A/N – I've always loved Jefferson, he's been my favorite next to Rumple from the moment he appeared on the show. But this insane obsession has started only after ABC gave me a scare with the rumors that they were thinking of recasting Sebastian Stan. Thankfully, that abomination of an idea was dropped, but then they mentioned some huge "Alice in Wonderland" backstory planned for Jefferson (to be shot when our dear Sebby stops being so freaking busy shooting blockbusters in Hollywood) and I was so hyped, I had to write something. "the only strings that hold me here" was a spur-of-the-moment thing, but now I'm so obsessed with the idea of a Jefferson/Alice pairing that I've literally constructed an entire life for my version of Alice. So, the one-shot had become a three-parter (yes, there will be a third installment, I'm working on it) and I have tons of notes and chapter drafts for a novel-length featuring these two as well.
And by now I've grown so attached to "my" Alice that I'll be seriously heartbroken when OUaT writers make their own version of her…
[never knew daylight could be so violent]
(she loves to sleep late in the mornings, grasp desperately at the remains of fading dreams and stay as long as she possibly can in that other world so different from the one she is living in; a strange world, so much madder and so much better and only hers. a world without rules, without pressures and expectations, where one could have tea at any time of the day and come out of their room in their pajamas and be late for dinner without anyone questioning their motives. a world where she could be free. oh, how she wished to escape there, if only for a day. if only for a little bit.)
To most of the people she knew, hers was the image of a perfect life: the only child of a privileged family, happy and never lacking in anything. Ballet lessons when she was five and music school at seven and French and German with private tutors as early as she could read. She had the hands of a concert pianist, they said, and the poise of a ballroom dancer and Grandmama beamed with pride and made her granddaughter's education from a moody, overly introverted child into a refined and proper young lady the most discussed topic in her club.
(and one day she does. she is eleven when it first happens. upset with Grandmama for dragging her from the playground in front of all the other children because she hadn't practiced a full hour for her piano recital before going outside, she stubbornly parades that frilly pink blouse under a pair of jeans overalls and hides herself in her favorite room. the ornate mirror above the massive mahogany fireplace ripples like the surface of a duck pond, continuously ruffled by a nagging breeze. she grins at the prospect of a clever comparison and traces her fingers across its surface. however, she had not expected it would feel like treading water as well. when she looks closer, the looking glass is like a window, a window into the world from her dreams. she's not a particularly adventurous soul, but doesn't hesitate much before scrambling on the top of the fireplace and diving in the mirror lake.)
Still, ordinary life has its routine and she is preoccupied with growing up and trying to execute her own little acts of rebellion. She persuades Papa to buy her a guitar and learns to play a few simple Beatles songs. And Mama tells her she doesn't have to practice ballet anymore if she doesn't want to. And she is slowly blossoming into a girl, with all the proper parts and everything, and she learns how to style her hair prettily and doesn't object as much to dresses anymore and the boys on the street start noticing her and she starts noticing them and she means to ask Mama and Papa if she can switch to a normal school by the start of next term and real life suddenly seems so much more bearable. It's almost good. It's almost enough.
But Grandmama puts a stop to that fantasy. Guitar would ruin her fingers, she says, and jazz is vulgar as it is, and that was the end of that. The thought of leaving that dreadful boarding school doesn't even cross her mind anymore.
She is still growing up, though, her emotions are tumultuous and her moods shifty and she pulls back into herself, pushing the outside world away and nipping in the bud the tentative friendships she had formed. To others, she comes off as conceited and uppity and often ends up being the butt of all pranks and jokes. So she goes back to her imaginary world, disappearing into it more and more often.
(and she finds Him there. he is always there. her white knight in purple silk and fitted leather with a sly grin and a jaded look in his pale, pale eyes that might just be slightly mad, yet no noble king or prince charming could make her heart flutter the way he does.)
On the night of her graduation party the rising tension in her family finally reaches its peak. She pretends she doesn't hear anything, just like she learned to do over the years. The rising voices mingle with the tune she's humming absentmindedly while arranging her curls around a pretty, jeweled headband her favorite aunt had gifted her, and re-tying the silver ribbon in the waist of her royal blue chiffon dress. When she comes down, everyone smile and pretend she isn't aware of what's been going on. She smiles back and acts her part as well, choosing not to notice the scowl lines around Mama's tight-lipped smile or that Papa's polished off nearly half a bottle of scotch already. The guests arrive soon and she is swept away by a tidal wave of hugs and congratulations, flowers and best wishes and how-are-you-feeling's and what-are-you-going-to-do-next's, she barely notices Mama and Papa are leaving. The next ring of the doorbell brings two men in uniforms. They offer condolences instead of congratulations, and her line of thought breaks and everything goes black.
(she curls up on the turquoise-spotted cap of a gigantic mushroom for what feels like hours. there is a dull ache somewhere inside of her, a nauseating sensation coursing through her entire body and coming to pulsate annoyingly in her temple. he compliments her dress upon appearing, eyes bright and his trademark smirk plastered across his face. she has no strength to pretend anymore so she shuts off his questions by pressing her lips to his. and his mouth is so warm and wonderfully eager against hers she loses herself for a moment, and that's wonderful too because she just wants to forget.)
She often remembers that particular kiss, even though there were many more to follow. His initial surprised hesitation, his passionate response, the way his large hands spread across her back and pressed her firmly against him. She is still amazed, sometimes, at her own audacity. It's a memory that always makes her smile, despite the conditions it was made in. It's a memory that sneaks up to her at moments least expected and warms her up from the inside as she burrows deeper into an abandoned rabbit's warren while troops of crimson clad soldiers scour the land which is not hers after all.
(the forest has a rich, earthly smell and she breathes in deeply. the ground is soft under her feet, the leaves rustle in the breeze and the late-summer sun breaks through the thick branches spilling brilliant golden spotlights all over. it is so much like back home but at the same time not at all and as he closes in on her and mumbles endearments into her hair she breathes him in along with the forest and promises she'll follow wherever he leads, for always. his smile had never been wider and she'd never felt happier in her life.)
It takes time to get used to horseback riding and candlelight and showering with a cloth and bucket, but she makes do, with a smile and a spark of mischief in her eyes. After a while, she almost believes it herself this is where she truly belongs. Even so, she never even entertains the thought of having a family with children of her own one day, never thought herself quite ready or capable for such a commitment, up until a distinct feeling of nausea in the mornings and several fainting spells inform her they are going to become one. His unfeigned excitement is all the encouragement she needs, though. After years of being patronized and treated as an incompetent child, she finally feels she could take over the world with him by her side. And as the nights grow colder and she reclines in front of the fire in the evenings, her back against his chest, her nose pressed to his neck, their hands meeting on her swollen belly, she grows ever more certain this could last forever.
(the mirror lake she had come through, the one she had always been coming through, is now a dry well filled with jagged, razor-edged shards and sparkly dust. a white rabbit in an impeccable waistcoat clicks its tongue at the state of her dress and ushers her into his rabbit hole and when she climbs out on the other side, sore and aching all over, her thighs slick with blood again, she is kneeling under an old birch tree in her old garden, the lights of the manor flickering in front of her eyes. she collapses on the meticulously mown grass heaving, her sobs choking and violent and ugly and she briefly wonders at how her tears haven't dried out yet as she fades gently away into unconsciousness.)
She wakes up in a hospital.
Alright, she thinks, it is only for a few days, a week maybe, until she regains enough strength to be able to look after herself. But when she answers Grandmama's questions with stories of an enchanted forest, a wondrous world at war, a little baby girl and a man with an oversized hat and tears in his eyes, she finds herself moved to a slightly more specialized ward by the end of the week.
Most of her former acquaintances think it is sad. Poor, traumatized girl getting lost in her head and pretending she lived in a book whose main character she was named after to escape the harsh reality.
But she knows it was real. That's all that matters.
(she begs them to take her home. even though it's not her real home, it's a home she can go back to her real home through. and as soon as possible please because the rabbit had said the clocks are going in reverse now and she is still trying to make sense of it because she was not quite fit to fully comprehend back then and the only thing she knows for certain is that she is running out of time. but one day, Grandmama tells her the old mansion is scheduled for demolition and it breaks her down in such a manner she finally gives them reason to think her insane.)
Eventually, she starts agreeing with everything they say. After a while, pretending again comes to her almost as a second nature. Stress due to her parents' tragic accident, delusions caused by hallucinogenic drugs, a messed up, promiscuous life on the road, anything that will fit the diagnosis. But that's all over now, she assures them with serene gazes and warm smiles that almost look real. She left that kind of life behind and is now finally ready to start anew. All the medication they've been pumping her with help cloud her mind enough for her to deny everything she used to believe in and stay indifferent about it.
(but at nights, she lies awake and lets loose all the trembles and whimpers she kept in check during daytime, squeezing her eyes shut and desperately wishing to wake up to the sound of songbirds and wafting flowery fragrances in place of a high-pitched buzz of the alarm clock and big city traffic jams, a pair of warm arms wrapped tightly around her instead of cold cotton sheets.)
She spends years and years constructing a new life for herself, determined to act normal, to fit in, to be a good girl and play along as long as it leaves her free to spend every spare moment of her time searching and researching, studying and investigating and always – always looking for a way back. In some of her darker moments, though, she fears she is to blame for her continuous lack of success. Maybe the portals opened only if she believed enough and even though she did believe, she kept pretending she didn't in front of everyone else and it made her anxious with the thought that maybe, maybe, in her effort to escape another trip to the loony bin, she had unconsciously condemned herself to never finding another portal again.
(she looks for portals in her dreams as well, but the images of her imaginary land don't come to her anymore the way they used to when she was a child. now she dreams only of razor sharp blades and dirt on her peach colored dress and the sound of His sobs as he stumbles away from her with their baby in his arms night after night. she wakes up sweaty and shivering like she did that day and looks for a rabbit's warren to hide into until the dawn breaks.)
It's always hard when you're doomed to love a memory, but it's even harder when there's no physical evidence that he ever existed, when everyone around you try to persuade you he was not real at all, to the extent of even making you question it yourself. And she curses the laziness and disinterest of her childhood for not putting more effort into those drawing lessons because memory is treacherous and some things are already fuzzy and fading and she is terrified out of her wits of waking up one day and realizing she can't be certain whether his eyes are the color of winter sky or rather a delicate laurel green, or being unable to replicate the exact shape and intensity of his crooked smirk in her mind's eye.
(but after a while, her dreams came back to her. only, they are more like disjointed memories, altered to fit into the reality she decided to live in her head. he is forever unchanged, the rogueish conman with a heart full of her and the tempered young man he had started to become all rolled into one as he'd chase after a little girl – sometimes all bouncy curls and elfish features and pale eyes bright with mischief, sometimes demure and doe-eyed, bashful rather than bold, sometimes Adela or Adrianna or Ava – and she would chide them for stepping on her flower beds again. in the evenings she would sing to them and he would tell tales of his daring adventures in other realms that grew slightly different with each subsequent telling. and at nights, he'd slip under the covers behind her with the stealth of a ghost, a skill she'd rather not know how he perfected, always succeeding in not waking her when his job took him away from home until well into the night, so that in the morning she would wake up to tickling kisses and the sound of a child's delighted laugh.)
Such intense mixing of fantasy and reality leads her into a perpetual sort of daze so when she actually stumbles into the familiar environment of fluorescent plants and riddle-talking animals one day, she is almost too distracted to realize what had happened. She follows a bouncing flurry of grey and white, but when the rabbit finally pays her enough attention for her to talk to him, she suddenly wishes she'd never even found this portal at all.
"There's no Enchanted Forest anymore. Everything is gone. The curse destroyed them all."
"But… I came back," she whispers in a broken voice.
"Late, late, so late…" the rabbit continues its chant without sparing her a second glance and hops away.
She falls to her knees and weeps, the tiniest inklings of hope she still held on to through the years now completely gone.
(and he'd hold her so tightly, like he always did, so that there was no space between their bodies at all, as if they were one being instead of two. and she'd thread her fingers through his thick, soft hair and his kisses would be like fire: wild and intense and passionate but he'd whisper to her so softly and tenderly, like he did when he told her he loved her for the first time, while they laid naked in each other's arms, their bodies glowing in the setting sun, and he looked so young and peaceful and innocent and so much like the boy he was.)
"Plotting an escape route?" she inquired idly as a man suddenly ran past her down the fire escape, just as she stepped out for a smoke. Not even moving to a whole different country could keep her mind from seeing billowing coats and wild grins thriving on the thrill of the chase in every running man she met.
"Sorry. I was just curious. I've never lived this high up before," the stranger offered an awkward smile and held out a hand. "Neil Cassidy. I've just moved in the apartment directly above yours."
She flicked the cigarette stub across the railing and shook the offered hand. "Nice to meet you, Neil. I'm Alice."
to the crowd I was crying out and
in your place there were a thousand other faces
I was disappearing in plain sight
heaven help me, I need to make it right
Florence + The Machine – No Light, No Light