Chapter Text
Chapter 1
Alice would have been searching for me. I could practically see her bursting through the door doing her ... whatever it was that she had done to save me from Dodo last time. But the room stayed almost empty. Alice was a crowd in and of herself and any room with her in it could never be described as ‘almost empty’. She had a presence that made her impossible to ignore. Or maybe that was just me.
Across the table was the aforementioned Dodo; his sunken eyes glaring at me. I shifted a little in my seat. I hated being stared at. Particularly by someone who wanted to kill me.
I had no idea what was his game was. All I knew was that me and Alice had been on a beach looking for a Charlie that was probably dead and arguing loudly about her 'boyfriend', Jack Heart. Ugh. When some people wearing the insignia of the resistance had emerged from the trees I was almost glad for the interruption. I had turned to greet them, forgetting their boss’s threat not a week before.
"Hatter! What are you doing?" Alice cried, grabbing me and pulling me back "Did you forget that we’re being hunted down by both sides?"
She was panicked, I could tell that much no matter how she tried to hide it. I could see in her eyes that she was scared to take on so many. We would lose, she was sure of it, but that didn’t stop her from calling to them as they advanced.
"Take ONE more step towards us and it will be your last!" God she was fiery, I almost chuckled as some of them actually stopped, glancing at each other uncertainly. Then again, if Alice had been looking at me like that then I would have been running in the opposite direction... Theoretically. I knew that despite her temper and the constant arguing and questions and her stupid gullibility when it came to Jack, I could never run away and abandon her. Not now she was so unsure of herself and she needed someone to keep her grounded. Not that she knew it, of course.
After that first brief hesitation of some of the more cowardly resistance, Dodo's right hand man stepped forward and held up his hand to stop Alice before she pounced.
"You needn’t fear girl, we are only here for Hatter, oh, and the ring," he said, holding out his hand expectantly. Alice knocked it aside, harder than necessary judging by the wince and the small, satisfied smirk on Alice’s face.
"Well the ring I haven’t got and Hatter you can’t have" she said, chin jutting out in defiance,
I was touched; I would’ve thought that she wanted rid of me as soon as possible. The corners of my lips turned up slightly at her words, without my express command.
Handy’s lips tightened and he sighed, motioning his men to attack,
"Now that’s a shame, we’ll just have to take him instead."
And they were on her, obviously taking out the threat before moving in on the actual target, I could barely see her as she fought, fought for me.
I never knew she cared.
I ran into the fray, using my trusty right fist to throw some incapacitating punches, trying to get to Alice. She saw me and yelled, eyes wide and frightened, blood trickling from a cut on her forehead.
"NO! Hatter get out of here! It’s you they want. Run!" But I couldn’t, I couldn’t leave her to get killed by the people I’d once considered my friends. I ignored her words and carried on punching and fighting until I heard a cry, I spun around just in time to see Alice slump to the floor. a guy leered at her prone form and withdrew the highly powered cattle prod before turning to me.
I punched him, in the head, with my right fist. My anger was such that it gave me the strength to crack stone, a skull was nothing. He went down, blood pooling out his ears. I had just killed someone. And I didn’t care. All I cared about was getting to Alice. Those cattle prods were certainly enough to render someone unconscious and if it was held to the victim for long enough...
I was barely aware of the arms on me, dragging me back to the tree line,
"NO!" I yelled, struggling to get back to the frail, blue and purple figure lying motionless on the beach, "Alice!"
I didn’t care about the tears. I didn’t care that these people were taking me to meet a worse fate than hers. All I cared about was that she had been fighting for me and I had let her down.
I should have run, I realised too late; if I had run then they would have left her and come for me, then she would have been able to take those that were left and no one would have used the cattle prod.
She wouldn't have died.