Usual Disclaimer - I do not own the rights to Alice in Wonderland, or any of the characters.

Please enjoy!

Chapter Five

Now

"I'm sorry, Father Tyler, but Tarrant is not in any sort of mood to accept visitors. He's having one of his fits, and when he's not screaming at the walls, he's busy laughing at nothing. There is no way that I'm letting him out of solitary, until he finds it in himself to calm down to something more... mellow." The doctor sitting across the table frowned, then continued. "You must understand, this man is completely insane. He might be all polite to you, when he's not trying to throttle you, but he's lost most of his contact to reality. He's not even shrieking in English, for crying out loud."

Tyler leaned back, and rubbed his hands together. "I'm not here to talk to him. Actually, I'd like to talk to you, if you have the time handy. It's about Tarrant, but I'm not sure even if he was mellow he'd be able to help me with this."

"Oh." The doctor checked his watch. "In that case, I do happen to find myself with some spare time. What can I help you with?"

"Has anyone tried to find this Alice girl that he's so fixated on?" Father Tyler sighed. "His insanity is all hinged on the idea that there is this woman out there that he's supposed to be looking for. It could be a family member, or a childhood sweetheart. It could be someone he met in passing, and he's attached that name to that person. Where is Alice?"

The doctor leaned back and sighed himself. "Father Tyler, if there ever was an Alice, a real one, she's been dead for at least a century. Now, it's against hospital procedure to reveal specifics of a patient to anyone not authorized to receive such information, but as you've been kind enough to help us out..."

"And I'm a priest that's very versed in discretion... Remember, the confession is completely sacrosanct..."

"Well, yes. This falls under that kind of information. Mister Tarrant's files reach all the way back to Bedlam."

"Alright, run that one by me again? Bedlam, as in London during the Victorian era, the whole stiff upper lip and tea and scones time?" A puzzled look flashed across the young man's face. "That's simply impossible. No one could live that long."

"Tarrant has pulled off just that. He was incarcerated in Bedlam, and has been shunted from institutions here and there for the last hundred and fifty so years. No family from that time ever came forward to claim him, no visitors, no Alice. He's known as psychiatry's dirty little secret, for good reason. Not only would no one believe his true age, some of the things that have been done to that poor soul boggle even my mind. I've been at this hospital for fifteen years, Father Tyler. He's not aged a year, a day, or even an hour. We call him Tarrant because he says that's his name, but we can't prove it. We can't find a birth certificate, and obviously there's no coroner's report. All we have is a mystery, sitting in a room, screaming for someone that has to be dead. Now, what should we do?"

"Get it out in the open. Is there a way to at least get him to draw a picture of this Alice he's looking for, and post it in the major newspapers? I'm not saying tell the reporters everything, but imagine the goodwill funding you could receive for a human interest story like that." Tyler motioned with his hands, seeming to outline the room. "Catch him in a moment of lucidity, and get a drawing, a painting, a scribble on a paper napkin. That man will never be at peace, until he knows what happened to his Alice."

The doctor thought for a few minutes, the silence in the room only interrupted by a clock ticking on the wall. Then he stood. "Give me a few minutes, I have to go get something for you."

Tyler took the minutes of being alone in the office to listen to the ticking clock. Apparently, it does not tick for Tarrant, he mused, as he worked on the bottle of soda he had retrieved from a vending machine, with a bit of help from an available orderly. He had finished the drink and was considering a vague hunt for a trash can then the door opened again.

"Sorry it took so long, they're in the process of messing with the filing system again." He dropped a box on the table between them, a heavy box. Opening the top, the doctor pulled out an inch thick bound file, wrapped with a rubber band. He handed the file to Tyler.

"I know you can't see it, but you can feel it. That's just what he's drawn in the last year. If we kept all of them, we'd run out of boxes, so we just cycle through them each year. That's what he draws, young man, over and over. Just like he mostly makes hats during hobby time, there's only one subject for his sketches. He has a talented hand with pencil and paper. It's the same young woman, again and again. That's his Alice."

In a soft voice, Tyler spoke. "May I take this with me? I'd like to see where this path is going to lead us."

"You can take that file, and see if you can find out anything. But there's no guarantees on this, and not much of a chance anyone knows who this young lady is. She might only be in his deranged mind, or she could have been a forgotten casualty to time and aging. But if you think it's for the best, it's a better idea than anything we've come up here for Tarrant."

"If nothing more, at least there might be some closure for him. I'll get right on this. And, thank you for trusting me with this. Here's to hoping this will be of help for that poor man."

Sooner

"Your Majesty, shall we check the Oraculum?" McTwisp was holding the scroll in both hands, and resisting the urge to shiver. The parchment always felt odd in his grasp, like trying to hold on to pieces of Time. That sounds so Hatter, he thought to himself.

Mirana nodded, and McTwisp unrolled the endless parchment. All the people in the throne room leaned over, each trying to get a clear look. Mirana studied it for a few minutes, and sighed in both frustration and relief. "Both she and our Hatter shall return. But that day is far from now, on Distkin Day."

Mally finally spoke up, as McTwisp rolled the parchment closed once again. "But, that's years from now! And it didn't show how they're getting back to us! How do we know where to look?"

"All will be revealed in time, as we need to know. It's only a few years from now, in our time. The question I would like an answer to, is how long that time is going to be for our Hatter and Alice?"

Thackery took the moment of silence to speak up. "He's late for tea!" Then he headed out of the throne room, back to the kitchens to work on the meals that he had claimed as his main duties. The others looked at each other for a few more moments.

Mally sniffled, but refused to actually cry. "What's so important about that girl, she's just trouble looking for a place to happen."

Mirana smiled. "One never knows when Love is going to take aim at someone." Her smile gained a slight wryness to it. "Speaking of Love in all his forms, how is Chess doing?"

Mallymkun murmured something unintelligible, and blushed through her fur. Taking a quick bow, she scampered from the throne room. Mirana resisted the urge to laugh.

Closer One

"How you manage to stay in charge of this family, it's unbelievable. How do you keep all the names straight, after all these years?" Stacy took a sip of her coffee, and glanced over to the Matriarch of the family. There seemed to be little that Alice didn't catch regarding her sprawling family.

"It's all in memory, all in paying attention. With the company pretty much out of my hands finally, I've the spare time to spend with my darlings." Alice smiled over her tea cup. "As I also understand it, there's a young man that's been knocking on your door more often than usual. So, when do I receive my invitation to the wedding?"

"Hopefully soon, hopefully. His family is wonderful, I'm hoping you like them as much as David seems to like you. He was a bit... put off... by your age, but he's coming around. I don't understand why it would be a big deal to him, he's not marrying you." She set down her coffee cup.

"Not many families have their great-great-great grandmothers still on the face of the world, in my condition. It's most likely very upsetting to anyone that's not grown up in this family. I quit counting birthdays decades ago. It's not worth the hassle, I know I'm a year older, even though the mirror keeps showing me otherwise."

There was a bit of companionable silence, then Stacy spoke up. "How come you don't have grandchildren of your own? You never married, but that's no excuse in this time and place. There's bound to be someone out there that would love to love you."

"I'm waiting for someone special, someone that I love with more of my heart than I thought possible. He's just running a bit late." Alice giggled. "He was always complaining that I was late for tea. Looks like this time he's the late one."

"Oh, Grands, you need to quit looking for someone that will never come."

"He will get here, or I'll find my way back to him. Tarrant is a gentleman, he'll wait for me. It's only fair that I wait for him in return."

"Well, if you insist. But I do hope that you'll be at the wedding, for me."

"Of course I will make an appearance. That's part of my joy, to watch all the children grow up and find love."

Closer Two

"This setup is so Nazi. Why do we have to leave this guy bound like that, for the entire flight?" One of the security men in the cargo hold of the plane glanced over to the apparently sleeping man bound to a metal frame.

"To hear it told, he's way fast and very destructive. Here's to hoping he stays asleep until he's unloaded at the airport. What I want to know, how does a mental patient get the solo flight treatment?"

The medical doctor sitting off to one side answered the question. "He's a marvel of an oddity. You'd not know by looking at him, but that man might hold the secret to extreme longevity. He's at least a hundred years old, and it was only a paperwork mistake that kept him from being lobotomized during his stay in England. This man was given to us, to see if we can crack his little mystery."

"One hundred? He can't be over thirty, though it's hard to tell through that paint on his face. No way, he's just a run of the mill insane man."

"Yes, one hundred years old, and that's his natural skin tone. Not a drop of paint or make-up has been applied. It's a marvel, a medical marvel. We're hoping to find an answer to it." The doctor shrugged. "Even if we find nothing, he's better off in the States, rather than rotting in London for however long it takes for him to finally die."

The younger security man spoke up. "You keep referring to him as an 'it.' Does he have a name?"

"He calls himself Tarrant Hightopp, according to his files. Such an odd name, most likely made up from his deranged mind. He has a fixation issue, some Alice woman is of importance to him, Tarrant is also completely unhinged, he even claims that he's not from this world, that he's from another place called Underland. It's all rubbish, but there might be a way to converse with him."

"I converse quite fine, when there's something worth conversing about. This States location, it's outside of England? I'd rather not stay in London, there are far too many not good memories of those buildings."

Tarrant's voice was rusty from lack of use, and that he actually spoke left the trio in the cargo hold silent for a few breaths. Taking a quick glance at the men standing around him, he continued. "Chess have your tongue? We are heading away from London? It's a rather simple question, gentlemen, I would appreciate an answer."

Finally the doctor found his voice. "We're leaving London, you are being relocated to the United States. We'll be landing in New York, then you'll be loaded up in a vehicle for the drive to Boston." Curiosity got the better of the doctor. "What kind of not good memories do you have of London?"

"Beatings and needles and ice baths and chains and men asking questions so many questions..." His eyes glimmered amber, then returned to a faded blue. "It's not good to think about it, so I shall do my best not to. Think about it, I mean. Yes, I shall endeavor not to think about it."

The two security men looked at each other, then to the doctor. "We're not interested in your history. Instead, I represent some intellectuals that are interested in your longevity. Do you have any idea how you've managed to live for so long, with no discernible physical enfeeblement?"

"That is quite simple, I've tried to explain it to people over and over. I made Time rather upset at me, and he's been ignoring me since. That's fine by me, as it is taking longer than I figured to find Alice, but it's making dealing with this world rather annoying. At least the unmentionable room has gone through upgrades. The flushing toilet is a marvel."

"Never mind flushing toilets, mister Tarrant. You're containing a secret behind that white skin of yours, and we plan to find out what it is. You might have a cure for aging, does that thrill you?"

Tarrant raised an eyebrow. "Does finding this secret involve me losing some of that skin you are speaking of?"

"Oh, a few samples might be taken, but I assure you that..."

The doctor's words were cut off by a horrific shriek, as Tarrant began to struggle in the restraints. One arm wriggled free, and the other arm looked close to escape as well. The two security guards quickly reached for their sidearms, only to be stopped by the doctor. "Don't damage him, we need him in one piece!"

Pulling out a small leather billfold looking packet, the doctor pulled a syringe out of the leather carrying case and nonchalantly slid the needle into an available patch of skin on Tarrant. Depressing the syringe, Tarrant's eyes quickly glazed, and he slumped in the restraints. Removing the needle from the skin, the doctor turned to the duo of shocked security guards.

"The wonders of chemistry, gentlemen. Even the most irrational madman must bow to the wonders of Thorazine. As much as the French are useless, they do have some amazing chemists at their laboratories. He should be harmless for a few hours. If he starts complaining again, I'll just chemically sedate him again. Do you two think you can keep him from choking?" The two looked at each other, then nodded as one. "Good, that's comforting to hear. Now, I've a crossword puzzle calling my name."