Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the property of SyFy and Nick Willing and are only used for fan related purposes.

Gumshoe

chapter nine: Cheshire

Hatter expected the White Knight—who introduced himself as Charles Eustace Farthering-something Something the third (that part seemed important)… Alice just called him Charlie and the old man didn't seem to mind—to lead them back to the small house he'd burst out of carrying the sewer lid, but he didn't. Instead, heading in the same direction Alice had been running before her fall, he told them he was graciously taking them back to, as he put it, his castle. The small house, he explained with a snobbish sniff, was simply an empty shack he'd used for its vantage point. It was quite the strategical answer, and a coherent one to boot. No surprise, then, that it aroused Hatter's suspicions.

But when he asked Charlie why the old knight felt like Tulgey Wood needed someone guarding over it, all he got back was a load of babble about playing cards and aphrodisiacs not being a good combination. Hatter went on to drop the subject though he damn well didn't forget about it. Alice might seem taken in by his chivalric, doddering old fool act but Hatter knew better.

Alice could rest if she wanted to. Hatter was sleeping with one eye open.

It bothered him more than he cared to admit that he didn't know where they were going. It felt like a trap, the way his feet tingled like that—and it wasn't frostbite, neither—and he wondered whether he should run; it sounded like a trap, the quiet hum of the wind through the sparse evergreens and the naked limbs of empty maples and oaks; hell, it even smelled like a trap, though that might've been the lingering odor coming off of Charlie's trashcan armor. But, still. Hatter hadn't lasted this long in a place like Wonderland without being a bit of a charming rogue on the outside and one hell of a suspicious bastard underneath all that nice and warm body armor.

Wonderland wasn't an overly large district, and Hatter would've said he knew every inch of it the way he knew the back of his hand. At least, he would've said that before that night, when Charlie purposely led them along the length of Tulgey Wood into a place Hatter had never been in all his time there. Now, Hatter was as lost as Alice in Wonderland, and he didn't like that feeling, no, not even a little.

And it wasn't that he hadn't spent a fair share of his time down this way, either. He had. It was just that all of the safe houses he knew of around there were abandoned shacks like the one Charlie had been hiding in—and they were all scattered at the far end of Tulgey Wood. There had never been any reason for him to go this far to the outskirts of Wonderland. Everyone knew that Tears Lake marked the border back to the real world, but nobody Hatter knew had ever managed to get to it, let alone cross it before.

Probably, Hatter thought, because you'd have to be mad like Charlie here to even want to go this far through Tulgey Wood (and that far away from the glitz and glamour and absolute lie that was Main Street).

Tulgey Wood itself was a bit of a joke. A narrow strip of trees, maybe four or five different sorts across, it covered one length of Wonderland. It was a dead part of town—not even the Red Hearts or White Diamonds bothered with it, which was why Hatter wasn't sure which was worse: that the Jabberwock had been waiting for them, or that Charlie lived down here. Most of the Wonderlanders spent their time (and money) on Main Street, and the Chessboard was prime real estate in the district. Tulgey Wood, and Tears Lake after it, were forgotten points in a forgotten place.

Hatter's palms were itching now. He didn't like being this far away from the heart of Wonderland. He was out of his element, and there was no better time to fall prey to a trap than then. Following close behind Alice, he kept his eyes and ears alert. They would have a hard time springing a surprise on Hatter, he'd make sure of that.

The rest of the journey to Charlie's place was uneventful, except for a slippery patch of ice—real, this time—that Alice managed to find. Her boot slipped out from under her, her right arm reached back, flailing, and Hatter was right there waiting in time to hoist her up and keep her from performing a split. Which, when Alice just nodded a quick thanks, Hatter very nearly regretted. Yes, it was cold, and it wouldn't have been very comfortable, but the man had to keep himself warm somehow—and imagining Alice doing splits, maybe her skirt riding up just a bit more, were just the sort of nice, warm, toasty thoughts he needed as the night dragged on and the temperature dropped.

Such thoughts keeping him company, he only noticed that Charlie and Alice had come to a stop in time for him to avoid walking straight into her back. Charlie had his arm outstretched, gesturing in the not-too-distant distance. "Ah, there it is. My castle."

Hatter followed the point of Charlie's finger. Given the darkness—no one was considerate enough to plant a couple of lamps this far on the outskirts of Wonderland, except around the edge of Tears Lake as a definite warning—it took him a second to make it out, but he did. It was a shack even smaller than the other one, perfectly tucked between a couple of trees that masked most of it from their position. It was a wood shack, a lean-to, and Hatter was just beginning to think that maybe Alice was right to accept Charlie's offer when, all of a sudden, Charlie strode forward and started to holler.

"Horace, my squire," he called, his hand cupped around his mouth so that his voice carried, "let down the drawbridge! The White Knight and his companions wish to cross the moat!"

And then Hatter cursed and wished for the countless time that he hadn't left his pistol back with Dodo at the library. He knew it—it was a trap. Forget what crazy, load of nonsense the old man was spewing and listen to what he was really saying: Horace. That meant someone else. That meant they weren't alone anymore. Hatter, on instinct, folded his right hand into a fist, ready to fight his way out of this if he had to. Because, those instincts screamed, who else was waiting inside the tiny house?

Well, the answer to that was quite simple after only another second's wait.

No one was.

To Hatter's absolute astonishment, Charlie removed his trashcan armor and immediately adopted a whole new personality. Stooped down low so that he was shorter than Hatter, he moved quickly, franticly, as he placed the folded piece of metal over a rather dingy puddle and, stepping lightly on his tiptoes, danced around to the other side. Then, when he was standing in front of the door, he bowed his head and said with the utmost respect, "My lord, it's so good to see you've had a safe return. Welcome to your castle."

Charlie cleared his throat, straightened up and, extending his long leg over the make-shift—it was a drawbridge, wasn't it?—over the makeshift drawbridge, he joined Alice and Hatter on the opposite side, facing the front door. "Thank you, Horace," he intoned, his voice rich and full again. "Your master requires victuals for his self, the Lady Alice and…" Here Charlie glanced over his shoulder and eyed Hatter down the lengths of his nose, "… and her vassal."

"Yes, my lord. At once."

And, just like that, Charlie was Horace again—and Hatter finally relaxed his fist. Okay, he mused, so maybe it wasn't a trap. But saying Charlie was madder than a box before had been putting it mildly. He was crazier than a canary bush!

Charlie was back. "This way, Lady Alice," he said, offering Alice a grubby hand. She took it and, careful not to put too much weight on the flimsy piece of tin masquerading as an old man's delusion, she allowed Charlie to help her cross the drawbridge over a nonexistent moat and lead her to the front door of his, ahem, castle.

Hatter watched as Alice worked to swallow back her grin; he had to work from scowling as he reluctantly followed.

Vassal, indeed.

There was a fire burning inside.

It was a mad fire, too, perfect for a mad knight. It wasn't in a grate or in a fire pit; instead, stuck in the middle of the floor, burning in the center of a collection of big, round stones, there was a fire going. Hatter couldn't believe that the shack hadn't burned down while Charlie was gone. Almost all of the furniture inside was wooden, even a cot set up in a far corner that looked like it was made of four downed trees, a handmade quilt and a couple of pillows full of something some poor, unfortunate goose might've coughed up. Perfect kindling, except, against all logic and reason, the fire burned in its place and nowhere else.

There really wasn't that much more to the shack—and, Hatter admitted begrudgingly, that made sense when he saw that no one else was inside. But that didn't mean that his detective instincts took a leave just because he agreed foolishly to come inside the shack. So, after a quick dinner that left him hungrier than when he started, Hatter walked around the small two-room hovel and checked every nook and cranny. You could never be too prepared.

Dinner was an… interesting affair. After cooking a hunk of meat over the roaring fire, the old knight cut it into three large pieces and gave one to each of them—and the largest to Alice. It was something Charlie said was called borogrove but looked too much like roasted dog for Hatter's taste. He settled himself down with a cup of something that could've been tea, or maybe even water colored with feral cat piss. Either way, it was wet. Alice, after eyeing her hunk of borogrove skeptically, tore her teeth into it in a way that made Hatter feel quite warm again. He blamed it on the fire and quickly strolled away into the other room.

Hatter left Alice sitting alongside Charlie, the old knight telling her some cockamamie story about the time he was a dark wizard who used necromancy to raise an army of the dead just to get out of paying a parking ticket. She proved to be the perfect audience for his crackpot tales, laughing when he left her the pause and squealing in delight whenever she wasn't chewing on an all-too-chewy piece of something. The two seemed cozy, and Hatter felt only the tiniest of twinges leaving them together.

Charlie's room was smaller than the other one, but it had a window that opened out on the back of the shack. There was a hammock stretched across this space, a threadbare sling that both looked and smelled like it had never been washed. Hatter dared a quick peek underneath, wrinkled his nose when he discovered a rotten apple hidden underneath an old teddy bear lying on its side, and then, brushing his hands against his pants, turned to the window.

His hand on his hip now, the other lifting the brim of his hat, Hatter pressed his forehead up against the refreshingly cool glass and stared out into the night.

The view opened up on Tears Lake. Because Charlie's small shack had only one floor, the vantage point from this window wasn't all that great—but it was good enough. He could see Tears Lake without any of the trees blocking it, and marveled at how open it was on the backside of Charlie's place. He knew Tulgey Wood wasn't big, and he knew that Tears Lake stretched far enough that no one would ever dare try to cross it, but he'd never been so close to this end of Wonderland before. Sure, he'd drifted past the Looking Glass when a case took him that way so he'd spent more time on the other side than he wanted to, but this was all so new to him.

He didn't like it. Hell, he'd been out of his element since this whole thing started and he took on an oyster as a client. From bringing Alice to the Great Library, introducing her to Dodo, evading Mad March, escaping the Jabberwock and now finding himself in the company of a self-proclaimed (and obviously crazy) white knight, it been non-stop running in a place where Hatter had only ever had to do the chasing.

And yet… he was still there, wasn't he? What was wrong with him?

Hatter shook his head. There were better things to worry about then, and he kept an unblinking stare on the calm, serene ripples on the lake's surface in an attempt to ignore those things, too.

There were a handful of light poles scattered along the water's edge. It was easy to think they were there to keep unsuspecting travelers going through Tulgey Wood from wandering into the water and drowning but Hatter knew better. The Queen of Hearts had those lights put up when she first took over Wonderland. She wanted to make sure no one got into Wonderland without her knowing, or even out.

Hatter caught sight of someone lurking not too far from under one of those poles and, for a second, he wondered if the Queen had another of her men patrolling this part of the district. Then he wondered if the Queen had another of her men out looking for him.

And then he caught sight of the man and knew that, yes, he was looking for Hatter but, no, he sure as hell wasn't working for the Queen.

It was an interesting sort of man—even for Wonderland's standards. He was hairy, with shocks of dark hair that looked almost purple in the moonlight, thin scars running along both cheeks like faint whiskers and almond-shaped eyes that glinted golden in the lamplight. He yawned when he caught Hatter's eye, extraordinarily long canines visible against the blackness of his open mouth.

Reaching one hand out to lean against the lamp pole, he performed a mock salute right at the window. Hatter could barely manage a stunned blink in response.

It was Cheshire.

Cheshire, the old con who wasn't really so old as his dark hair told. But in Wonderland, to make it past forty was an accomplishment, and Cheshire had been part of Wonderland for as long as Hatter had been there.

Cheshire, Hatter and March's old mentor.

What was he doing there?

Hatter's thoughts were broken up by a sudden, strange and most unwelcome sound. He jumped and whirled around, his right hand instinctively reaching for the gun he knew wasn't there. But it was just Charlie, yawning and stretching and theatrically rubbing his eyes. By the time Hatter turned back to look out the window, it was pointless.

Cheshire had already disappeared.

Alice was still sitting on the cot Charlie lent her when Hatter rejoined her, her knees folded up to her chest, her boots stubbornly stuck on her feet. Her eyes were drawn to the fire; it wasn't such a roaring fire, the flames dying down without any fresh wood to keep it going. At first, Hatter didn't think that she even knew he'd come back but then, just as his shadow fell in front of her, she spoke up.

"I've been thinking…"

"Yeah?" he asked, looking around for a place to sit. Part of him wanted to nudge her by the side and tell her to budge up so that they could share the cot—a big part of him, actually—but Hatter, as tired as he felt, couldn't find it in him to do so. Instead, regretting it, he sat down on the floor, turning so that the cot was to his left, the fire to this right and Alice looming right above him. Hatter watched the shadows thrown up against the opposite wall. "About what?"

"You."

"I see…" he said knowingly, and he couldn't quite hide the lecherous quirk to his smile.

Alice rolled her eyes. "Nothing like that. It's just… I made sure we thanked Charlie for bringing us here, but I never thanked you for saving me from that lunatic in the library."

"You mean Dodo?"

"He might've shot me and I don't have your body armor." Alice paused, absently tucking a long strand of her dark hair behind her ear. She kept her eyes on the fire instead of on Hatter's profile, but it didn't matter. He had to admit, he liked the sentiment. "So, um, thanks," she said, mumbling slightly as she tucked her chin into her chest, "I really appreciate all you're doing for me."

"Don't worry about it, Alice. It's nothing."

"Nothing? It's hardly been nothing." Alice straightened, letting her arms rest at her side and her boots finally touch the floor. Her voice was clearer, stronger. "You know, I left my apartment this morning to get Jack back. Now I'm stuck here with you and a crazy knight, I have no idea where my boyfriend is and his stupid ring has got me running around this strange place. That's not nothing, Hatter."

Hatter stopped listening when she brought up her boy—Jack and that damn ring in the same sentence. So he did give it to her. His eyebrow rose. That wasn't where he expected the conversation to turn—he would've been more than content to let her keep on thanking him—but, well, he wasn't complaining. Old habits die hard and, well, he was a detective. It might've taken him longer than he would've liked, but it was about time he got some answers.

"His ring?"

She shrugged. "It's not what you think."

Alice had no idea what Hatter was thinking. This Jack Chance… Jack Chase, whoever he was… he was the one who had the Queen's ring. He was the one who knew about the White Rabbit, about Wonderland. He was the one who found himself being kidnapped and dragged back to Wonderland—though, Hatter noted, if he took the Queen of the Heart's ring in the first place, that made sense. But who was he? Why didn't Hatter know him?

Did Hatter know him?

Slowly, he pulled himself back up to his feet and gently, gingerly sat at the end of the cot. Hatter was surprised how easy it all was now that he knew where Alice got the ring from. Because, that's what it was all about, wasn't it? The ring.

"You know," he began conversationally, his eyes flickering from her face to the giant bauble on her ring finger, "I could make this so much easier for you."

Hatter looked back up in time to see the suspicion etch itself into every hard line on her beautiful face. Alice leaned, back, wary. "Really?" she asked. "How?"

"You said it… it's the ring. Just give it to me, Alice. I'll make sure you get out of here all right." He shrugged, swallowing back the slight distaste he felt for turning cad, then remembered she had a… a Jack and pressed on, "You give me the ring, I give it to Dodo and I can stay in Wonderland after I've gotten you out. I'll use the ring against the Queen… you'll be safe on the outside… it's a win-win for both of us."

There was a moment where Alice digested everything he said, one quick moment where Hatter thought she might be desperate enough to go for it, but then she lifted her heavy boots back to the bed and hugged herself again, warning him with a stare to stay on that far side of the cot. Tapping the sides of her calves in an obviously agitated manner, she frowned. "Us again, huh?" she said. She sounded thoughtful.

Hatter just sounded confused. "What?"

"You said us before," she reminded him.

He had, hadn't he? Full of folly and the coward's notion he could escape… damn the girl and her memory! Still, that didn't stop him from pretending. "Did I?"

She was gritting her teeth, her dark blue eyes angry in the firelight. "You did. But us was supposed to mean me and you and Jack. I don't think it does anymore. Does it?"

If there was one thing Hatter knew after a day like that, it was when to give up. Trying another tactic, he held his hands out before him. "Alice, you don't understand—"

"Oh, I understand plenty. You want me to just hand over my ring… my ring, Hatter… just hand it over to you so that you're the good guy." She laughed, a harsh throaty sound that both made Hatter's knees feel weak and his heart seem like it had been squeezed. "And I believed you when you said you wanted to leave, too. I'm such an idiot!"

He wished her memory wasn't so good, that she wasn't taking this in such a way—or that he wasn't suddenly so wishy-washy, either. But he couldn't help it. Despite the ugliness, the reality of this place, Hatter was a Wonderlander deep down. He couldn't leave, no matter how pretty she was. "I'm sorry, Alice. Wonderland's my home," he said simply as he stood up.

She followed him with her angry gaze. "You're sorry? Ha! What about Jack then? I'm supposed to just leave him here?"

His silence was all the answer she needed.

"No," she said stubbornly, her jaw set, her voice cold. She shook her head. "I'm gonna find Jack and I will bring him home."

Hatter had the sudden desire to take his seat next to Alice again but there was something about the turn to this conversation that warned him about trying that when she was in such a determined mood. So, instead, adding another wish to his list, he just sighed. "Jack's a lucky guy."

"What was that?" Alice demanded, her steely voice cutting through the tension like a knife.

Had he really said that out loud? "Nothin'…" It was impish sort of grin he called up, a half-hearted smile. "Look, forget what I said, okay? It was just a thought. Why don't you get some sleep? It'll be a busy day tomorrow, Alice. You know, avoiding the Queen, findin' your Jack, stayin' alive…"

Her answer came out through a tight-lipped frown. "Mm-hmm."

And Hatter knew then that every thought he'd had about Alice since that afternoon—except, perhaps, the perverted ones—had been true and that if he wanted to take any sides, he was glad he was on hers. If, that is, he still was…

"Goodnight, Alice."

"Night," she tossed back stiffly. Without Hatter to weigh down the end of the cot, she stretched out her feet—still refusing to remove her shoes—and lay down on the crumpled sheets before pulling a mismatched quilt up to her chin. And though she didn't turn her back on him literally, it was impossible to deny the invisible wall that had suddenly been erected between them.

Charlie was asleep and, despite her earlier statement, he figured Alice wasn't too far off. And since he wasn't even harboring any fantasies about sharing the cot, he removed his hat, absently flipped it and caught it by the brim before grabbing the spare blanket Charlie left out and resigning himself to finding the coziest corner in the shack.

Once he was as comfortable as he was likely to get, Hatter glanced back at Alice and, for a split second, actually regretted his proposal, his sneaky attempt to get that ring and use it to save himself over helping her. All their talk of trust and apologies and help had been for nothing in the end—Hatter took a bullet for Alice for nothing—because, if it were even possible, she trusted him even less now than when Ratty dragged her, wet and frozen, into Hatter's office.

And because it hadn't gone by unnoticed that, while her right hand was kept on the outside of the quilt, Alice had tucked her left—and the Queen's ring—out of his sight.

No, she didn't trust him at all… and he couldn't say that he blamed her.

It was, quite possibly, the worst night sleep Hatter had ever gotten—and that was including the time he and March camped out on the roof of one of the Hearts' newest casinos, looking for a quick score while avoiding a pair of trigger-happy Suits.

The floor was hard, the blanket smelled even worse than Charlie's room and he managed to crush to the crown of his hat while he slept. The fire must've died down completely sometime during the night because not even the embers were burning and he was stiff with cold. If it hadn't started to snow again, he'd be surprised.

And it wasn't even that he meant to sleep. When he finally curled up in the corner opposite of Alice's borrowed cot, he laid down with every intention of keeping watch over the shack, over Alice, resting but really watching because he'd be damned if he trusted Charlie. But it had been quiet, the fire cozy, and Alice's soft snuffles almost reassuring in a way.

Alice wasn't snuffling now.

Hatter picked up his hat, frowned when he saw that he crushed it, and sat up easily, his back against the wall instead of the floor. He tried to stretch, winced when he felt the reminder of Dodo's insanity—the bruise on his shoulder hurt, the skin was tender, and he could hardly believe that he'd even thought about bringing the ring to the crazy librarian. Putting more weight on his good side, he tried to stand but nearly fell over when he noticed that the cot was empty.

Alice was gone.

"Alice?" he asked, his voice raspy and hoarse, his eyes blinking in disbelief. Where had she gone? He turned his head to look at the door—

—and that's when he saw his maroon overcoat hanging off the knob.

End Note: This is the point where this story is going to differ a little from the mini-series. In Alice, we followed Alice's journey as she goes to the casino and tries to get Jack back herself. With this story, though, we're going to follow Hatter and watch him make his way through Wonderland, maybe call in a few favors before he meets up with Alice at the casino in time to rescue her - because, of course, we need our hero to be just a little dashing ;)

Also, I just wanted to say that, while updates have been a little sparse, they're gonna have to stay that way until December. This is my fifth year doing NaNoWriMo so I usually take the whole month off of fic writing to write my NaNo novel. However, since I finished my last (Newsies) epic at the beginning of this month, Gumshoe is one of the only WIP's I'm currently working on so there will be updates once November is done (or if the muse strikes while I'm working on my novel... it's a noir-ish type mystery that I'm working on, so you never know if I'll have more ideas for this in the meantime!).

- stress, 10.26.10