A/N: This chapter was made possible by WikiHow. ^_^

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The breath stalled in Hatter's throat as the JubJub screeched madly, flapping its wings and almost sending Hatter careening over the ledge with the force of its gusts. Throwing his right hand behind him, Hatter planted his feet, gritted his teeth, and let loose the only weapon he had available to him: his fist. He aimed at the side of the JubJub's face, hoping to just distract it long enough to be able to run past, but the JubJub had seen it coming. It ducked his head under Hatter's fist and swung back up to headbutt Hatter in that place where the jaw meets the ear, sending him flying to the side.

Light exploded behind his eyes and Hatter yelled in pain, grunting as he hit the hard ground and slid several feet. Acting on instinct, he rolled away from the edge, bringing up an errant hand to his injury as he did so. He grimaced as it came away covered in his blood – he'd been cut by the JubJub's beak as it struck him.

Too late, he realized the ground beneath his hands and knees was trembling – the JubJub's six humongous hooves shook the ground with every step as it galloped up to him and knocked him over with a swipe of its wing. The JubJub placed itself above Hatter's spread-eagled form, cornering his head with its front hooves before raising its head to let forth a loud, victorious screech. Hatter cast his eyes about, looking for something—anything—

"Hatter!"

Alice.

Hatter didn't quite know whether to feel relieved or terrified that he found Alice just as he was about to get ripped apart. His neck still hurt so much from the impact of the JubJub's attack that he could barely move his head – nevertheless, he strained as far as he could manage, looking for her. "Alice?"

"Hatter!" There she was – on a staircase thirty, maybe forty feet above them, looking down at him worriedly, in a near-panic. The JubJub's unblinking eyes turned upward at the sound of her voice, temporarily distracted from its meal. Hatter knew it would just take a single beat of those massive wings for it to catch Alice and dash her to the ground. He thought about watching that happen, about seeing her limp body thrown down next to his, limbs torn asunder and face frozen in an expression of terror.

"Alice!" he bellowed. "Alice, run!"

..

Alice had been only about halfway down the stairwell, looking frantically for any sign of Hatter in trouble, when the sudden blur of yellow in her peripheral vision made her stop. She stopped in her tracks as what looked like a giant, yellow, canary-horse galloped below, stopping at a dead-end ledge that dropped off into nothing. Alice had lowered herself to her knees and gripped the side of the stairwell ihard/i as she leaned forward, straining her eyes to see what the canary-horse had been chasing. All of a sudden, the bird bent down and made a violent motion with its head, sending its prey flying far to the side.

A figure wearing a hat.

"Hatter!" she cried, fingers gripping the sides of the stairwell so tightly they hurt. He didn't seem to be moving – the bird galloped over to him, and Alice felt her blood run cold. "Hatter!"

Her last yell had caught the bird's attention – Alice froze where she knelt as the hideous thing turned its head towards her, and she looked into its black, tar-pit eyes. She wanted to look away, but she just sat there, immovable under its gaze. A fine sheen of sweat broke out on her forehead.

"Alice!" she heard Hatter yell, his voice cutting through the air desperately. "Alice, run!"

His voice broke through her frozen stupor, and she stood sharply, backing up a few steps away from the edge. She thought about those eyes focused down on Hatter, pinning him to the ground – whatever that bird wanted with him, Alice was sure it couldn't be good.

"Hell no," she muttered shakily. "Oh, hell no." Frantically, she looked from side to side – the stairway seemed to continue forever in both directions, and Alice was not in the least bit confident that either way would lead her to Hatter. With her luck she would just wind up lost and alone, hundreds of miles away and completely unable to do anything to help.

There was only one other way to get down off of this staircase.

Alice felt her knees go weak at the thought. The staircase must have been at least thirty or forty feet above the ledge where the bird had cornered Hatter. She inched forward to peer over the ledge: from this angle, she could see that with a good jump, she could land on the ledge at least, maybe even aim for the bird itself. Alice's hands shook – she clenched them into fists and swallowed a panicked sob.

The bird screeched again, like the sound of a million people screaming in unison. If you're in trouble, I'm coming after you, she had said to him. And that's that.

Alice stepped back a few feet, turned her mind off (ohfuckohfuckohfuck), and took a running jump off the staircase.

..

Many things happened at once.

Hatter watched Alice's face disappear back over the edge of the staircase and, hoping that for once she had actually taken his advice and had run away, he summoned his strength and tucked his knees to his chest, delivering a sharp, hard kick to the JubJub's chest with as much force as he could muster. The JubJub screamed and staggered backwards, but before Hatter could even pull himself into a sitting position, a dark blue and black blur tumbled from the sky and hit the JubJub smack on its side. The two of them tumbled to the ground in a heap, all six of the JubJub's legs thrashing about dangerously.

"Alice?" Hatter groaned as he staggered upright.

"Hatter," she said, her voice sounding shaky. She crawled away from the JubJub, which had almost managed to get its legs underneath it. "I'm alright," she said. "I'm alright. Are you—"

But her sentence was cut off as JubJub's wing, flailing out to the side, caught Alice square on her right shoulder. She screamed in pain and Hatter could hear a sick popping, cracking sound that seemed to resonate through his whole body – she was thrown backwards by the force of the blow, sent flying into a pile of books.

Hatter stared, frozen, breathing heavily through his mouth and swaying slightly, at the crumpled form of Alice on the floor. She was trembling from the pain, one hand clutching feebly at the shoulder jutting out from her body at a sharp angle. He turned his gaze to glare darkly at the JubJub, now back on its feet and, screeching wildly.

"Come on!" he shouted, opening his arms wide. The JubJub started galloping towards him, head bent low to his level and huge jaw stretched wide. Hatter took a deep breath, planted his feet, curled his right hand into a dense fist, and swung.

His fist connected with the side of its head with a crack, and the force of his fist combined with the JubJub's momentum sent it tumbling over the ledge with a pained, keeling cry. Hatter stumbled to the side a little bit, peering over the edge to see the JubJub fall, head over feet, its wings beating uselessly against the walls of books, unable to spread out. Hatter watched as it fell, fell, fell… and then nothing.

Just silence.

The world rushed back when Hatter heard Alice's soft cries behind him. He blinked and stretched out his fisted fingers absently, turning away from the ledge to rush to her side. Tears had streaked the edges of her cheeks, and although he could see that she was biting her lips in a concerted effort not to cry out, the soft whimpers she was making in her throat were clearly audible. "Alice," he started, laying a soft hand on her leg, but the rest of what he was going to say died on his lips as he looked at her injury. There was no blood, but the once-smooth juncture between her neck and shoulder was now interrupted by a sharp hitch.

"It's dislocated," she said, voicing what he already knew. "I recognize it from the dojo." She was obviously exerting great effort to keep her voice level, and Hatter couldn't help but feel a little surge of pride that she could keep her cool in a time like this. "Can you fix it, or do you want me to tell you how?"

"I know," he said. "I've seen this before, working for the Resistance. It's going to be okay, Alice," he went on, his voice shaking. "I know it hurts. It hurts a lot, and it's about to hurt a lot more, but we can fix this, okay?" He blew out a sharp breath and nodded to her as reassuringly as he could manage. "I can fix this."

She nodded, and he carefully picked up her right arm, placing it in an L across her chest and folding her hand into a fist. He steeled himself against her cries of pain as he slowly, but steadily, rotated her shoulder outward and pushed.

He heard it slide into place with a pop, and Alice relaxed bonelessly into his embrace as the pain subsided. The two of them sighed in simultaneous relief, breathing heavily. Hatter brought up a shaking hand to his face.

"Don't you ever," he groaned, "make me do that again."

She breathed out something that was either a laugh or a curse word. Hatter chuckled and took off his jacket, tying the sleeves together to form a makeshift sling and resting Alice's arm in it.

"I'm not an invalid," she protested.

Hatter could tell she didn't really mean it, so he just said, "Yeah, let's try to keep it that way," in response, tucking her into a very careful hug. He looked up at the stairway she had fallen from. "Did you jump? Really? That must've been nearly forty feet!"

Alice smiled and kissed his cheek. "Well, I told you I'd come after you."

"That you did," he said, turning his head back to look down at her. "Thank you."

They smiled at each other briefly.

"…Even though you really should have run like I'd told you."

Alice scoffed.

"Well, a man can hope," he went on, rolling his eyes at her. "I mean, that bird was going to eat you! And they don't just eat their prey, mind you, they sort of… smash them first."

"What was that thing, anyway?"

Hatter sighed. "A JubJub bird. They're an old monster, very old – I thought they were extinct. The Queen exterminated the last of them to clear the skies when her electric flamingoes were invented. Apparently one's been hiding out in here for the last few decades."

Alice straightened, just now realizing that they were short one member of their group. "Where's Charlie?"

"We got separated. He's a fast old man—"

Her voice turned worried. "You don't think the JubJub got him, do you?"

"I should think not," a pompous voice said from off to their right. "And, might I add, I have never seen such a lazy pair of adventurers!"

Alice and Hatter turned to find Charlie standing in the archway, looking completely unruffled, a green book tucked under his arm. "Well?" he asked with a grin. "Shall we be off?"

..

They arrived back at the teashop to find the grass almost entirely eaten, the horses wandering around looking bored, and, as Charlie said, "Based on the amount of horse droppings, I'd say we've been gone about three days."

"Wonderful," Hatter drawled, looking forlornly at the dead grass and horse crap that covered his office floor. "Who's going to clean all this up?"

The three of them looked at each other.

"Not me," Alice said. "I've got my shoulder."

Hatter sighed. "I'll get the shovels."

..

Alice made dinner while Hatter and Charlie cleaned - she was more than willing to play the role of domestic female if it meant not having to shovel three days' worth of horse manure. Afterwards, around a happy little campfire and nursing very full bellies, sleep beckoning them on the horizon after not having a good night's rest in three days, Hatter reached for the little green book.

"So this is it, eh?" he said, turning it around in his hands. "Awful lot of trouble for such a small thing."

"And you're sure it'll tell us how to get home?" Alice asked.

"That's it," Charlie said. "I'm sure of it. I can read it aloud, if you like." He held out a hand, and Hatter passed the book to him. Just as Charlie cracked open the cover, however, Alice let out a humongous yawn. Hatter saw her and laughed.

"Tired?" he asked, smirking, before the smirk turned into a yawn of his own.

"You know what, Charlie," Alice said with a smile, "I say sleep now, magic book in the morning."

"Yeah, I agree," Hatter said, obviously biting down on another yawn. He stood up and Alice followed him.

"Very well," Charlie told their retreating backs. The door closed behind them and Charlie sighed, putting out the fire so that only the glowing embers were left.

That night, they all dreamed of books, and whispers in the dark.

..