Alice and David exchanged guilty looks.

"Well?" Carol demanded.

"Mom," Alice began.

Carol cut her off. "So help me, Alice Rebecca Hamilton, if the next words out of your mouth are 'not now' you will not enjoy the consequences! We've just been kidnapped and held at gunpoint, something which you are acting entirely too blasé about by the way, and I would like to know why!"

"First things first," David said, grabbing another pair of handcuffs from the drawer and pushing past her to get at Ten. "Let's finish securing these blokes and get them inside."

Carol looked over at Alice, who immediately busied herself with dragging one of the men into the office. Bereft of anything more constructive to do she helped a dazed man with a four on his lapel to his feet and marched him into the bathroom. It wasn't very long before the six of them were piled in, in varying states of consciousness and comfort. David closed the door and turned to Carol.

"Okay, so," David said, smiling charmingly. "What is it you need to know?"

"Who are those people? What is this list their after? How are you involved? How is Alice involved? How often is this sort of thing happening? Why is this sort of thing happening? What the hell is going on?"

David blinked. "That's an awful lot of questions."

"We should start at the beginning," Alice said.

"Right, of course," David agreed.

Carol waited. Neither of them said anything.

"And where exactly would the beginning be?" Carol prompted.

"David isn't British," Alice said, suddenly.

"No, that's right, no I'm not," David said vehemently. "You've spent more time in England than I have, actually."

"I spent a couple hours in Heathrow when I was a college student," Carol reminded him.

"And I've… watched some BBC shows." David nodded.

"So, where are you from, then?" Carol asked, exasperated. "Australia?"

"No."

"New Zealand?"

"Nope."

"Well then, where?"

"You wouldn't believe him if he told you," Alice said seriously.

"But you did?" Carol demanded. Her daughter didn't trust easily. It would be just her luck to place that level of confidence in someone who didn't deserve it. "How long have you know about this, anyway?"

"I knew from the moment we met," Alice admitted. "I never actually thought he was British."

"To be fair, there was a whole lot of very compelling evidence about my not being British laying about when we first met," David said. "None of which I happen to have handy at the moment."

"But what are you?" Carol asked.

David opened his mouth, and the sound of ringing came from his pants pocket. "In very high demand, apparently," he replied, flipping his cell phone open.

"You've got to be kidding me," Carol said flatly.

"He's not," Alice answered for him, craning her neck to take a look at the screen. "The people texting him are the ones who would know about that list they were after."

"I don't suppose I could get a straight answer about that either?"

"We don't know about the list," David said wearily. Alice plucked the phone out of his hands, and jerked her head in Carol's direction. David sighed, and then pushed his hands into his pockets before continuing. "The place I'm from just came out of something of a bad period. Terrible dictator, lots of beheadings, the whole nine yards… anyway the upshot of it is that most of my people have forgotten how to do things. Like read or write, for example. That's why I'm here, I get books and instructional videos and the like and I ship it back home."

Carol tried to connect his answer with her question and failed utterly.

"Or at least, that was what the job description was when I took it," David continued. "Nowadays, things are a bit trickier. Criminals from my… land keep crossing over here. When that happens I normally end up hosting whoever's looking for them. Occasionally I help with the apprehending."

"It's more than occasionally," Alice replied, handing him back his phone. "And it's we. We help."

"Is this number of insults really necessary?" David asked, frowning at the phone.

"Yes," Alice replied, hitting the send button. "Yes it is."

"Okay." David shrugged, pocketing the phone again.

"So you're… Iraqi?" Carol guessed wildly.

"No, not even close," David replied after a beat.

"Are you even going to pretend to answer any of my questions?" Carol cried.

David opened his mouth, and then closed it as both he and Alice focused their gazes on something behind her. "Maybe we should show you first."

Carol turned around, and watched as a man with what appeared to be a deformed Mickey Mouse hat on his head finished stepping out of the mirror.

The man blinked at her, before turning to Alice and David. "Is this a bad time?"

"Yes," David replied. "We needed you to have done that a good fifteen minutes ago!"

"We got ambushed just outside my apartment," Alice explained. Carol heard rather than saw her open the bathroom door; she was too busy watching two suited men walk out the mirror into David's office, her jaw slackened and body frozen in place.

"They were looking for some sort of list: I assume it's why you bought all the back up?" David continued, waving the suited men over to the bathroom. They did so, leaving room for the next pair to enter.

"Yes, but-" He looked between David and Carol, obviously confused.

"This is my mother, Carol," Alice said, moving to stand next to her. "Mom, this is Darrel, the Ten of Clubs."

"Hello!" The Ten of Clubs said politely, holding out his hand.

Carol took it automatically, and replied with "I have no idea what's going on."

"Well," David began, and then was cut off by his cell phone ringing again. He fished it out with a muttered "Bollocks."

"You can talk in front of her," Alice told Darrel.

"Well thank you!" Carol cried, moving out of the way as one of the suited men dragged an unconscious gunman into the office.

Alice ignored her. "What's on that list?"

"Names," Darrel replied. "People the Queen planted-"

"Wait!" David yelled suddenly. "Save it. We've all got to go. Now."

"What?" Alice and Darrel asked together. David held out his phone for them to see: the text read "How cheerfully he seems to grin and neatly spread his claws and welcome little fishes with gently smiling jaws".

"The White Rabbit's been compromised," David told them. "Hence, our pressing need to leave."

Activity in the room stopped, and the suited men looked to Darrel for guidance.

"As he said," Darrel replied wearily, waving them on. "Everyone grab a rebel or two and go."

Carol watched as they hefted the gunmen through the mirror, pushing those who could stand through before grabbing the unconscious ones and following. There was a click, and Carol turned around to watch as David slide the deadbolt on the office door shut.

"Wait, when you say leave, you can't mean through that," Carol protested.

"Er, yes, yes I can," David replied, pulling the curtains shut.

"I am not going through that!" Carol told him. "I don't even know what it is, but I know I'm not going through it!"

"Yes, you are," David insisted, pushing the couch towards the door. "They know where you live, it's not safe here."

"But-"

"It's a Looking Glass," Alice told her, as she picked up one end of the couch and helped David move it in front of the door. Carol could hear the capital letters in her words. "And it's safe, as long as you breathe."

"You want to know where I'm from?" David asked. "Well, this is how you get there."

"Through the Looking Glass?" Carol asked, disbelievingly. "Wait- through the Looking Glass?"

"Yes," Alice said firmly, grabbing her arm and pulling her towards it. "Just promise me you'll breathe, okay?"

Carol didn't have the chance, because in the next moment she and Alice had stepped through.