Traveling through the Looking Glass, Carol decided, either felt a lot like having a panic attack or gave her one. She and Alice collapsed on the other side, Alice grunting slightly as her knees hit the stone, Carol gasping for breath.

"You were supposed to breathe, Carol," said a voice from behind her. David helped Carol and Alice up, and then steered her towards a nearby window. A warm breeze ruffled at her hair, and she leaned heavily against the sill. "Now I know where Alice gets it from."

She could tell by the quiet "Ouch" that followed that statement that Alice had slugged her boyfriend in the arm again, but Carol was too busy looking out the window to admonish her to be nice. There was a city outside, but not New York, and not a city like she had ever seen before: it seemed to have been carved entirely out of white marble, for one thing, and all of the buildings she could see were in the shapes of chess pieces.

"Welcome to Wonderland, Carol," David said quietly.

"Wonderland?" Carol repeated.

"Yes. The City of the Knights, built on the border between the old Red Kingdom and the Kingdom of Hearts, more specifically."

"Of course it is," Carol agreed amiably. "I don't know how I could have missed that."

"The way you said that entirely without sarcasm frightens me," David remarked.

"She's in shock, I think," Alice said, guiding her away from the window and towards a bench. "This is a lot to take in at one go."

"Okay, well," David looked around. "Will you both be alright if I go find out where Darrel's gone to?"

"Yeah, go ahead," Alice said, sitting her down.

"You sure?"

"Go, Hatter," Alice ordered. "We'll be fine."

"So, Wonderland," Carol said, after he was gone.

"Yeah, it's… not a kid's story," Alice replied. "I found it about two years ago- that night I conked my head in the shop, remember?"

"Yeah, it's difficult to forget," Carol said, with a shudder at the memory. Then she frowned. "You were chasing after that boy- the one before David."

"Jack Chase," Alice reminded her. Carol nodded.

"Whose real name is Jack Heart, and is actually the King of Hearts," Alice continued. Carol stopped nodding. "Although, he was still a Prince when we met him."

"You were proposed to by a Prince," Carol said, incredulously. "And you turned him down?"

"Twice," Alice confirmed.

Carol groaned.

"I wasn't lying about him having a fiancé," Alice told her. "He did. He still does- the wedding's supposed to be in a few weeks, though it's been that way for the better part of a year, so…"

"So you fell through a Looking Glass, found out your current boyfriend was a Prince, and engaged and then somehow ended up with another boyfriend…" Carol's voice trailed off. "You were only gone for an hour, Alice."

"Actually, it was a bit closer to a week," Alice told her. "Time's not exactly fixed, between here and home."

"Of course it isn't," Carol said, throwing her hands up in the air. "Why should it be?"

Alice frowned. "Mom…"

"So the first time you came was an accident," Carol said. "Have you been back since?"

"Yes," Alice admitted. "We've been back three times: once for Jack's official coronation, once to bury Hatter's father properly, and once-"

"Just Alice!"

Alice spun around, the large smile on her face only partly relief at their conversation being interrupted, and greeted an elderly man Carol quickly recognized as David's slightly senile Great Uncle Charlie. He'd come to visit him for a week once, about three months ago, and had clarified a few points about Arthurian legend for anyone who would listen and generally embarrassed David every time they got on the subway. Today, because everything was different today, he was wearing armor, and far more happy to see Alice than someone who'd once seen her on a visit to their great-nephew should be, so perhaps he wasn't a former university professor after all.

Was anything she was told about David the truth?

"Charlie!" Alice said, hugging him close. "How are things in the City of the Knights?"

"Quite well," Charlie replied. "And quite dull, too. Your arrival has been the most excitement we've had since I was officially declared a knight of the realm."

"Well good!" Alice laughed. "At this point, no news is good news."

Carol coughed, and stood up. "Charlie."

"Please," he said. "Sir Charles Eustace Fotheringhay Le Malvois III, now that we may speak without deception."

He bowed. Carol curtsied. With a little help from Alice, he straightened with a smile.

"It is good to see you again as well, dear lady," he said, before turning back to Alice. "Your Harbinger has asked to me pass along the message that there is a scarab leaving for the Kingdom of Hearts shortly, and if it meets with your approval he can arrange seats."

"Scarab? Harbinger?" Carol asked.

"Harbinger is what Charlie calls Hatter," Alice explained. "A scarab is a sort of giant flying beetle machine."

"You're going to voluntarily get on something that flies," Carol said.

"It beats travelling by flamingo," Alice told her.

"… What?"

"Articulated birds of the empyrean!" Charlie cried. "We flew upon them during our escape from the Queen's Court, after rescuing Alice of course."

"Rescuing Alice from what?" Carol demanded.

"Nothing! I had everything under control!" Alice protested. "Which way to the scarab, Charlie?"

Charlie sniffed, jaw jutting forwards. "This way…"

Carol walked quickly, so that she was level with the knight. "So, how did you and Alice meet, then?"

"She and her Harbinger fell into one of my Jabberwock traps," Charlie said. "Chased there by the great beast itself! I was quite irate, at the time. I didn't know who Alice was, you see, and I had been hunting that creature for decades."

Carol opened her mouth, realized that Charlie would have no idea what the Jabberwock in the movie looked like for comparison, and moved on to her next question. "How long ago was that?"

"Very nearly three years now."

"Three years?" Carol repeated.

"I told you, time isn't fixed," Alice said. "How long has it been since you were knighted?"

"Oh, just over half a year for me," Charlie said. "And you, Just Alice?"

"We're coming up on three months," Alice said.

Three months. Carol thought back. "Was that the afternoon you told me you were dropping Charlie off at the airport? The one where there was a bomb scare and I couldn't reach you on your cell phone?"

Alice blushed guiltily.

"And before that- you were here to bury Hatter's father?"

"We told you about that," Alice protested swiftly.

"How much of what you told me was the truth? Had he even just died? Did you visit him on his deathbed? Had he died a while ago and-"

"Yes," Alice snapped. "Yes, he was very dead, he died when Hatter was eight. It took them that long to find and identify the body."

"And you couldn't have told me that?" Carol asked. "I would have understood that, Alice, even if you couldn't have explained where exactly you were going."

"I didn't want to dredge up memories," Alice sighed. "For you, or for Hatter."

"Oh God," Carol stopped short as the obvious smacked her in the face. "You're dating the Mad Hatter!"

"I prefer to think of myself as the Charmingly Eccentric Hatter, actually," said Dav- said Hatter, holding open a door. "Are we flying?"

"We're flying," Alice said firmly, all but running ahead of them. "Let's go."

Hatter remained holding open the door until she and Charlie had passed through, then jogged ahead to catch up with Alice, who was waiting at a junction, clearly at a loss as to where to go next.

"Youth," Charlie said, somewhat derisively. "They always think they know better than their elders, do they not?"

"Well, I'm glad there's something that's universal across worlds," Carol said, following his lead. "I feel like I have to ask: are you really related to D- Hatter?"

"By blood, no," Charlie admitted. "The bonds formed during combat are not to be trifled with, however."

Alice and Hatter were out of sight by then, but Charlie seemed to know where he was going. She forced herself not to be too worried. Yet. All bets were off at the first sign of flamingos.

"What do you know about him, then?" she asked. "I mean, really, solidly, know about him."

Charlie stopped, thinking. "I know that he has a solid right hook. He is very well-read on subjects which were, until recently, forbidden areas of study to citizens in his kingdom, and he holds no allegiance above that of his to Alice. He is also incapable of standing still for any length of time, a shameless liar, far too reliant upon underhanded tactics for my taste, and very, very rude."

Carol nearly laughed at the affronted tone Charlie had adapted for that last phrase. She could only imagine what Hatter's initial reaction to Charlie would have been, now that she knew he hadn't grown up knowing him.

"They do make quite a team, you know," Charlie continued as they began to walk again. "Just Alice and her Harbinger. They have saved Wonderland time and again where more conventional souls had been failing for decades."

"So, everything I know about my daughter's longest relationship is a lie," Carol translated for him.

"Well, yes," Charlie admitted. He opened a door and they were abruptly outside and facing… well, a giant flying beetle thing.

"This is a scarab, then?" Carol asked.

"Yes indeed, m'lady," Charlie confirmed, offer her his elbow as they reached the boarding ramp. Carol took it, slightly charmed in spite of herself, and they began to walk upwards just as Hatter poked his head out of the door.

"There you are!" he called out. "I thought I was going to have to send out a search party!"

"There is no need for your impertinence, you bread kneader you!" Charlie called back. "Simply because you prefer to leap into vehicles at full speed does not mean we all travel with such haste!"

Hatter smiled bemusedly and held open the door for them again. The scarab's corridors were very narrow, but she could see a window at the far end of it, so she wasn't doing too badly yet.

"Are you coming with us then, Charlie?" Hatter asked, closing the door behind them.

"My Queen has tasked me with delivering a message to the King of Hearts today," Charlie informed him. "So yes, I am."

"That's good timing," Hatter remarked.

"My Queen is gifted with the power of foresight, which doubtlessly informed her of-"

"I know, Charlie," Hatter interrupted, opened the door to a compartment. "That was a joke."

"Oh yes. Of course it was," Charlie said sweeping inside with a grandiose air.

Carol was relieved to find that there was a large window set into the wall. Alice, of course, sat by the aisle, looking mildly nervous, but nowhere near as horrified as she had the last time she had tried to fly anywhere.

"Saved you a window seat," she said, patting the cushions next to her. Carol sat; Charlie and Hatter settled themselves in the seats directly across from them.

"So… you're delivering a message to Alice's ex?" Carol asked.

"Mom!" Alice protested.

"Alice's two-timing ex, don't forget that part," Hater interjected.

"I believe she was talking to me?" Charlie admonished imperiously. When there were no further words, he turned to her with another genial smile. "I am indeed. However, the subject of the message is one which I am sworn to reveal only in the presence of the King."

Carol could barely hear his words over the great, shuddering groan that the scarab emitted as it took off. Beside her, Alice paled, and Hatter leaned forwards and offered her a hand to squeeze between her own.

"It's alright!" he yelled above the din. "That's perfectly normal, as soon as we're out of the dock it'll get a lot-" The noise stopped, replaced with humming. "Quieter."

Alice took a few deep breaths, then let go of his hand; Hatter leaned back into his seat, as though nothing had happened.

"It doesn't sound like that in the piloting compartment," Alice stated.

"No, that's soundproofed," Hatter informed her.

"Good to know," Alice said, pointedly looking away from the window.

"So, we're going to the Kingdom of Hearts?" Carol asked.

"Myumsiki," Hatter said.

"Gesundheit," Carol replied.

"No, Myumsiki City," Hatter clarified. "It's the center of commerce for the kingdom, and the seat of government while they rebuild the palace."

"What happened to the palace?"

Hatter and Alice exchanged hapless looks, and did not answer.

Charlie didn't share in their compunctions. "It was destroyed in the battle to overthrow the Queen of Hearts," he explained. "Exploded with its own firepower! Alice completed the coup shortly thereafter."

Carol turned to Alice, who had a slightly horrified expression on her face.

"I grew up there, too," Hatter said swiftly.

"The palace?" Carol asked.

"Myumsiki."

"Oh," Carol said, wondering if she should ignore the change in topics, or ask about the coup later. She decided that there was enough she didn't know that she could let the pair of them talk themselves out before pressing the issue. "What was that like?"

Hatter opened his mouth, closed it again, and then said "Not as bad as it could have been, actually. I spent most of my childhood in the Great Library, reading, and when I had enough of that I ran wild through the streets until I settled myself down enough to apply myself to business."

"It might be worth mentioning that most of the streets in Myumsiki end in a mile-high drop," Alice supplied.

"They do not!" Hatter scoffed.

"Two miles."

Hatter rolled his eyes.

Carol stared at them. "Alice hates heights."

"I hate guns," Hatter countered.

"Besides," Alice added, smiling slightly. "Hatter wouldn't let me fall."

Carol couldn't be entirely sure (the brim of his bowler cap was in the way) but she thought Hatter's ears might have turned red at the compliment.

A/N: Because I screwed up and posted a chapter from another story here last night, I'm going to send this out early. Sorry for anyone who got the alert and then ended up reading about pizza instead!

Additionally, myumsiki is Russian for mimsy, which is a word used to describe something that is miserable and flimsy: exactly the sort of work you would do while hungover or still high from the night before. I felt it was appropriate for that crazy, crumbling place, so, there you go.