I think you'll agree this one was well worth the wait. I had to devote a lot of time to studying for the MCAT (which, for those who don't know, is the test to get into medical school), but I resolved to get this out before the New Year and I somehow managed it! Thanks to my patient readers and reviewers. I love you guys!

Chapter XXV: March Madness

To put an end to all this madness.

The man did not resemble his daughter very much in a physical sense, but when Mr. Hamilton spoke those words, Hatter saw where Alice's boneheaded sense of determination must have come from. He had escaped from wherever it was he was being held after suffering a concussion, commandeered a Suit's firearm, and had shot and killed one of the Tweedles. Those kinds of acts took a lot of courage and a slight lack of self-preservation Hatter was all too familiar with.

"You really are her father," Hatter muttered, shaking his head, smiling sadly.

Mr. Hamilton acknowledged the remark with a nod of his head while swallowing heavily. "I suppose that's good, considering I haven't been in her life since she was ten."

Hatter felt the uprising of grief from the man enmesh with his own. The sadness this man felt over the loss of his daughter was no more or less deep than the sorrow which engulfed Hatter himself. There was a different taste to this grief, something probably only a Wonderland native could sense. This man had lost a child, his only child. A child he had not seen nor remembered for over ten years. Feeling like he should say something to comfort the older man, Hatter slowly approached him. He reached out to lay a hand on his shoulder and said, "You'd have been proud of her." He did not know if that remark would make the man feel better or worse. But he could think of nothing else to say. What did one say in circumstances like these?

Mr. Hamilton's eyes filled with tears making Hatter think he had only made matters worse. But the man nodded his head again, blinking away the wetness. "I am." As if an effort to flee the sorrowful subject of his lost child, he glanced over at the deceased Tweedle brothers, cringing slightly. "I never knew I was capable of taking a human life…and yet…I don't really feel all that remorseful."

"Probably because the Tweedles are—were barely passable as human," Hatter quipped dryly.

Mr. Hamilton sighed and dropped his gaze to the gun in his hand. "About Alice…or, rather…ehm…maybe it's the head injury, but, did she really throw a full grown man up into the air?"

Oh, right, this bloke hasn't been around in over ten years and she never even told her mum about her job. 'Spose a little slip of a thing like her tossing grown men around like ragdolls would raise an eyebrow.

Hatter rubbed at his neck, torn over telling the man the truth but somehow feeling it would be wrong of him to betray what had been a well-kept secret of Alice's. He did not even feel fully qualified to try to explain it, considering he was still not very clear on certain parts of her story. "Ehm, it's kind of a long story," he said uncertainly. Looking towards the door lying slightly ajar, the younger man shook his head. This was neither the time nor the place for such discussions and it hit far too close to Hatter's grieving heart to speak of such things. "We probably should get out of here if you really do want to end all this."

The older man glanced behind him. "Of course," he said, turning back to Hatter with a strange, indefinable gleam to his hazel eyes.

Lying unspoken between them was the possibility that there would not be an opportunity for such a talk later. One or both of them might be dead before the day was done. Such a prospect would have terrified Hatter once before. Now he looked upon the prospect of death almost with a sense of relief. He just wanted all of this to be over, one way or another.

He followed Mr. Hamilton towards the door, his mind wandering ahead to how two men might succeed in bringing down a monarchy which had held Wonderland in its sparkling red grip for 150 years. The Cheshire had set the task upon Alice, and it had led to her death, just as all those hideous legends about the creature had warned. But her death had woken up her father, who had essentially served as the queen's right hand man in building the foundation which kept this kingdom afloat. It was a horrible price to pay to see justice finally take the reins.

The door to the Truth Room creaked open cautiously as Mr. Hamilton prodded it with the tip of his index finger. At first, it seemed like the corridor was clear of all human life. But someone had been standing outside the corridor waiting for them.

Before Hatter could even register the presence of his old foe, Mad March's hand shot out to wrap around Alice's father's neck. Sounds that were almost words bubbled up the scientist's throat, but Mad March's grip rendered them little more than strangled gasps.

"Let him go!" Hatter demanded, flexing his right hand. But Mad March was well aware of the strength stored up in that right limb.

If the smooth ceramic face of that creature could grin, it surely would have. Mad March took a few steps back, dragging Mr. Hamilton, who was uselessly pawing at the hand clenching his throat and gagging, with him. "It doesn't take that much pressure to crush the human windpipe," the assassin said in a cool, matter-of-fact voice as if he were a lecturer in a schoolroom.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't crush your fucking windpipe!" Alice's furious words to Dodo, spoken only two days ago, returned to him along with the reminder that Mad March had been imbued with super-strength upon his revival.

"Come on, March, you know it's me you want," Hatter reminded him, holding his hands up in a placating manner. He would not let Alice's father die, especially not at the hands of this poor excuse for humanity.

March's neck made mechanical clicking noises as he cocked his head to the side. "I was gonna drop in on the little party you were havin' with the Tweedles. I didn't figure you would crack. But I see Carpenter here beat me to the punch. Meddlesome old fuck."

Mr. Hamilton, his face a curious purple shade probably stemming from his fury at being called by that title and the oxygen deprivation caused by March's hand compressing his windpipe, valiantly thrust his elbow back into his captor's ribcage. March did not even flinch.

Hatter felt his own fury begin to mount. He needed to redirect March's attention to himself not just for the sake of Mr. Hamilton. Alice's mother deserved to know what had happened to her daughter. "March, I'm the one who led you into that trap, remember? I'm the reason you got your pretty boy head cut off. Poetic, isn't it? The queen's favored assassin, who took off the heads of so many innocent people."

"Shut up, Hatter. I'm over that. Sportin' a shiny, brand new noggin now thanks to this schmuck."

Hatter could sense he had touched a nerve. It was not easy to discern since March's voice had been distorted and irrevocably altered by the machinery installed in his ceramic head. But his acute observational skills rarely led him astray. Besides, why else would the guy have harassed Alice about him? Thus encouraged, he decided to throw down his trump card. "Don't you want to know where your real head is?" he asked mildly.

Mad March did not reply, but he did stiffen. Mr. Hamilton let out a garbled groan of pain as the hand round his neck tightened.

"It's probably nothing more than bone by now. You see, we thought displaying it for all to see would have been too much like giving you some glory. So I decided we should put your head where it really belonged…" Hoping that invoking the fury of the assassin would not result in Mr. Hamilton's throat being crushed, Hatter put on his most malicious, mad grin. "We threw it into the fucking sewers like the piece of shit that you are."

That appeared to do the trick beautifully. Mr. Hamilton was roughly shoved against the wall, leaving a clear path for Mad March to charge at Hatter.

Remembering the way to the Truth Room turned out to be easier said than done. Alice had always prided herself on being able to file such keen details away. The last time she had been paraded through the casino corridors she had tried to mentally mark landmarks. But now everything looked identical. Any corridor looked as if it could be the one leading to the Truth Room where she had narrowly escaped completely losing her sanity.

Asking for directions was too risky, unfortunately. A casino Diamond would likely already know where the Truth Room was and appearing not to know might arouse suspicion. Enough suspicion to notice the small cut on her cheek where Mad March's knife had cut, to notice that her walk was slightly different than that of a true Diamond, to notice that her face was distinctly lacking the in the makeup department. The makeup she had donned for that long ago date night with Jack had since been eroded and washed off.

Every step sent bolts of pain radiating from her cracked back ribs up her spine to mingle with the fierce headache caused by the hit to her head. But Alice had endured pain far more intense than this as well as injuries far more severe while forcing herself to keep fighting. It was part of being a Slayer, learning to work through pain and exhaustion when necessary. At least the dizziness and nausea had taken a vacation.

As she walked, she was careful not to meet anyone's gaze directly. At the same time, her eyes were frantically scanning the surroundings, desperately seeking out anything which might point her towards the Truth Room.

Please, please, please…Hang on, Hatter, please. I'm coming…

Then, like a beacon at sea had been lit, she found the sign she had been looking for. It was the gray desk. She remembered the jaded, bored receptionist sliding forward the pink sheet of paper which documented Alice's transfer into the hands of the Tweedles. Later, that same receptionist had been startled out of her seat when Alice, Charlie, and Hatter had been fleeing the casino. None other than pure instinct told her it was the gray desk and not just any other gray desk which may have inhabited the fortress. Her heart beat with renewed vigor as hope surged through her.

There was no receptionist sitting there now. In fact, Alice had begun to notice the number of people in the corridors, especially the Suits, had dwindled quite a bit. She knew that her feeble luck could not account for such a fortunate turn of events. Something else had to be going on to draw away the Suits.

The girl stopped, her peripheral vision catching on to something outside on the perimeter of the casino. Drawing closer to the window, her jaw dropped in pure astonishment when she saw what surrounded the fortress. There were hundreds of figures standing in a line, most likely forming a ring around the area. With her sharp eyes, she could see the white paint of the armor.

Holy crap…they're white knights! Charlie raised an army…but…wait…they're all supposed to be dead, so how…?

Studying them closer, Alice let out a gasp, partly amused and partly disturbed when she realized what those "warriors" really were. Those white knights were not live human warriors returned from the dead to redress the grievous wrongs that had been done to them and their kingdom. There were all corpses whittled down to little more than skeletons which appeared to be propped up, forming the illusion of a standing army fully surrounding the casino. That meant Charlie must have dug up all those graves and transported all those bodies here in full armor.

"Way to go, Charlie," Alice murmured appreciatively. There was no question some kind of magic had to have been worked in this instance. There was no way one man could dig up hundreds of decaying bodies and transport them all the way from their gravesites at the Kingdom of the Knights to the Happy Hearts Casino in such a short amount of time. Either way, it was still very impressive.

She withdrew from the windows, intent to continue her search. The not-so-little stunt Charlie had pulled had already proved helpful in distracting the bulk of the casino's fighting force. It made Alice start to believe that maybe taking down this psychotic queen would not be so impossible after all.

After I find Hatter. Bringing down the monarchy could wait until she made sure her companion was safe.

Alice's heart thudded in panic when she saw that the corridor she was traversing came to a dead end. The girl skidded to a stop and eyed the various doors lining the hallway. Which one of those doors led to the corridor where the Truth Room was located?

"Fuck," she cursed in frustration.

Before she started randomly opening doors to see where they led to, her sharp ears picked up on the faint sounds of voices. She could not attach identities to the voices, muffled and indistinct as they were, but she could detect the threads of anger and hatred. Then there was a much louder thumping noise. All the sounds were coming from behind a set of double doors on the left side of the hallway about two doors down from where Alice was standing.

She ran for the doors. The butterfly knife wedged in between her calf and red boot pressed into her flesh, but she ignored the discomfort. She yanked open the doors, nearly tearing one right off its hinges with her panicked strength. The scene unveiled behind the door nearly stole the breath from her lungs.

Hatter was sprawled on the floor, held down by the hand of Mad March who straddled the young man. The assassin was poised over top of him, wielding the same knife he had used on Alice. She did not even see her father stumbling towards the two men, his hand rubbing at his neck. She did not see anything but March raising his hand, the knife flashing silver just like those curved silver knives of the Bringers had done. Lethal silver which would soon spill the blood of a man she had come to feel more for than anything else in her life.

She flew down the corridor as if propelled by an invisible force, all thought and reason gone from her mind. Shooting out an arm, she blocked the downward strike which would have sent the blade deep into Hatter's chest. She then grabbed the assassin by his mechanical neck and shoved him backwards away from her friend.

Don't stop now! Attack while you have the advantage! The element of surprise was hers. Her fall from the cliff edge had probably made everyone assume she was dead. Couple that with the fact that she was wearing the outfit of a casino Diamond, it was safe to say she had caught this freak of an assassin off his guard.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Mad March fumed. She wondered if he seriously thought she really was a casino Diamond.

Alice answered that with a powerful roundhouse kick to that loathed ceramic head, earning a very satisfying crack. Following up on the roundhouse kick were a series of rapid punches, jabs, and kicks. Her injuries cried out in protest of the physical exertion, but Alice would not afford to let Mad March have enough time to recover from a blow. She could not even take the time to be sure Hatter was all right. Mad March was a threat which needed to be eliminated immediately.

"I'm now starting to see why Anya hated rabbits so much," she muttered, heedless of the fact that no one in the corridor would understand the reference.

Her upper hand did not last for long, however. The weaknesses dealt to her body by her earlier injuries gave March an opening to block one of her punches and return it with one of his own, knocking the girl off her feet. The sparkling hat slipped off her head, allowing her dark locks to tumble free.

"Alice?" Hatter cried out in disbelief from behind her.

Mad March cackled in apparent amusement. "Well, ain't this interesting? And here we all thought you were nothing but a mushy, scattered pile of body parts at the bottom of the city. What'd you do, sprout wings?" As he spoke he lifted up his leg to prepare to stomp down on her, but Alice rolled out of the way, pulling the butterfly knife out of her boot in the meantime.

"Nope," she replied. With one swift motion, she thrust the knife into March's exposed abdomen. "I just hate you that much."

Dark, viscous fluid oozed from the around the knife blade, spilling onto her hands like a coat of maple syrup. Alice immediately noticed something was amiss. The blood pouring out of the wound looked more like the blood from a dead person than a living, breathing person.

Oh shit…how did I not see this?

As soon as she pulled the knife out, she felt arms envelop her from behind and pull her away from Mad March. It was Hatter, apparently shaken out of his temporary state of absolute shock. He drew her to him, but she could not tear her eyes away from the scene before her. March just stood there, his hand dropping down to the gaping wound in his stomach to lightly prod at it. He drew his hand away from it, dripping with the dark, thick blood and brought it to his face to stare at it with his unseeing eyes.

"Uh, Hatter," Alice said nervously, "why isn't he dying?"

"Because he's already dead," Hatter replied, his hand clamping down on her shoulders in a vice like grip.

Fuck my life. The girl groaned. "Well, I guess that explains a lot."

"The head," came a raspy, pained voice. Alice's eyes widened when she saw her father stagger up beside them. His voice was ravaged, nothing compared to the stern authority and denial she had heard from earlier.

When in doubt, aim for the head. It was one of the many unofficial mottoes of the Slayers. But the problem was she had tried that already and had only succeeding in making a crack in the ceramic material.

"You bitch," Mad March hissed. "That fucking hurt!" In a blundering rage, the assassin charged at them. Alice felt herself thrust out of the murderous path, stumbling to the floor. She watched, stunned into stillness, as Hatter drew back his right fist and then slammed it into Mad March's head. The assassin's body jerked up, his legs flipping up into the air before crashing to the ground. As for his head, there was nothing left of it save for sizzling wires, some ceramic shards, and bits of hardware. The rest of it was scattered all over the floor. Hatter had demolished Mad March's head completely.

Alice stared at the assassin now rendered twice headless in complete incredulity. She now saw why that old woman down in the Great Library had been so wary of Hatter's right hand. "Holy Jesus mother…that's the Sledgehammer?"

Hatter did not answer her, but merely shook out his hand, his eyes trained upon the prone form of Mad March. He appeared, for all intents and purposes, to have disappeared into his own world.

"Hatter?" Alice said in concern. She gingerly rose to her feet, all her aches and pains returning in full force as the adrenaline running through her system started to tone down. "Are you okay?"

When she reached out to touch his shoulder, the young man flinched, prompting her to snatch her hand back in fear her companion had been sent over the edge. But when he turned to look upon her, she felt her heart rock against her ribcage and her head spin when she saw the turbulence in his expression. There were no words to describe what she saw in his eyes and yet she understood completely what it was, for it was something which reflected her own feelings.

Now that the distraction of Mad March had been averted, he appeared to have trouble forming words to speak to her. "You…" he began, his voice weak and threaded with so many emotions, "you…I thought…you're…alive?" He swallowed heavily, his entire body shaking slightly.

Though that mangled sentence made little grammatical sense, Alice understood the gist of what he was attempting to say. He had seen her fall from the drop-off. Had she been in his position, she would have assumed the worst, too. He had believed her to be dead, just as she had once thought him dead by Dodo's hand. She recalled how she had felt then, when she had only known Hatter for little more than an hour.

Oh god, it must have been torture for him.

"I'm so sorry, Hatter," she said softly. "But I'm okay, see?" She held open her arms. "I didn't fall the whole way. Got caught on a tree branch, which I think broke a few more ribs, but I guess it's better than been splattered on the ground."

He let out a sound somewhere between a snort of laughter and a sigh of bone-deep relief and then threw his arms around her into a near painfully tight embrace. Their lips met with furious desperation, seeking confirmation that the other was truly alive and well. Through that kiss, Alice felt all the anguish, pain, and desolation he had felt when he had thought her to be gone forever. She reciprocated with the terror she had felt over finding he had been taken to the casino as a prisoner and not knowing if she would find him in time. When they finally ended the kiss, resting their foreheads against each other's, Alice realized she was weeping. Salty tears of pure joy wet her cheeks. Hatter was not without his own share of joyful tears.

"I thought I'd lost you," he finally murmured, his hoarse voice barely above a whisper.

"I thought I'd never find you," she returned, her voice equally hoarse. "I thought I'd be too late." And I almost was, she thought to herself, thinking back on how close Mad March had come to stabbing Hatter in the chest.

He reached up to tenderly brush errant strands of hair away from her face and leaned forward to kiss her on the forehead. Alice leaned into the embrace, resting her head just underneath his chin and sighing in contentment.

"Oh, this feels good," he commented.

"Mm hmm," Alice agreed, her eyes closed.

"We should probably continue this later," Hatter noted regretfully.

"Yeah, we should," Alice said absently, not showing any sign of moving.

Someone cleared his throat rather impatiently, reminding them that they were not alone in the corridor. The two almost leapt apart like they were a pair of teenagers caught up in a forbidden amorous embrace. "Dad," Alice breathed. The poor man was sitting against the wall, his eyes bloodshot and his neck mottled with fresh bruises. She glanced over at Hatter, who eyed the man with a troubled look.

"Are you okay, Mr. Hamilton?" he asked, striding over to the man and kneeling before him.

Alice stood where she was, frozen by the fear that she would have to endure that blank look of non-recognition or the hostile rejection which had shredded her heart. But then she realized that Hatter had called him by his true surname and her father had not protested it.

"Daddy?" Alice asked tremulously. Could she dare hope to believe her father's memory had finally returned?

Hatter shot her a concerned look, but backed away to give the father and daughter some space. Alice tentatively approached her father, her heart in her throat. The memories of their earlier confrontation were still like fresh wounds to her soul. She did not think she had the stamina to endure such rejection again. But when she saw those hazel eyes, she realized those eyes belonged to Robert Hamilton, not the queen's Carpenter.

"Jellybean," he croaked, his eyes shining with tears. "Thought I'd never…see you again."

Alice's breath hitched. "Oh Daddy!" she cried. The girl fell to her knees and was swept up into her father's waiting arms. She buried her face in his shoulder as she had done many times when she had been a child. "You remember! You remember!"

"I'm so sorry, Jellybean. For everything," her father wheezed. Whatever had happened to his neck—and Alice had a good idea of who was to blame—it made speech painful for him.

She shook her head, pulling away from her father's embrace to put a finger to his lips. "Shhh, it's okay, Dad. You have nothing to be sorry for. It wasn't your fault. I'm just glad you're okay."

The girl looked over at Hatter, who was standing somewhat awkwardly off to the side and beckoned him over. Beaming brightly, she stood and threaded her fingers through his. "Hatter, I'd like to introduce you to my father: Robert Hamilton."

Hatter smiled. "Actually, we've already met. He rescued me from the Tweedles."

Alice's eyes widened with surprise. "What? Really?"

Her companion nodded, his dark brown eyes dancing. "Yep, stole a Suit's gun and everything. You Hamiltons are a fierce lot."

Alice huffed in disbelief, her blue gaze swinging over to her father and shaking her head. "Well, thank you, Daddy, for saving him. You have no idea how much he means to me." She felt Hatter's hand tighten around her own after that remark.

"Uh, Alice, this may not be all that important, but, I have to ask, why are you dressed up like a Diamond?" Hatter posed his query in an innocent, curious tone, but when she saw his eyes, she noted (not with displeasure) how they roamed all over her body. The Diamond outfit certainly was more revealing than what she had been wearing and her legs were also bare since she had discarded the ruined raspberry tights. Not that, she thought sheepishly, her legs were in any condition to be stared at with appreciation. It had been a few days she had been able to get her hands on a decent razor.

"Well, I couldn't very well try to wander the halls of the casino dressed up like me without attracting a lot of attention. So, I found a Diamond girl and made her switch outfits with me," Alice explained.

Hatter cocked an eyebrow. "Found a Diamond girl?"

She shrugged. "A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do."

Hatter just shook his head and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. He planted a kiss on her temple and sighed. "Oh, Alice, what would I do without you?"

Both of them helped Alice's father to his feet. He appeared to be shaken up and a little bruised, but otherwise no worse for the wear after his scuffle with Mad March. His voice still sounded horrendous, so he kept his dialogue mostly to gestures and facial expressions. His eyes darkened noticeably when they fell upon the limp and headless form of Mad March.

"Never wanted…" the words were punctuated by a wheeze, "to revive." Robert waved his arms helplessly. "Dead should stay…" another wheeze, "dead."

Alice and Hatter exchanged knowing glances of dread. Well, he's lived on the hellmouth for about eight years and never seemed to notice that the dead don't always stay dead.

"We should get you guys out of here," Hatter remarked.

At first, Alice was about to agree with him. She would very much have liked to take her father away from this horrible place. But Charlie had given her an opportunity to try to take down the monarchy by drawing away most of its trained fighting force. Her people, though they did not know it, were counting on her to free them from their terrible fates. She could not abandon them now while this chance had fallen into her lap. She had to seize it.

Perhaps she could convince Hatter to take her father out of the casino. "Wait," Alice said, stopping. Hatter and her father turned to her with concern on their features. "Hatter, could you get my dad out of here? There's something I have to do…" Her sentence trailed off when she saw the fierce expression on his face.

"Alice Hamilton, if you think I'm going to let you out of my sight after all that's happened, you have even less brains than what March has left," Hatter replied, his voice implacable.

Well, she supposed she should have expected that. To be honest, she was not exactly keen on being separated from Hatter either. The Cheshire had intimated that she would not have to accomplish this task alone anyway. Her eyes lingered over his immensely strong right hand. Other than that, Hatter had other skills which might come in handy. For starters, he was much more adept at using a firearm than she was.

"Okay, fair enough," Alice conceded. "But we can't leave just yet. We have to free the oysters."

"What? Alice, that's too dangerous. The casino is crawling with Suits!" Hatter pointed out.

Alice shook her head. "Not anymore. Charlie had a huge trick up his escutcheon."

Hatter's expression soured at the mention of the White Knight's name. "Charlie? You mean he actually came within ten feet of the casino after leaving me high and dry by the Hospital of Dreams?"

Alice's brow furrowed, but she waved away that comment to deal with later. "Well, basically, he brought an army with him and most of the Suits have been drawn outside. I'm guessing they've been called out to defend the perimeter. But we have to move quickly before they figure out it's all one big ruse."

Hatter ran his hand through his hair, obviously displeased with the notion of Alice putting herself more at risk. "How do you plan on releasing the oysters then? Aren't they like glued to the floor or something? I know you're strong, love, but trying to rip them off the floor might end badly. Also, there's the fact that they're all…not exactly all there."

"Stasis," Alice's father croaked. "Wake them."

"Wake them? Wake them, how?" Hatter asked, throwing his hands into the air in frustration.

Alice searched through her memories, feeling like she had been given the key to wakening the oysters once before.

"Your people are practically ruled by emotions," the Cheshire had told her. Even Caterpillar, who had proved to be one of the most pathetic rebellion leaders she had even seen, had managed to dole out some pearls of wisdom. "Something Caterpillar said, if you mix the right kind of bad with the wrong kind of good, you'll wind up with a total breakdown," she recounted thoughtfully. She looked up at Hatter, who was still frowning with doubt at the entire plan. A triumphant grin broke out on her features. "I know what to do."

"What?"

Catching her father's gaze, which was gleaming with pride, she announced, "We're gonna stir up some emotions."

Hurray, they're back together! Have I appeased you all, haha? Please, do tell me what you thought!