Just a Little Mad 6/9
Title: Just a Little Mad
Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: I don't own Alice 2009 and I don't own Primeval, and if there's anything else anyone recognises, well, I don't own that either.
Rating: PG
Summary: Luckily for Stephen, Connor is more than what he seems.
Notes: I have never had to look for a coffee shop for so long before in my life as when I went looking for one to finish up writing and posting this at. But finished this update. At last.
*****************************
"Wait a minute," Alice interrupted. "Dodo? You want to talk to him again? The crazy guy who tried to kill me when I wouldn't just give him the ring?"
She'd been so caught up in her own personal drama, her dad and being in an alternate universe and Jack and everything else that she seemed to have missed something. Hatter turned to her. "See, when Connor and I were fourteen, the Queen decided she didn't much like us and our family. She sent the suits out and . . ." his voice broke and for the first time he really looked . . . lost. Hurt. She thought she might have seen that fourteen-year-old boy hiding behind the facade.
Connor, who clearly really was Hatter's twin, said, "We both hid, but Mum and Dad, they . . . the suits killed them. We managed to get away, but we got separated."
Then Jack spoke. "The deaths of the Hatter family were . . . significant. It was symbolic, you know. Mother wanted to make sure no one brought up the old days, brought up the family that helped Alice of Legend to bring down the House of Cards before."
"So where does Dodo come into it?" she asked.
Hatter answered. "He was already part of the Resistance, yeah?" he said. "Dad had been part of it, made sure we knew to go to the Library if we needed help. That was where I went. When I got there, Dodo told me," he took a shaking breath at the memory, "He told me Connor was dead, that the suits had got him. Then he suggested that they could use me, use this," he held up the hand she knew could punch through concrete, "And offered me a place in it. I took it. I didn't have anywhere else to go."
Connor had a thousand yard stare as he said, "The same thing happened to me, sort of. I got to the Library and he said you'd been killed. Said that the last of the Hatters shouldn't stick around in Wonderland, especially one with my gift. It took a bit of doing, but Winnie Temple's husband had been taken in a raid for trying to teach some children to read-"
Alice heard herself and that Stephen guy make similar noises of disbelief. Jack shot them sardonic looks. "You didn't think that Mother wouldn't also stoop so low as to ensure that no one was literate?"
"No wonder there aren't any written signs around here," Stephen said.
It was a weird moment of solidarity when Jack, Hatter and Connor all rolled their eyes. "Oysters," they said.
"Anyhow," Connor continued, "Dodo arranged to send Winnie and me up to the Oyster world. Lucky we landed up where we did really. I didn't stand out nearly so much in Manchester as I might have in America, say."
Stephen nodded. "They would have thought you'd both just moved there from up north," he said.
"So, you want to find out why he lied to at least one of you about this," Alice said. It was fair. She was pretty pissed off with the Queen for kidnapping her father all those years ago, she'd probably be even angrier if someone she'd trusted had taken him away. Then suddenly something came to mind. She pinned Hatter with a glare. "So, Hatter's your last name, huh?"
"Yes," he said slowly. Then suddenly his eyes went wide. "Now, Alice-" he started.
"You're always there when they 'pass the hat'?" she demanded. He wasn't going to get out of this that easily.
******************************
As Alice harangued David about something he'd said to her when they first met, Stephen turned to Jack. "When you dropped off the face of the Earth, I had no idea that was a literal thing."
His old football teammate had a sheepish look on his face. "Mother knew she needed to be sure that I was literate, but since she didn't trust anyone, that meant I had to be educated away from here." He shook his head. "She never realised that sending me somewhere else, where I could see an entire world of literate people and all, that might have an effect."
"We lost that last championship game, you know," he informed Jack. "Without our best goalkeeper we were sunk."
Jack frowned. "How did you get here, anyhow?"
Connor spoke before Stephen could. "You'll forgive me, your highness, if I keep that to myself a bit. You know, until your mum's safely away somewhere she won't be using her Gift on unsuspecting suits?"
Eyeing Connor a moment, Jack nodded. "I hope you'll trust me enough to tell me eventually. Are you staying now?" he asked Connor.
Stephen held his breath. Because Connor had family here, he'd said himself that he had trouble using that magical anomaly-making skill of his on Earth, and the way Connor just seemed to fit there, he couldn't help but worry. But he couldn't say anything. It wouldn't be fair to Connor to try playing the card that everyone in the ARC was relying on him. Then Connor looked at Stephen and his lips quirked into a small smile. "No," he said. "I may choose to travel back and forth some, but I've got a life and home over there now." He glanced over to where David and Alice had started some sort of vaguely lovesick staring contest and added, "I'm not so sure David'll be staying here either."
Then someone flagged Jack from among the suits hanging about. "I don't suppose you'd consider writing," Jack said to Stephen. "It'll be nice to talk to someone who sees me as a friend for once." He glanced over at Alice himself. "And who's not an ex-girlfriend either."
"I'll see what I can do," he said. "You still a Chelsea fan?"
"Just because you have the poor taste to be a fan of Liverpool . . ." Jack said, trailing off suggestively. "Send me the league standings if nothing else, please?"
"I can do that," Stephen said with a grin. Then Jack left and Connor was looking back and forth between them, shaking his head in disbelief.
This whole situation was just so bloody weird, he thought. "So, do you have any idea where to find this . . . Dodo person?" he asked Connor.
Connor didn't answer, David did. "He'll be at the Great Library. It's where he's set up, where his part of the Resistance was set up."
*****************************
Alice was less than enthused about that. "Oh my God," she grumbled as they made their way back. "Seriously? We're going back to the people who shot you and their stupid microbus elevator."
"Microbus elevator?" Stephen inquired. "A microbus as a lift, you mean?"
She frowned a moment, then said, "Yeah. Sorry. That whole American to British English thing strikes again."
Connor left the pair of them discussing comparative dialects and just how weird Wonderland was to talk to David. "What does she mean, shot you?" he asked his brother.
"I was fine," David said, waving a hand faux carelessly. "I had my bulletproof vest on and all."
Gaping, Connor hissed, "You need one to see him?"
"No," David said. "I just wear it all the time. Can't be too careful, you know."
It hurt to see how cynical and bitter and resigned David was. "Will you come back with us?" Connor wanted to know. "At least for a bit?"
"If nothing else, I want to meet this Abby of yours," David said. "What's she like?"
Abby he was always willing to talk about. "She's really brilliant. She's an expert in animal behaviour and her hobby's kickboxing."
"Kick boxing?" David asked, looking baffled. "How do you box with kicking? Isn't that all about punching people? Or do you mean boxing things with your feet? Wouldn't that cause some trouble with breaking the china?"
A glance showed him his brother was chopping logic out of confusion, not taking the mick. "It's a kind of fighting discipline," he explained. "Lots of punching and kicking. I've seen Abby kick some things into submission that'd amaze you."
"Are there a lot of Oysters with Gifts?" David asked him. "Because I've never seen anyone shoot like Stephen does, and Alice says she does something called Judo, but that's got to be a Gift-"
"It's not Gifts," Connor told his brother hastily. "It's just a whole bloody lot of Cat cursed hard work."
David looked at him sceptically. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah," Connor said. "Look. I was in your tea shop, yeah?"
"So?"
"I saw what you had in your storage cupboards," Connor told him. "Apples and meat and all sorts of things. You got that through trading, right?"
Tilting his head quizzically, David nodded. "Yeah, and?"
"You did a lot of trading, didn't you?" Connor pressed. "Lots and lots until you were able to trade a tiny bit of Serenity or Lust for a whole big bag of things, yeah?"
"And I had to wheel and deal for hours and hours every day . . ." David trailed off and turned to stare at the Oysters following them. "They work that hard at that?"
"Yeah," Connor told him. "Oh, sure, some are naturally more talented at some things than others, but I've yet to see a Gifted Oyster."
"Cheshire," David breathed.
*****************************
The idea of someone having the time on their hands to perfect something like that Judo thing or to shoot like Stephen did was incredible. It wasn't that he couldn't understand someone wanted to get better at something like that, but didn't people have to spend time on things like getting food and paying off authorities and running shops and all sorts of things like that?
It seemed the Oyster world would take more getting used to than he'd thought.
Well, that was neither here nor there, he thought as they reached the door to get into the Library. Duck and Owl were all of a flutter. "Shouldn't you have someone a little less . . . erm . . . well, harder to intimidate than those two?" Connor asked doubtfully as they headed toward the lift.
"God, it really is a minibus," Stephen muttered. "I can't wait 'til we get home and the world's only insane some of the time."
David ignored the Oysters' solidarity about Wonderland's relative madness. "Unfortunately, most of the Resistance isn't so good with remembering the passwords." He shrugged. "Hopefully they can be proper librarians once Jack straightens things up and lets the Library go back to being the Library, but in the meantime there's only so many people Dodo trusts to handle the passwords and security."
"They've got Library-type Gifts?" Connor asked curiously.
"Owl remembers everything he's ever read and exactly where it is, Ducky there just always knows exactly where it is you can find what you're looking for."
The lift lurched, Alice looked queasy and Stephen muttered something about some trolley in someplace called Peru that he'd been on.
When they got off the four of them didn't even make it to Dodo's office. He was in the hall, and when he spotted them he stopped dead, a look of panic on his face. Before either David or Connor could think of asking a question, Dodo's mouth opened wide and a noise came out of it that sounded a little like a bird squawking, a siren and sticking your head into a blender. It hurt, and everyone staggered back, clutching at their heads, trying to block out what was apparently Dodo's Gift.
The man in black turned to try fleeing, and Stephen, with a kind of stoicism that David had to marvel at, managed to pull his hands away from his ears and shoot the fleeing Resistance cell leader. The sound stopped, thankfully, and David called to Stephen, "We owe you one, mate. You sure that isn't a Gift, Connor?"
"Nope," Connor told him. "Stephen's just a superhero." Then they closed in on Dodo, who was panting and clutching his shoulder. "You mind explaining why you lied to us ten years ago?" Connor asked.
"And why you split us up?" David added.
Dodo glared. "I'm not answering anything asked by someone who'd keep the Ring of Wonderland away from the Resistance, and then shoot me for no reason."
"You mean, the ring that was in my possession that you didn't explain why it was important?" Alice asked, coming over to stand over Dodo. "Then when I refused because you hadn't given me any reason to think I should hand my boyfriend's family heirloom over to you, you shot Hatter?"
"And I have to say that I shot you because the moment you saw us you started making that appalling noise," Stephen added. "That was just to shut you up. I don't really see David and Connor having anything to do with either of these events."
David put on his most threatening smile, bringing every bit of nastiness he'd had to build up over the years just to survive in the Queen's Wonderland. "So, are you going to answer, or do I have to bring my Gift into things?"
He could almost see Connor looking at and discarding ideas of how to threaten Dodo. Then suddenly Connor's face melted into an eager sort of pure innocence. "You know, it's been so long since I've been able to really work at making Rabbit Holes, I'd love a chance to really practice at it," he said. He absently picked up a paperweight, tossing it into the air and letting it fall into the Rabbit Hole. A few second later the glass ball was hurtling at speed through the Rabbit Holes before suddenly flying sideways and shattering on a wall. "Oops," Connor said, looking about six years old and all the more terrifying for the eagerness on his face.
Dodo cracked. He always did when faced with someone more dangerous than he was. It was why he hid in his office. "Alright! I knew we couldn't risk letting the Queen get her hands on the Rabbit Holes," he said. Then he turned to David. "You, I figured you'd get yourself killed right quick and I could bring your brother back. But you kept on not dying, no matter how many times I leaked about you to March."
"What?" gasped Owl. "But Hatter always brought us nice fruit and veg," he said.
Duck added, "And the cheese. The cheese was nice. And the new books."
With a snap, Owl seemed to come on point, sharp intellect in his eyes. "Not to mention the best and most reliable information came from him. More useful than a hundred Rabbit Holes." He shot Connor an apologetic look. "Sorry."
"No problem," Connor waved him off. "I got no problems knowing that m'brother's smart."
Ignoring Connor, Duck said, "I'd been sure his Gift was finding information, like me, until I saw his sledgehammer that first time, too." The pair glared at their suddenly shrinking leader. "He wasn't anything but helpful and you wanted to give him to March?"
Alice was equally furious. "You were going to put Connor on a guilt trip to help, weren't you?" she demanded, almost growling. "Tell him that he owed you, so he had to help. But Hatter was too smart to die the way you wanted, and you couldn't bring Connor in until Hatter wasn't there for him to find out you lied."
Before they could do anything, Dodo tried to take a breath to start screaming his Gift again. Connor raised a hand and Dodo fell through the floor, out of the ceiling, into the floor, out of the ceiling, into the floor, faster and faster, around and around. "I think we'd best drop him off somewhere that someone can know he was planning to hand over his own agents," he said.
They all watched Dodo whirling around and around and Stephen said, "Maybe we could ask Jack. Might as well start applying to the official authorities, right? I mean, if he's going to be king or some such."
"He knows Caterpillar," Alice pointed out. "I get the feeling Caterpillar wouldn't be too happy about him doing that either."
"Take him to Jack, then?" Connor asked. "I'm pretty sure he's going to be out by the Mirror, sending Oysters back."
"Sounds like a plan," David said. He turned to Duck and Owl. "How's about you two take over the Library? I mean, it looks like the Queen's out and the new king was working with the Resistance. Worth seeing if maybe the Library can go back to what it was."
The pair smiled. "We will. Thanks for all the cheese, Hatter," Duck said.
Connor flicked a wrist and Dodo slowed, then went through the Rabbit Hole a last time. "David, you'd best go on ahead. Hold on tight to Alice, would you?"
"Are you sure about this, Connor?" Stephen asked, looking concerned. His brother was looking a little pale, David noted.
"Yeah," Connor told him. "We're not so far that it's a long way. Two out of three things that were a problem last time aren't anymore. Just, we've got to wait until they've got through before we go."
Stephen looked satisfied, but David made a note to ask, taking Alice's hand tightly as they walked into the passage to the Mirror and Jack Heart's startled face.
Part Five
Part Seven
Return to Other Fandoms Archive
Return to Primeval Archive
Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: I don't own Alice 2009 and I don't own Primeval, and if there's anything else anyone recognises, well, I don't own that either.
Rating: PG
Summary: Luckily for Stephen, Connor is more than what he seems.
Notes: I have never had to look for a coffee shop for so long before in my life as when I went looking for one to finish up writing and posting this at. But finished this update. At last.
*****************************
"Wait a minute," Alice interrupted. "Dodo? You want to talk to him again? The crazy guy who tried to kill me when I wouldn't just give him the ring?"
She'd been so caught up in her own personal drama, her dad and being in an alternate universe and Jack and everything else that she seemed to have missed something. Hatter turned to her. "See, when Connor and I were fourteen, the Queen decided she didn't much like us and our family. She sent the suits out and . . ." his voice broke and for the first time he really looked . . . lost. Hurt. She thought she might have seen that fourteen-year-old boy hiding behind the facade.
Connor, who clearly really was Hatter's twin, said, "We both hid, but Mum and Dad, they . . . the suits killed them. We managed to get away, but we got separated."
Then Jack spoke. "The deaths of the Hatter family were . . . significant. It was symbolic, you know. Mother wanted to make sure no one brought up the old days, brought up the family that helped Alice of Legend to bring down the House of Cards before."
"So where does Dodo come into it?" she asked.
Hatter answered. "He was already part of the Resistance, yeah?" he said. "Dad had been part of it, made sure we knew to go to the Library if we needed help. That was where I went. When I got there, Dodo told me," he took a shaking breath at the memory, "He told me Connor was dead, that the suits had got him. Then he suggested that they could use me, use this," he held up the hand she knew could punch through concrete, "And offered me a place in it. I took it. I didn't have anywhere else to go."
Connor had a thousand yard stare as he said, "The same thing happened to me, sort of. I got to the Library and he said you'd been killed. Said that the last of the Hatters shouldn't stick around in Wonderland, especially one with my gift. It took a bit of doing, but Winnie Temple's husband had been taken in a raid for trying to teach some children to read-"
Alice heard herself and that Stephen guy make similar noises of disbelief. Jack shot them sardonic looks. "You didn't think that Mother wouldn't also stoop so low as to ensure that no one was literate?"
"No wonder there aren't any written signs around here," Stephen said.
It was a weird moment of solidarity when Jack, Hatter and Connor all rolled their eyes. "Oysters," they said.
"Anyhow," Connor continued, "Dodo arranged to send Winnie and me up to the Oyster world. Lucky we landed up where we did really. I didn't stand out nearly so much in Manchester as I might have in America, say."
Stephen nodded. "They would have thought you'd both just moved there from up north," he said.
"So, you want to find out why he lied to at least one of you about this," Alice said. It was fair. She was pretty pissed off with the Queen for kidnapping her father all those years ago, she'd probably be even angrier if someone she'd trusted had taken him away. Then suddenly something came to mind. She pinned Hatter with a glare. "So, Hatter's your last name, huh?"
"Yes," he said slowly. Then suddenly his eyes went wide. "Now, Alice-" he started.
"You're always there when they 'pass the hat'?" she demanded. He wasn't going to get out of this that easily.
******************************
As Alice harangued David about something he'd said to her when they first met, Stephen turned to Jack. "When you dropped off the face of the Earth, I had no idea that was a literal thing."
His old football teammate had a sheepish look on his face. "Mother knew she needed to be sure that I was literate, but since she didn't trust anyone, that meant I had to be educated away from here." He shook his head. "She never realised that sending me somewhere else, where I could see an entire world of literate people and all, that might have an effect."
"We lost that last championship game, you know," he informed Jack. "Without our best goalkeeper we were sunk."
Jack frowned. "How did you get here, anyhow?"
Connor spoke before Stephen could. "You'll forgive me, your highness, if I keep that to myself a bit. You know, until your mum's safely away somewhere she won't be using her Gift on unsuspecting suits?"
Eyeing Connor a moment, Jack nodded. "I hope you'll trust me enough to tell me eventually. Are you staying now?" he asked Connor.
Stephen held his breath. Because Connor had family here, he'd said himself that he had trouble using that magical anomaly-making skill of his on Earth, and the way Connor just seemed to fit there, he couldn't help but worry. But he couldn't say anything. It wouldn't be fair to Connor to try playing the card that everyone in the ARC was relying on him. Then Connor looked at Stephen and his lips quirked into a small smile. "No," he said. "I may choose to travel back and forth some, but I've got a life and home over there now." He glanced over to where David and Alice had started some sort of vaguely lovesick staring contest and added, "I'm not so sure David'll be staying here either."
Then someone flagged Jack from among the suits hanging about. "I don't suppose you'd consider writing," Jack said to Stephen. "It'll be nice to talk to someone who sees me as a friend for once." He glanced over at Alice himself. "And who's not an ex-girlfriend either."
"I'll see what I can do," he said. "You still a Chelsea fan?"
"Just because you have the poor taste to be a fan of Liverpool . . ." Jack said, trailing off suggestively. "Send me the league standings if nothing else, please?"
"I can do that," Stephen said with a grin. Then Jack left and Connor was looking back and forth between them, shaking his head in disbelief.
This whole situation was just so bloody weird, he thought. "So, do you have any idea where to find this . . . Dodo person?" he asked Connor.
Connor didn't answer, David did. "He'll be at the Great Library. It's where he's set up, where his part of the Resistance was set up."
*****************************
Alice was less than enthused about that. "Oh my God," she grumbled as they made their way back. "Seriously? We're going back to the people who shot you and their stupid microbus elevator."
"Microbus elevator?" Stephen inquired. "A microbus as a lift, you mean?"
She frowned a moment, then said, "Yeah. Sorry. That whole American to British English thing strikes again."
Connor left the pair of them discussing comparative dialects and just how weird Wonderland was to talk to David. "What does she mean, shot you?" he asked his brother.
"I was fine," David said, waving a hand faux carelessly. "I had my bulletproof vest on and all."
Gaping, Connor hissed, "You need one to see him?"
"No," David said. "I just wear it all the time. Can't be too careful, you know."
It hurt to see how cynical and bitter and resigned David was. "Will you come back with us?" Connor wanted to know. "At least for a bit?"
"If nothing else, I want to meet this Abby of yours," David said. "What's she like?"
Abby he was always willing to talk about. "She's really brilliant. She's an expert in animal behaviour and her hobby's kickboxing."
"Kick boxing?" David asked, looking baffled. "How do you box with kicking? Isn't that all about punching people? Or do you mean boxing things with your feet? Wouldn't that cause some trouble with breaking the china?"
A glance showed him his brother was chopping logic out of confusion, not taking the mick. "It's a kind of fighting discipline," he explained. "Lots of punching and kicking. I've seen Abby kick some things into submission that'd amaze you."
"Are there a lot of Oysters with Gifts?" David asked him. "Because I've never seen anyone shoot like Stephen does, and Alice says she does something called Judo, but that's got to be a Gift-"
"It's not Gifts," Connor told his brother hastily. "It's just a whole bloody lot of Cat cursed hard work."
David looked at him sceptically. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah," Connor said. "Look. I was in your tea shop, yeah?"
"So?"
"I saw what you had in your storage cupboards," Connor told him. "Apples and meat and all sorts of things. You got that through trading, right?"
Tilting his head quizzically, David nodded. "Yeah, and?"
"You did a lot of trading, didn't you?" Connor pressed. "Lots and lots until you were able to trade a tiny bit of Serenity or Lust for a whole big bag of things, yeah?"
"And I had to wheel and deal for hours and hours every day . . ." David trailed off and turned to stare at the Oysters following them. "They work that hard at that?"
"Yeah," Connor told him. "Oh, sure, some are naturally more talented at some things than others, but I've yet to see a Gifted Oyster."
"Cheshire," David breathed.
*****************************
The idea of someone having the time on their hands to perfect something like that Judo thing or to shoot like Stephen did was incredible. It wasn't that he couldn't understand someone wanted to get better at something like that, but didn't people have to spend time on things like getting food and paying off authorities and running shops and all sorts of things like that?
It seemed the Oyster world would take more getting used to than he'd thought.
Well, that was neither here nor there, he thought as they reached the door to get into the Library. Duck and Owl were all of a flutter. "Shouldn't you have someone a little less . . . erm . . . well, harder to intimidate than those two?" Connor asked doubtfully as they headed toward the lift.
"God, it really is a minibus," Stephen muttered. "I can't wait 'til we get home and the world's only insane some of the time."
David ignored the Oysters' solidarity about Wonderland's relative madness. "Unfortunately, most of the Resistance isn't so good with remembering the passwords." He shrugged. "Hopefully they can be proper librarians once Jack straightens things up and lets the Library go back to being the Library, but in the meantime there's only so many people Dodo trusts to handle the passwords and security."
"They've got Library-type Gifts?" Connor asked curiously.
"Owl remembers everything he's ever read and exactly where it is, Ducky there just always knows exactly where it is you can find what you're looking for."
The lift lurched, Alice looked queasy and Stephen muttered something about some trolley in someplace called Peru that he'd been on.
When they got off the four of them didn't even make it to Dodo's office. He was in the hall, and when he spotted them he stopped dead, a look of panic on his face. Before either David or Connor could think of asking a question, Dodo's mouth opened wide and a noise came out of it that sounded a little like a bird squawking, a siren and sticking your head into a blender. It hurt, and everyone staggered back, clutching at their heads, trying to block out what was apparently Dodo's Gift.
The man in black turned to try fleeing, and Stephen, with a kind of stoicism that David had to marvel at, managed to pull his hands away from his ears and shoot the fleeing Resistance cell leader. The sound stopped, thankfully, and David called to Stephen, "We owe you one, mate. You sure that isn't a Gift, Connor?"
"Nope," Connor told him. "Stephen's just a superhero." Then they closed in on Dodo, who was panting and clutching his shoulder. "You mind explaining why you lied to us ten years ago?" Connor asked.
"And why you split us up?" David added.
Dodo glared. "I'm not answering anything asked by someone who'd keep the Ring of Wonderland away from the Resistance, and then shoot me for no reason."
"You mean, the ring that was in my possession that you didn't explain why it was important?" Alice asked, coming over to stand over Dodo. "Then when I refused because you hadn't given me any reason to think I should hand my boyfriend's family heirloom over to you, you shot Hatter?"
"And I have to say that I shot you because the moment you saw us you started making that appalling noise," Stephen added. "That was just to shut you up. I don't really see David and Connor having anything to do with either of these events."
David put on his most threatening smile, bringing every bit of nastiness he'd had to build up over the years just to survive in the Queen's Wonderland. "So, are you going to answer, or do I have to bring my Gift into things?"
He could almost see Connor looking at and discarding ideas of how to threaten Dodo. Then suddenly Connor's face melted into an eager sort of pure innocence. "You know, it's been so long since I've been able to really work at making Rabbit Holes, I'd love a chance to really practice at it," he said. He absently picked up a paperweight, tossing it into the air and letting it fall into the Rabbit Hole. A few second later the glass ball was hurtling at speed through the Rabbit Holes before suddenly flying sideways and shattering on a wall. "Oops," Connor said, looking about six years old and all the more terrifying for the eagerness on his face.
Dodo cracked. He always did when faced with someone more dangerous than he was. It was why he hid in his office. "Alright! I knew we couldn't risk letting the Queen get her hands on the Rabbit Holes," he said. Then he turned to David. "You, I figured you'd get yourself killed right quick and I could bring your brother back. But you kept on not dying, no matter how many times I leaked about you to March."
"What?" gasped Owl. "But Hatter always brought us nice fruit and veg," he said.
Duck added, "And the cheese. The cheese was nice. And the new books."
With a snap, Owl seemed to come on point, sharp intellect in his eyes. "Not to mention the best and most reliable information came from him. More useful than a hundred Rabbit Holes." He shot Connor an apologetic look. "Sorry."
"No problem," Connor waved him off. "I got no problems knowing that m'brother's smart."
Ignoring Connor, Duck said, "I'd been sure his Gift was finding information, like me, until I saw his sledgehammer that first time, too." The pair glared at their suddenly shrinking leader. "He wasn't anything but helpful and you wanted to give him to March?"
Alice was equally furious. "You were going to put Connor on a guilt trip to help, weren't you?" she demanded, almost growling. "Tell him that he owed you, so he had to help. But Hatter was too smart to die the way you wanted, and you couldn't bring Connor in until Hatter wasn't there for him to find out you lied."
Before they could do anything, Dodo tried to take a breath to start screaming his Gift again. Connor raised a hand and Dodo fell through the floor, out of the ceiling, into the floor, out of the ceiling, into the floor, faster and faster, around and around. "I think we'd best drop him off somewhere that someone can know he was planning to hand over his own agents," he said.
They all watched Dodo whirling around and around and Stephen said, "Maybe we could ask Jack. Might as well start applying to the official authorities, right? I mean, if he's going to be king or some such."
"He knows Caterpillar," Alice pointed out. "I get the feeling Caterpillar wouldn't be too happy about him doing that either."
"Take him to Jack, then?" Connor asked. "I'm pretty sure he's going to be out by the Mirror, sending Oysters back."
"Sounds like a plan," David said. He turned to Duck and Owl. "How's about you two take over the Library? I mean, it looks like the Queen's out and the new king was working with the Resistance. Worth seeing if maybe the Library can go back to what it was."
The pair smiled. "We will. Thanks for all the cheese, Hatter," Duck said.
Connor flicked a wrist and Dodo slowed, then went through the Rabbit Hole a last time. "David, you'd best go on ahead. Hold on tight to Alice, would you?"
"Are you sure about this, Connor?" Stephen asked, looking concerned. His brother was looking a little pale, David noted.
"Yeah," Connor told him. "We're not so far that it's a long way. Two out of three things that were a problem last time aren't anymore. Just, we've got to wait until they've got through before we go."
Stephen looked satisfied, but David made a note to ask, taking Alice's hand tightly as they walked into the passage to the Mirror and Jack Heart's startled face.
Part Five
Part Seven
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