A/N: Watched this on the aeroplane and fell in love with the Alice/Hatter pairing. And what better way to fix that than with fanfiction? :D Written for the Advent Ca lender Challenge, Day 5 – post for one or more what-ifs (the what if 1) What if Alice returned to the real world without the help of the Jabberwocky's poison), and for the Diversity Writing Challenge, c6 – write a threeshot with chapters exactly 500 words long.

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Proxy's Vial
Part 1

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The Jabberwocky's fangs bite deep into her shoulder, and she feels the Wonderland slip away. There's the Hatter's red hair – a flash – and then the dull brown of a tree on the Ascot estate and she knows it's not from Wonderland instead because it's so dull. But then the tree from the Ascot estate vanishes again and there's the Jabberwocky's snarling mouth, rearing back for another strike, and the sword in her hands –

And then the dull brown is back, and the sword is slipping away, and she realises what's happened.

Papa… I've had a strange dream.

And she knows she's got precious seconds left to end things before she's gone from this world.

Just pinch yourself and you'll wake up.

She supposes that having a Jabberwocky bite your shoulder had the same effect.

She tightens her grip on her sword. It phases to her fingers, and she closes her eyes and pleads with it silently.

She isn't done. It solidifies under her palm and she opens her eyes. The Jabberwocky looms above.

And before reality can suffocate her, she screams and swings her sword in a mighty arc.

And then she finds herself on the grass, her mother mopping her brow and muttering of heat strokes.

She struggles up. Her mind is still in the battle, but part of her is travelling before and beyond that, to another battle.

'And Hamish is ever so worried…'

Hamish! Of course. But facing the Jabberwocky might have been an easier task after all because her entire body is shaking and she must go back to that glasshouse and deny his offered hand. Because she cannot marry him. She sees the Hatter's red hair again, but it's gone and there's just a few ladies from the ball, with Margaret at their head, and all of them are muttering light sympathies and words of encouragement as though it were excitement and the heat that made her swoon.

Let them try getting bitten by a Jabberwocky, she thinks, but it was truly a silly thought. The inhabitants of Wonderland have little concept of humans, after all, or their world. It is so magical: talking animals, monsters, magic spells. And the five impossible things before breakfast – well, she's done more than five overall.

She remembers the list she made as she walked towards her foe, armoured and with the sword she'd so perilously won. I can defeat the Jabberwocky: that was the last. Had she done it? She hopes so, but the bleak brown trees of the Ascot estate don't give way to the truth and so she cannot know.

'Are you ready, my dear?'

Ready? She supposes she must be ready. The Wonderland doesn't return, and there's only this world. And she's sorry she can't watch the aftermath. She's afraid there is no aftermath, but she can only hope there is, that her final strike has won the battle they brought her for…

And now she has a different sort of battle to fight.

'Ready.'