Chapter 38: (Welcome back! Sorry about the long break after the cliffhanger of the last chapter, but I am, unfortunately, engaged in summer school, so writing is limited to weekends and this chapter took me longer to crank out than it usually does. That, and, for the first time, I fear I am suffering from semi-writer's block. I am still capable of writing, but nothing I write seems to be…well, as good as my writing about 10 chapters ago. At least to me. I'm still going to finish the story of course and am going to try to fix the problem and just generally hope it goes away over time, but if you also feel there has been somewhat of a dip in writing quality, I deeply apologize. I'm doing my best, but sometimes I trip over my feet. So…yeah. Hope you like the chapter!

Guest (no signature): Thanks for taking your time to drop a review! I'm glad you like the story! :D Hatter has a face, technically. He just had his head on backwards so you couldn't see it for most of the last chapter. And I'll get more into why he killed March Hare in this chapter, so just you wait! :) Hope you didn't mind the wait!

Guest (no signature): Alrighty, then! It'll be out as soon as KtR is done. :) Well…not quite AS SOON AS, but I'll start writing it once KtR is done.

Panda Bear: No problem. :) Thank you! :D It still amazes me how long this story's been going for! I guess time flies when you're having fun. I'm glad you liked it! Sorry for the bit of wait, but life got in the way, as it is prone to do.

Rio: Glad you liked it! :D Thank you, I'll certainly do my best!

Big Sis of 8: Thank you! Haha cliffhangers are SO fun to write. C: Sorry for the bit of a break.

FinlandiaWolf94: Thank you! I like them too. :) The whole Whitebeard Crew is actually very high on my 'like' list, particularly Newgate himself, Ace, Marco, and Thatch. Yes. Yes it is. Which is partially why this story was written! I knew there must be others out there in the universe that weren't hardcore yaoi shippers, and they deserve good reading material too, so I decided to write some. Oh yes. This story sat in my head for around 16 moths before I pressed a key. I try my best to build tension, which is then broken by the confrontations themselves, but I don't think I've been able to pull it off yet. If the person were actually there experiencing all the things that I can picture in my head they'd be scared shitless, but I don't think I'm quite good enough at writing to really convey that through words. But I still try my best. Who knows, maybe I'll have some kind of massive breakthrough along the way. You're welcome! 1) Hahaha I believe you're the first one to actually thank me for my cliffhangers. XD I'm glad you enjoy them, though, as they are a TON of fun to write. 2) YES. Whitebeard may be powerful, but he's still a human being and has fears and concerns just like everyone else. *cough*fearsthatcanbemanipulated*cough**cough* I DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING. Ummm…do you mean Inhabitants (of Wonderland)? Or do you mean someone in reality? I think…pretty much every character (except Tweedle Dee…) has been in at least two chapters. Background characters receive less attention than the centerpieces because, frankly, if I went more in-depth with them there would be a bunch of pointless, meaningless hoo-ha smothered on top of this story. I try to keep the story concise. Streamlined, if you will. It's already so FREAKIN' LONG that if I went more in-depth with all the characters it probably wouldn't be finished until after the One Piece manga. And you would all be monumentally bored. So if there are characters that appear shallower than others, it's simply because if I took the time to develop each and every Joe and Suzy, I'd lose the storyline somewhere in there and it wouldn't be an interesting reading experience anymore. But if you have any specific characters that you feel are really, REALLY unbelieveably shallow for their level of importance/relevance to the plot, I can certainly try to find an opportunity to delve further into their personality and perspective. The only truly 'new character' recently would have been Tweedle Dee, and even he was hinted at in chapter…um…27…? I think that was the one. And we'll be going into him (and a few other inhabitants) a little more in this chapter. I'm glad you like it! :D Yes, I'm still enjoying writing it, though I have to say, the real appeal is seeing people's reactions to my concepts and the story. :) I hope you continue to enjoy! (I LOVE long reviews, so no apology necessary!)

Rio: I love him too. :) Well, hope the wait didn't tear you up too much. He is a boss, though.

This chapter is rated T for LANGUAGE, VIOLENCE, and DISTURBING IMAGERY.

And now, ON WITH THE CHAPTER!)

Thatch and Whitebeard stared at Hatter. Thatch felt as if time had frozen, his heart pausing mid-beat. Marco…Marco can't be dead. It's just…not possible. He's Marco. Hatter, meanwhile, seemed far more self-animated than before, the puppet strings hanging fairly loose as he seemed to straighten, grinning head cocking slightly to the side.

"What's wrong? Don't like that answer?" His voice was different. More like it had been before Mr. Savage. Which was to say, it sounded like Ace. The adult Ace. His grin seemed to widen. "Did you really expect a different result?"

"Where's Marco? What did you do to him?!" Thatch asked breathlessly, still feeling as if the air wasn't really filling his lungs. Hatter laughed.

"Oh. So possessive of your pets, aren't you?" He laughed again, breathy and wild. "Why bother? Animals are animals. Humans are animals. Animals are worthless. Life is worthless. Birdie blue-breast didn't matter. Still doesn't, now that it's-"

"Stop talking in that voice." Whitebeard's arms were near quivering with rage, and he stared down, eyes shadowed. Hatter's head spun slowly clockwise.

"What'samatter, DADDY?" He laughed again and reached up, pulling his head off. "Am I upsetting you?" Even as he held his head, gripping it on either side, it continued to spin. "Well sorry, but it's a little hard to be civil when I'm DEAD." Hatter shouted. He seemed suddenly, furiously angry, and threw his head into the floor with enough force that the stones cracked. "AND LET'S THINK WHICH PRODIGAL SON OF YOURS MIGHT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT." He retrieved his head, reaffixing it to his neck upside down.

"What are you talking about?" Whitebeard asked guardedly. Hatter grabbed his head and lurched it sideways so it was marginally more upright. He spun abruptly, turning back to face the table. He grabbed the doily.

"I always loved this magic trick." His voice shifted abruptly back to the strange, tinny voice from before, high pitched and happy. "So much fun. So much fun. So much fun! And everyone's happy these days!" He laughed, a strange, inorganic sound as he lurchingly dragged the doily out from under the teapot. He didn't move it fast enough, however, and the teapot spilled its contents all over the table. The putrid mess of tea and March Hare's brain matter splashed out, spilling over the edges of the table. Hatter only giggled.

"Where's Marco? What did you do to him? Tell me now!" Whitebeard demanded. Hatter spun to face him and slid-dragged across the floor towards him, bobbing and giggling.

"Oh no! Oh no! He's angry!" Hatter laughed. He cut off abruptly, smile dropping from his face, head tilting slightly, eyes wide. "It really aught to smile more." His voice had gone deadly cold.

Hatter, too fast to dodge, reached out and grabbed Whitebeard's face, pulling it into a smile, almost tearing his skin with the force. Whitebeard tried to struggle, to pull back, but Hatter's grip on his head was like steel. His fingers seemed to have almost elongated, wrapped all the way around the back of his head, his thumbs pinning Whitebeard's mouth into that huge crescent. Hatter grinned again, one eye roving slowly towards the ceiling, the other staring into Whitebeard's. "That's better."

Thatch tried to move to Whitebeard's aid, but Hatter lashed out with his foot, catching Thatch not with the appendage but the attached wire and flinging him across the room and into a wall with enough force to put cracks in the stone. Hatter continued to grin at Whitebeard. "Smile! Smile! Smile!" His one roving eye was spinning in slow circles, looking at something above. Abruptly he shuddered, eye snapping back in place. His head fell limp, hanging off his neck, face out of sight. He inhaled once, his breath hitching in his throat. "Smile. It hurts so much less that way…" His voice was barely audible, and again he sounded more human, like Ace. Whitebeard barely heard him, but his eyes flicked to Hatter's face in confusion. Hatter began mumbling to himself.

"Two plus two is five. Two plus two is five. Two plus two is five. Two plus two is five. Smile. Remember that and smile." Hatter murmured. Whitebeard knew he was saying it to himself, didn't think Hatter was even really aware of the fact that he had spoken out loud. But it had an instant effect on him. He shuddered again, and his head popped back up, eyes wild and distant again, massive grin on his face. "It's got to smile or it wil-"

"Three plus four is seven." Whitebeard's words came out blurred, what with Hatter still holding his face in that false smile, but they were clear enough to be understood. Hatter's right eye twitched, and he remained frozen for a moment.

He flinched wildly back from Whitebeard, releasing his face and backing away. His eyes were wide and he looked scared. "Stop it." he whispered. Whitebeard rubbed feeling back into his abused face and took a step forward. Hatter shrinking back further, clutching his head and bent over, nearly cowering.

"What comes once in a minute, twice in a moment, but never once in a thousand years?" Whitebeard asked. Hatter seemed to almost flicker, shifting, for but an instant to something else before returning to his puppet form.

"Shut up!" he screeched. He lashed out, trying to catch Whitebeard with wire, to fling him away as he had Thatch. Whitebeard dodged, and continued.

"I know you can answer this, Hatter. I know because I know Ace and I know Ace could answer it. You're logic, so come on. Think." Again Hatter flickered, seeming almost to blur. He shrieked and curled further in on himself.

"Stop it! You're hurting me! STOP!" Hatter grew truly frenzied, lashing out randomly, puppet wires slashing through the air with enough force to cut a man in half. "I WANT TO DIE LEAVE ME BE IT HURTS HERE LEAVE ME ALONE I DON'T WANT TO LIVE I WANT TO BE GONE ACE KILLED ME ALREADY LEAVE ME ALONE I DON'T BELONG HERE ANYMORE-"

"One plus two plus one plus two plus one plus two plus one plus two. How many times did I multiply?" Whitebeard said, voice somewhat strained as he fought to dodge the flailing wires. Hatter shrieked and spasmed, clutching his head and contorting. He grew abruptly still, wires falling limp.

"You didn't." His hands covered his face, his back hunched, curled in on himself. "You only added. You didn't multiply." His voice, Ace's voice, was weak. He shuddered. "…Damn you forever, you only added."

He changed.

His body shifted back from the wood of the puppet, becoming flesh once more. The wires, formerly driven harmlessly through unfeeling wood, were now impaled through his hands and feet, stabbed cruelly into his neck and back. Blood dripped from the injuries, kept open by the movements of the wires. His suit was drab, faded, worn. He convulsed again, a sound somewhere between a cry of pain and a sob choking up his throat.

He straightened slowly, removing his hands from his face.

Whitebeard felt a pang of guilt upon seeing Hatter's face, what he had turned Hatter back into.

Wood was unfeeling. Wood didn't have skin that could be torn, couldn't even imagine pain. Hatter had been beyond suffering in his half-death. But now…

Hatter's eyes were sewn open, unblinking and wide. One, the right one, was cloudy and deformed, like someone had poured some kind of corrosive chemical in it. Indeed, the skin under that eye bore burn marks as if splashed with acid. Tears fell from his left eye. His mouth was pinned up using barbed fishhooks, held in a smile so wide the flesh of his lower lip had torn all the way to his chin, exposing white bone. Blood still fell from the hooks, and every time he moved his face they tore through more.

He was in agony.

And he looked just. Like. Ace.

He collapsed to his knees, and instantly, automatically, with no coherent thought, Whitebeard found himself by Hatter's side, supporting him. Hatter tried to push him away, and turned, bending over further. He gave a wet cough, then another, then retched.

Blood and shards of glass poured from Hatter's mouth, the sharp slivers sticking into the floor. Hatter hung limply in Whitebeard's arms, and if they weren't in Wonderland Whitebeard would have said he was dead.

But this was Wonderland. And Wonderland was far crueler than any world that could be escaped by something as trivial as death.

Hatter straightened, wiping his mouth. He pulled out of Whitebeard's grasp. "Fuck you." His voice was weak and hoarse. "I hope you're happy now." He fought to stand, swaying and shaking. He limped (a massive nail had been driven through his left knee) back to the table and collapsed into the chair, using the already stained doily to wipe some of the blood from his face. He coughed again weakly, fresh spots of crimson appearing on the doily, but didn't cough up any more glass. When he settled again, he turned to Whitebeard and a touch of bitter admiration entered his eyes.

"You know, you're cleverer than I gave you credit for. Using my identity to force me back together again." Across the room, Thatch groaned, coming conscious again. Hatter and Whitebeard both turned to look at him as he sat up, rubbing his head. He looked at Hatter and blinked.

"Umm…Did I miss something?" Hatter blinked indolently.

"Everything, dear. As always." He glanced Thatch up and down. "Though you could be missing a lot more." Hatter doubled over in another fit of coughing, blood gushing from his mouth.

When he straightened, one of the fishhooks holding his mouth in that smile had torn loose, leaving the smile lopsided and a massive gash in the side of Hatter's face, exposing teeth. A flap of flesh now flopped down from just below his cheekbone. Although he seemed in pain, he didn't seem particularly perturbed or horrified by this fact. Almost nonchalantly he reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and withdrew a sewing kit. His one clear eye focused on Whitebeard even as he threaded a needle.

"It might have worked on me, but you won't be able to pull this off on the others." The air whushed out his torn open cheek, leaving the words breathy and almost unrecognizable, but Whitebeard was able to piece together what Hatter said.

"That doesn't matter. I take it you're no longer a threat to us?" Whitebeard asked. Hatter laughed, tugging the string between his fingers, testing its strength.

"Not for now. But I'll die again shortly. Probably for good this time." Seemingly satisfied, he raised the needle to his face, using the other hand to reposition the flesh of his cheek where it should be.

"Why?" Whitebeard asked.

"It's all Ace." Hatter pierced the skin of his face with the needle, wincing slightly as the thread dragged through the hole. "He doesn't want me around anymore. But he can't make up his damn mind. Keeps defying logic only to employ it the next instant." His words sounded strange what with him resewing his face, but he was understandable. "Nothing is true, everything is permitted, remember? Well here's the problem: I'm truth. So what the hell am I supposed to do now? I can't die because of Ace's methods of convincing himself of that little mantra, but I can't live because there is no logic because, according to dear Altair, there is nothing. So I'm stuck in a state of being perpetually alive and perpetually dead. Stuck between. And let me assure you," Hatter, finished sewing, tied off the thread and snapped it. "I'm far worse off for it." Hatter dabbed at the tiny beads of blood that had formed from the puncture wounds of the needle. The stitches traced the grotesque smile the hook had previously held his face in, reaffixing his cheek to his face. "I can't live. I can't die. When I'm alive I'm in agony, when I'm dead, I lose control. Both situations are unbearable to me." Hatter seemed to grow angry. "This, Daddy dearest, this is HELL." Whitebeard's eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"That's twice now you've called me that. Why?" Whitebeard asked. Hatter looked up from picking at the wood grain of the table. He too looked confused.

"…We've been calling you that for a year now. Is it wrong? You never seemed to take issue with it before. I'll admit it still doesn't make sense to me, but hey. Ace is the one that calls the shots..." Hatter said, cocking his head to the side slightly, face the picture of befuddlement.

"What are you talking about? Ace doesn't call me that. Not for another ten years, at least." Whitebeard said. Hatter's eyes widened, faced morphing into an expression of surprise.

"Oh!" Hatter raised a hand to his face. "Oh I see. You haven't figured it out yet." he said.

"…Figured what out?" Thatch asked. Hatter half laughed but cut off when the sutures in his face pulled against his skin. He looked between Thatch and Whitebeard.

"It explains so much! I was a little surprised when you weren't freaking out about everything down here. I mean, it makes sense that this place'd be fucked up after what Hare put Ace through, right? So you just pass it off as trauma and sweep it under the rug of things that 'get better' between then and now. That is what you've been doing, right?" He shook his head. "Aww, you aughta know better. Assumptions like that hurt, Daddy." Hatter shuddered again. He was slipping. Losing control. Ace was going to use Synthesis again. And that was a ticket to the other side for Hatter. "Birdie blue breast made assumptions like that too." The words were slipping from his mouth like poison, he couldn't stop them, couldn't control them. Wasn't even imagining them himself. He was the puppet, in control of nothing, not even himself. "He assumed I was sane." Hatter doubled over, pressing his hands against his skull, trying to regain control. He felt himself laugh, the movement tearing the sutures in his face, and tasted blood as his tongue moved to swipe it from the injury. The wires, formerly lying limp across the floor, began to twist and dance, tugging against his limbs and torso. Hatter, in a last-ditch effort, reached out and grabbed the fork from the table, driving it through the back of one of his hands.

The pain managed to bring him back to clarity and he clutched at it, twisting the fork harshly when he felt himself fading again. Pain he could understand. Pain could always be rationalized. Pain was the nerve-endings in one's body sending signals to the brain that induced an unpleasant sensation in an attempt to get the body to stop doing whatever it was doing that caused the pain in the first place. There was no other option for what pain 'could be' or 'should be', pain only was.

"Hatter." At Whitebeard's voice, Hatter's head snapped up, maniacal grin falling from his face. …Well, as much as it could with one side of it still hooked up near his eye. Hatter smiled weakly, rubbing his head.

"I'm sorry. I'm…not what I once was." He turned his gaze to the table, sighing sadly at March Hare's head and the sludgy grey brain matter still slipping from his ears. "…All I wanted was another tea party, but I always kill all the guests." He said absently, swirling his fingers in the mess. "I wasn't responsible for Dodo's death, not entirely, anyway, but March Hare, Ace's innocence? That's on me. What shaking, shivering piece of Ace's innocence was left after Hare elegantly and eloquently shredded him was destroyed by Ace's logic. He reasoned that he didn't have any more innocence after what happened. And so he didn't. Because of me." He leaned his elbows on the table and cradled his head in his hands. "Even Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum are partially my fault. 'Morality? How can that exist?' Ace asked himself. 'Human kind is supposed to follow the rule of morality, yet there are more people who break it than people who don't. Morality isn't the rule, it's the exception.' And so just like that, Carpenter and I tore them apart." Hatters fingers were stained with March Hare's brains and cold tea. He snorted. "Carpenter. What a mess he is. He's all of Ace's memories of Hare and his torment. As the years progressed, he just became every negative memory Ace had."

"What about the others?" Whitebeard asked. This was a good chance to get information. Maybe they could pull a stunt later like he did with Hatter, reviving them through the quality they represented. Hatter turned weary, bleak eyes to him.

"Curious, are we? Fine. Dormouse was Ace's trust. Mr. Savage, Ace's fear, shredded him like tissue paper. I lost track of him after he died. I don't know where he is now. Mock Turtle was Ace's happiness, but as of yet he's taken up a new hobby."

"Dare I ask what that is?" Thatch asked. Hatter shifted his disinterested eyes to him.

"Being soup."

"…Oh."

"Caterpillar…well, you've seen Ace's memories. Caterpillar's creativity. I expect you'll encounter him eventually. He and I don't really get on, so I haven't met him recently. Let's see…who else…"

"Queen?" Whitebeard prompted. Hatter absently began to write on the table using March Hare's brains as paint.

"Queen…Queen is a little less easily quantifiable. However, there's one word I feel summarizes him nicely, despite Ace's viewpoint on the whole 'religion' thing."

"And that would be…?" Whitebeard asked. Hatter seemed to be losing interest, and if they couldn't hold his interest he might shift back again. And that would really suck. Hatter looked up to lock gazes with Whitebeard.

"Queen is Ace's sin. Queen is the part of Ace that can kill. The part that lies fluently, sometimes more elegantly than truth. Queen is Ace's pride as well, so he took a real sledgehammer to the kneecap with the whole 'rape' thing. But he's also Ace's wrath, so he's grown quite a bit as well. He was harder, surprisingly, for Mr. Savage to get to, but he's been corrupted and you can't bring him back." Hatter snorted. "Survival instinct gets the best of the worst of us, it seems." Hatter was piddling in March Hare's brains again, occasionally poking at the deceased creature's cloudy, vacant eyes.

"Cheshire?" Hatter froze, stained fingers hovering above March Hare's mouth.

He was tense, his breathing frozen in his throat. His hand began to shake minutely. "We don't talk about Cheshire." He whispered. His eyes were wide as he stared into the shiny mess he'd made, his heart clenching in his chest. Hatter swallowed thickly.

"What? What does that mean?" Thatch asked.

Hatter shook his head. "No. No I can't tell you." He curled in on himself, clutching his arms and breathing raggedly. "I can't. I can't. You can't know. You're never supposed to know…"

"Hatter-" Whitebeard started.

"No! Cheshire…" Hatter was visibly shaking. "Cheshire's the secret. You can never, never ask about Cheshire." Hatter's head snapped up and he looked around wildly, as if expecting some kind of threat. He turned pleading eyes back to Whitebeard. "Please, don't ask this of me. Ace made me promise not to tell but I can't lie. Ace doesn't want you to know."

"Why?" Thatch asked. "What could Cheshire possibly repres-"

"He cares about you. He doesn't want you to see because you won't want him anymore. You're his family, but if you knew our dirty motherfucking secret that'd be thrown out in a moment." Hatter seemed almost disgusted.

"…That's the third time you've referred to us as-" Whitebeard started.

"Would you stop being so fucking blind? You, with your clever riddles, your questions that I'm bound to answer but sworn to never broach, you, who in every fucking way has made my life WORSE?" Hatter's snarl turned into a sneer. "Alrighty then, Pops, let's burst your naïveté." Hatter leaned forward, slamming his palms onto the wood of the table. He was smiling cruelly at them.

"This isn't just the Wonderland of 10 years ago, although it looked like this then too. This isn't just the disjointed trauma of an abused child. No…

…This is what it looks like NOW."

(A/N: Guess what, guys? Guess what guess what guess what? :DDDDD

THE PLOT THICKENS.

How freaking LONG HAS IT BEEN since I said that?! :DDDDD I'm ridiculously excited.

Was contemplating making the chapter longer, but then you might've needed to wait another two weeks, so I thought I'd wrap it up a little ahead of schedule and try the exciting 2X CLIFFHANGER/PLOT TWIST COMBO! It's totally what all the cool kids are doing. Yup. That's me. Cool kid #1.

In other notes…Happy 4th of July to my American readers! Woohoo! Saw a cool fireworks show, so that was boss. To other nationalities…I…hope you had a nice weekend…? And I hope you have a great day/night/whatever time you're reading this. Yeah.

So…thadabout sums it up for this chapter. See you all next time!

This chapter's reviews come with SPARKLERS because what's more fun than fizzy pyrotechnics?! :DD

See you all next time. ~Mountain97)