Drum-roll! I know all of you have been waiting for this one's appearance, hehe. Thanks again to those who reviewed the previous chapter!

Chapter IV: A Pretty Girl in a Very Wet Dress

It had been a very long time since Hatter had indulged in any of the emotional elixirs he peddled to the Wonderland populace on a daily basis. He preferred to keep his emotions, Wonderland bred and feeble as they were, tethered close. He knew, perhaps better than anyone, how dangerously addictive human emotions could be. The young man fashioned teas laced with heady cocktails of lust and passion, bliss and calm, confidence and self-importance. His customers soaked up those combinations swifter than sponges soaked up water. They always came crawling back to the Tea House with their palms held outward, begging for more.

They never lasted long, those manufactured emotions. It was a quick, colorful fix for a society languishing in the emotional gray zone. The intensity of the experience and the short duration kept him in business. But he had no wish to become as pathetically dependent upon stolen emotions as his patrons.

He was under no illusion that he was some kind of a saint. He knew full well these emotions were siphoned from people who had been abducted and stripped of their memories, their self-awareness, and their will. He tried not to dwell on it. There was nothing he could do about their plight. He had a head to keep upon his shoulders, yes he did. Self-preservation was one of the few emotions Hatter was intimately familiar with.

The absurd part about the whole situation was that Wonderland natives were perfectly capable of feeling just as intensely as any non-Wonderland native. Unfortunately, it was not an ability which came so naturally or easily to them. The pure essence of an emotion was normally trapped within a net of twisted, nonsensical Wonderland logic. It normally took something quite extraordinary to evoke true, pure emotions from a Wonderlander. And, well, not many people were willing to wait around for a thing like that. It was far quicker and easier to just tap into the emotions of beings which were usually ruled by feelings.

Instant gratification; it was an easy choice for most to make.

It was abhorrent, but it provided a comfortable living for Hatter. It afforded him access to the finest teas Wonderland had available. Regular tea had become all but obsolete once the emotion-spiked teas came onto market. It was such a pity, in his opinion. The potent emotions siphoned from those ill-fated oysters polluted the taste of tea. And there were few things Hatter enjoyed more than sitting back in his comfortable chair and sipping on a cup of simple, unadulterated tea.

To top it off, while the queen of Wonderland believed him to be a loyal servant through doling out the drugs by which she kept her people under control, at the same time he was in cahoots with the faction of Wonderlanders who did not subscribe to this instant gratification ideal. Hatter had been working with the Resistance for quite a long time. He supplied them with food rations, supplies, weapons, and invaluable information. A double agent, some would call him. He supposed the term was fitting.

As it was, even he was not certain where his complete allegiance belonged. For the most part, he sympathized with the Resistance, but he always figured he would play both sides till the opportune moment, and then throw his lot in with the side which had the greatest chance at victory. He knew very well it was not an admirable plan. In fact, it was quite despicable. But, as mentioned before, self-preservation was always a high priority for Hatter. If he had had even the slightest inkling that all his plans were to go belly-up very soon, he would have thrown that damned rat-catcher out of his office the moment the malodorous creature walked in. Whatever deities there were (if there were such), they must have had one ironic sense of humor.

Ratty, as everyone called him (the man's real name had been lost to irrelevance), had claimed to have fished an oyster out of one of the putrid canals which flowed into the city. Not just any oyster, mind you. This oyster happened to be the Alice of Legend!

"Really? She told you that?" Hatter had asked skeptically.

The rat-catcher had shuffled his feet and conceded, sheepishly, that the girl had actually just said her name was Alice. He told Hatter the girl had pulled herself out of the canal after claiming to have escaped from the Scarab, which had just brought in a fresh shipment of oysters. She was looking for someone, a man who had been kidnapped and brought here, to Wonderland.

Escaping from the Scarab was an impressive feat, even by Hatter's standards. Oysters which were brought here were usually drugged and catatonic, to put it decently. Even when one did awake, there was often so much disorientation and confusion that he or she would barely be capable of lucid thought, let alone planning an escape. What, he wondered, was so special about this oyster that she was able to defy all those carefully constructed restrictions? At that initial, but critical, moment his interest had been piqued. He told Ratty to bring her in.

After Ratty left to fetch the oyster, Hatter settled himself in his high-backed white chair, swinging it around to face away from the entrance to his domain. He splayed his fingertips together as he contemplated how he would handle this meeting. An oyster running amok in Wonderland was a dangerous commodity. He would be risking his position on both sides by merely having her here, not to even mention helping her.

Further deliberation halted once she walked into his office. He did not even have to hear their soft footsteps upon the dirt pathway to know the rat-catcher had brought her in. He could feel the turbulence of her potent emotions radiating from her like the heat from a bonfire. He had not had much occasion to be around oysters, as they were all cooped up in the Happy Hearts Casino. The last oyster he had been in the vicinity of had been years ago, and that pitiful sod had been just about sucked dry of all his emotions. Hatter had shuddered at the way the man had stared blankly ahead, his mouth hung agape with a tendril of drool dangling from it. Therefore, he was unprepared for the effect a free oyster would have on him.

The rush from her riotous mixture of feelings was intoxicating to Hatter. There was confusion, revulsion, annoyance, and guilt there in spades. He could sense fear, but not as much as he thought he would. In fact, most of the fear she felt seemed directed elsewhere, as if it were not herself she feared for. Stifling the fear for herself was an unimaginable amount of courage and self-confidence. This was one brazen girl; borderline reckless, it seemed. There was also a heaping load of curiosity.

"Would you like a cup of tea?" he offered, keeping his chair facing the back wall.

A few seconds ticked by with no reply. There was a surge in the girl's confusion and annoyance. Finally, he heard her say, "Uh, no, thank you." Then, a few seconds later, "Who are you?" Her voice had a pleasant cadence to it, even if it did sound supremely irritated.

He swiveled his chair around to face her. "A friend," he replied suavely. "I hope."

The first thing to come to Hatter's shrewd mind was something really inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. Nevertheless, his mind seemed to think it was of paramount importance.

His first observation was that the girl was absolutely gorgeous.

She was a little thing, but exquisitely molded with strong, supple limbs and a peerless complexion. In its current wet state, the blue dress she wore clung to her body in a most attractive fashion. Graceful curves sprouted out from underneath a narrow waist. Her legs were encased within some type of leggings of the most unusual pinkish-red color, but they did not hide how well-toned and shapely those lower limbs were. She wore purple, buckled boots, which seemed to complete the outfit in spite of their curious color. Her dark hair hung limp and damp down past her dainty, white shoulders.

Her vivid blue eyes narrowed at him, shrewdly assessing him. Hatter only wished he could read her mind as well as her emotions. On second thought, he was glad he could not read her mind. She did not appear to be thinking kind thoughts about him.

Ratty pulled the red scarf off of the girl's right arm, unveiling the telltale green insignia etched on the tender white skin there. She snatched her arm away from the man in annoyance.

Meanwhile, Hatter rose from his chair, telling the girl, "I run the teashop." He walked over to his desk and leaned against it.

"How did you break out of the Scarab?" he inquired.

"What, the beetle thing?" the girl asked. "I, ah, used my hairpin to trip the latch and, well, I..." She waved her arms around as if that gesture alone could convey what had occurred afterward. Luckily, Hatter was able to surmise for himself what must have happened. It did not take a brilliant master of deduction to infer that, from the state of the girl's clothes and hair, she had taken a rather impromptu dip in the lake.

"Fell," Hatter remarked, failing to keep the note of intrigue from his tone. A hairpin was all it took for her freedom? The girl was resourceful, too, he thought to himself. Bugger it all if he was not starting to admire her.

The girl nodded curtly. "Dropped is more like it. I let myself drop. And, as you can see, I'm drenched."

Hatter could indeed see that. He could see that very well.

The girl shivered a little. Whether it was from cold or distaste, he could not tell. Probably both, he decided.

"This place...it's so...what the hell is this place?" she demanded, sounding very distressed all of a sudden.

"Oh, this is Wonderland," Hatter replied matter-of-factly.

The girl gaped at him for a few moments before shaking her head in disbelief. She even laughed a little bit, as if everything was all some cosmic joke and she had just discovered the punch-line. "Oh haha, that's hilarious. And I'm guessing you're the Mad Hatter, judging by that hat on top of your head."

"Yep," Ratty interjected knowingly. "That's Hatter!"

The girl looked from the rat-catcher to Hatter, who stood with his arms crossed, a stoic expression upon his face. Her eyes grew as wide as saucers as the truth sank in. "Oh, come on! This can't be Wonderland. That's a...it's nothing but a kid's story," she sputtered weakly, shaking her head. "Oh Jesus, it all makes sense now." The girl slapped her forehead and groaned.

"Does this look like a kid's story to you?" he asked sardonically.

"No," she said in resigned agreement. "This world is nothing like a kid's story. Well, at least nothing I would let my kids read if I had any."

Hatter plucked a magnifying glass from his desk and sauntered over to where the girl stood. "It's changed a lot since that book was written," he told her conversationally.

"What, so you're saying that book was real? I mean, that the events actually happened?" The girl stared at him in confounded incredulity.

Hatter nodded as he approached her. "You oysters don't know how to find us." He gently lifted up her arm with an "Excuse me" to inspect the thick green scrawl on her skin with the magnifying glass. "You tell yourselves we don't exist and, quite frankly, I'd like to keep it that way."

She yanked her arm back. "Okay, please explain to me this whole oyster deal. Why do you and this guy keep calling me that?"

She looked down at her forearm, her brow furrowed. Gesturing to the green mark there, she said, "What, is it this that makes me an oyster? I don't get it."

Hatter smiled apologetically. "Yes, that's not going to come off, I'm afraid. Only people from your world turn green when burned by the light. It's the Suits' way of branding their catch," he informed her.

She groaned, giving her forearm a dismal look.

Walking back to his desk to return the magnifying glass to its place, Hatter continued speaking. "And they call you oysters because of the shiny little pearls you all carry inside."

The girl frowned in confusion. "And just what are these pearls?"

Ratty, who may have been feeling as if he had been forgotten (which may have been true on Hatter's end), seemed to decide it was time for him to join in on the dialogue. "But she's Alice!" he insisted to Hatter.

"Tell him who yeh are!" he urged the girl eagerly.

Ah and here is the heart of the matter. Just who is this girl? Hatter did not believe she was the fabled Alice of Legend at all. He did not know much about the world the oysters hailed from, but he knew Alice was likely to be a fairly popular name for girls. The girl's name was probably nothing more than a coincidence.

"Wow! Really!" he piped in feigned wonder. He circled this proposed Alice of Legend, stealing a glance at her lovely, firm backside as he did so. Alice, the legendary one or not, did not seem to notice that bit. But she did eye him warily as he walked around her. There was danger lurking in her gaze.

Settling himself next to Ratty, he clapped the man on the back. "Ratty here thinks you're Alice...of Legend."

"Let me guess, she's the kid from the story," the girl said dryly.

Poor Ratty. Got his hopes up over nothing.

"The last time a girl called Alice came here from your world she brought down the whole house of cards, she did. Made quite an impression," Hatter explained, walking back over to face the girl.

The girl, Alice, snorted. "Right. Yeah, I think I'd remember something like that. Also, I'm not a blonde, as you can see."

Hatter shrugged. "Oh, and can't forget the most important detail. It was over 150 years ago. So, I hate to break it to you, Ratty, but it can't be the same girl. Oysters don't live that long."

Ratty deflated somewhat at that revelation, but not entirely. "I still want a good price," he said.

Hatter felt a wave of Alice's indignant fury wash over him. "Hey! I am not for sale!" she snapped.

He held up a finger to silence her, which, oddly enough, seemed to work for the time being. Ratty's smell was starting to offend his olfactory senses a bit too much for the time the man had been in his office. He wanted to send him on his way, and, if paying for this Alice not of Legend was the way to do it quickly, so be it.

Why are you doing this, you daft git? a voice inside questioned. The girl's only going to be trouble for you. There's no reason for you to help her. The voice, which may have been Common Sense, was correct. (Hatter was probably one of the few Wonderlanders to actually possess Common Sense. Without it, he would not have survived nearly as long as he had.) There was no reason for Hatter to help this wayward oyster. There was a veritable legion of reasons to send her packing along with Ratty. His rationale was inexplicable. In fact, there was no rationale in what he was doing. He could not adequately explain to himself why he felt not only willing to help this girl, but felt almost obliged to help her.

Hatter did not consider himself to be without pity or compassion. But that still would not justify him literally putting his neck on the line for a girl he had met only minutes before. He was attracted to her, no doubt there. What straight male in his right mind would not be attracted to her, especially in that scintillating wet blue dress? There had been other women before her he had been attracted to, and he certainly had not risked himself to help them with their problems for little personal gain. So, what was it about her that made him feel compelled to help her?

It's the emotions, he decided. Hatter had reveled in the taste of her emotions as they wafted over him. She probably had no idea how much her feelings blazed forth from her every pore. Wonderland natives had senses which were far more delicate than the average non-Wonderland native. Hatter's senses were probably keener than most others'. Certainly the bottom feeders outside his office clamoring for more emotional quick-fixes would have senses dead to all but their drugs. It was no wonder the girl had been able to waltz into the Tea House virtually undetected. It was ironic when he thought about it. The teas never had the purest form of emotions, and Hatter made a point to dilute the elixirs before they hit the market, so to speak. Here was an oyster who had all the purest emotions a tea-junkie could ever wish for, and he would probably never know it without seeing the mark.

Thus far, Hatter had received overwhelmingly negative emotions from Alice. It was no surprise, considering the girl was in a foreign world which made little sense to her and had just escaped imprisonment. She was lost, confused, and angry. She was desperately worried about this person, this man who had been taken from her. If Hatter lent his aid, he might be able to turn some of those negative emotions into positive ones. The distrust he sensed from her especially wounded him, though he knew she had every right to withhold her trust. He would not trust himself were he to be in her position. And, yet, he wanted her to trust him. He wanted her to feel it was safe to depend on him. If she trusted him, it would pave the way to other, more positive emotions he could feast upon.

In the meantime, Hatter had a rank-smelling rat-catcher to appease. He strolled over to the shelves at the back of his office where he kept a special collection of elixirs for exactly the same reason he was using it now. Ratty had started to follow him, but the teashop owner immediately snapped at him to keep off his grass. After a few moments of consideration, Hatter selected a bottle with a dark pink liquid swirling inside.

"Here we are!" he chimed. He held the bottle up for the enthusiastic rat-catcher to see. The man beamed excitedly. Alice merely frowned. Hatter was starting to think that was her permanent expression. That was a pity, for he thought her beauty would be better served by cheerful smiles.

"Mmmm," he said theatrically, waving the bottle around. "Pink nectar filled with a thrill of human excitement. Fifty oysters were drained of every last drop of hullaballoo that you, Ratty, can now taste. Now you can know what it feels like to win just once."

Ratty was practically drooling. His eyes followed the bottle as Hatter continued to swing it about in the air in front of him. He made a grab for it, but the younger man drew it back out of reach.

"Warning," Hatter said gravely. "Don't take it on an empty stomach and only one little tiny drop at a time. Otherwise the experience might burst your shriveled-up old heart. Got it?"

"Got it," Ratty said, practically drooling.

"Good." Hatter let the man have the bottle. "Now get out of here."

As Ratty scampered out of the room with his prize, Hatter shook his head in disgust. He sniffed his hand with a grimace. "He really smells."

Alice, meanwhile, was staring at him with a most dreadful expression upon her face. He really wished the girl would lighten up. "Oysters were drained? What the hell does that mean?"

For some reason, Hatter felt a shiver of fear from the tone of her voice. He had no idea what he could ever have to fear from a girl as petite as Alice, but something told him he should not underestimate her. He had a distinct feeling she would not care for the answer to her question, and he did not wish to be on the receiving end of her displeasure, especially when it was something which was not his fault. So, he opted for a change in subject.

"Ratty tells me you're looking for someone," he said. He walked over to his desk, feeling the need for a strong cup of tea.

His evasive maneuver did the trick. Hatter felt the suspicious rage recede to be replaced with anxious interest.

"Yes. Jack Chase. He was taken by a man with a white rabbit on his lapel and these guys in dark suits. I ran after him and those bastards tried to shoot me, but, well, long story short, I ended up here," she told him.

Hatter drew in a deep breath. If this Jack Chase had been taken by the White Rabbit, then he felt rather confident he knew where the man had ended up. There was only one place the oysters caught by the White Rabbit were taken to. It was not a place which was easy to get into, and it was a place which, as far as Hatter knew, was inescapable. The girl's situation looked grim.

"Well, the White Rabbit is an organization controlled by the Suits. They travel through the Looking Glass, which was the device that brought you to Wonderland. They travel back and forth to vanish people from your world to ours." He sipped on his tea, already knowing the question she would ask next.

"Why?"

"To use in the casino," he answered lightly.

"Use for what?" There was that deadly tone of hers again. He could hear her knuckles cracking from where he sat.

"Did I say use? I'm sorry, that was a slip of the tongue. I mean, they do take them to the casino, but they're fine, I swear," he assured her, hoping she could not sense the outright lie behind his words. Hatter was, if nothing else, a talented liar. "They're kept alive and moderately happy."

She appeared to accept his evasion for the moment. Whether or not she knew he was withholding key details (like the truth, for example) remained to be seen. She sighed dramatically, as if she had just come to a momentous decision. "Okay, how do I get there?"

Hatter blinked uncomprehendingly. Surely, she did not mean to go there and attempt a rescue? "Where?" he asked obtusely, though he already knew what she meant.

"The moon," she replied sarcastically. "Where do you think? This casino place." She sounded impatient.

Hatter pursed his lips. "Um, that's the thing. You don't. Get there, I mean. Way too dangerous."

The girl laughed humorlessly. "Oh, I think I can handle it."

Well, he stood corrected on his assumption about the girl being borderline reckless. She had demolished the border completely. Just how important was this man to her? Hatter did not think to ask what relation he was. Was he her brother or her father? Was he her lover? The last notion gave him an unpleasant, tight feeling in his chest for some reason.

"Um, right, and I'm supposed to be the mad one," he muttered dryly.

"Look," he said to her, walking up to her and tentatively grasping her shoulders. He was surprised his touch was not immediately shrugged off. "I know some people who, well, know some other people, if you know what I mean."

He leaned in a little closer, getting a whiff of her scent. Though it carried some of the essence of that filthy canal she had swam in, he could still smell her underlying scent. It was far more pleasant than the rat-catcher's. There was a mixture of vanilla, citrus, and lavender, with a subtle earthy smell as well. She leaned back, clearly not pleased with the invasion of her personal space.

"It's one of the privileges of owning a teashop," he said saucily, popping the p on the final word.

The girl's expression, if possible, soured even further.

"Lighten up," Hatter mumbled, drawing back.

Alice looked away from him, drawing her arms around herself and shivering. The action made him remember the girl had been running around, soaking wet, in the cool air for probably almost an hour now. She would have to be getting a chill. Thinking quickly, he ran over to his glass wardrobe which held a small collection of long coats. He selected a velvet one which had been dyed a deep purple color and presented it to her.

Her relief was palpable as she put the coat on. He even felt the tiniest smidgen of gratitude from her when she murmured, "Thank you."

While he lamented the loss of seeing her in that skin-tight wet blue dress, he felt obscenely glad to see her stop shivering. "You're welcome. You looked a wee bit cold there. It'll also help cover the glow."

She nodded, biting her bottom lip. "Um, I have a little bit of money, but, I guess that's no good here."

"Ah, yes, pieces of paper. Pointless," Hatter replied.

Alice sighed. "Okay, so, no offense, but, why are you helping me? What's in it for you?"

Good bloody question, he thought. When you figure it out, you let me know.

"Do I need a reason to help a pretty girl in very wet dress?" he pointed out audaciously.

She scowled at him.

"You don't trust me, do you?" he remarked.

Alice did not answer immediately, but her hesitance had been informative enough. "It's nothing personal. It's just this is all so weird to me. I mean, Wonderland? The White Rabbit? I haven't read that book since I was a little girl and I haven't seen the Disney movie in years. I figured out that I was in some kind of different world after seeing that guy go into the mirror portal or looking glass or whatever. And, trust me, I know weird. I could write a book on it. All I'm saying is that I don't know what or who to trust, really."

Her solemn blue eyes locked onto his. They were writhing with a contradictive concoction of vulnerability, courage, hope, and despair. Hatter felt the most curious sensation then, as if his organs had just flipped over inside of him. It was a strange feeling, but not an entirely unpleasant one.

Alice paused for a moment as she searched him with her eyes. She cleared her throat before continuing. "But I'm blind here. I don't see that I have a choice but to trust you. I have to do what I can to find my boyfriend."

So the man was her lover. Really, Hatter should not have been surprised the girl would have a boyfriend. She was a young, beautiful woman. Of course she would have a boyfriend. It was utterly reasonable. He just had no idea why the information stung him so much. It brought on that same unpleasant, tight feeling in his chest. Perhaps he was envious. Hatter had no one he knew of who would risk so much for him. Whoever this man Jack was, Hatter hoped he realized how fortunate he was to have a girl such as Alice in his circle. He could only dream of having friends who cared half so much as she cared for this man.

Hatter sighed. He felt the need to reassure her. She looked as if she needed to know where he stood, otherwise she would be uncomfortable around him for the entire journey. Discomfort only bred further distrust, he knew. "Listen, Alice, do you know why they call me Hatter?" he said.

The girl blinked, the all-too-familiar frown wrinkling the skin of her brow. "Um, because you make hats?" she offered weakly.

Hatter rolled his eyes. "No," he told her. "It's because I'm always there when they pass the hat."

She raised an eyebrow at that, doubt in her gaze. Hatter could feel his charming quips were not going to earn this girl's trust. "I know what you're thinking," he remarked sagely. "But if I'm the frying pan, trust me, out there's the fire."

An expression flickered over the girl's face which told Hatter she did not quite believe him on that account. It did not bode well for the journey if she would not take the dangers of Wonderland, especially to a petite, female oyster, seriously. She looked to be on the verge of offering a comment, which, no doubt would have been a snide one. She must have thought better of it, however, for her lips remained shut.

"Look," Hatter began reasonably. This was the final card he would put on the table to convince her to trust him, if only in part. "I'll be square with you. I know people who like to help your kind. And, if every now and again, I scratch their backs..."

"They'll scratch yours," she finished. There was still hesitation in her tone, but significantly less than before.

"Yep. A lot of scratching," he said.

When she did not appear to find the humor in that statement, he cleared his throat awkwardly. "Well, um, I guess we should be on our way then." He led her to the side door in his office, which opened to the outside.

Hatter opened the door with a pert grin on his face and a quick comment. "Do try to keep up."

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