I totally played with this rooftop scene a lot, as you will see…
Chapter XIX: All in the Family
"Dad?" Alice whispered. Her heart was practically in her throat as she blindly ran towards her father. While the years had added wrinkles to his face and grays to his hair that had not been there when she had been a child, it was still, unmistakably, Robert Hamilton.
"Who's this?" the man, Robert Hamilton, sneered.
She came to an abrupt halt. Her stomach lurched like an anchor had been dropped inside it. Looking into those beloved hazel eyes she remembered so well, the girl was devastated to find not a single hint of love or recognition. "It's me, Daddy," she insisted, her voice sounding small and childlike to her ears.
The man's incredulous, harsh bark of laughter cut into her like a dagger. His scathing gaze traveled from Alice to Jack, who had just run up to stop a few feet behind her. "Another one of your tricks, Jack Heart?" he said with a raised eyebrow.
He thinks this is a trick? Oh god, he doesn't know who I am! How can he not know who I am? Anguish ripped into her, but she fought to keep her composure. She thought she had prepared herself for anything when it came time to finally reunite with her father. But nothing could have prepared her for this.
"Don't you know your own daughter?" Caterpillar said while motioning towards Alice.
"Daughter?" Robert Hamilton repeated, sounding as if he thought the notion were downright outlandish. He laughed as if it were all some grand joke.
"You left, Dad. When I was a kid…you left us," Alice tried, her fists clenching so tightly her fingernails were likely drawing blood.
"The White Rabbit abducted you many years ago, and the doctors adjusted you to work in the laboratory," Caterpillar told him.
Alice frowned at that information. She should have known her father must have worked in the laboratory just by the way he was dressed. But her heart and mind had sincere trouble swallowing that information because of the insinuations it made about his role in everything that was wrong with Wonderland. She did not want to believe it; could not believe it. But her father had been a brilliant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Ohio State University, and his research in those fields was considered to have been ground-breaking. If the Queen of Hearts wanted someone who could invent a way to extract a person's emotions and convert it into a usable, edible substance, Robert Hamilton was the man for the job.
Oh god…no…that can't be right…he would never…
She shook off the thoughts. One thing at a time, Alice. Bravely walking up to the man who was her father, she said, "We've missed you so much. Mom tries not to show it, but I know she does. She didn't even date or anything." Just thinking of her mother and what this could possibly mean for the woman who had been bereft of her soul-mate for over a decade made Alice's heart twist. She was just glad her mother was not here, having to suffer this desolate lack of recognition.
"Mom?" her father repeated, his brow knitted into a frown.
"Carol, your wife," Alice reminded him entreatingly. She saw something flash in her father's eyes for a second, but it blinked out so quickly she was not even sure it had been there.
"You really think this charade is going to turn me against the queen?" her father asked scornfully.
Shaking her head, Alice continued with her desperate pleading. "Don't you remember anything?"
The man shifted, his eyes narrowing. "I remember my work at the institute, bioreductive enzymes, chemically-induced synesthesia, shadow theory…" he spouted off until Alice cut him off.
"What about your family?" He stared at her blankly, so she tried another detail in an attempt to jog his memory. "Our little yellow house?"
The man scoffed. "I live…I lived alone in an apartment," he stated, but his words lacked substance like he was no longer so certain of them. That flash of wavering conviction returned and, with it, Alice felt her hopes leap up.
"Ray," Alice said encouragingly. "You remember him. Your friend with the boat. You two would go out on those insanely long fishing trips, but you sucked at it and never caught anything."
"What is the point of all this?" her father asked, spreading his arms out.
Alice was not going to give up yet. The young Slayer could see she was slowly starting to plant seeds of doubt, and she was going to do everything within her power to make that doubt grow into a full-fledged forest. "Grapefruit and wheat germ. You would eat that disgusting stuff for breakfast. And on Sundays, sometimes we would go to that brunch place next to campus, and you would throw chickpeas at the ducks."
Her father was stock-still as he stared at her. She could see he was at war with his own mind, his own memory. She searched for more private details of their lives. "When I was a kid, you used to read to me before bedtime. And you tried to get me to go to this science camp, but I was always more interested in dancing and literature…you said it was because I took after Mom. But you still encouraged me." Her throat was growing tight with emotion and the pressure had returned to her sinuses.
"Your mother…" her father began slowly, his voice hesitant, "will be very upset when she hears about this, Jack." For a moment, Alice believed she had finally broken through whatever fog of amnesia was imprisoning her father. But her hopes died when he looked up at Jack while he finished the statement.
Her hold over her composure broke. "You don't even know who I am," she whimpered, her bottom lip quivering. A sob broke through and she turned her face away.
She did not see that her father's face also turned, his eyes closing in pain. "Don't cry, Jellybean."
Jellybean? Her head snapped back up, hope renewed.
"Jellybean? Is that your special name for Alice?" Caterpillar inquired levelly.
The girl nodded emphatically. "That's what you used to call me. And when our cat Dinah died, you held me in your arms for a whole hour, remember? You just rocked me while I cried."
Her hand slipped down into her dress pocket and pulled out the watch Jack had discreetly given her at the casino yesterday. She ran her thumbs over the smooth metal, smiling sadly. "Remember this?" she asked her father.
"What is it?" he returned with a note of curiosity.
She slowly approached him, holding the watch out before her. "It's your watch. You always wore it," she told him.
The man's hand stretched out almost unconsciously towards the object. "I've never worn a watch," he said in a dazed, almost frightened manner. "We don't need them here."
"Mom got it for you for your birthday, but you forgot to take it off when we went to the beach one summer. So it's kind of broken, but you didn't seem to mind." She glanced up at her father's face, a tentative smile on her own. Her hands shaking slightly, the girl slid the watch onto her father's wrist, back to its rightful place.
Her father's breath hitched and he appraised her with new eyes. She could see the recognition trying to break free. He was almost there.
But then her senses rippled in warning and she whipped her head towards the stairway they had come in. The warning, however, was too little and too late. She barely had time to curse their rotten lock when the door burst open and Suits came pounding up the stairs. A gunshot cracked the air, prompting everyone to duck down. Unexpectedly, her father grabbed her and pulled her down underneath his own body, effectively acting as her shield.
Well, better now than never that he remembers, I guess.
"Hold it right there! Don't move!" one of the Suits shouted.
That familiar feeling of dread squirmed into her belly when the ceramic ears of Mad March peaked over the top of the stairs. He walked over to them, his triumphant sense of mad glee filling the air around her. She shivered as she slowly rose to her feet, her father pulling back from her.
"There he is!" someone shouted. She had no idea who they were referring to. It could have been Jack, but then it also could have been her father, or even Caterpillar, for that matter.
"I'm a little disappointed. I expected a bit more of a struggle." The tinny voice of Mad March was about as musical as nails scraping down a chalkboard. She winced as his malevolence washed over her.
The creature walked over to her. She felt her father shift minutely, as if torn between protecting her and staying out of the way.
Alice knew what he was going to ask before the words even hit the air. "Where's Hatter?"
If she had been feeling protective the last time he had posed the question, it had nothing on how she felt now. All her defenses were raised, and all thoughts as to her well-being, including that pesky first rule of slaying, flew out the window. "Fuck you," she spat. "What makes you think I'll ever tell you that?"
"Oooh, baby's got teeth," Mad March cackled. His bunny head clicked as he directed his eyeless gaze to Jack. "We picked up your trail outside the city. Excuse me, but you weren't that difficult to track."
"Are you all right?" This question was posed by the man Alice knew only as the bowler hat man. He was wearing a black cape this time, but his silver, club-shaped medallion winked in the afternoon sunlight. He was inquiring of her father, who must have been a more valuable asset to the Hearts than she realized.
"They kidnapped me," her father replied. "Tried to turn me against the queen with some nonsense about being this girl's father."
Alice felt her hopes shatter. They had been so close to waking him up, but it had all been for naught. The violent interruption of the Suits had ruined it.
The bowler hat man sauntered up to Jack. With the hat on, he was about the same height as the tall prince. "You're gonna break your mother's heart," the other man remarked, shaking his head.
Then he walked off towards where Caterpillar stood, still and seemingly calm. "Well, well, well. The mysterious Caterpillar. Apprehended at last," the man announced triumphantly. He chuckled darkly. "You realize this brings an end to the Resistance, finally and forever."
Strangely enough, the Resistance leader was grinning, as if he was sitting atop some huge secret only he was privy to. He reached inside his green coat and pulled out a red mushroom, popping it into his mouth amidst baffled stares and shaking heads. Everyone yelled and jumped back a few steps, however, when he disappeared in a literal explosion of smoke.
Well, that's nice. Leave the rest of us to fend for ourselves, Alice thought in exasperation. She glanced at Mad March and sized him up.
Bowler hat man recovered from his shock and then walked over to Jack. He held out his hand. "Hand over the ring," he demanded.
Jack and Alice both stiffened. The ring was not in the possession of the prince, for Alice had not quite trusted him enough to let him hold onto it. It still resided in the pocket of her velvet coat, and now it was currently burning a hole in it, figuratively speaking.
"We don't have it," he ended up lying. "It's still hidden away." His eyes flitted to hers for the briefest of moments, but she dared not acknowledge him.
The bowler hat man made a hissing sound of displeasure mixed with fear. Alice supposed the price for failure was a fatal one. He started questioning Jack further, but she was not paying attention to that. Her brain was busy working on possible escape routes and weak points to exploit. There seemed to be twenty Suits on top of Mad March and the bowler hat man. Of course that did not include any that could possibly be standing sentry in the Hospital of Dreams. She also had to account for the possibility of guards for the front and back exits, assuming there was a back exit. The Suits themselves could be dispatched easily enough. It was Mad March who was the problem, as well as the fact that she was not, as Hatter had pointed out to her once, bullet-proof.
The ring could not fall back into the queen's hands. Alice had the ring, so, therefore, the logical plan of action would be for her to fight her way out of this mess. Unfortunately, that would entail abandoning Jack. Though the man had betrayed her, his intentions had been noble, and she could not just leave him here to his mother's lack of mercy. Alice Hamilton left no one behind if she could help it.
Fuck, what do I do? Why can't Jack just have a magic mushroom, too?
Mad March brought her back to reality when he ambled up to her with his knife drawn. Her muscles tensed defensively, the Slayer within howling for her to fight.
"I think we might persuade princey-boy here to spill the beans," the assassin sneered.
"No!" Jack cried out in fear. "Don't touch her!"
She forced her breathing to slow down, pushing down the rapid beat of her heart as Mad March circled her with the tip of his knife blade running against her shoulders. Her blue eyes crossed paths with Jack's wide gold-brown ones. There was horror in his gaze.
"Mad March, the queen wants the oyster back alive," the bowler hat man reminded him in the same tone a parent used when scolding a disobedient child.
Mad March snickered. "She didn't say in what condition though," he retorted maliciously.
"Please, leave her alone!" Jack begged.
"Then tell us where the ring is," Mad March said. The knife tip moved up to slide across her cheek. "Or we'll see how pretty that face is once I get done with her."
Alice could not shake her head, could not move, could not say a word…But she locked her gaze onto Jack and ardently tried to send him a message with her eyes. He could not give up the ring, no matter what. For goodness sake the man had betrayed her and lied to her all for the sake of his people and for this damned ring. Now he was going to renege on his noble principles just because Mad March had threatened to carve her face up like a pumpkin on Halloween?
Well, she supposed it showed that he really did care for her. In a way, it did allay part of the anger and resentment she held towards him.
The pressure of the knife increased. She almost heard the sound of her flesh of her right cheek parting underneath the sharp blade, like a whisper of paper being ripped. The next thing that happened was then completely out of her control. The Slayer within had been caged and suppressed for far too long. It was not going to stand for such treatment any longer.
Reflexively, her hand shot out to wrap around Mad March's wrist. It took him off guard enough for her to twist his arm, pulling the weapon away from her face while her other hand lashed out in a flat-palmed strike right into the assassin's sternum. The force sent the man with the rabbit head stumbling back a few feet when on most anyone else he or she would have been sent sailing across the terrace by a good fifteen feet or more.
She probably should have just left it at that, but, unfortunately, the Slayer would not be appeased by simply diverting the threat of facial mutilation. It had been unleashed and it was royally incensed. She advanced upon Mad March, completely ignoring the screaming protests of Jack, who was being held back by two burly Suits.
Mad March snickered at her and rubbed his hands together in anticipation. The knife had fallen from his grasp when she had twisted his arm and knocked him backwards, but that did not mean he was any less dangerous. Like her, he was a weapon unto himself.
She spun and snapped her leg up into a high kick aimed right for the little black band of metal with the voice box, intending to kick that ceramic rabbit head right off its pathetic neck. Mad March caught her boot in his freakishly strong hands and with a flip of his wrist he sent the girl spinning in the air and crashing into the pavement face first.
Her hands splayed out instinctively to protect her face from hitting the ground. She had been about to push herself up when Mad March's shoe drove into her back. The abrasive surface of the brick tore skin off her palms as her entire body was slammed into the ground. She felt ribs in her back crack ominously and pain lanced through her, hot and sharp. She stifled her cries of pain, however, but her breath came out in a muffled, guttural gasp.
"Stop!" Jack screamed.
Mad March's hands slipped under her shoulders and he roughly rolled her over onto her back. The movement did not agree with her newly cracked back ribs, but she still did not vocalize her pain. He crouched down and then wrapped the cold fingers of one hand around her slender neck. She was reminded of how she held Dodo down with her hand straining to wrap around the front of his beefy neck. Mad March's hands were large enough so they almost nearly encircled her neck. The assassin did not choke her, but his grip was firm.
"Tell me where the ring is, then, Your Highness," he demanded, putting a perverted inflection on the royal style.
"Don't tell him!" Alice shouted hoarsely.
Her head was slammed down into the pavement. Had she not been a Slayer, the impact would have sent her careening into blissful unconsciousness. Unfortunately, since she was a Slayer, she was forced to experience the full brunt of the explosion of pain in the back of her skull. Her vision slid out of focus into spotty darkness for a few seconds and this time she could not prevent the cry of agony from escaping her lips.
"Alice!" came Jack's horrified shriek.
"Mad March, I command you to stop!" shouted another voice. Alice's brain felt like scrambled eggs so, for a few seconds, she could not place it. But her glazed eyes widened as shock overtook her. That had been her father's voice.
"I command you to step away from the girl and leave her be!" her father ordered.
She blinked almost uncomprehendingly as the assassin unfurled his fingers from around her neck, rose to his feet, and then stepped away. Lifting her head up proved to be immensely painful and she slumped back down with a groan. She vaguely heard footsteps on the fringe of her senses and then someone was gently propping her up into a sitting position. Everything in her vision swam and tilted as she was unsteadily coaxed to her feet. The girl felt like she was standing on the deck of a ship amidst a ferocious hurricane. Nausea roiled in her belly and she feared she might vomit if the spinning did not cease.
"It's okay," the voice of her helper assured her. She turned at the sound and blinked in surprise when her father's face, wavy though it was, appeared.
Does he remember me now? Did seeing me nearly get brained to death by Mad March jog his memory? He did try to shield me earlier...How did he get Mad March to obey him, anyhow? I want to learn that trick…god, my head is killing me!
"The queen may want to speak to the girl, and I don't think she'll be pleased if the girl's brain is too damaged to provide intelligible responses to her questions," her father reprimanded Mad March sternly.
Tears stung her eyes and her heart sank yet again. Her father did not intervene out of concern for her well-being after all. He had only done it because he feared the wrath of the queen. But the tender way in which he had helped her to her feet and the way he was gently supporting her on her somewhat unsteady legs belied that notion. Perhaps he did not consciously remember her, but his subconscious knew that she was important, or had been at one point. That was a start, she guessed, but she would rather avoid any more physical pain just to wake her father up.
"You will not touch her on the way to the casino," her father said to Mad March.
The assassin's hands shook with rage, but he gave a reluctant nod of his rabbit head. Alice gawked. How could her father have control over Mad March? She wondered if the queen wielded this control as well.
"Carpenter, we still need to procure the ring. Her Majesty ordered it," bowler hat man argued.
Carpenter? Is that his name here?
"I'll tell you where it is, but you must let Alice go free," Jack said.
Alice would have shaken her head if such a thing would not have proved to be the act which sent the contents of her belly spewing out.
"Well, she can't go free right now, she needs medical attention," her father—Carpenter—replied.
"We're standing right on top of a hospital," Jack reminded them heatedly.
"No, the oyster must come with us. She can receive medical attention at the casino," bowler hat man declared.
Alice wondered why they did not just search them, but then decided she could not worry about that. If they wanted to search her, she reckoned she was in no condition at the moment to stop them. A jackhammer was at work against the back of her skull and she could feel blood sliding down the back of her neck. Dizziness still plagued her sense of equilibrium, making her feel she was on a perpetual tilt-a-whirl. On top of that, her hands stung from the scraps of skin which had been torn off and her back ribs ached fiercely with every breath she drew.
Didn't even take the fucker five minutes to incapacitate me…how the hell am I supposed to accomplish this task if I can't take that assassin down?…unless…I get Daddy to wake up and order him to go off himself or something.
At the moment, however, Alice was more interested in finding a place to lie down. At least until the rampant spinning, nausea, and jackhammer pain relented a little bit. Her father held onto her, his touch aloof and tender all at once. He did not glance down at her or speak to her as they walked down the stairs to the pathway outside the terrace, nor when they went down through the Hospital of Dreams. Truth be told, the lack of conversation was just dandy with her. It was difficult enough to focus on putting one foot in front of the other and beat back the rising urge to vomit. Speaking would have just exacerbated matters.
When they reached the huge amber-tiled lobby, Alice gasped in horror when she saw that nameless receptionist lying on the floor beside her desk. There was a small crimson hole in the middle of her forehead. Her glassy eyes, the color of fine flint, stared sightlessly up at the ceiling.
Though Mad March carried no gun on him that she could discern, somehow, she knew that this murder was on his hands. She glared at the assassin. As if he had known her accusing eyes were on him, his rabbit head turned to face her. She had no doubt that if he could have grinned evilly, he would be doing just that.
As they marched her, Jack, and those two unfortunate Resistance operatives who smuggled her father out of the lab towards the double doors at the front of the lobby, Alice found there was at least one thing from this entire catastrophe that she could take solace in. She was immensely grateful for the simple fact that Hatter was not here. Even if she herself would not make it, at least he would.
Through the pain, nausea, dizziness, and fear, she smiled at that singular comfort.
Essentially, Carpenter "made" Mad March, so it seems logical he would have verbal control over him. A man as smart as him would probably put fail-safes in, and, yes, the queen has verbal control as well.
Reviews would be just awesome, and would speed up the posting of next chapter...hehehe...