AN: I've wanted to do a chapter like this for a while, but I wasn't sure how to approach it until recently. Once I got over my writer's block for this story, I got right to work. Hope you all will enjoy reading it!

Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians or Alice: Madness Returns.

March 1863

'A...B...C...D...E...'

Alice let out a soft sigh of boredom as she lazily picked up the yellow "F" block from the cluster of wooden alphabet blocks sprawled out in front of her. She turned it over in her small hands a few times, idly chipping away some of the old paint from the letter carved into one of its sides before adding it to the tower she was slowly constructing on the foyer rug in front her.

Of course, Alice already knew her ABC's. She no longer needed to use her old spelling blocks like the other children in the neighborhood, like all the babies. Alice didn't go to a regular school like the other children. She was given lessons by her mother right there in the Liddell household. Papa worked for the schools. He worked right inside the biggest school of them all, the school where all the grown ups go to, and he said the schools for little girls like Alice were "inadequate" and "underfunded" and "run by a bunch of daft buffoons". He always said he'd rather retire early to a shallow grave than play "Russian Roulette" with his daughters' education. Whatever that meant.

Alice didn't need the spelling blocks, but they were the only toys her nanny let her keep after the woman took her other toys away. She was currently being punished because her eyes kept drifting towards the library window during her piano lesson, aggravating her nanny with her lack of attention. After a solid hour of flat notes and frustrated sighs, Nanny angrily dismissed Alice before snatching up her dolls and tea set and locking them away in her bedroom, banishing Alice to sit by herself in the empty foyer of her family's home with nothing but baby blocks and her stuffed rabbit to keep her company.

Nanny tried to take her rabbit too, at first, but before the woman could even make a grab for it, Alice quickly ran off and crawled under papa's desk in the library where the heavyset woman was unable to reach. After only a few seconds of trying, her nanny just threw her arms up in defeat with a lovely string of curses far too inappropriate for a child's impressionable ears before abandoning Alice for the half bottle of whiskey she kept hidden away in her room.

When Alice was certain that her nanny was truly gone and not just pulling a trick, she crawled out of her hiding spot with her rabbit in hand and slowly climbed to her feet before retreating into the foyer where she sat on the carpet outside of her father's study.

She could hear his voice through the sturdy wood of the door, along with a few others. Papa was having afternoon tea with some of his students. He called them undergraduates, something Alice didn't know the meaning of, but Lizzie called them toadies, also something Alice didn't know the meaning of. They were always falling over themselves trying to impress Papa. Bending way over backwards just to get an approving nod from him.

Papa didn't usually invite students to their house for tea, just the other men he worked with at his school. During the school year he sometimes invited students over, but only the ones he thought had great promise and potential, which was only two or three a year.

It was an annual routine Alice had taken notice of lately. The three students would come to the Liddell household every other Sunday, always dressed professionally and always punctual. Mother would invite them in with a smile and they would exchange polite greetings before being escorted to her father's study for tea. Usually Lizzie would be there too because it was expected of her to be a lady and greet them as well, which she did when the toadies first started to visit the house, but in the last few visits, she's been staying up in her room, refusing to come out until Papa's guests were gone.

Alice found the behavior a little strange considering none of Papa's guests talk to anyone other than him after the initial greetings, they would all just go in his study and close the door and talk about boring school things until tea time was over, but she didn't dwell on it for too long. Lizzie has been very moody and ill-tempered lately, always jumping at shadows and quick to snap at people for bothering her, even Alice. Their mother was a little worried at the dramatic change in behavior, and albeit at a much lower, unaware level, so was Papa, but Nanny was certain it was something that would eventually pass. Teenage nonsense, she would say.

Alice didn't take much notice beyond the obvious, already knowing it would just end up frustrating her trying to figure out what was going on. She was just the baby. Nobody told the baby anything. The baby that couldn't do anything right. She could understand things if she needed to. They just needed to give her a chance.

But of course, that was apparently too much to ask for. The only person who didn't treat her like a baby was the Easter Bunny. He was always honest with her, and even on the rare occasions he wasn't, she knew he lied and sugar-coated things more for his own comfort - rather than to shelter her against things she shouldn't know about.

Alice let out another sigh as she looked down at her stuffed rabbit.

Mr. Bunnymund was supposed to come visit her today, but he never showed up.

In similar situations where the pooka failed to visit like he promised to, he always spoke of his duties as a guardian and the emergencies he was sometimes called away for. He had no real say when it came to these emergencies. When the call came for him, he would travel to the North Pole where Father Christmas' workshop was and come together with his friends to fight "big baddies". They needed to protect the children of the world from the unseen dangers lurking in their dark closets and underneath their beds.

Alice couldn't help but scoff at that. There was nothing scary hiding under her bed, she knew that. And even if there was, she could just go to Wonderland and escape it. Wonderland was her safe haven. Nothing could touch her there.

She wasn't afraid of the Boogeyman.

But she was afraid of being abandoned by Mr. Bunnymund. She was a child of the world, wasn't she? Were guardians allowed to break promises to the children? She doubted it.

The loud chiming of the foyer's grandfather clock as it settled on noon pulled Alice from her musings. She looked up at the old clock with a frown as it sang away before setting aside her rabbit and placing her hands in her lap. It was almost time for lunch. If she hadn't made herself too sick with that foul-smelling liquid, Nanny should be coming to get Alice any minute. Or Lizzie, if the older girl dared to venture out of her room today.

While Alice waited, she brushed imaginary dust off the front of her yellow dress and smoothed the skirt out over her short legs. She grimaced once again at the bright color. She hated that dreadful dress, more so than her other pastel colored dresses. It made her feel like an over-sized bumblebee, or a wasp.

Wasps were horrible creatures. Always buzzing around with mean attitudes and stinging people for no reason.

Alice looked at the yellow spelling block again, sitting innocently at the top of her stack. Its ugly yellow coloring made her think of all the other ugly, yellow things she didn't like, and in a sudden pang of frustration, she snatched the block from atop the stack and tossed it across the room. When that didn't satisfy her, she stuck her tiny foot out and knocked over the rest of the stack with a small, angry cry.

She watched the blocks tumble and scatter across the rug with a pinched, sour expression; her mind seething over punishments and broken promises.

"My, my, my," A sudden voice sounded behind her, making Alice jump slightly in surprise. "That wasn't very ladylike."

Childish anger forgotten, Alice turned at the waist to look behind her as a tall shadow fell over her.

Her green eyes landed on a freshly polished pair of shoes before slowly moving up long legs cladded in pressed, grey pants until they reached a pristine white dress shirt and vest. She craned her head back when she finally got to the figure's face and almost immediately recognized the tall man as one of her father's toadies. He stared down at her from behind a pair of round eyeglasses with his hands placed neatly behind his back. He had dark brown hair brushed back in a smart, orderly haircut while his pale face was clean-shaven and perfectly in place, just like the rest of him.

Several beats of silence passed as Alice stared up at the toady.

If her parents were present, this would be around the time when they would gently nudge her forward and encourage her to introduce herself to their guest, but since it was just the two of them, Alice only blinked up at him with a blank look in her eyes once the toady's surprise entrance wore off. He regarded her a little more closely than she did him, seemingly searching her with an expression just as blank as the one she gave him for several seconds before something passed over his face and he smiled at her.

No doubt the large smile was meant to present itself as friendly and disarming, but something about it, something about him, only made it all the more off-putting than the rest of him. Alice wanted to believe it was a fake smile, one of those phony smiles all her father's students gave her, pretending to take great interest her in hopes of making a good impression on her father, but that didn't seem to be the case this time. The man's smile appeared to be genuine.

But not a good genuine.

Alice watched with unwavering eyes as he moved his hands out from behind his back and slowly crouched down to better accommodate Alice's short height.

"Hello there, little one," He greeted politely. "What is your name?"

Alice didn't respond. She was shy and evasive around all strangers, but this one had certain air about him. A sort of...unsettling aura. She found herself unable to speak and unable to move from her spot on the rug. The only thing she could do was hold her toy rabbit closer to her chest.

"Are you going to answer me?" The toady asked, tilting his head slightly to the side.

Alice held the rabbit closer and shook her head.

His eyes trailed over her again, catching the movement and deciphering her body language. His smile morphed into an amused smirk and he let out a quiet scoff as he regarded her with an unimpressed look.

"How rude."

She expected the man to leave then since the dull look in his eyes clearly expressed his disinterest in her, but much to her discomfort, he didn't move from his crouched position in front of her. He only let out a woeful sigh and reached out to pick up on of her spelling blocks, examining it boredly.

Alice watched him as he turned over the blue "Q" block in his large hands repeatedly, chipping away some of the paint with his nail like she had done with the yellow block minutes earlier. She wondered why the man was out in the foyer with her instead of in her papa's study, drinking tea and discussing Oxford alumni with the rest of the toadies. Her green eyes shifted away from him and trailed along the hallway. She sought out her nanny, hoping that the large, buxom woman would come out and scare off the tall man like she did with all the other wide-eyed "sods" who dared loiter the Liddell hallways without permission, but there was only her rabbit with her.

"How about we play a little game?" The man suddenly suggested, pulling Alice's longing gaze away from the staircase behind him. He raised the blue block in his hand and held it out for Alice to see before placing it back on the ground with the others.

"I will use these pretty blocks here to try and guess your name. If I guess a wrong letter three times-" He raised three, long fingers to emphasize, "-then I lose and your parents won't have to know how rude you were being to one of their guests. Does that sound good so far?"

Alice looked at him as she mulled over her options in her head. Once she realized how limited they were, she slowly nodded. Maybe if she played his game, he would go back in her father's study and leave her alone.

He smiled that bad genuine smile again. "Good. Now, if I somehow do manage to spell out your name without guessing wrong three times, than I win and you'll have to tell me where your sister is."

Alice's brow furrowed in confusion. Her sister? Why on earth would he want to know where Lizzie was? Papa was the one all the toadies came to see.

Still, at a loss for a more ideal response, she nodded again.

"Delightful," The bespectacled toady clapped his hands together, making Alice jump. His eyes trailed along the blocks on the floor. "Let's see now. First letter."

He let out a low, thoughtful hum as his long fingers hovered above the blocks. They would linger over one block for a few moments before moving on to the next while he pursed his lips, seemingly in deep thought. Alice watched intently until he picked up a green "M" block and held it up.

"Does your name start with a "M"?" He asked.

Alice resisted the urge to smile at his wrong guess as she shook her head.

"No? Alright then, I suppose that's one against me."

He placed the block back down and scanned the others, pretending to think deeply again before picking up the red "A" block. When he held it up, he didn't even have to ask if it was correct. The disappointment on Alice's face said it all. He smirked and placed the block down on the ground in front of her.

After more exaggerated contemplation, he picked up the purple "L" block next. Then the orange "I" block, which followed almost immediately by the yellow "C" block.

She was beginning to believe his first missed guess was an act. A ploy to lure her into thinking that he hadn't already been well aware of her name before he had approached her. How foolish of her, to let him trick her like that. She resisted the strong urge to bolt from her spot and hide under her papa's desk in the library again.

When his fingers came to rest on the blue "E" block, his eyes flickered up at hers and he smirked that unsettling smirk again.

"I think that's game, Alice," He said, placing the last block in line with the others so it spelled out her name before splaying his hands out in front of him. "Now I believe we had an arrangement? Where's Elizabeth?"

Alice didn't say anything. She only pulled her rabbit closer and pressed her lips tightly together so the frightening man couldn't use his words and piercing gaze to trick her into say something she shouldn't. She knew it had been part of their "game", but she didn't want to tell him where Lizzie was. She wanted him to go away and leave her be. However, her eyes betrayed her when they involuntarily moved towards the staircase and he caught the look. His smirk deepened.

"Now there's a good girl."

He reached out a hand and patted her on the top of her head, making Alice flinch away from the offending appendage. Her obvious discomfort only seemed to fuel his amusement though. He kept his hand planted firmly on her hand, stubbornly avoiding her small attempts at dislodging it.

"Such a cute, little, mindless tyke, aren't you?" He smiled down at her. "I suppose there's not much going on in that thick noggin of yours, being as quiet as you are...Do you even know how to talk? I would think so, considering you know how to spell, but you have such an impaired look about you. Perhaps that father of yours should spend less time being a boastful git, and focus more on educating his dull daughter so she won't grow up completely useless and-"

A sharp gasp sounded from somewhere behind Alice, followed by a frantic series of footsteps coming down the staircase just as the man retracted his hand. Alice barely had the chance to turn around when she was suddenly swept up from the foyer rug, and into the arms of her sister.

Lizzie held Alice tightly against her chest as she backed as far away from the man as she could, almost staggering over the blocks on the floor in her haste before fixing the man standing in their foyer with a hateful glare.

"What do you think you are doing?" She demanded. "I thought I told you to never come around here again. How dare you lay your disgusting hands on my sister!"

The man looked up at the young woman with a new-found glint in his eye as he slowly stood up from his crouched position. He tsked softly at her harsh tone of voice. "Now Elizabeth, don't be rude to a guest. It's unbecoming."

When he took a step closer to them, Lizzie immediately took two steps back, adamantly maintaining the distance between them. Alice watched in bated silence as the two adults stared each other down. Sensing the seriousness of the already constricting atmosphere around them, she wrapped one arm around her sister's neck while the other still clutched tightly to the arm of her toy rabbit. On instinct, she rested her cheek against Lizzie's shoulder. The older girl's hair fell in front of Alice's face, but she did nothing to move it out of the way. It acted oddly as a protective curtain in her mind, shielding her from a full view of the disturbing man invading their home.

"You are no guest in this house," Lizzie stated firmly with her nose held bravely in the air. The man practically towered over her in height, but she'd rather roll over and die than let that intimidate her. "I told you that the last time you were here."

He chuckled at her. "Well I'm afraid that's not up to you, my dear. Your father invited me."

"Then I suppose I'll have to make certain he doesn't do that again," Lizzie retorted with a mocking tone as she gave him a cruel smirk. She didn't wait for a response from him before turning on her heel and moving towards the staircase with a silent Alice still held tightly in her arms. "I suggest you return to my father's study and enjoy the rest of tea time while you can. This will be the last time you ever set foot in our house."

From behind them, the man let out a heavy sigh. "I really do tire of these games, Love."

Alice felt Lizzie stiffen around her arm seconds before the older girl whipped around and glared at him. "Do not call me that! You don't ever get to call me that!"

"I'm a patient man when I strive to be, pet, but you're just making things so much more difficult than they need to be."

"I'm warning you, Bumby," Lizzie hissed. "Stay away from me!"

"Oh I know you don't mean that, darling," Bumby called after the two girls as they disappeared upstairs.

Lizzie snorted softly to herself. She didn't bother turning back around and firing off one final, biting comment at his dispassionate face, already knowing he would only disregard it as teasing banter like he did with all her threats and insults.

Angus Bumby was the creepiest sod she had ever had the displeasure of knowing, by far.

His constant harassment over the past few months had become a throbbing tumor of stress in Elizabeth's life, making it nearly impossible for her to think about anything else for more than five minutes without everything drifting back to the unhinged man plaguing her mind and personal space. The more time he spent lurking around her house under the guise of tea time with her father and fellow students, the bolder he seemed to get.

Their initial meeting had been off-putting enough, what with his slimy handshake and pathetic attempts at wooing her that surfaced in his following visits. She put up with his dreaded company because she had to, but catching him with his clammy hand on Alice had been the final straw. It was one thing to direct his unwanted attention on Lizzie, she needed to learn the proper way to reject suitors soon or later anyways, but it was something else entirely to be so forward with her toddler sister. Lizzie knew from experience he wasn't just trying to be friendly with Alice. Nobody from the university took interest in Dean Liddell's daughters unless it served their own competitive agendas. As soon as all of papa's students left, she would march downstairs and demand he never invite Bumby for tea again.

It would be difficult explaining why she requested such a thing, especially since papa was still oblivious to the inappropriate affections his student had towards his eldest daughter, but she'd manage somehow.

Lizzie swiftly retreated into the safety of her bedroom while firmly kicking the door shut behind her with her heel.

Alice watched from her spot on the bed where Lizzie placed her as the older girl quickly paced over to her bedroom window and peeked out outside through the drapes. The silent girl noted with concerned curiosity the way her sister's fingers twisted nervously around the dark lavender material of her drapes while her emerald eyes stared intensely out the window. She forced herself not to tremble in her cream-colored skirts as she glanced in Alice's direction.

"You are to never speak to that man again, Alice," Lizzie told her sternly. "Do you understand?"

It was clear to anybody who looked, even little Alice, that the strange confrontation with the bespectacled toady left Lizzie greatly disturbed. Alice could only infer that her sister was already acquainted with papa's student and she did not like him, at all. Lizzie was a nice girl, she wouldn't have been so cross with him otherwise.

"Yes, Lizzie," Alice spoke softly from behind her rabbit's head, her voice slightly muffled by the material.

She continued to watch as Lizzie turned back towards the window and mumbled softly to herself, no doubt waiting for Bumby and the other toadies to leave so she could speak with papa.

'Don't worry Lizzie,' Alice silent promised her while looking down at the black button eyes of her rabbit and thinking longingly of the spirit that give it to her. 'If the toady comes around again, Mr. Bunnymund will scare him away for you.'

AN: Sorry that there wasn't any Bunny and Alice cuteness in this chapter, just foreboding story development, but I knew I had to have a Bumby chapter somewhere in here.

And just on a personal opinion note, I don't think Bumby is a pedophile. I've noticed that people refer to him as one in the McGees's Alice section, but I don't think that's true. He's a child pimp and exploiter, for sure. There's no doubting that. But there's never been any evidence to suggest that he also sexually abused the children he sells. He was obsessed with Lizzie obviously, but she was, more or less, a grown woman at the time and I can only assume Bumby was around the same age as her when they first met.

So on that pleasant note, I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

~Scorpiofreak~