Warning: This chapter is a very dark, very emotional depiction of grief, containing some graphic imagery.

A/N: This chapter took me a very, very long time to write, because it was so important to me that I get it right. My writing style is heavily influenced by my acting background, getting into the minds of my characters, so writing this chapter was immensely difficult for me. There were several points when I had to stop, because I was so into the minds of my characters that I couldn't write anymore or think clearly. I really hope that you all find the end result as beautiful as I do.

..

As Alice and Hatter spent the night on their own, Charlie slept. And as Charlie slept, he dreamed.

Or rather, remembered.

..

His job was to carry the Great Lance.

It was a simple job, given to only the youngest of squires, but it was by no means inconsequential. It was significant, he was told hurriedly by his mother while she helped him buckle on his armor, for him to be allowed on the battlefield at all. So he gulped down the butterflies in his stomach, tightened his numb fingers around the heftiest part of the Great Lance, and stomped onto the battlefield. His father had told him that the rest of his life would be determined on how he conducted himself in his first battle. Charles tried not to think about it much.

He couldn't remember much after that, of the battle itself – there was smoke everywhere, great, billowing, black clouds that covered everything in a gritty blanket that choked from the inside-out. The bits of skin exposed through his armor felt like they sizzled, so close to the heat of burning buildings and scorched stone. His nose itched with the smell of seared flesh, and he felt like he would vomit given two seconds to himself. Instead, he forced himself to point the Great Lance in his arms towards the sounds of swords clashing in battle, and willed his feet to carry him forward. He'd been instructed to bring it to the Third Regiment, and was determined to do so.

The Third Regiment was within sight – he could see the Red Knight beckoning him urgently, yelling something he couldn't hear. But before Charles could take another step—

There was a humongous explosion somewhere off to his right, the sound rocketing around Charles' tiny body and physically shaking it to the bone. Dust and grime filled the limited vision through his visor, and he frantically tried to find his bearings so he could stand, where was the Great Lance, where had it gone to, it was just in his hand— he saw it on the ground, smooth and white and regal, about the width of a loaf of bread. He reached for it, but instead of the cold, comforting weight he was expecting, it was warm, soft, and sticky in his hand.

It wasn't the Great Lance at all.

It was a severed arm.

His whole body went numb. He couldn't see anymore… there was a sense of movement, but he had no idea what was moving or how fast or where it was going. The whole world was blurry behind a film of tears and smoke and the blood. There was just run, run, run, run, run, run, and then he fell and everything was dark and he stayed there, in that dark place.

..

That was how the little girl found him, three days later - a dirty ten-year-old boy, literally out of his mind with fear, ashamed and crying, hiding under the roots of a tree. His armor was streaked with blood and soot. She looked down at Beaver, who was already looking up at her expectantly.

"You'd better go bring some water," she said. He clicked his teeth in agreement and scampered off. The girl didn't bother worrying about Beaver getting lost in the Wood, nor how he would manage bringing water back to them here – she never worried about him. He was Beaver, after all.

And she could tell, the little sad part of her that had seen battles come and go before, knew what winning and losing looked like… that part of her could tell that this little boy would much prefer to remain asleep, if he had the choice.

Which was why she had to wake him up.

She looked back at the little boy, who looked to be around her age… relatively speaking. He didn't seem to realize she was here. The little girl stretched a hand to the nearest part of him she could reach – his foot – and shook it slightly. "Hello?" she asked quietly. "Little boy? Hello?" No response. The girl frowned. Maybe he was having trouble hearing her. She shook his foot a little harder and spoke a little louder. "Can you hear me?"

..

"Can you hear me?"

The rest of the world came back to Charles with an almost physical snapping sound, like someone had turned the switch on. He jumped in surprise, his eyes darting all over his surroundings only to find dirt and roots, until finally landing on a little girl that seemed to be bathed in light. It streamed through her scraggly blonde hair so brightly that he couldn't focus on her face – and then it hit him, like a slap to the face, that the world seemed… quiet. So quiet, so much more quiet than he had ever remembered the world being before. It pressed down on his ears like a pillow, suffocating him.

For a moment, he was afraid. What if she was an angel? What if he… he had died? He had to ask. "Am—am I—?" he stuttered.

The girl smiled and crawled in to join him under the tree roots. "Well, that's more like it," she said. "It's much nicer in here than it is out there, you know, but I didn't want to intrude on an unconscious person. Quite rude, that."

Now that he could see her clearly he was surprised to find that she looked about his age, ten, maybe eleven years old and wearing the dirtiest, most threadbare clothes he had ever seen. Then a very large beaver scurried into their hiding place on its hind legs, carefully holding a bowl of stitched-together leaves. "Oh, there you are," the girl cried. "So you stitched a bowl! Very clever, and excellent craftsmanship as always," she said admiringly. The beaver chattered happily and gave her the bowl, settling back on its four feet. She held out the bowl to Charles. "I told him to go get you some water," she said. "You look like you need it, you might have been in here for days."

Charles looked from the bowl, to the girls' face, to the strange beaver that behaved like a human sitting at her feet, both of them staring at him impatiently. "I'm dead," he said finally.

"No, you're not," she replied.

"I must be. I've died in battle. Tell me I've died in battle."

"No," she insisted. "You didn't. Even if in a few seconds," she said, her voice trembling slightly, "you might wish you had, you are not dead! Now drink your water!"

"No!" he cried, his eyes boring into hers with a wild look. "I MUST be dead because it's so QUIET!" he gulped, his throat feeling raw. He took a shuddering breath. "It shouldn't…it can't be this quiet…"

For a second, she didn't say anything, just looked at the bowl of water between them.

"So… you noticed," she said.

He took the bowl from her hands and sipped it carefully so he wouldn't have to talk, letting the cool feeling spread through his parched throat. It felt as though every inch of his body was caked in dirt and tears, sweat and soot.

"You should come out, into the open," she said quietly. "You should see it for yourself."

"No," he said, shaking his head desperately, maniacally. "No, please don't. I know, I know, it's so quiet, I know," tears were rolling down his face, drawing streaks through the dirt. His chest was heaving as he struggled to breathe, each sob and gasp for air seeming like a fight. "Don't, don't, please don't, I can't, I can't-"

She looked at him with such pity in her eyes that he wanted to hit her. Why should she be pitying him, none of this was real, it hadn't happened-

She took his hand. "I'm sorry," she said. "I am, I really am. But you can't hide in here forever. You've got a life-"

"No!" he cried, and he felt like it was the only word he knew right now. "No! I have nothing! I'm a mistake, I'm an accident, I shouldn't be here—"

"That's not true!" the little girl interrupted. "You can't think that!" She grabbed him by the shoulders and looked straight into his big brown eyes with her big blue ones. A piece of her dirty blonde hair was stuck to the smudge of dirt on her cheek. "There's a reason you didn't die, there's a reason you're here. You've got to understand, you're the last of your kind now, you've got a responsibility that you can't escape—"

"I DON'T WANT IT!" Charlie yelled, trying to throw his arms over his face despite the girl's firm grip on his shoulders. He was nearly in the fetal position, all curled up in front of her. "I can't do it, I can't, I don't want it, I never asked for—"

"Tough."

He looked up at her with wild fight in his eyes, but was tempered by her haunted look. Her eyes had turned inward, her expression… old. "We can't choose the burdens we bear," she said, and the ancient words sounded strange from the voice of a ten-year-old girl. "We can only trust that they were given to us for a reason, that it's only because the Universe knows we can handle it. That's our only solace, and you need to take solace from that, or you'll go mad."

He didn't say anything. The girl looked at him and smiled sadly.

"It's going to be rough, yeah. But you're going to be okay."

Her hands slid down from their iron grip on his shoulders to take his hands. He held on to her like she was a lifeline.

"You're going to be okay," she repeated.

Then she brought him out into the light. And even though he could feel her hands in his, and feel the comforting warmth of the beaver against his calf, the little boy looked at the remains of his kingdom and thought…

I am never going to be okay.

..

When he had exhausted himself, when he had run from burned remains to burned remains, sobbed himself physically sick to the point of vomiting at the sight of the Red King, a skeleton of freshly charred bone, still sitting on his throne… he circled around the twisted bodies like a lost leaf, floating dead and hollow in the wind… after all this, he collapsed into a little ball where the Red King's court used to be. And the little girl walked to where he lay, and held him as best she could, and she sang.

"Hey, nonny nonny," she breathed, as the little hollow boy lay between her arms, listening to a song he'd never heard in the middle of a kingdom he didn't recognize. "Hey, nonny nonny… the wind and the rain… the wind and the rain…"

And the world wasn't silent any more.

..

"I've got to leave today," she said one morning. He didn't know how he knew that she was going to say this – today seemed to him just like every other day since she had found him underneath that tree and forced him out into the open. But she sounded so certain and matter-of-fact about it, just like she sounded certain and matter-of-fact about everything else, that it seemed right somehow. So he nodded and said the only thing that he could think of to say:

"I'm Charlie."

She smiled and extended a hand for Charlie to shake. "I'm Hope," she said.

Charlie smiled a little bit, too. "That's a peculiar name."

"Ironic, I think is more the word."

"I'll miss you," he said honestly.

"You'll do okay," she told him, and Beaver chattered in agreement. Charlie reached forward and gave him a pat on the head, so he wouldn't feel left out. "Besides," Hope continued. "We'll meet again in the woods someday."

And with nothing else to say, they smiled at each other and Hope turned away. In the time it took for Charlie to blink, she had vanished.

His head swiveled around for a bit, searching for where she had gone to… but then he thought better of it. He smiled to himself again, just the littlest bit, before continuing to re-build what would become again his home.

"Hey, nonny nonny," he sang under his breath. "Hey, nonny nonny… the wind and the rain… the wind and the rain…"

..