Whee new chapter! Strangely enough, this ended up being from Duchess's vague POV as opposed to Cat's. Who knew right? Anyway, it's here and it's random and hopefully it's enjoyable lol.
BTW, I have started a new non-crossover Primeval fic titled "The Surviving." I'm having a love hate relationship with it and wandered if any of you might be willing to fic jump and give me some feedback on it. If you let me know you wandered there from here to comment, I might be willing to offer a drabble request!
Again, nothing might but the fic so blah.
Ch. 3: Of Scarab Rides and Slumbering
Duchess kept a hand on Cat's trembling shoulder as the Scarab lifted off from the Hospital. It hadn't taken as long to prepare her friend as she'd expected. She supposed her Kitty had known the Royal family would call for a Cheshire eventually. And as always, Cat would try to protect the others of her tribe by volunteering for her own personal hell. That selfless reaction had certainly been beaten into her long enough for it to become instinct. Duchess swallowed back the bitterness. Her troubled friend would read it on her easily, and that would only do more to unsettle her. Instead she focused on the easy joy of having her friend beside her, for once without any impending punishment or "lessons" at the hand of the Queen.
They were an unlikely pair of friends, Duchess knew. Jack's surprise would only be shared by the rest of the court. Or, perhaps not. Enough of the ladies had known just what entailed the painful honor of being one of the Queen's "favorites." They might not be surprised that her two "dearest" ladies might have bonded over mutual abuse.
The palace came into view through the front window, and Duchess felt Cat begin to fidget under her hand. The Cheshire shuffled her now slipper clad-feet: slippers that Duchess knew were likely to disappear at any moment. She would have to keep a careful eye on them; in the drafty palace bare feet were not the wisest idea.
"It is silly shoes have to cover one's toes. They don't get to wiggle near as much and feel all bound and shackled." Duchess fought back a grin. Trust her Kitty to read that snippet of a daydream.
"Don't your toes get cold just as much as the rest of your feet?" Cat stopped shuffling for a moment to peer up at her friend through her long eyelashes.
"That's not relevant now is it? Cold and captivity are two entirely different crosses to bare, my dear. Or bear. One is fuzzy and one is heavy, and those are two entirely different…" she trailed off, and shot a glare over at Jack hovering in the corner where Duchess had almost managed to forget about him. "You'd best not be dropping no eaves, young majesty. This is a private conversation. Just me and her and my toeses and no one else's feet were invited." Cat huffed. "Rude."
Duchess managed, through sheer strength of will, to keep herself from laughing out loud at the affronted expression on Jack's face. A few muffled snorts from the pilots and Jack's advisor told her she was not the only one amused by their offended monarch. It was an odd moment: she wouldn't have expected to have anything in common with any of the Queen's Clubs.
"Foolish of her: should know better than to think what they are and what they were are at all together similar." Cat's voice was quiet but the censure was still easy to catch. She sighed before Duchess could respond, and then shook herself all over, ending with a hard toss of her head that sent her curls flying about. She nodded sharply. "That's better. Couldn't- couldn't be all stiff when standing on stones again."
Duchess blinked as the meaning sunk in a bare moment before she realized the Scarab had actually landed. How had she not noticed their descent? She wasn't much more comfortable in the flying vessels than Cat was, and when it came to landings, Duchess was likely even less comfortable. She glanced at her friend and caught a faint grin. The little minx had distracted her. Duchess smiled her thanks, and turned to lead her friend out of the Scarab and onto the palace lawn. Cat started trembling again as her feet touched the ground, and Duchess stroked her shoulder soothingly. At least this had never been one of the Queen's favorite residences; there were fewer bad memories. For either of them.
The sound of someone clearing their throat caught her attention, and Duchess glanced back at Jack almost guiltily. The look on his face was one she was surprised to realize she couldn't read. He didn't give her time to puzzle it out.
"Will she be ready to begin immediately, or-"
"She is ready now, if she must be. Doesn't need to be spoken about when she's right here beside herself, you know." Duchess sighed; her Cheshire's back was up and colliding firmly with Jack's pride. The next few days were liable to be unpleasant if neither one was willing to back down. To her shock, Jack did that very thing.
"My apologies, Cat. I did not mean to offend you." Even more shocking, he seemed honestly sincere. It was unexpected to say the least. "Are you certain you are ready? My guest was attacked during his arrival here. His dreams are likely to be unpleasant."
After a moment of staring through and around the King, Cat nodded slowly, her face carefully blank below her wide eyes.
"I once found many dreams unpleasant, Sire, so I am always prepared for such things. Ask the Alicia- she knows it's so." Duchess sighed at the sound of her real name. Cat tended to use it only when she was at her most emotional. Jack shot her a questioning look and she shrugged helplessly. Cat shrugged as well, and forced a wide toothy grin onto her face. "I am useful again but hardly used all up and left in the midden. I can do this. I can I will I will not be useless." She bounced lightly on her toes.
"So." She glanced sharply at Duchess. "If if if if if I see the stranger may I release the prisoners? Carpet's not near so cool and drafty." She grinned hopefully, but Duchess only raised an eyebrow. Cat deflated with a sigh. "So, slippers on, then." Duchess nodded. "What about the gloves? I could take off the gloves and my fingers would find things to-"
"Not the gloves, Kitty. If you must lose the shoes, so be it. But you know you need the gloves if you're going to stay here a while." Duchess hoped she'd win the argument; she'd all too often seen what Cat could end up doing to herself without the gloves between her sharp little nails and skin. She'd end up clawing herself to pieces in the early stages of withdrawal, and it was not a sight Duchess wanted to ever see again. "Please Kitty. Wear the gloves for me?"
Cat held her hands out in front of her, and surveyed them. For a moment Duchess wished she might have a glimpse of what her friend was thinking, of what she felt about her small gloved hands. Then Cat dropped her hands and folded them carefully into fists, and the moment was gone.
"I'll wear them, Alicia Duchess. I will. I promise." Duchess smiled back at her, and then exchanged a slow look with Jack.
"I think we're ready to meet your guest, Jack. Shall we?"
He nodded stiffly, still un-at ease to Duchess's eyes, but he waved both women forward in his most gentlemanly manner. He led them down one winding hallway and up a flight of spiral stairs to yet another low passageway. Duchess felt some faint amusement at the rambling opulence: this palace was a near perfect depiction of the best of Wonderland's whimsical elegance. She felt another moment of gratitude that the Queen had rarely ventured into this particular palace. She would never have been able to appreciate the loveliness of this place otherwise.
At her side, her young Cheshire friend gamboled about, her earlier nervousness seemingly forgotten for the moment. She scampered back and forth from one side of the hall to another, gazing on this painting or that antique, then skipping back to dance beside Duchess with a wide grin only to cartwheel off again a moment later. Duchess watched indulgently; she could hardly begrudge Cat the fun of the moment. It would be over too quick, she feared.
Sure enough, Jack slowed to a halt in front of a door nearly hidden behind a pair of velvet curtains. Duchess wondered a bit at the secrecy, but a shake of Cat's head warned her away from the question. There was a reason, but apparently it wasn't one she needed to know. Jack removed a key from his pocket, and with one last anxious look over his shoulder at the quivering Cheshire, he opened the door and let them in.
Cat shoved past him with something akin to both glee and terror flickering across her face as she scampered to the edge of the large round bed. She leaned forward carefully, then began to tip toe her way around to the side of the bed closest to the bandaged form.
"Is it this one then?" Jack let out a huff at the question, and Duchess smiled softly. Only Cat would ask that question when there was no one else in the room. Heaven knew she'd find a way to give herself options if one didn't give them to her right from the start.
Cat went back to staring at the unconscious man as if she'd forgotten she'd even asked the question. Then, without so much as a blink of warning, she bounded up over the man and onto the bed on the other side. She twisted her body back around in a movement that made Duchess's back ache just to watch, and finally settled herself cross-legged beside the still form. She dropped her elbows onto her knees and plopped her chin into her hands. Then she went almost totally motionless; only her eyes flickered here and there back and forth, surveying the young man and the air around him. She began to speak softly, and Duchess took a few steps closer, straining to hear what she said.
"Stephen? Stephen… Stephen. Stephen. Stephen. Stephen!" The sudden shout had both Duchess and Jack nearly jumping out of their skin. Once they'd regained their calm, the pair looked back over to the bed to find Cat watching them patiently. Having regained their attention, she grinned. "His name is Stephen. Stephen Hart." Jack let out a heavy sigh of relief.
"Finally, something's going righ-" He was interrupted, rather rudely Duchess had to admit, by the young Cheshire.
"Wrong! No, no, no. Not Heart. Hart. The e gotten lost in translation. He's a Stephen-deer instead of Stephen, dear. Makes you wonder what he's hunting if he's been a hunted hart. Or heart? Definitely one of those two… three?"
Duchess had to bury the urge to laugh again. She wasn't sure which of them were more amusing: Cat, who likely didn't realize just how convoluted she sounded, or Jack, who likely didn't realize his mouth was still hanging open from when his jaw had dropped. She composed herself and took the last few steps to stand on this 'Stephen's' opposite side.
"So we know his name now, Kitty, but that doesn't tell us who his really is…" Duchess trailed off, hoping Cat would catch the hint sometime before Jack gave himself an aneurysm.
"Right! Right. He's not just the Stephen, he's the… he's…" She leaned closer and closer until she was nearly nose to nose with the sleeping figure. "He's… Eep!"
She shrieked suddenly and threw herself backwards, tumbling head over heels off the bed. She landed easily and crept back up to peer over the side.
"That's… that's not a 'wocky!" She eased back onto the mattress, hesitating every other second as if whatever she'd seen might jump out at her. "That's not friendly at all now is it?" She shivered, and patted Stephen on the forehead absently. "You's a lucky lickle not-an-Oyster aren't you? Nearly lost an ear. That would have been tragic. You'd be all unbalanced and-" She stopped and stared back at Duchess almost guiltily. "I'm all off topic again, isn't I? I fix it. I be better. He's just…" She cocked her head and peered at him. "He's awful distracting isn't he?"
Duchess kept a bland expression on her face and buried her reaction to that surprising statement as deeply in her psyche as she could. It was what the Doctor might call a breakthrough, and it was one that Cat must absolutely not read off of her friend. She could not realize she was having any reaction to a male, or else she might run screaming away. That would certainly be awkward to explain to Jack, and as Duchess knew, they really did need some certainty about this cousin. Cat needed to remain as un-distracted as it was possible for her to be. Cat went on babbling quietly to herself, and Duchess allowed herself to relax a fraction. Apparently her friend had missed the slip due to study of Stephen. Jack shuffled his feet at her side, and Duchess realized he might not nearly as patient with Cat as she was.
"Kitty, we need to get back on task, dearest." Jack nodded sharply.
"Exactly. We need to know who he is, who he cares about. We need to know what he wants, what he needs. What… what might convince him to stay once he wakes." Cat swiveled her head around to stare at the King, and then she nodded.
"I understand, Sire. I do, and I look I look again." She settled her chin back on her hands, and was silent for another minute or two, and then inexplicably, she giggled. "Oh my my my my my. We need the Hatter man we do!"
"Excuse me?" Jack appeared perplexed to say the least, and Cat shook her head impatiently.
"Hatter. Hat-ter. Hatter! First name claims is David, previously of Wonderland, presently of Not. The Hatter need him here now please." Cat sat straight up and looked from Duchess to Jack expectantly. "Well?" Jack rubbed the bridge of his nose; his attempt at regal poise finally abandoned in the face of the Cheshire's present demand to fetch one of his least favorite people.
"You need the Hatter. Why, exactly?"
Cat giggled again, and Duchess had the sinking feeling that her friend had something up her sleeves besides the long edges of her gloves.
"Because it'll be fun!"
"Kitty…." At Duchess faint admonishment, Cat rolled her eyes and frowned.
"Because because because! He's… he's the only other Wonderlander who's ever been an Oystery ex-patriot for longer than a few months on their side, and and he had ex-per-i-ence with the long term effects of exile." She closed her eyes and mouthed the words back to herself, and then opened her eyes again with a grin. "Yes, that's it and that's all it shall be. And fun. Hatter's always fun and he has hats and he shares and it'll be lots of fun to watch the Stephen when- Hey! Pillow!"
It was Duchess's turn to gently rub her brow as her friend abandoned her serious expression to dive headlong into one of the multitude of pillows that the sleeping Hart was not using. She snuggled into it, and curled around to face her watchers.
"I can watch him if you need to go. And you need to go to get the Hatter, yes?" Her expression was both expectant and somehow beseeching, and Duchess wondered the look hit Jack as hard as it did her. Apparently so.
"Yes, I suppose we must fetch yon Hatter, then." He straightened his tie and sleeves, and then with a faint tilt of his head to Duchess, he took his leave. Duchess watched the closed door for a moment, then forcibly pulled her eyes away.
"Kitty, I need to arrange for a room for you. Will you be alright here?" She didn't particularly want to leave her friend alone with the stranger, but her task would take far less time if she handled it alone. And, it was painfully clear the Cheshire didn't particularly want to leave. "Kitty?"
"I shall stay I shall." She blinked and smiled up absently at Duchess. "Someone should stay. Me thinks he'll wake sooner than they thinks." Duchess reached across the slumbering form and ran a hand softly over her friend's tangled hair.
"Alright then. I'll be back soon."
As always it makes my day when you enjoy my writing!