Yeah, its been more than a month since updating the story. Hope that absence didnt make ya'll think this was done...cauze its not. And yes if any of you read both this and my twilight story, i did update both today (what are odds???) also fun fact: for you robin hood fans who read this (i dont know if you do) i might even go for three for three and update love leads us home...hmmm. Anyway i really really like this chapter and i just love writng wonderland cauze i get to be a philospohical and scholarly.

Disclaimer: Dont own Alice In wonderland. That's Syfy and Lewis Carol and totally NOT me. I dont even own the dvd sniff sniff

Chapter Seven: From Ashes to Ashes

There are times when men have risen from nothing. And there are also occurrences when they have fallen from grace like sliver stars bedecking the night sky. The trouble was, you never knew, just by looking at a man, if he would sink or swim.

Of course, it was true that certain men, without much beneath the surface, could be read as easily as children's books. Some men would have boundless riches and successes, like the brothers Dee and Dum. Everything they touched, tinkered, and tweaked had turned to pure gold. How could they ever be doubted?

But now the brothers stared dumbfounded as a man, presumed dead and gone, began to stand up.

"Stand up," said Eric Browning to the strange knight who was leaning against the wall. "Please, you're making a spectacle of yourself."

"Sh!" insisted Charlie keeping his eyes tightly closed.

Eric rolled his eyes. "I don't get what's so important. Hatter is just a normal prisoner, he has nothing to do with me, Alice, or Caterpillar. Why are you wasting your time, our time, when—"

Charlie stood up now and smiled at Eric. "He has everything to do with this. The spirits have just informed me of that."

"First they tell you that Caterpillar is my father," Eric said with irritation, "then they tell you that Hatter is, what, the key to the entire operation? And you still won't explain anything to me."

Charlie sighed and looked sympathetically at the boy. "You know the legends of Alice. She will bring down the entire deck of cards, uproot the queen and the poison in this land, and, basically, save us all. Well, she cannot do any of that without—"

Eric interrupted him. "Let me guess, Caterpillar? But he's dead."

Charlie put his fingers to his temples and started swerving around the hallway humming to himself.

"Did you know that your father," Charlie said, after a couple of hums, "had a theory about Wonderland? Besides being the leader of the famous resistance, besides healing those who overdosed on emotions, he had a prediction about the way this land worked."

"How do you know all this?" Eric asked.

Charlie pointed to his brain. "I have my ways. May I go on?"

Eric shrugged. "Sure, I don't have any other plans."

Charlie grinned brightly at Eric. "I'm glad you said that."

Charlie looked up and down at Eric Browning. The spirits, being those sorts of creatures, told Charlie everything there was to know about Eric. Charlie, though a little soft in the head, understood the courage Eric had in order to escape from the ranks of the suits. There was much of his father in his soul, and, Charlie was told, Eric too could see things that his father did.

Eric, though he did not know it, had witnessed a conversation between two minds.

Such a thing, Charlie had found from the higher powers, was a rarity that very few could do, and even fewer could witness.

What Eric had assumed was Alice, talking to herself, was really Alice talking to Hatter. And no, unlike what Eric believed, Alice was not talking to herself, her mind was connecting to Hatter's mind. But, Eric could hear Alice's part of the conversation, and that was special. That was extremely rare.

Caterpillar had spent months trying to train himself to do what his son had done flawlessly. Though, Caterpillar died before he had the chance to enhance his mind further in order to hear the other part of the conversation.

Perhaps, if Eric understood, he would have more success.

Charlie, endowed with this knowledge, now owed it to Eric, the spirits, and Alice, to tell Eric everything.

But he began in a different direction. "Alice will not be able to take down the monarchy, without Hatter."

"What?" Eric blinked.

Charlie nodded sagely. "He gives her courage, he can see into her soul in a way that no one else can. In short, without him, we remain under the queen's control."

Eric's face turned serious. "Then we find Hatter, and bring him to Alice."

"Easier said than done," said Charlie tugging gently at his white mustache. "This is a very great palace. There are many, many places that Hatter could be. And there is another problem as well."

"What?" asked Eric anxiously.

"Alice is under the impression that Hatter is dead," said Charlie quietly.

Eric blinked. "Is he?"

Charlie beamed at the youth, trying so hard to be a man, and acting like such a young boy.

"No."

"No," the queen whispered shaking her head.

She was beginning to feel like the ground around her was shaking and rattling. But, she knew that it was only her imagination.

The Queen of Hearts commanded herself to remain calm. Things were not going well for her, but she would not show any sort of feelings about it. After, all she was still queen and ruler of all Wonderland. It did not matter that Hatter was not falling under the spell of the twins' poison. It made no difference in the larger picture.

She looked over at her son. Jack's face was beaming brightly at the screen in front of him.

The Queen so hated to see her son's smile.

Because then, the Queen of Hearts got a very terrible idea into her brain. What if this man's actions became a sign of strength to the Resistance? After all, this Hatter, the queen knew, had done something no man had ever been able to do. He had resisted the twins.

Wait a minute.

She was the Queen of Hearts. She was the ruler of all Wonderland.

If she wanted a man to die, then he would die. Resistance was absolutely futile.

Because the queen, like everyone else, knew that every man is just as capable of sinking as he is of rising. It all depends on the how you push him.

And the queen, to save her kingdom for the likes of any resistance, was willing to do a lot of pushing.

She surreptitiously lifted up her ring to her finger. "Duchess, shut this down."

On the other side of the ring, in the Duchess' erring, she groaned as she heard the queen's instructions.

She was told to shut it down. She was expressly told to shut it down. Not that she wanted to in the slightest.

"How?" asked the Duchess quietly into her erring. She gave a quick glance at Hatter. He was beginning to stand up. His legs were shaking, and there were beads of sweat on his forehead. He had so little left, but so much future that was possible.

If he became a little stronger then…

The Duchess blinked.

Then what, exactly? You'll stand up to the queen, will you?

Duchess gave another look to Hatter. How could she break from the queen now, and trust, absolutely that he would heal and join her? Duchess knew she couldn't fight Dee and Dum alone.

However, she did not need to tell the doctors to fix the problem, they had already begun to crowd around Hatter and almost prevent him, physically from rising again.

"I think," said Duchess quietly in her erring, "the twins are trying to put the situation under control."

She hoped that the queen would be pleased with that…and then she had an idea.

A very unDuchess idea.

"Why not turn off the video?" she suggested into her erring. "The twins are probably a little nervous what with the entire crowd of Wonderland watching, give them the benefit of the doubt and just let them work."

Duchess bit her lip, wondering if she had gone too far.

Perhaps she could, like Eric, like Hatter, rise up from the ashes as well. Though she only saw herself falling, and falling….

And falling.

"Where do you think you're going?" Dum whispered into Hatter's ear.

Hatter's eyes narrowed as the fake Jack grabbed his weak shoulders, preventing him from standing up to his full height.

Hatter said nothing.

"I said," repeated Dum, "where do you think you're going?"

Hatter took a breath. "You can just forget this alright? Just give up the entire façade." He glanced at Duchess who was looking at him with very worried eyes.

There was no mental connection between them. Duchess could not say all that she wanted to say to him. She wished she could tell him how very sorry she was for being involved in his pain. She wished that she could tell the brave soul that she understood his struggle with the darkness. She wished she could tell the hero that she was rooting for him.

Hatter, for his part, was not concerned about Duchess.

"I know," said Hatter. "I know everything."

"Hatter," said Dee sweetly approaching Hatter's side, "just do what he says alright? You've lost, you lost me, and you must accept it."

Hatter chuckled slightly. Though it pained him to do so, it also gave him strength that he could still smile, and that he could still laugh. He had once laughed all the time, where had that beauty gone? The music, the happiness, the light, it had all faded from Hatter when he had been tortured.

But, perhaps, thought the rising soul, perhaps that is not what to focus on. It was better to dwell in the fact that he could feel now, that he could live now, and he would not give it all up again as easily as it had left him.

"And you must accept," said Hatter to Dee, "that you are not Alice. You could never be like Alice, so do not try."

Dee looked at the shoe Hatter still held in his hand. Dee knew that it belonged to that oyster and that it was what was giving Hatter this new found strength. But, he would have to be broken, or else.

We should kill him, he though to Dum.

We could risk everything if we just killed him, we would not be able to market the new poison, and the queen would still have our heads. No, my dear Dee, I have a better idea.

Before Hatter's eyes the masks Dee and Dum had worn were beginning to fall as if they were nothing at all. Hatter was under the impression that he was winning.

If only he had been right.

"Right," said Jack quietly looking up at the large screen he was being forced to watch. "Come on Hatter, reveal them for who they really are."

Before he could get more immersed in the beauty of the truth that lay before Hatter's eyes, the screen grew dark.

The court began to chatter among themselves nervously wondering what the queen had decided.

"Too much happiness for you, mother?" Jack asked turning to face the queen as she sat on her royal throne.

The Queen of Hearts took a sip of the second drink that was on her little table: bliss.

"It is best that we leave the work to the experts," said the queen sharing a false smile with her subjects. "We must not rush the doctors you know."

She stood up now. "Do you see my subjects? You have just witnessed the power of poison, a new kind of poison which invades and crushes every whisper of happiness you may once have experienced. It shall soon be on the market, and of course, used against all enemies of Wonderland."

The Queen of Hearts looked directly at Jack. "Beginning with you, son."

It was over. It was all over and nothing would ever be right again for the poor oyster who had fallen down the rabbit hole. She would never return to the beauty of her own world, she knew that now. Hell, Alice knew that long ago when she had taken up this quest in the first place. But, what she had lost now hurt more than the missing mother, and the mindless father. It hurt more than the hateful boyfriend.

She had lost Hatter.

Alice had lost the only man she had really ever loved, that she had ever given her whole heart to.

He was dead, she was sure that the twins had killed him in their rage, or that the poison had finally taken him.

Alice felt like she could not breathe. She stopped walking in the abandoned corridor and just stood there, hoping to be caught, or killed, or tortured.

Just as they had tortured her love…

Alice suddenly grew very angry, an emotion that she did not wear much on her mostly hopeful heart. But now she was wearing it proudly as if it was a battle scar. She was angry and furious at the satanic twins who had murdered her love and her life.

Alice became angrier and angrier the more she thought about this place, and these strange people, and how they butchered innocence for their own purposes.

Because the girl was so filled with this rage, she did not realize that the light bulbs behind her suddenly cracked and went out.

Curious.

"Your father," said Charlie feeling very out of breath, "had a second theory about Wonderland."

Eric and Charlie both stopped running to catch their breath. The spirits had been leading them in and out of corridors for what felt like hours and hours, not that time mattered here.

"Besides mental connections?" Eric asked, leaning against the wall for support.

Charlie had told him while they were running. He had told Eric about the way some minds worked and read each other perfectly, even when they were many rooms apart. He had told Eric that this was the sort of connection he had witnessed when he saw Alice "speaking to herself."

"There's another one?" Eric whispered still not really believing the first theory.

Charlie nodded. "There's not much emotion in Wonderland, as I am sure you are aware. Without the oysters' emotions dripping from our mouths, we are not always partial to such things. As you personally know, emotions can be taken away so that the soul is more like a machine than a man."

Eric knew that Charlie was referring to the mindless, senseless suits. "Go on."

The lights flashed suddenly. They flickered, almost going out, but instead, stayed on.

"What was that?" Eric asked nervously.

"There has never been much rage in this building," said Charlie with his eyes closed feeling the walls of the corridor as if reading a message. "You can feel the placidity, the lack of feeling all together. These walls have never experienced strong pain, or sorrow, or anger."

"Can't you just speak plainly?" Eric asked.

"One oyster might destroy the very foundation of this palace in her rage," said Charlie.

"That's good isn't it?" Eric asked feeling as if he knew nothing.

Charlie swayed. "It does not solve anything, except for destruction which is merely emptiness if there is no reason behind it. We could let Alice just bring this all down with her anger, but it would prove nothing, and change nothing."

"We need to stop her from killing us all with her sadness," Eric said nodding.

Charlie beamed again at the brave lad. "And that is where you, my boy, come into the picture."

In that one second of time it seemed that all the lights in the palace flickered slightly. It was almost like they all winked in unison; as if they knew a secret that the sentient beings did not.

Hatter noticed the blinking lights and briefly wondered what it meant. He did not have time to dwell on such trifle things, there were more important matters to attend to.

Like Alice.

Like leaving this place and finding Alice.

He now watched as the twins' magic was wearing off. He could see that the two creatures he had let himself believe were Alice and Jack were indeed, Dee and Dum.

"Congratulations," said Dee icily.

"You seem to have solved the mystery of the missing shoe," said Dum eyeing Hatter with revulsion and hatred.

"Not that it matters," said Dee theatrically turning his back to Hatter.

Dum did likewise.

"You can leave," said Dum.

Duchess decided to speak up at the moment. "Me?"

Neither brother looked at her, their gaze was at the white wall in front of them.

"No," they said together.

"You know your part in this," said Dee in a monotone. "Your orders are not from us."

Hatter gave a quick glance to Duchess. Her face revealed nothing.

"Me then?" Hatter asked pointing to himself. "What's the catch?"

Dee and Dum in a sickening unison put their hands behind their backs. Hatter saw all twenty pale and pasty fingers and grimaced. He did not like to think of what those digits had been doing to him, or to anyone else…or to…

To Alice.

He knew that they had played with her mind, just as they had played with his. He had saved her from falling into their clutches once. How long ago had that been? It felt like an eternity plus a lifetime since he had had seen her face, not just in his mind.

Hatter did not dare to close his eyes and attempt to reach his angel at that moment, not with the twins and Duchess around. He might be weak, but he knew the twins would not let him go this easily.

"What's the catch?" he repeated.

"By now you know," said Dee melodically, "that you were given a specific poison, directed at a specific part of your anatomy." At that he turned back to face Hatter, his hands still behind him.

"We administered this to you during your torture," continued Dum in this same melodic tone, "as you know as well. But, before we gave it to you, we tested it on someone else."

Hatter's breath caught in this throat. He could not speak; he could not even attempt a whisper.

"Bastards," Hatter managed to whisper. He was suddenly finding his back against the wall. He needed that rigid support again, he was falling again, he was beginning to sink…

His heart was beating with a quickened pace in his chest, he wondered that the entire world could not hear it and be frightened by its meaning.

Hatter gritted his teeth at the cruelty of this world. He knew that the twins were waiting for him to say the right words. They never let a pull go without a push, or a good without a bad. Every reaction as an equal and opposite reaction.

That was one law that seemed true in both worlds.

"What do I have to do?" Hatter asked pain emanating from his face. "I can't lose her."

Dee smiled. "We know."

Dum grinned as well. "We know full well."

Hatter glared at the brothers.

"Why don't you tell us the options Dee?" suggested Dum as they circled the broken phoenix attempting to fly from the ashes of this cursed world.

"I shall, brother," said Dee grinning from ear to ear. "The first option is to let the poisons run their equal course, if Hatter has recovered than it must come at a cost. The world as you know must have an equal balance of love and pain, is it not so brother?"

"Yes," said Dum sharing his brother's grin. "While you, Hatter might see a full recovery from your pain, Alice will be crushed by it. All the pain you felt in your little obnoxious heart could transfer to her oyster one. The healthier you become, the sicker she gets. So it is the way of life."

"Go on if you want," said Dee. "Just remember that."

The brothers stopped their circling and began to walk away.

"Wait!" Hatter yelled.

The doctors turned around together to face their patient.

"Yes?"

"Save her," Hatter begged. "Please. I can't live in a world she doesn't exist."

Duchess' eyes widened at Hatter's sacrifice. She wondered to herself if there was a man alive who would do such a thing for her. Perhaps Jack would, and, thinking of Jack led her to wonder where he was at the moment.

But, she had made a deal with the queen. It was part of the contract, and the reason why Duchess did not just leave where she stood.

She had promised the queen that she would do all that the queen wanted, if, and only if, the queen promised in return that she would not kill Jack.

Until Duchess' current thoughts of true rebellion and overthrow of the monarchy, it was the most rebellious Duchess had ever let herself be.

Duchess had assumed that the queen would not really kill her son anyway, but, if the queen wanted Duchess' spy services, than she would do as Duchess asked.

Therefore the blonde understood Hatter and his own deal with the devil. The twins, as creepy and twisted as they were, were right about one thing.

For every triumph there was also, somewhere in the world, a similar and equal failure.

Hatter could rise above the very clouds if he wished. He could grow three times his normal size and walk through the trees of the forest as if they were pebbles on a beach. He could laugh heartily if he desired and gain back his old life. The twins could poke and prod him no longer, nor was there Mad March to question him anymore.

But as Hatter grew in spirit and in soul, Alice was in danger of shrinking. She was in danger of being crushed and bruised with all the pain that Hatter had just spent a lifetime experiencing. He knew that the affects were slow, and would sneak up on his love. Perhaps she would not realize it at first, but soon the affects would sweep into her like the ever quick wind.

Hatter wondered if he could save her the same way that she had saved him.

But would that not threaten her life as well?

"Please," he begged again falling to his knees.

And it was in that moment that something happened in Wonderland that had not happened before. It had been said that Wonderlanders, such as they were, were creatures who had a lack of emotions. Their pain, unless induced by a poison or an overdose of an oyster emotion, could not rise very high on its own. However, neither could their happiness, or anger, or…sadness.

So it was in that space of time when the lights winked in their shared secrets, and two men ran through white hallways, that an unheard of event occurred. So it was in this space of time when a girl's pain threatened to crumble a building, and a queen's plan threatened to kill her son that a miracle of sorts happened.

Without any warning, without any drugs in his body, Hatter found tears running from his watery eyes down his cheeks and hitting the pale floor.

He had done something that no other Wonderlander had ever done before. It was something that not even the great Caterpillar, with all his theories, could comprehend.

Hatter loved the girl named Alice.

He looked up at his torturers with eyes blinded in tears. And he knew he would not give up the girl he loved without a fight.

Sometimes men have a way of rising towards redemption without standing up.

Now hatter has to save Alice? Why can't they just catch a break??? (wait, thats up to me right *smiles*) cookies for those who reviews this...please do!!!!!