Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It's very late at night or extremely early in the morning. Half a dozen Suits stand along a dark corridor in a penthouse apartment. There are no lights on anywhere, but there is a glow coming from an open door. In the room at the end of the corridor is a desk with many monitors from cameras. There is no sound.

Sitting in the shadows, a young man is watching another young man on a screen. Nothing is happening to either man. In fact it seems rather boring. But the young man in the suit stares, barely blinking.

He leans further into the light. The young man has on a sharp, fitted red suit with white and black accents, short blond hair and gray eyes. His name is Jack Heart, King of Wonderland. And he has been searching for something he believes to belong to him. And now he has finally found it.

Jack had left his home world behind to track him down. Travelling from America to England in the Oyster fashion.

He refused to return empty handed. In fact he couldn't, a ring he had given to him was their ticket back. Failure in this mission was not an option.

The man Jack is watching is sitting at his own station working. The current camera only shows the back of his head, but from previous visuals Jack knows what he looks like. Messy dark hair, deep chestnut eyes, a habit of wearing fingerless gloves and hats all the time. Scarves and waistcoats, worn with different T-shirts. A rather unique lad with an individual sense of fashion.

Suddenly the young man on the screen looked up from what he was doing and checked to see if anyone was watching what he was doing. Nobody was. He left his station and headed off screen. But this wasn't the only camera Jack had on him. He followed his progress through corridors and into the gym. Saw him take off his scarf and jacket, but leaving on his hat and fingerless gloves. He walked over towards a punching bag, giving one last check to see if anyone was around, drew back his right fist and aimed.

The punching bag came off worse between the two.

"See you soon, Hatter."

Chapter Text

Connor had just finished working on his ‘Sledgehammer’ and hiding any evidence of the fact when Abby came into the gym looking for him. She seemed surprised to see Connor in this area of the ARC, but then again, she didn’t know as much about him as she thought she did.
“What are you doing in here?”
“Oh, just thought I’d erm... check out the facilities. You know, get myself in shape.”
Connor gave her his classic cheeky, chipmunk grin with dimples as he lightly nudged the new punching bag. Attempting to look as innocent and dorky as possible, he only half succeeded.
Abby gave him a very sceptical look and thought to herself, ‘Since when had Connor been interested in working out? Unless it was another shot to try and get with me.’
“Well I just came to get you as we have another one of those boring meetings with Lester.”
“Well we wouldn’t want to keep them all waiting now, would we?” Connor said as he hurried them out of the gym. He looked back and saw that he hadn’t hidden the damaged punching bag as well as he had thought, at least Abby had not noticed it though.

Massive mirrors completely fill one wall inside a large spacious room. They start the shake. The lights flicker. A metal stool begins to slide across the floor towards the mirrors.
A weak Anomaly appears. It is actually inside of one of the mirrors. It slowly pulses, gradually gaining in strength. Just as it seems to stabilise the mirror ripples and the Anomaly vanishes from sight.
A blue/grey claw reaches out through the mirror. The rest of the body swiftly follows behind. It knocks the stool away, hits a light and scratches the floor, leaving huge gashes in it.
All of the noise had attracted the attention of the cleaner. She opened the door to check inside. And quickly shuts it again. She is screaming her voice raw as she runs away from the creature that had just appeared from nowhere.

The alarm goes off. Special Forces soldiers and Becker assemble at the Anomaly detector along with Connor, Abby, Danny, Jenny, Stephan, Nick and Sarah. Lester watches them from up above.
“Well, what are you waiting for? A written invitation?”
They all loaded into the cars and set off towards the Anomaly site, Connor, Abby, Danny and Stephan in one, the rest in the other.
“The police have received a call from the cleaner at the ‘Quadrille Dance Studio’, she described the creature as a great staring boggled-eyed monster, almost like a huge blue dragon. It had small scraggly wings and large front teeth, like tusks.”
“Any ideas, Connor?”
Connor shifted uncomfortably in his seat, he had an idea about what the creature could be but kept it to himself. Bringing up his laptop to uselessly check his database and avoiding eye contact with everyone else in the car. He typed in the description, knowing that it was pointless and waited for the results. His laptop beeped at him letting him know that it had finished, ‘!No Results Found!’
Connor looked up to see everybody watching him closely, anticipating his answer. “I have no idea. There’s no record of any creature like that ever existing during any era.”
Everyone was extremely surprised by his answer; it wasn’t often that they came across a completely unknown creature. And this led them towards the conclusion that it had to have come through a future Anomaly, which was never a good thing.

The cars pulled up outside of the ‘Quadrille Dance Studio’ and each person started unpacking the necessary equipment.
“Everyone keep sharp. We have no idea what this creature is or what can do.” Stephan announced to everyone before they started to enter the building.
The Special Forces started preparing their weapons, along with Becker, Danny and Stephan.
“Try to capture the creature alive if you can, don’t kill it unless you have no other option.” Cutter added. They also grabbed some tranquilisers as an afterthought.
They raced towards the ballet studio, which had the creature trapped inside. As soon as they opened the door though the creature turned to face towards them and gave a burbling screech. It was exactly as the cleaner had described it.
The SF slowly entered with the team and shut the door behind them. They spread about the room keeping their sights on it. Looking towards Becker awaiting his signals, he flicked his wrist and some of the soldiers fired upon the creature.
The bullets bounced off of its skin and now the creature was becoming extremely upset, creating a lot of noise and starting to back into a corner whilst swing it’s head and neck towards the soldiers and team.
The next group of SF loaded their tranquiliser guns and once again looked towards Becker for the signal. It came and they fired. Once again they were unsuccessful.
Realising that they shouldn’t waste anymore bullets of tranquiliser darts on more assaults Danny took it upon himself to grab a dart off the floor where it had fallen and edge around the room to behind the creature. The others, realising what he was attempting to do, begin to attract the creature’s attention onto them so it would not realise what was going on. The plan was working when it became fixated upon Connor. It started to head towards him and was seemingly just about to attack when it fell to the floor unconscious.
Danny was stood behind it and Connor looked to him gratefully, giving him a dimpled grin. Danny walked up to him and squeezed the top of his arms, “are you alright?”
“Fine, thanks to you.”
Danny gave his arms another squeeze then walked over to the creature to check it was fully under.
The job had now begun of seeing if there was an Anomaly for them to keep an eye on. Some of the SF left to look if the Anomaly was anywhere else in the building and to appraise Lester of the situation. The rest of the team stayed in the ballet studio looking for the magnetic field.
They were unproductive for a while and all of them had assumed it had closed when.
“I think I’ve found your Anomaly.”
Everyone turned to look. Stephan picked up the metal stool by the mirror and let go. It flew towards the mirror and stuck to it. He pressed his hand against the mirror and it started to ripple, the Anomaly appeared for a few seconds then faded away again. The stool was slowly staring to slide down to the ground as the rest of the team approached.
“It’s inside the mirror. How is this possible?”
No one noticed Connor’s face paling at the possible implications, both a Jabberwock and an Anomaly appearing inside a mirror, he grabbed at the ring hanging from the cord around his neck.
Cutter and Abby approached and also put their hands on the mirror. The Anomaly once again flared up but this time it was very visibly weaker, it was obvious going to close shortly. They set about securing the creature and checking on the Anomaly waiting for it to close. Once done they called for some to come and help them get the creature out of there.
They loaded the creature onto the truck they had brought with them, just in case, and headed back to the ARC. No one noted how quiet, pale and sickly looking Connor was on the way back.

Arriving back at the ARC a team quickly took the creature towards the holding cells whilst the rest set about trying to determine what it could possibly be. Abby set off to make sure that the creature was being taken care of properly whilst the rest of them gathered around photos they had taken of both it and the Anomaly.
“I’m sure I’ve seen this creature before, I just can’t remember where.” Danny said.
“Well when you do let us know.” Cutter remarked.
Sarah was looking through all mythological creatures that existed. Connor had made a special database filled with them just for her. But she was still coming up with nothing. The closest things were dragons but they did not quite fit this creature’s description.
Danny walked away from the main group towards his desk to think about where he good possibly have seen that creature before in peace.
Abby came back to add to the discussion, talking about the creature’s biology and behaviour. Cutter and Stephan were debating over whether the creature
could have come from a future Anomaly, or if it had been lost in time somewhere, so they had no record of it.
Connor had backed away and disappeared.

Whilst everyone else was distracted with trying to determine what the creature could possibly be, Connor had slipped away and headed towards the holding cells. The poor Jabberwock was still a bit dozy from the tranquilizers. It struggled to its feet and wobbled. It looked in Connor’s direction and observed him approach the cell.
“Hey boy, I’m sorry you had to get trapped here. I don’t think we’ll ever be able to get you home again. I’m so sorry.”
Connor placed his hand on barrier as the Jabberwock started to head butt it, the unfortunate creature burbled and walked around its cell as it very slowly started to realise that there was no way out.
“I know how you feel, I miss home sometimes too. I’ll try and make this place a Wonderland for you, even if I can’t return you to the original.”
Connor sat down and watched the Jabberwock for a while. Just reminiscing about his adventures; smuggling for the resistance and bringing down the Queen of Hearts with Alice. He really should give her a call soon, just to let her know how he was doing.

Danny was sitting at his desk looking at photos of his little brother when he suddenly realised something. He knew exactly where he had seen that creature before. Danny jumped and ran to where everyone else was hanging around to tell them what the creature was.
“I’ve just realised where I’ve seen this creature before, I used to read it to my little brother. It’s a Jabberwock,” Danny looked around and saw some of the team had blank faces, “you know from the poem in Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There.

Come on, you must have read it at some point in your life.”
“If that’s true, then that would explain the Anomaly opening inside a mirror.” Cutter said, “a world from a story book could have different rules then ours.”
“It also explains why there is no mention of a creature like this in mythology either.” Sarah added.
Lester got up from his chair and started walking around the table. “If we accept that Wonderland is real, then would it be possible for there to be more Anomalies opening up to it and fantastical creatures coming through or people. We need to know if this is just a one off or if this is going to become a reoccurring thing. Are we now going to fight Daleks from Doctor Who?”
Connor had just walked back into the room from visiting the Jabberwock and heard the last statement.
“Why would we fight Daleks? Have you found out what the creature is?”
“Yeah, we believe, well, Danny believes it’s a Jabberwocky from Wonderland.”
“I think it’s actually one Jabberwock and many Jabberwocky.” Connor absentmindedly said as he headed over to his work station.
“Connor,” Stephan called, “you know conspiracies, right? Well maybe you’ve heard of one about a bunch of people that disappeared and when they returned home they all had weird green tattoos and were talking about Wonderland, Alice and the Mad Hatter.”
Connor looked over to them to see them all watching him. Lester stepped up again, “So this has happened before.”
“I think it was mainly in America and England.”
“I remember now, the Oysters. To the government they just sounded like a new craze, something to do with drugs or fake alien abductions.”
“How come you haven’t heard of this conspiracy theory, Connor? Seems right up your alley.”
“Guess I must have overlooked it. I don’t follow every theory, you know.”

“We’ve put the Sleep in, your highness.”
“Thank you, Wabbit.”
Jack turned back to the screens and watched the team as they worked.

It was late at night and only the core ARC team were still hanging around. They were attempting to verify Danny’s theory, but there was very little they could actually do. Abby went off to make everyone a cup of tea and Danny and Jenny helped to hand them out.
Danny walked over to where Connor was working and handed him a cup of tea whilst he drank some of his own.
“Thanks, Danny.”
“You’re welcome, Connor.”
Connor took a sip. “It taste a bit funny. Did someone add something to it?”
“Abby made it, maybe she decided to experiment.”
Suddenly behind them Abby fell to the floor, Danny and Becker ran over and also plummet to the floor.
Slowly around the ARC everyone else also fell to the floor. Stephan started to check on some when he too collapsed. The last person standing was Connor and he realised that someone had obviously drugged them. He began to walk over to check on Danny when he stumbled to his knees. He recognised this feeling, Sleep. That wasn’t possible, who could have access to it?
The last thing Connor saw before he full succumbed was a man walking over to him with blond hair and a red suit before he was lost to the Tea.

Chapter Text

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Connor slowly blinked his eyes open, lifted his head up and looked around. Everyone else was on the floor in the centre of the ARC and securely tied up. He himself though was tied to his chair facing them instead. He also felt that his right hand was tied even tighter; it was actually starting to hurt and stop the circulation.

“Wake up. Guys, WAKE UP!”

The others started to wake up, and test their bindings. Abby, who was opposite Connor, looked at him in confusion. She tried to reach up to her pounding head and was stopped by her tied hands. The last thing that any of them remembered was drinking a cup of either tea or coffee.

Connor suddenly realised what had happened and why he was being singled out. It had to be someone that knew him from his previous life. There were too many coincidences for it to be anything else. First the Jabberwock appearing, the Anomaly being inside of the mirror, drinking tea that made them sleep and now his being tied up away from everyone else and his ‘Sledgehammer’ being extra secure.

“Ugh, what happened?” Danny asked as he looked at their situation.

“We must have been drugged, somehow.” Stephan suggested.

“Someone must like you Connor.” Abby said, staring at him. Everyone else also turned to look as well.

“Why would you say that?” he answered, acting as if he did not have an idea.

“Isn’t it obvious? You get a nice comfy chair whilst the rest of us get stuck with the cold floor. Plus someone’s messed up your hair, put your hat on you and put eyeliner on… Maybe they don’t like you after all, your eyes look a little red and sore.”

“What?” Connor suddenly realised that whoever had them must have rubbed off the makeup around his eyes and everything else to make him look like he naturally does. He was not going to correct her though.

Becker, Stephan and Danny started to work on their binding to try and free themselves and quickly found it was a nigh impossible task. Thankfully Becker had a dagger hidden on him that he used to start working on their bindings.

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Unbeknownst to them, someone had been watching the whole exchange. They stepped out of the shadows and walked up behind Connor. The group on the floor watched as he approached and were about to say something when he put his fingers to his lips to signify that they should remain quiet.

Behind him followed a group of men in suits with guns, kind of like gangsters, that started the spread out behind him.

Once he reached Connor he placed his hands on his shoulders.

“Hello, Connor.”

Connor had frozen when the hands had been put on his shoulders and squeezed. Now he knew who had used Tea to drug them all. King Jack Heart of Wonderland, this was not good.

“Aren’t you going to say hello to an old friend, Connor?”

He walked around to now stand in front of him. Jack grabbed Connor’s chin and forced him to too up.

“I was very upset when you decided to leave me, Connor. I almost didn’t get through before it completely shut down.”

“You mean you’re stuck here?”

“For the time being. But you’re going to send us all home, Connor.”

“Excuse me?” Jack turned his head to look at who had addressed him. It was the man in a pinstriped suit and purple tie. “What do you want with us? And how do you know Mr. Temple?”

“And what is with the emphasis on his name?” Becker chipped in.

Jack fully turned around and headed towards the group, he looked down on Lester. “You must be James Lester, the Government man. To answer your questions, I want nothing from any of you, only Connor. Secondly, I know Mr. Temple from back home, we were close.” A snort of derision came from behind him. “And finally, back home he is called by a different name.”

“So who are you anyway?” Cutter but in, “and why have you tied us up?”

“Forgive me for not introducing myself, where are my manners? My name is King Jack Heart, of Wonderland.”

“Wonderland? The Jabberwock.” Cutter realised.

“Yes we are from the same world. Me, the Jabberwock, my men… and Connor.”

“Connor? You’re not...”

Everyone turned their head to look at Connor. He was trying to hide from all the attention. But since he was tied to a chair directly in front of them he couldn’t escape from his secret being revealed.

“No, I’m not pure human I guess. My father was a Wonderlander and my mother, well, we call you lot Oysters. So I’m half Oyster, half Wonderlander.”

“HOW COULD YOU KEEP THIS FROM US?!” Abby screamed at him and started kneeling up.

The Suits all started cocking their guns and one walked over and pushed her back down to the floor. Jack grabbed Connor’s face again and made him look him in the eye as he leant down right into Connor’s face so he could feel Jack’s breath on his cheeks.

 “Now I’m going to untie you Connor and you better not try anything otherwise.” He turned Connor’s face as one of the Suits cocked their gun and aimed at Abby, “You get the idea.”

Jack slowly untied Connor from the chair and turned the chair towards one of the ARCs walls. “Now punch the wall.”

“No! That will break his hand.” Sarah tried to tell them in panic.

“You’re sure? Well let’s see. Do it, Connor.”

Connor had no choice; he slowly got up out of his chair and walked between some of the Suits over to the nearest wall. He looked back at his friends and saw their concern for him, then looked over to Jack and saw his smug anxious face. The suits were getting twitchy so he pulled his arm back and hit the wall.

Abby screamed when the wall was hit and the ARC team were all expecting to hear Connor’s cries of pain and were surprised when they looked over to see Connor merely wiping some dust off his hand and looking resigned whilst the wall had had a sizable chunk taken out of it.

He turned round to face his friends and see their expressions. There were faces full of fear, nervousness, intrigue, relief, curiosity and many more. Altogether it could have been much, much worse.

As he turned and walked back towards the group they noticed that something was different now. His walk was a bit more of a saunter and he seemed much more confident in himself as well.

“Well since everyone here now knows the truth, let’s get down to business.”

“What business? I haven’t worked for the Heart family for a very long time.”

“Exactly what I said earlier, you’re going to build a Looking Glass. And then we are going home to Wonderland. This little team of yours can handle this world without you.”

“Well what if we don’t want to.” Becker kept an eye on the Suits as he slowly knelt up. “Connor is part of our group and we aren’t going to give him up without a fight.”

As he started standing up, carefully keeping his hands hidden behind him, Stephan and Danny joined him. They suddenly leapt at the Suits closest to them and tackled them for their guns. Connor started fighting the Suits that were closing in on him. They kept their distance though when they realised exactly who it was they were fighting.

Jack had had enough of this. He grabbed a gun from one of the Suits and fired it into the ceiling then grabbed Sarah and held the gun to her head.

“Enough!” everyone had stopped fighting and turned to face him, “Put the guns down and there won’t be any casualties.”

As soon as Becker, Stephan and Danny had dropped their weapons the Suits swarmed them and pinned them to the floor. Connor lifted his hand high into the air and took a step back as Jack walked calmly towards him.

“I have been through a lot Connor”

They kept backing up until Connor fell into his chair.

“And you are going to get us home, NOW! Before I think my mother had the right idea.”

“Okay, but it might take me a little while. To build a stable portal between two worlds is really complicated. I don’t think it’s been attempted since the first Looking Glass was created.”

“You are a smart person, Connor. If anyone can work it out it will be you.” He let go of Sarah and let a Suit take her back to the main group. “Besides there’s someone else here I’m sure you’re simply dying to see again.”

He gestured towards the doors as a young man with white hair and red eyes walked through them. He wore a light grey waistcoat over a dark grey T-shirt and cream trousers. There was also a pocket watch attached to the waistcoat.

“Hello Wabbit.”

“Hello Connor.”

“Wabbit here is going to be helping you.”

“You mean keeping an eye on me.”

“Of course. Now why don’t you get started?”

Jack and half of the Suits walked out and left the ARC team and Wabbit with the rest. They heard the doors locking them all inside.

“So what do we do now?” Abby asked Connor, looking around nervously at the remaining Suits.

“Now I start working out how to get back to Wonderland.”

Connor wheeled his chair back over to his desk and started imputing what he knew. The rest of the ARC team followed him and tried to suggest ideas.

Wabbit leant against the wall as he watched the gang get to work.

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Several hours later Connor was almost asleep whilst Sarah and Lester were asleep on the floor. The rest of the team were also on they’re way. The door suddenly banged open jolting them all into full wakefulness.

“I hope you’ve made some progress.”

“I think so, but I’m missing some important data.”

“Well this might help you.” Jack reached into his pocket and pulled something out. He threw it to Connor.

He looked into his hand and saw the Wonderland Stone ring box. “Of course.” He reached for the string around his neck and pulled out the ring that was on the end. The team had seen this ring on Connor’s neck before, but had never paid close attention to it. They now saw it was a gold and silver ring with a bluish diamond in it, green snakes surrounding the stone and numbers around the band. It was beautiful.

“I think you’ve worked long enough today, you can continue tomorrow.”

They were ushered down a corridor into a dark empty office. They were pushed in and a Suit broke a light switch to keep them in darkness.

“Hope you have a comfortable night.”

They heard the doors lock click from the outside.

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Chapter Text

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They heard the doors lock click from the outside and as their eyes adjusted to the dim light they saw all that was in the room was a desk against one wall, two chairs and a few empty shelves.

Connor turned to face everyone else, “So, who wants to go first?”

Cutter and Sarah headed over to the chairs, Abby sat on the desk and Stephan and Becker leant against the shelves.

Danny pushed past Connor and headed towards the desk. Turning to face him and leaning back against it, he asked. “So, if you’re from Wonderland, who are you there?”

“Can’t you guess?” Connor asked as he performed a little hat trick. Flinging it up into the air and making it spin unnaturally before landing back on his head.

Their expression when he revealed exactly who he was supposed to be was priceless. This had revealed a whole other side to Connor that they had never seen before. A part of him that was alien, literally. How could their geeky scientist also break walls with his fist and not hurt himself, how could he have this whole secret life that none of them had any inclining about? There was neither sense nor rational reason to the world at the moment.

“The Mad Hatter!” They all shouted at him.

“It’s actually just Hatter. And I resent that, I’m not mad, though we do have a bit of Madness inside us. My family doesn’t have a short temper and we’re not completely insane.”

“So you are a bit then?” Stephan asked with a smirk.

Connor grinned widely in response. Then it fell slightly, “what else do you want to know?”

He regretted it instantly when they started bombarding him with questions. But he took it all in his stride and answered them as best as he could.

 “So your eyes, they are naturally like that?”

“Yeah, I’ve had to put makeup on for years so people don’t think I’m wearing any.”

“But, how?”

“The Hatters have always had a spark of magic about them. It manifests in different forms. Our eyes for example are mesmerising, my grandfather the Mad Hatter had eyes of different colours (think Johnny Depp version). I’m pretty tame compared to them.”

“Is that why you can punch like that then? The ‘magic’ inside you?”

“Yeah, our hands are especially magic. Grandfather made hats and wrote riddles and poetry and my father could grow anything he put his mind to, and played all kinds of music, he also liked doing tricks. I’m good with technology, painting and a bit of cooking. We also all have the ‘Sledgehammer’, as people call it.”

“I’ve never seen you cook or paint.”

“Well I don’t do it much anymore. And the cooking is more experimenting with different kinds of teas. My mum used to help me when I was younger, before I went to Wonderland that is.”

“Your mother, you said she was an Oyster? How did it happen?”

“Yeah, after the original Alice my family became about obsessed with this world. When my father visited once he fell in love with my mother. It was kept a secret and he’d visit her every chance he had. Well, one thing led to another and they had me. I lived with her for the first years of my life and I was slowly introduced to wonderland. When I was a couple of years old I almost permanently lived in wonderland.”

“Then how did you go to school here?”

“I said almost permanently. Because of the way that time flows between our worlds I got to have an almost normal childhood here as well.”

“Why didn’t your father live here, or your mother live there?”

“It was too dangerous. Dad couldn’t leave his position without being hunted down and mum would have been drained or killed.”

“Connor, you didn’t think that this was something we needed to know. The fact that you’re a character from a children’s book is kind of important, don’t you think?”

“I’m sorry, okay. It’s not something you talk about though. Hi, my name’s Connor TempleHatter, I’m from Wonderland and I’m not a hundred percent sure of my age. And I am not a character; Carroll used my grandfather as a character for his story.”

“It does sound a bit ridicules from someone else, but not from you.” Abby joked.

“Thanks, but would any of you actually believed me?” Connor looked and saw their faces reflected back exactly what he thought they would. “I thought not.”

“So what happened exactly? What made you decide to leave Wonderland for good?”

“You’ve met Jack. Everyone from Wonderland has a least a bit of madness in them, the Hearts have it worse than most. Jack’s not as bad as his mother but he does have his moments. Jack and I knew each other growing up, my father worked for his parents and I tagged along. None of them ever knew that my mother was an Oyster. Then a few years ago Jack came to this world to find the daughter of one of the scientists, in the hope that she could wake him up. The plan kind of worked and a girl called Alice followed the White Rabbit through the Looking Glass into Wonderland. She came to me looking for assistance and I couldn’t resist a girl in a wet dress.”

“You, were a ladies’ man? I can’t believe it.”

“I wasn’t exactly a ladies’ man per say, I just seemed to attract people around me. Some of them would happily never see me again, and I them.”

They fell into an awkward silence absorbing all the information that they had just received. It had answered some of the missing points about Connor’s quirky personality and dress sense. But there were still more they were curious about and needed to know.

“What’s with the ring and box?”

“It’s called the Stone of Wonderland, it was crafted or found centuries ago and used as the power source for the Looking Glass.”

“So if they don’t have it…”

“The Looking Glass won’t work. I should have kept it hidden or gotten rid of it years ago, but…”

“You wanted to keep a part of Wonderland with you?”

“Yeah.”

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After talking more about Connor’s past and the differences between their two worlds the team began to feel exhausted. This day had not turned out how any of them had expected.  They were horrified to discover that Wonderlanders kidnapped Oysters and drained them of their emotions. That they were used as drugs and that Connor used to sell them. He didn’t explain himself as he knew that there was nothing to justify his actions. He had always felt guilty and sick that he had been involved, but there was nothing he could have done. He explained his adventure with Alice and his part in the resistance.

Connor was yawning from his hectic day, who knew his entire world would come crashing down around him like this. He and everyone else found a place to settle down and try and get as comfortable as possible. Realising that if they didn’t do something they could risk losing Connor for good Back and Danny settled either side of him, much to Connor’s surprise.  He unconsciously leant against Becker trying to get comfortable. Danny looked over and silently laughed at Becker's position. Between them they twisted Connor round so that his legs were on Danny’s and his head rested on Becker's knees. Becker brought his hand up and gently stroked Connor’s hair. He watched as the boy fell into a deeper sleep and soon followed him.

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Jack stared in from the window, watching as Connor’s head rested on the soldier boy’s knees. How dare that pathetic little Oyster think he had the right to touch him. The sooner they left this world the better.

He turned and saw Wabbit leaning against the wall behind him.

“Try and keep him apart from the Oysters as much as possible.”

His only reply was a smirk as they both walked away down the corridor.

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