Disclaimer: Alice belongs to Syfy. I'm still trying to figure out how to fix that.

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What Jack Didn't Know

Getting through the Looking Glass was easy. Without stumbling or falling, Hatter landed on the other side and adjusted his tie as the Suits surrounded him. Now that he knew they were under Charlie's command, he wasn't as worried about their reaction to his unexpected appearance.

"Charlie!" Hatter called out, seeing the knight working on a new invention in the corner of the room. It looked like some form of winch attached to a track. And with Charlie's inventions, who knew what it was supposed to do.

Convincing Charlie to fly the Scarab to Jack's home was a bit more difficult. Apparently the guard was supposed to stay at the Glass instead of helping Hatter make his way to meet the king. Not that the king had any clue that he was coming.

Making the Aces that guarded the door think that he was an invited visitor took a bit of work. He claimed that things weren't going well with acquiring the warehouse. Which was more or less true, he consoled himself. The poor men didn't know that they were going to get in trouble for letting him through, but that wasn't really his problem.

Punching Jack in the gut made it all worth the effort.

The blond man gasped for breath while Hatter shook out his right hand. Using that extra burst of power for a punch always made his hand tingle a bit.

Thankfully the two men were alone in Jack's office, without anyone to witness the fact that their king had just gotten hit by his supposed business associate.

"So that was your plan? Make Alice and I take care of your problem?" Hatter pushed Jack into the desk chair, where the man continued to breathe heavily. Pale eyes flashed dangerously.

"What… are… you… talking about?" Asked Jack, gasping between his words. His hands were clutching at his stomach and Hatter knew that the snob would have quite a colorful bruise there soon.

"The fact that your girlfriend is sitting on my couch, throwing up because she's going to have your kid." Hatter said, feeling a bit calmer now that he had hit Jack. It had been a thoroughly satisfying experience.

"My what?" Jack looked more confused than angry now.

Hatter stood completely still. Jack didn't know? Hatter had been listening to Duchess throwing up for the past few mornings, but he had only realized what was going on when she had vomited on the rug. The reason why Duchess ate so much had finally made sense.

Shit.

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"I'm going to be a father?" Asked Jack about three minutes later. Both men had stayed silent until then, even when Hatter sat down in one of the chairs in front of Jack's desk.

"That's generally what happens when you get someone pregnant." Hatter wasn't in a terribly forgiving mood. From the crying the night before, he thought that Jack might have been even worse of a boyfriend to Duchess than he had been to Alice.

It's not like he had come to Wonderland to tell Jack to make an honest woman out of Duchess. A shared zygote hardly seemed like the ideal basis for a marriage. He had just wanted answers. Such as why Jack had thought it was a good idea to throw a pregnant woman into a world she knew nothing about with two people who knew next to nothing about her.

But apparently that hadn't been Jack's plan at all.

"I shouldn't have let her go." The king sounded almost wistful. "You'll send her back through the Glass as soon as you return, of course." Hatter chose to ignore the fact that the statement was more of a command.

"No, I won't." Hatter got up to leave, hoping that time was going more slowly in Alice's world than here. If he went missing for days, he doubted she would forgive him anytime soon. He turned towards Jack just as he was about to walk through the door. "Why did you send her?" It was a question that had been nagging at Hatter from the moment Duchess had arrived.

"She has quite a head for numbers. I thought you could use a business manager." Hatter would believe that when Jabberwockies learned to tap-dance.

"Just don't send anyone else through for awhile." Hatter called out as he left, knowing that the guards would take it as the end of a conversation about buying the warehouse.

Walking out the front door of the grand estate, Hatter realized just how much trouble he was going to be in for telling Jack exactly what Duchess had been trying to hide from him. He just hoped that the women wouldn't team up against him. Maybe telling them he had hit Jack would help some.

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Alice wasn't at the apartment when Hatter got back, a fact that he was grateful for. But Duchess was there.

"So, how is Jack?" She asked, seeming relatively calm and looking a lot better than she had that morning. He had to hand it to her, she was smart.

"Well enough. I had to talk to him about some of the procedures involved with getting a lawyer." The woman raised her eyebrow and Hatter winced. Damn, why did he have to live with someone who actually seemed capable of seeing through his lies? At least Alice didn't tell him when she knew that he was lying, she just accepted it.

"I told him…" He admitted.

"I thought as much. How'd he take it?" Her hand rested protectively on her stomach.

Hatter flopped down on the couch next to Duchess.

"You know, life was a lot more boring before Alice." He commented, thinking about all the things that had happened since that pretty girl in the wet dress had shown up in his office. He'd helped save Wonderland and now he had to deal with a pregnant woman, something he had always avoided if possible in the past.

"After he recovered from the punch I gave him, he seemed pretty surprised about the whole thing." Duchess nodded at Hatter's pronouncement.

"Good, if he didn't suspect, then no one else probably does either."

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AN:

Full title for this chapter is "What Jack Didn't Know… Still Hurt Him"

Good work to the readers who figured out all my hints. Yes, Duchess is pregnant. I liked the idea and there needed to be a reason for Duchess to have left Wonderland. And since so many people mentioned the fact that they would like to see Jack get hit, I had to throw that in as well.

Any comments or questions are welcome.