid air, facing down and flailing her arms as though she were falling. Behind her, a screen scrolled the same bit of sky over and over, adding to the illusion. Alice had to quickly look away, the sight making her feel queasy. "So we're bringing her back down in a controlled environment."
They moved on and the girl was ever so grateful. The next stop was before a man, a giant, naked man who barely fit in his room.
"Patient 671 drank to much Self Importance, so we're shrinking his considerable ego little by little, back to its original size." They continued on through the new age house of horrors. "We're all vulnerable. Mix the wrong feelings together, the right kind of bad with the wrong kind of good, and you'll wind up with a total breakdown."
Alice shook her head. "This is all fascinating and horrifying, but what does it have to do with me?"
Turtle didn't answer and neither did Jack, they just kept walking and Alice had no choice by to go, too. The door at the end of this corridor opened out onto a large courtyard. The sun was starting to lighten the sky from indigo to violet-gray and she could just make out the tall hedgerow that lined the court. The rest of the building had somehow vanished, leaving just the open sky, and Alice barely noticed. Maybe she was getting used to the inexplicableness that was Wonderland.
"The oysters, your people are contaminating our world," the old man declared.
"I'm sure we're all very sorry for the inconvenience," she retorted with heavy sarcasm. He ignored her comment.
"They must go back, dead or alive, before it's too late."
"I'm not going another step until you tell me what is going on." She made good on her word and stopped in the middle of the courtyard path and refused to budge. It didn't seem to bother Turtle in the slightest. The man was downright robotic.
"Your father is the only one who can set them free," he told her.
Alice could only stare, completely mystified. "How?"
"Our undercover operatives successfully smuggled him here in the night. It's the most dangerous operation we've ever mounted."
"That's not what I asked." If he didn't start giving her some answers, she was going to wring his scrawny, little neck.
"But it is," Turtle contradicted her. "You asked to see your father. He is here." Alice's anger didn't evaporate, but it seemed unimportant when the man waved a hand towards a nearby patio. Her father was here, he was only feet away. "I must warn you, he's not the same man you knew as a child."
She instinctively knew he didn't mean older and grayer. Whatever it was had nothing to do with a simple matter of the passage of time. "What do you mean?"
"He's- how can I put it…. Stuck." She had no idea what that meant. In Wonderland, it could mean anything. "We're hoping you can help clear away his cobwebs." The cryptic man shuffled off toward the patio.
"I don't understand," she insisted. It was the most frustratingly incoherent conversation she'd ever held and her head had started to pound. Jack finally decided to come clean.
"I came to your world to find you, Alice, because we need your help."
The last vestige of hope she had for her and her Jack crumbled to dust in her heart. Hatter had been right all along, he'd only been off on the details. Jack had been using her, lying to her to achieve his own ends. Turtle said something, but she didn't hear it over the blood rushing in her ears.
"So, everything we had… was about my dad?" He'd found her and manipulated her, made her want him, made her care for him.
"It wasn't an act, Alice. I really do love you," the prince proclaimed. He seemed trapped between trying to make amends with her and do what the Resistance needed to be done. "But you have to understand, your father holds the key to our future."
"Are you fucking kidding me?!" she shouted at the blonde, tears glittering in her eyes. That was the first time Jack had said he loved her, the very first time, and he hadn't even paused. The declaration had been cast aside like nothing, so he could put her back on the track he'd laid out even before that day they'd first met.
The future king's expression was pleading and anxious. "I'm sorry for wh-"
"For lying to me?" she cut him off sharply, stalking closer. She wanted to hurt him and she knew she could physically, but, unfortunately, she had more self control than that. "For manipulating me and using me?"
"Would you have believed him if he'd told you the truth?" Turtle butted in.
She spun towards the old weakling, nails biting into the flesh of her palms her hands were clenched so tightly. "How about you stay the fuck out of this?" she barked acidly.
"Alice," Jack tried again, but again was denied his chance to speak.
"I might have believed you if you'd told me you knew where my father was," she told him. If he hadn't mentioned another world and magical mirrors. She could have forgiven that kind of deception, but what he had done to her was nothing short of betrayal.
"You're right," the prince conceded miserably. "I should have been more honest, but I can't turn back the clock." That was it? That was his apology? I'm sorry, but it's just too damn bad?
"You… you bastard." She dashed a hand at the furious, hurt tears that splashed against her cheeks.
"Please, Alice." Jack's green eyes weren't so murky now, clear and bright like young oak leaves, and filled with pleading guilt. "Help us."
"Our world depends on it," Turtle added some perspective.
The girl turned away from both of them, walking away a little into the courtyard. Her stomach was knotted so tight, she didn't think it would ever feel normal again. Her head throbbed, pulse pounding in her ears. Obviously, from the look on his face and the waver in his voice, he felt bad about what he'd done - what he felt he had to do - but that didn't change the fact that he had done it. She felt stupid, so stupid for ever believing Jack had cared for her, had wanted her. It was all an act to get her here. She meant nothing.
Not nothing. She was the possible key to the salvation of Wonderland. Or so the Resistance believed. Alice, herself, wasn't so sure. Hadn't the Queen come to power before the advent of emotion tea? Hadn't she reclaimed that power once already? However, it wasn't in the girl's nature to stand idly by when her help was needed. Cheshire Cat had said the ring did more than power the Looking Glass, so without it, perhaps the Queen could be taken down once and for all by the Resistance. The cat had also told her to do what she thought was right and helping Wonderland despite the way Jack had abused her was the right thing.
Had Alice known that she was the bargaining chip she'd had to use over the Resistance, she never would have let Hatter and Prince Jack talk her into leaving the former Tea Shop owner and White Knight behind. Then again, perhaps it was for the best that she had. Once Charlie learned of Jack's dishonorable treatment of his fair Lady, the paladin would have been sure to demand satisfaction. That wouldn't end well. And, to be perfectly honest, she was glad Hatter wasn't there to see his belief that her lover had been using her all along proven correct; didn't want him to see it break her the way it had.
"I'll help," she said finally, wiping at her cheeks and suppressing the pain in her chest. "But not for you." She just wanted to make that clear to his royal highness. She didn't even look at him as Turtle led the way up onto the patio. The old man pressed a button set into the railing and the patio expanded outward, revealing a group of men. Ah, Wonderland.
There were four in all. Three wore yellow vinyl lab coats, but the fourth was dressed in long, black, flowing robes. He was the tallest person she had seen on this side of the Looking Glass and hard to forget, even without the weird ensemble topped by the tri-lobed clubs' cap. For an instant, Alice though that it had all been a trick, that Jack really was working for his mother, but Ten dispatched that thought quickly.
"Hello, again, Alice," he said politely, laying a hand over his heart. "I don't believe we've been properly introduced. I am Caterpillar."
That explained how the Resistance had been able to contact the Jack Heart. Their lead man was the right hand of the Queen herself. It had to take singular dedication to his cause for the man to hold onto that charade, lying to the face of someone so formidable as the Queen of Hearts. Risky, too, as any small amount of displeasure could have cost him his head at the edge of the Vorpal Blade.
She nodded to the black clad man with little emotion. Looking at his companions, it took Alice a moment to realize what she was looking at -who she was looking at - and then it occurred to her that it was one moment too long. The curly brown hair, the hazel eyes… she should have seen it the instant she looked at him.
"Daddy!" she gasped like a child, rushing toward the man.
Her father's sharp, "Who's this?" brought her up short and she skidded to a stop a few feet from him.
"Daddy, it's me," the girl, sounding very much like a little girl, insisted. The man didn't even acknowledge her.
"Another one of your tricks, Jack Heart?" he asked the Prince. Alice didn't understand. This was her father, she'd have known it blindfolded, but he was treating her like… like he didn't even know her.
"Don't you know your own daughter?" Turtle questioned her father, which brought an incredulous laugh from the man.
"Daughter?" His tone judged the concept as preposterous. Alice's heart, so bright and filled with joy, began to dim and crack anew.
"The White Rabbit took you from her world years ago, Carpenter," Ten - Caterpillar - informed her dad, using a name that wasn't his. "Your memories were adjusted to suit the Queen."
"I'm supposed to believe this?" Carpenter, really Hamilton, scoffed. The girl stepped towards him, eyes welling with fresh tears.
"We've missed you so much," she said, a deep longing in her voice. "It's been so hard on Mom."
"Mom?" The cracks in her poor, abused heart grew.
"Carol," Alice explained. "Your wife."
Carpenter chuckled, looking between the girl and the men of the Resistance before him. "You really think this charade is going to turn me against the Queen?"
Alice had forgotten it was her job to jog her father's memory, so he could set the oysters free and save Wonderland. She didn't care. All she wanted was her dad to look at her and know her, and know her.
"Don't you remember me? Don't you remember anything?" she demanded, voice hitching in her throat.
"I remember my work at the institute; bioreductive enzymes, chemically reduced synesthesia, shadow theory," he replied. Wonderland memories, nothing of home.
"What about your family?" she tried, desperately, shattering inside with each denial. "Our… our little yellow house?"
"I lived-" he stopped, brows drawing together in consternation as though he couldn't catch the thought he was trying to express. Alice's hopes lifted once more, painfully, dangerously high. "I live in an apartment; alone."
She frantically searched her mind for something, anything that might be meaningful to her father. Things he loved, things he hated. "Ray? You remember him? He was your friend and partner in the hobby shop" - the shop her father had owned and loved. "-and you used to go fishing on his boat all th-"
"What is the point of all this?" Carpenter demanded of his captors sharply, but the girl went on, almost without thought.
"You eat grapefruit and wheat germ for breakfast, even though it's disgusting," she insisted. "And… and on Sundays, we go to brunch and you throw chickpeas at the ducks." Everything was starting to run together.
"Your mother," her father interjected, bringing her pleas to an end. He paused, again a thought seeming to elude him. "Your mother will be very upset when she hears about this, Jack Heart." The cracks in Alice's heart met and widened, the too damaged organ falling to pieces inside her.
"You… don't even know wh-who I am…" she whimpered, the truth finally sinking in. Oblivious to the men around her, the girl sank to the ground, broken and finished. Jack rushed to her, laying comforting hands on her shoulders. She was too far gone in her sorrow to even want to protest his touch.
Carpenter stepped forward, reaching out to the girl. "Don't cry, jellybean." Alice sobbed, the nickname crushing her ribs.
"Jellybean?" Turtle repeated curiously. "Is that your special name for Alice?"
She gasped and looked up at her father, eyes wide. He remembered her. He remembered something at least. She nodded quickly, hope springing anew from the ashes. "That's what you used to call me."
Carpenter/Hamilton looked down at the girl, his daughter, in bewilderment. She could see in those hazel eyes she had missed so much the conflicting emotions and thoughts battling within him. She pulled his watch from her arm and pushed it into his still extended hand. He took the object, looking it over as though he'd never seen such a thing before.
"What is it?" he asked softly. Alice allowed Jack to help her up so she could move closer.
"It's your watch," she explained. The man shook his head.
"I've never worn a watch," he insisted, looking to her with confused, almost frightened eyes. "We don't need them here."
She tapped a fingernail against the crystal. "It's kind of broken now, but it never really kept good time anyway. Mom gave it to you, so you didn't seem to mind." She took the watch from his hand and slipped it onto her father's wrist, snapping the clasp in place. Something about seeing the watch on his arm made her feel like a wrong had been righted. "There."
Her father looked into her eyes. It was almost like watching a flower bloom, his intense gaze slowly opening like the blossom's petals unfurling. He licked his lips and opened his mouth to speak and she knew what he would say. "Al-"
"Hold it, right there!" came a shout from the patio steps, shattering the spell. The whole party spun to face the interruption as a dozen or more Suits flooded up onto the patio, followed by the sinister Mad March. A gunshot rang out and her father - because he was her father, he did remember her - pulled her against his chest and shielded her with his body against any threat. They were surrounded in an instant, guns pointed at every head. The Suits and assassin were accompanied by the smaller club, Number Nine, as jittery and nervous as ever.
"Are you alright, C-carpenter?" he asked. Alice was shocked when her father stiffened and pushed her away, stepping back from her. She turned to face him and found herself eye to eye with the stranger once more.
"No," she whispered the denial. Not again.
"Fine. They kidnapped me," he explained, gesturing to Caterpillar. "Tried to turn me against the Queen with some cockamamie story about being this girl's father."
When her father motioned towards Alice, Nine's eyes widened. He nodded and hurriedly pulled Carpenter away from the Resistance men. "We have a Scarab waiting," he told the man, leading him from the patio. The girl moved to follow, but a pistol aimed between her eyes stopped her.
"Don't go!" she cried pitifully and was ignored. Her father never even glanced back as he disappeared down the steps.
Mad March chuckled at Caterpillar and the others, which sounded incredibly disturbing in his robotic voice. "I'm a little disappointed. I expected a bit more of a struggle." If he could have smirked with his bunny face, he would have been doing so now.
"I picked up your trail outside the city," he told Jack snidely. "Excuse me, but you weren't that difficult to track." He motioned to the Suits nearest the tall man to seize him. "And the mysterious Caterpillar. Under the old cow's nose all along. She's gonna have to come up with something extra special for you."
Ten's jaw tightened, but he didn't struggle. March moved to stand before him. If not for the long ears, they would have been about even in height. "I've been waiting a long time to bring down the Resistance."
"You'll just have to keep waiting," Caterpillar said. He nodded to Turtle who pulled a small mushroom from his pocket. Before the Suits could stop him, the little man popped the fungus into his mouth and swallowed, disappearing into a puff of blue-green smoke. As many weird things as Alice had seen in Wonderland, that was still pretty impressive and she wasn't the only one startled by it, either. So, they were captured and the ring was back in the hands of the Queen -or would be very shortly, but the Resistance would go on to fight another day.
The rabbit-headed murderer didn't comment on Turtle's escape. With no real face, there was no way to tell what he was thinking, but he appeared unperturbed. Maybe he was glad about the turn of events, as it would allow him to continue hunting and killing, his two favorite things. With Caterpillar in hand, he turned his attention to the emotionally destroyed girl. "Where's Hatter?"
Alice glared at the creature that had once been a monster that had once been a man. Her heart and soul might have been eviscerated, but nothing else had changed. "It'll be a cold day in Hell before I tell you anything," she all but hissed. March moved closer and Alice readied herself for a fight. He was not getting that knife near her throat again. But he just stopped and chuckled once more.
"I'll find him eventually," he promised, unconcerned. Then, with sadistic enjoyment said, "I'd finish what I started, but the Queen wants to take care of you herself. She'll split you wide open with that sword of hers and take your head off like a scythe to wheat. The thing can slice through anything, so maybe it won't even hurt. If you're lucky."
She tried not to react to his words, but the imagery was staggering. It would be the Queen's prerogative to kill Alice herself. And, with the amount of trouble she had cause the monarch, the girl feared it would not be quick and painless, no matter how sharp the blade. Hooking a thumb over his shoulder, March ordered the Suits to lead their prisoners away.
The trip back through the hospital was silent as death, the patients and staff staring at the little procession curiously. As they passed the reception area, Alice stopped in horror. The woman who had been sitting at the desk, playing with her cockroach had either not given Mad March the information he had wanted fast enough or was just unlucky enough to have caught his homicidal fancy. She was dead, pinned to the wall like one of the bugs under glass on her desk. Pens had been driven through her forearms and shins, a letter opener plunged through the center of her chest. The woman's head lolled to the side limply, the phone receiver dangling from its cord wrapped around her neck, eyes open and staring as thickening blood slowly dripped from her now asphyxia-blue lips onto the hospital-blue uniform.
Thankfully, the Suit in charge of the girl dragged her forward, taking the grotesque visage from her sight. Despite her fear of heights, Alice was oh, so grateful to be out of the building, even if it meant standing on the edge of the precipice. The only thing good about being flanked by a small army of Suits was that she didn't have to look at the drop off as they made their way back through the city to where ever the Scarab was waiting to bring them all to the cruel judgment of the Queen of Hearts.
On the outside, the girl's face was stoic and closed off, not wanting to give an inch to her captors and especially not Mad March. Inside, however, she was a black, swirling tumult of emotion. Her father had been so close and was gone again, gone forever now. Her mother would never know what happened to either of them. They'd lost the ring and the Resistance's big opportunity to set Wonderland to rights again. Not to mention she was very likely going to die in a rather horrible way within hours. At least her friends were relatively safe. Hatter would no longer be hunted by the Resistance as he had given up the ring. She didn't even want to imagine how poor Charlie would react upon hearing of her untimely demise. So much for the Alice of Legend.
Hindsight being twenty/twenty, she now understood that she had not followed the Cheshire Cat's advice after all. Going with Jack had been the wrong choice and the girl had known that from the start, but let herself be persuaded anyway. Foolish. It was too late now to change anything, no matter how much she wished it weren't so. Stupid girl. The Suits headed between two buildings, having to thin out into single file. An Ace before her, Mad March at her back, Alice followed obediently. There was nothing else she could do.
"Ya!" For an instant, she thought her mind was playing tricks on her as a horse galloped out of nowhere carrying her knight in shining… leather?
"Hatter!" she cried. "No!" The damned fool! He'd followed her and Jack into the city. With sword flashing in the sickly light of the city, he charged into the group of Aces, slashing at them valiantly. The men were taken unawares and too surprised to even take out their hostered weapons.
"Charlie!" Hatter shouted, but no reinforcement came. The Suits crowded around poor terrified Guinevere and pulled her champion from his steed, taking him hard to the ground. Alice darted forward before she could be restrained, rushing towards the melee. She grabbed the arm of the Suit nearest the edge of the scuffle and yanked it up behind his back, hearing the bone break under her assault. The man yelled in pain, staggering away when she shoved him aside and moved on to the next one.
"Hatter!" She was frantic, wild, throwing herself into the battle with all she had. It wasn't enough.
"Alice!" The girl knew in the back of her mind that Jack and Caterpillar were calling her name, but the only voice she heard was Hatter's. She felt an Ace's jaw dislocate with the force of her strike, but before she could take him down completely, a heavy blow landed on the back of her skull. Flashing white pain washed over her vision and the world tilted wrongly. Her hearing was suddenly muffled, like everything was reaching her ears through a thick wall of cotton. Alice heard Jack shout her name, but much louder she heard a roar of pure bestial fury.
Just before the world went black altogether, Mad March's inhuman voice slipped through her senses. "Well, well. What a nice surprise."
"No," she whispered weakly as the abyss claimed her, unaware that she'd even spoken the word at all. Hatter…
Okay, so... I was disappointed with the Mini's Caterpillar. He's so depressing and apathetic. Seemed more like the Mock Turtle, in my opinion. Plus, how did that little weirdo ever get to Jack in the first place? I thought Caterpillar should be someone more impressive. Hope you guys liked my choice.