Matthew huffed as he continued on his trek, moving various branches out of his face from time to time. There were no animals of any kind or rustling aside from his own. It was almost lonely, but he liked being alone, it gave him a chance to think, collect his thoughts. So he was in a dream, basically. A really weird dream. But most people thought dreams were realistic before they woke up, so that meant it was all fine. Nothing to worry about. He just had to make it through this dream and he'd be fine. It wasn't like anything could really hurt him, anyway.

He'd been walking for a really long time, though. He expected something to pop up, maybe that stupid cat got him going in some random direction that wouldn't lead him anywhere…He was about to retrace his steps in hopes of getting back to that clearing, when he reached a small opening that lead to a small house. Matthew glanced around before looking back at the house, steam puffing out of the chimney.

Matthew carefully walked forward. Maybe the person inside would be a little more normal than the last one and he could get helpful advice. Gilbert had said that this person would be important in getting home, so it would be worth checking out at the very least. He just had to work up the courage to talk. He stopped in front of the door, staring at the gold knocker on the dark wood. Maybe he should just try his luck with walking around. He didn't like starting a conversation with strangers. Not in the slightest.

And then the door cracked open, revealing dark brown eyes looking at him carefully. "Who are you?"

"Uh…" Matthew paused for a moment, the eyes staring at him unblinkingly. "I'm…M-Ma…"

"Matthew?" the man behind the door asked. That was weird, this was the second person that knew his name without him telling them.

"Yes…" Matthew said slowly. The door opened carefully and, in front of him, stood a small Asian man, shorter than him. Matthew blinked. This man wasn't intimidating at all, standing in front of him in a simple kimono as he assessed him.

"Why are you here?" the man asked.

"Uh…it's a…long story," Matthew muttered. This guy didn't look scary, and he almost seemed easy to talk to. This wasn't as stressful as the last one.

"What is it?"

"Um…this…cat, I guess…" Matthew shrugged. "Uh, Gilbert? He said…you could…h-help me…get home." That was a train wreck, but at least he got all of it out. This guy was kind of easy to talk to.

"Where is home?"

Matthew raised an eyebrow. This man was only asking him questions. He hadn't done anything but ask a question. Now that was curious. Matthew bit his lip, deciding to continue anyway. Maybe this man was just cautious and liked to know everything about someone before he opened up himself.

"A small estate…" Matthew shrugged awkwardly. "New York?"

"Where is that?" the man asked.

"North America? Earth?" Matthew tried.

"Is it in Wonderland?"

"No, it's definitely not," Matthew shook his head. That was when Matthew noticed something. Sitting on top of this man's head were two, hardly noticeable antennae. Matthew took a small, hardly noticeable step back.

"Why do you want to go back?" the man asked curiously.

"It's home," Matthew shrugged uselessly. "Can you help me?"

"Can I?" the man asked and turned around, going back into his house. Matthew carefully followed the man, assuming he was invited since the door was open. He was surprised to see that the entirety of the furniture in the house was made of mushrooms. The man sat down on a chair made of a rather large one. This was weird.

"Gilbert said you could," Matthew said and the man raised an eyebrow.

"Why would he say that?" The man asked, mostly to himself.

"Why do you only ask questions?" Matthew asked him.

"Why not?" The man asked simply.

"Wow, really?" Gilbert's voice laughed and Matthew jumped, turning around in time to see Gilbert appear out of nowhere. He leaned on thin air around him with a smirk and the man blinked at him simply, only appearing slightly surprised. So Gilbert did this a lot? "Kiku, man, you've gotta think outside the box more! What about those philosophical questions you like so much?"

"Was that not philosophical?" the man, Kiku, asked, clearly confused.

"Whatever," Gilbert scoffed and stood upright, standing between the two in the room. "Birdie."

"That's…not…my…" Matthew bit his lip.

"I know, but I like the ring of Birdie," Gilbert winked and Matthew looked away. Kiku was, by far, a lot easier to talk to. Gilbert smirked in amusement and Matthew looked at Kiku, who looked between them with a small smile.

"Have you found someone, Gilbert?" Kiku asked and Gilbert rolled his eyes, obviously flustered but not willing to admit it.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Gilbert shrugged. "Anyway, can you help the kid or not? He wants to get home."

"Do you want him to go home?" Kiku asked. Matthew watched with amusement. Kiku really had a good handle on Gilbert, knowing just what questions to ask him to get the conversation to go in the direction he wanted it to. It was impressive.

"He wants to, I don't see how what I want plays in here," Gilbert rolled his eyes.

Matthew laughed slightly, but noticed something out of the corner of his eye. He glanced where he saw it and saw someone sticking their head in from outside the door. Curious, Matthew took a step closer and found that it was his own brother, his new bunny ears drooping to the side.

"What do you want?" Kiku asked.

"Does it matter?" Gilbert scoffed.

Alfred noticed him and immediately set off running in another direction.

"Wait! Al!" Matthew yelled after him and chased after him. Gilbert shouted at him, but Matthew didn't care. His brother was here with him. That would be the saving grace he needed. Alfred could talk to all of these people for him and Matthew could just slide by easily. He just needed to catch up with his brother. Shortly after the chase began, however, Matthew completely lost him. "Al!" Matthew huffed. Why was his brother running from him? He couldn't be scared, nothing scared him. What was this?

That was when Matthew glanced around and noticed that he had no idea where he was. It was dark in this part of the forest, definitely a darker shade than the rest. The ground was all muddy, ruining his shoes completely and Matthew groaned. He took a breath to collect himself. If he did this properly, he could make it out.

Remember, Matthew, this is a dream. He reminded himself and smiled slightly. Right, this was a dream. He could do what he wanted without consequence. Everything would be okay. He didn't need his brother, definitely not. He could handle a silly dream well enough on his own. He could do this.

He started walking with confidence in some random direction. Maybe he could find the end of this dream, if he was lucky, but he was sure he wasn't that lucky. He searched for what felt like an eternity before he reached an odd sign. It was all twisted and had several arrows on it, all of them pointing in a random direction.

One of them read "TEA" while another read "ROSES". Yet another boasted "WHO" and then another said "CLOCK". Matthew looked at all of the signs curiously, wondering where any of these really lead to.

"Thank God, thought I lost ya there," Gilbert cackled and Matthew took a step back, looking up at the cat, who was perched happily on top of the post of signs. "Guess you wanna know where you're going now, huh?"

"Depends…" Matthew muttered. Gilbert happily flipped off the post and landed perfectly on his feet before turning on his heel to stare at the sign. "Yeah, well, you could go to the Queen, but she's a crazy, psycho bitch, so I'd advise against it. The Hatter's not much better…There aren't really a lot of good options here. Clock's off limits to you right now anyway."

"What?" Matthew asked. What was this clock and why couldn't he go there? This was his dream, after all.

"Part of the rules we gotta play by," Gilbert winked and Matthew blushed slightly before taking a tentative step forward.

"This…this is my dream," Matthew muttered. This was a dream, he could talk to a figment of his own imagination. It would be fine. He could handle this. "I decide the rules."

"No you don't," Gilbert laughed, shooting Matthew down entirely. "Nice try, though. And I like your confident voice, how come you don't use it more?"

"What? Why can't I make the rules?" Matthew demanded. This was his dream, he could do what he wanted! Hell, if he wanted to, he could teleport like Gilbert was!

"It's not a part of the rules~!" Gilbert said in a sing-song voice. "But, if you wanna get to the clock, you gotta play the game right. So…I guess choose between Rose and Tea. I'd go for Tea, but then again you could get rose done with first…"

"I'm going to Clock," Matthew muttered, shaking his head and moving in the direction that the sign pointed him in. He didn't need that stupid cat to tell him where to go, he could handle this on his own.

"You sure that's a good idea?" Gilbert smirked and Matthew blinked in surprise when he saw the cat lying horizontally in midair, following Matthew's pace perfectly beside him.

"Yes," Matthew nodded. "This is my dream, I know what I decide."

"Uh-hu," Gilbert nodded with a smirk. Matthew narrowed his eyes. He obviously knew something but he wasn't sharing it. That could never be a good thing. Especially not with Gilbert. "And you know exactly where you're going?"

"I don't need your help," Matthew shook his head.

"Sure," Gilbert quipped and Matthew rolled his eyes. His dream shouldn't back-sass him like this. What was going on? Matthew took a deep breath as he continued. The forest grew a lighter color, which was good. And Gilbert merely hummed the whole way, a tune Matthew didn't even know. How could he wake up from this? Maybe there was something at Clock that he could use.

As he got further, he noticed that he could smell the scent of tea around him and he was confused. He'd followed the path clearly marked "CLOCK", so why was he smelling tea?

"Oh, yeah, you didn't give me a chance to mention," Gilbert laughed. "Those signs were mixed up! Oh, if only you'd allowed me to tell you where to go, I'd have told you where Clock was and taken you there so you could see just how little you can do."

"Are you serious?" Matthew stopped and Gilbert moved ahead just a little bit before landing gracefully on his feet.

"Hell yeah," Gilbert smirked, leaning against a tree. "Be my guest, walk up to the tea and see for yourself that you've found yourself at the Tea Party."

Matthew glared at him but trudged ahead anyway, bypassing the cat that stayed right where he was. There was no way, that had to be a trick. Maybe they just had tea at Clock, that would make sense, a lot of people liked tea. He reached a random canopy of leaves and, as soon as he moved it out of his way, he realized that he was definitely not at Clock.

And Imma end on a nice cliffhanger that's not really a cliffhanger. I'm really happy with this! Y'all have no idea! I liked having Kiku as the Caterpillar and only asking questions, maybe it's a curse or something, I don't know. But I wanted him to come more or less first because Matthew needed to get comfortable talking to people. You can see his confidence growing, but that's mostly because he thinks this is all a dream. But that's okay!

Anywho…next chapter we get to meet….The Mad Hatter, The March Hare, and The Door Mouse! (Fair warning, I'm not including all of the characters, but I'm trying. And I'm including an extra because a certain character I needed didn't have a place anywhere else)

I've also had a few questions and reviews, and by the way thank you for all of those. No, this isn't based on Alice in the Country of Hearts, it's based on Alice in Wonderland, so there won't be an Ace character. I hope that maybe cleared something up. I am twisting everything a bit, like including a character or two of my own, but it's all going on the same track as the "original" I'm going after.

And I'm done talking! So please review!