Hatter's eyes went wide and he inhaled quickly. Too quickly. Damn.

Trying to recover, he mumbled, "Sorry," the way he had heard other oysters apologize when they jostled someone in a crowd, and moved around the suit, trying to appear normal, and hoping desperately that the man hadn't noticed his reaction.

But Hatter knew he had.

From the corner of his eye, he saw the man turn. "Hey," he called, and reaching out, grabbed Hatter's left shoulder.

Hatter wheeled around, his right fist ready, and caught the man square in the face. He dropped like a brick, and Hatter ran.

"No one from Wonderland can see you. You don't exist. You must be an oyster. They can't know you are there, or it could change everything."

Hatter threw himself down on the warehouse roof, devastated and numb. He had failed. He hadn't been careful enough. He had broken one of the cardinal rules that Caterpillar had set out for him. Dire consequence and the like.

By now the White Rabbit would have found their unconscious operative. And they would know that Jack was not alone. And this transgression would change what would happen, which would change what had happened. Wonderland. Alice.

The four weeks he had spent in Alice's world had taken its toll on Hatter. Trying to figure out a world that didn't make sense, having to be always on his guard, having to watch the woman he loved with another man, worrying about what would happen when he and Alice were finally united, being sick, being bombarded by oyster emotions (not the liquid kind, the real kind)... and above all, the heavy weight of knowing that the fate of Wonderland rested on his shoulders – had pushed him to the edge, to his breaking point.

To have failed, with only 10 days left of his mission, broke him entirely.

He didn't punch walls and pipes. He didn't throw things. He didn't curse or yell.

He just lay there, staring at the sky with dull, unseeing eyes.

...

"What is this?" Agent White asked, with a slightly nervous jerk of his head, as one of his suits dragged a half-conscious operative through his hotel door.

"He was attacked," the fully conscious suit replied, depositing his load onto the hotel floor.

"By who?"

A drink of water and a couple of minutes later, pushing an ice pack to the bridge of his nose, the six of spades had recovered enough to answer. "Resistance operative, I think. Definitely from Wonderland. He was following the prince."

Agent White bit back a curse. The last thing he needed was resistance fighters making his job more difficult.

More twitching. "How many were there?"

"Just the one..."

There's never just one, Agent White thought to himself.

"... but whoever he is, he's got a mean right hook."

"A mean right hook?" Agent White's eyes flickered, and he pursed his lips against a smile, for a moment looking very much like a rabbit himself. So, he thought, he is working for the Resistance after all. This piece of news would be very valuable if whispered in the right ears. After all, the queen would want to know that her favorite tea seller was a double agent.

"Be on your guard," he told his men. "We need to know just how many Resistance are here before we act. This could make capturing the prince much more difficult."

...

Hatter's eyes fluttered open to glowing green blobs oozing up and down black walls. He tried to move, but his arms were tied to a metal chair. The metal chair. He was back in the torture room. NO!

Had this all been the psychological torture of the doctors? Killing Mad March, rescuing Alice, defeating the queen, his deal with Jack, following Alice into her world... if so, it had been the most intricate torture he had ever had to endure. He struggled against his bonds, but they held.

Then two figures appeared, one at his right, one at his left. But instead of the doctors' matching demented smiles, he saw Jack Heart and Caterpillar.

"Ask him why he is here?" Caterpillar said.

"Why are you here, Hatter?" Jack parroted.

Hatter clenched his eyes shut. Not again.

"If you do not go, then she will not come, and all that she has done will come undone."

Hatter tried to tune it out. This was more of the doctors' games. Why is a raven like a writing desk?

"You sent me the first text on March 18th, in the evening. I was getting ready for my first date with Alice. It'll be five days after you arrive."

The clockwork's not ticking properly.

"... can't know you are there, or it could change everything."

Maybe crumbs in the butter.

He could see them both, even with his eyes shut. And the green blobs. They made him feel dizzy.

"I spent a lot of my time at the dojo. That'll be one of the first places you need to find."

Why is a raven like a writing desk? WHY IS A RAVEN LIKE A WRITING DESK?

"You must make sure that you do exactly what it is that you did."

Hatter's eyes snapped open, involuntarily. "What does that even mean?" he barked, hoarsely.

"It means we don't know what you did," Jack replied.

"But you must do it, all the same," Caterpillar added.

Hatter's eyes fluttered. The ground felt cold under his back, and the sky above him was dark. He felt a bit disoriented, and very stiff. He had no idea how long he had been laying there.

All he did know was the dream, if it had been a dream, had somehow knit the pieces of his mind back together. And Jack's last words – an echo of a memory from over four weeks ago but three weeks in the future - rang in his head.

"We don't know what you did."

He punched a suit, that's what he did. And just possibly, that was what was supposed to happen.

"The future's already happened. Which means this has already happened. And we didn't know what I did back then... now... other then the messages." Hatter was talking out loud to himself again. "I'm not changing the past. This is what I did." And he started laughing, and it felt so freeing to laugh. "Maybe I am going mad," he said finally, and chuckled again.

He pulled himself up on the wall and looked out over the city. He had never been up here at night, and he found the city lights to be quite mesmerizing.

Then he saw them. The streetlight outside the dojo illuminated a couple on the sidewalk. Alice and Jack. She had him by the hand and was pulling him toward the dojo doors. He feigned pulling away, and Alice jumped forward and kissed him. And kept kissing him. Then she pulled open the dojo door and dragged him inside.

The ductwork made a thunderous bang as it came loose from its housing and flew a few feet across the roof.

...

That was a really hard chapter to write. Struggling to get Agent White's voice right, in spite of watching his parts of Alice.

And hopefully this chapter isn't too confusing - it jumped around a bit. Review please! Constructive criticism always welcome!