As promised for this week: here's another chapter! (OK.. so yes it's a day late. Had a crazy weekend and didn't have time to edit, and then work was hell.) Still.. it's here, enjoy. I hope!

And hey look: we haz a Stephen all woke up!

Chapter 5: Of Waking and Disbelief

Stephen blinked warily, but the blinding grin hovering over him didn't disappear. What the hell had happened and who the bloody hell was the tiny thing with the massive eyes? She was making him more than a little uncomfortable what with the staring and the smiling like a lunatic. She wasn't the only thing making him uncomfortable, he realized; the more conscious he seemed to be, the more every inch of him seemed to hurt - the pain culminating with what felt like a knife in his right shoulder. The knife twisted with a flare of pain, as if acknowledging it had suddenly made the wound that much worse.

"She knows it hurts but Alicia Duchess and the doctor, neither Dee nor Dum don't worry, will return soon as soon with something to ease that nasty not-a-wocky bite. They will," the stranger said, in what he guessed was supposed to be a reassuring tone. Oddly enough, it might have been, assuming he knew who the Duchess was, or the doctor for that matter. The names "Dee" and "Dum" tugged at his memory, but between the pain and confusion he couldn't grasp the recognition before it slipped away again.

"Where…" he coughed, the attempt to speak failing pretty miserably. The young woman seemed to know what he meant to say though, and she answered. Or, likely thought she answered, but in reality her words were just nonsense.

"You're in Wonderland, my Hart-dear. In a room all private-like in the Heart-King's castle." She nodded, as if anything of that meant anything to him. "Oh! I forgot to introduce myself. It's just rude, isn't it? Sorry, sorry. Cat Cheshire, I am. Pleased to meet you, Stephen, Stephen Hart."

Wonderland? Speaking of nonsense… He sighed and let his eyes close in annoyance, wondering again just where he actually was, and why he'd been left in the care of a mental ward patient. One who apparently thought herself to be a character in Lewis Carroll's book. At least she seemed to be one of those sweet and almost endearing crazy folk instead of a violent lunatic. Still, violent or not, he wasn't likely to get a straight answer out of the self-proclaimed Cheshire Cat.

He opened his eyes and looked up to find the young woman looking at him with something like shame. What could have possibly set that off in her eyes, he wondered? She nibbled her lips and seemed to be struggling for words.

"I… I knows I'm not always easy to understand. I knows it." She wrapped her arms around herself and seemed to start off into the space just above him. "But I'm not lying, Stephen-deer. You are in Wonderland. Fell through a rabbit hole before the not-a-wocky could fell you like a tree."

She shifted her gaze back down to him, her eyes as wide as ever, but this time her gaze seemed to implore him for belief. She absolutely believed what she was telling him, he realized, and also seemed to know without a doubt that she was crazy, and yet still thought she was telling him the truth. Damned if he knew what to make of her.

"Can I… water? Please?" He gave up his attempt to question her for at least a moment. His voice was just too ragged to try. At his request, the woman, Cat he reminded himself wryly, sat up straighter and glanced around the room looking for water or so he guessed. She seemed to find something because she suddenly leapt off the bed and out of his line of sight. She returned with a pitcher and a glass held carefully between her hands as if she were a child afraid to drop what she carried. She set them on a table he hadn't noticed by the bed and then turned back to look at him, her teeth worrying at her lip again.

"I don't think you can drink it like that, my deer. Me thinks you need to sit up some, can you sit?" She didn't wait for him to answer, which was probably for the best as now that he thought about it, he wasn't actually sure he had enough strength to move on his own. "It's alright. We has pillows. Lots and lots and lots of pillows. They'll help you. Yes they will."

She leaned over and around him, and then with a strength he never could have expected from such a diminutive frame and a gentle care he wouldn't have expected from someone as easily distracted as he'd expect her to be, she managed to maneuver him up from laying flat to sitting almost all the way up, his torso propped up on God only knew how many pillows. Much to his surprise and grateful admiration, Cat managed it all without ever jarring his injured shoulder. Crazy she might be, but clearly she had some competence buried under the manic.

She poured a little water from the pitcher into the glass, brow furrowed as she did so, as if trying with all her might to keep from making a mess. She set the pitcher back down, and lifted the cup with both hands before bringing it to him. He managed to reach out to help her bring the cup to his lips with his left hand and took a few tentative sips of the water. He scowled a little when he pulled the cup away and saw just how badly his hand shook. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this weak and helpless…

"Yes you can, silly deer. After the ugly bug with too many legs." It was a lucky thing Cat was helping him hold the cup, because at her words, he nearly dropped the bloody thing. How the hell had she known about the Arthropleura? The deaths of the subway workers had been buried in the news or so Lester had assured them. And the fact that he'd been injured down there too had never even made it to the papers. That was the whole point in "secret government facility."

"Who told you about that?" He struggled to keep the fear and anger out of his voice as he demanded her answer. Stephen didn't want to scare the unstable young woman, but he had to know. Was there another leak in the ARC's operation? Where the hell was he? Had Helen dragged him here? Panic and helplessness began to rise in him, and frantically he tried to push himself up higher, groaning as the movements sent pain roaring through his shoulder. Gentle hands held him steady and carefully pushed him back down onto his tower of pillows. He opened eyes he hadn't realized he shut in pain and saw Cat staring down at him again, this time with something like regret.

"I can tell you hows I knows but you won't believe it yet. Is not what you worries, though. The Helen Cutter harpy isn't here and if she was, I wouldn't let her near you. Not now, not ever." She patted his hair softly, the gesture contrasting sharply with the sheer venom that had entered her voice when she spoke of Helen. Not one of his old flame's minions then, he decided with both relief and a little disappointment. He hadn't really believed Helen would have been the one to rescue him, but a small part of him still wished she'd cared enough to do so. Cat dropped her hand away as his thoughts turned to Helen and shook her head. "Don't be a foolish lickle fawn. You knew it wasn't her. Don't be thinking such thoughts now; only make the hurting worse as worse later on."

"I…" he trailed off and looked away, unable to stand the knowing in her wide green eyes. "Just tell me where I am. Please."

She shook her head and then shook all over as if something long-legged and disgusting had just crawled up her spine. She poured another little bit of water into the glass and helped him to sip again, keeping silent all the while. He let her. Stephen wasn't sure what the hell the woman was, but unless he was more drugged than he actually felt and was rambling all of his thoughts out loud… there was just no way she should know what she did. She just wasn't like anything he understood. He thanked her quietly after he finished drinking, and she smiled that bright grin again, as if he'd buried her in compliments instead of offering basic courtesy.

"You are in Wonderland, you are," she suddenly said into the silence, and for a moment, he forgot he'd actually asked her the question. She'd just given him the same answer though, and for a moment, frustration crept forward again. Cat kept talking though, and didn't give him the space to argue. "You'll know when you knows, and for now we both knows you can't rightly understand me and don't believe I'm sane enough to know my answers and that's plenty rude but I understand the way the worldly world looks right now to you. What with waking to a room and bed and Cat who isn't your's. But once you're up and about and have a different perspective on the room and the 'Land, things'll make a bit more sense me thinks." She patted his hand, and nodded briskly. "That or Duchess will explain. She does that best of all, better than me by halves and thirds at least she does."

Stephen let out a pained chuckle at the no-nonsense tone in which she'd said such an utterly nonsensical statement. Then he laughed outright as he realized the nonsense had actually had a strange sort of clarity to it. He shook his head, wincing as the movement pulled sharply against the wound in his shoulder.

"Well, I might not think you're all that san e, Miss Cheshire, but you make a strange sort of sense. That or we're just both mad as a Hatter."

To his surprise, she didn't look insulted or even amused by the comment, instead she just looked a little confused.

"But Hatter isn't mad at all. He's awfully sneaky sometimes and his logic's a bit faulty for a Wonderlander but his Just-Alice thinks he's pretty and smart and her's." She shook her head again, her expression earnest. "Hatter's nice, he is. Not crazy, no he's not. No more than the rest of us he is."

Stephen stared a little aghast. A Hatter and an Alice, along with the aforementioned Cheshire Cat and King of Hearts. Did they all really believe they were characters in the book? God help him, this was even more over his head than he'd thought. Now what the hell was he in for?

The young woman seemed to prepare herself to speak again, but before she could, there was a faint knock at the door, and it opened to reveal one of the most singularly stunning women he'd seen in a very long time.

"Kitty are you-oh he's awake!" The blonde vision entered and flashed a smile that was almost as blinding as Cat's had been, if a great deal more sane. She came over to set a hand on Cat's shoulder and the shorter woman beamed up at her.

"See Alicia Duchess, I said he'd been waking and he did and he's awake now. He knows his name is Stephen, but he doesn't believe in Wonderland. I told him you'd explain it better. You will, yes?"

"Of course, though.. perhaps it would be best to wait for Jack and Hatter?"

"So there actually is a Hatter?" Stephen couldn't resist asking, wondering if she was as mad as Cat apparently was. The decidedly cool look and the almost protective way the taller woman wrapped her arm carefully around Cat's shoulders kept him from teasing any further.

"Yes, indeed there is. You may call me Duchess, Mr. Heart. And just to make things clear: you are, in fact, in Wonderland." Duchess straightened to her full height at the words, poised and regal and clearly convinced of her superior knowledge compared to that of the ignorant commoner.

That attitude instantly put his back up. Stephen wanted to argue, wanted to tell the woman she was lying through her teeth, or just as crazy as the next Cat.

Duchess just stared back at him over Cat's head, every inch of her daring him to do just that.