firstly this is my first fan fic of Syfy's Alice, secondly i LOVE the show (or miniseries) seriously go and watch it!!! i watched it twice and i still love it, especially hatter who is soooo completely gorgeous and beautiful...this is the first fic of 010--or2010 whatever so happy new year everyone!!! I think that this is part one...but in any case i will definetly be writing alice fan fics for a while...with my rob/mar fan fics and twilight...so be prepared or not...

Escape the Mind

He had never been in this place before. The room, if you could call it that, was filled with dripping green goo that couldn't be touched. There was no door, no window—no breathing space. And Hatter, more than anything right now, needed breathing space. He was completely alone. One of Hatter's strengths was once in his ability to remain alone and a recluse. Yet he was beginning to feel something strange in the bottom of his stomach.

Too quiet. He reasoned to himself.

But what Hatter did not realize, as he fixed his hat nervously, was that the feeling of the quiet, was not the cause of the ache in his stomach.

It was something much deeper yet.

Suddenly Hatter heard a squeak, and then another, and then another. He turned around and found Doctor Dee and Doctor Dum walking towards him. Hatter felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end at the sight of the duo.

They were laughing, and thereby, making the victim doubly nervous.

"Ah," said Dum.

"Hatter," said Dee.

"Please, sit," they said together.

Suddenly, before Hatter's eyes, a chair stood before him. Hatter did not budge an inch.

"Sit!" commanded Dum.

Dee giggled.

Hatter sat in the chair and the twin doctors stood in front of him. Both of them were smiling grandly. Hatter simply looked at the two brothers.

"So?" he asked. "Why is a raven—"

Dee tisked. "None of your nonsense now Hatter. Save that for Mad March. We are here for another purpose entirely."

Hatter said nothing.

"You have always been under the radar," said Dee stepping closer to Hatter. "Always moving, constantly. Been working both sides sometimes I suspect." He touched Hatter's hat and Hatter quickly tried to hit Dee's hand. But when he touched the insane doctor's hand he felt his whole body get an electric shock and Dee successfully grabbed his hat and flung it away.

"You won't be needing it," said Dum.

"To continue with the examination," said Dee. "The Queen has never been able to catch you. And she has sent far worse than Mad March to do the job."

"Yet you walk right into our laps," said Dum standing next to his brother.

Hatter looked at the sickeningly green floor which seemed to move in erratic motions. There was no rhythm or order in this room.

Dee shook his head. "We were under the impression you were more cunning than that Hatter."

Hatter growled and looked up at the brothers. "You can just forget this. I'm not telling you anything."

The twins looked at each other and smiled. They then turned to Hatter.

Dee walked around Hatter's chair in a clockwise circle while Dum walked counterclockwise. Hatter knew they were trying to intimidate him. He had been under torture before, he would not let them take over his mind. He would remain strong. He would remain strong if not for himself…

Then for her.

For Alice.

"Why does Hatter, a known criminal, come into the light suddenly?" asked Dee.

"Guilty conscious?" asked Dum.

They both passed Hatter in their circle and shook their heads together.

"Death wise?" asked Dee with a giggle.

Again they passed Hatter in their circular walk and shook their heads.

"The girl," said Dum.

Hatter looked up and his traitorous heart began to beat faster. And, as if they were in tune with his heart beat, the twins picked up their pace. Hatter, meanwhile, felt very vulnerable without his hat. He also felt extremely sickened by the room, the doctors, and the lonesome feeling in his chest which seemed to grow like a void with each second.

"What girl?" asked Dee.

"The oyster," said Dum. "You remember Dee, the girl we were trying to get the ring from."

Dee nodded. "Then we became bored and tried to kill the little oyster."

Dum noticed Hatter trying to hold rage as he stared at the floor. He winked at Dee.

"I hear she's being examined in the cages for the amusement of the queen and the court," said Dee laughing mischievously.

"I wonder what they're going to do with the little oyster who knew too much," said Dum.

Hatter stood up suddenly and grabbed Dum's throat. "She's not a mindless animal!" But the next second Hatter was given another electric shock at the touch and was jolted back into his chair.

Dee and Dum knelt together in front of Hatter, who seemed that he lost the ability to get up out of the chair.

"Dum," said Dee in a sweet voice that sounded like butter and velvet, "I believe Hatter's fallen for a mindless, senseless, oyster."

"Dee," said Dum in an equally sweet voice, "I believe so."

Hatter struggled in his invisible hand cuffs.

"You're tired Hatter," said Dum meeting Hatter's eye. "Why don't you get some rest?"

Hatter unwittingly shut his eyes and his last memory was of the twins' vicious laughter. When he opened his eyes he found that he was in a different room completely. He was in the court of the Queen of Hearts. At first he was completely alone and then the room began to fill with members of the court all talking and squabbling like birds.

He tried to hide, worried that they would see him, but he found that he could not move his feet. But that didn't matter anyway, because he realized that the members of the court couldn't see him.

"They don't see me," he whispered quietly.

"That's right," said a voice behind him.

Hatter turned his head around and found Dee walking next to him.

"Where am I?" asked Hatter.

"We've moved you," said Dee.

"For the moment," said his brother suddenly appearing and walking to Hatter's other side.

"Why?" asked Hatter, though regretting the question as soon as he asked it.

He regretted the question because he suddenly saw a pack of suits walk into the court. They were carrying something. Hatter realized that they were not just carrying something, but someone. They were carrying Alice. She was unconscious.

"Alice!" screamed Hatter as he tried to run to her. But his feet would not move.

He simply watched as they slowly carried her body across the room as the members of the court looked on at the strange sight of the oyster's journey.

Dee and Dum crossed their arms and smiled at each other.

"Alice!" yelled the love struck man bitterly hoping that somehow she would wake up, that she would see him.

But she did not awaken to his calls. The suits also took no notice of Hatter's screams though they seemed to echo throughout the entire room, as they echoed through his heart.

The suits carried Alice to the spherical cage at the other side of the room. One opened the cage door and the two holding her threw her into the cage, then they closed the door.

"Don't hurt her!" screamed Hatter who was beginning to feel that he couldn't even hear himself.

"Why can't they hear me?" asked Hatter to the doctors.

"Perhaps you need to think with your feet," said Dee.

Suddenly Hatter realized he could move his feet. Upon this new freedom he ran past the guards, the suits and the court members as if they were nothing more than thin air. And, in fact they were completely intangible upon Hatter's contact with their bodies. It was like they were just images that moved and swayed with the inconstant wind, or with the fast pace of Hatter's step and heart.

Hatter did not stop to realize how he moved through everyone. His focus was only on the cage in which Alice was kept.

At last, he arrived at the other side of the room and attempted to try to open the cage. But, to his horror, he found that the cage was completely real. The metal bars felt cold on his shaking fingertips. The lock on the door, no matter how he yanked, remained stable and unmoved.

Hatter's head sank onto the bars of the cage as he watched Alice. He saw her chest move up and down in a beautiful constant rhythm. It was the first motion that felt so sound and true to Hatter's ears. He closed his eyes.

"You're alive," he whispered.

You're alive.

He found himself smiling.

But there were no smiles in the twisted world of Dee and Dum. The insane twins, the mad doctors, were not about to let victims reap any benefits during torture. Everything had an alternative turn and direction with the brothers. If Hatter had been paying attention he would have realized that the first pain, his worry for Alice, had been granted with a price: Alice was unconscious. His second pain: the inability to use his legs, was lifted, but the cage was brutally tangible.

And now, now that he had worried if she was alive, and she was indeed breathing, something would go wrong.

And, as things are in Wonderland, something did go wrong.

Alice was beginning to stir. She blinked, turned, and blinked again. She sat up in her cage and shivered.

"Alice!" yelled Hatter happily. "It's me!"

But Alice could not hear him, her eyes were locked on the suits who, one by one, entered her cage and began to beat her. They had her sit on a chair of simple wood and tied her hands behind her so she couldn't move. They then began to kick her, beat her so that she screamed and tears unwittingly fled down her cheeks.

"No!" yelled Hatter. "No! Stop!"

He gripped the bars of the cage but could do nothing except watch the torture unfold. And as Alice was beaten, so too did Hatter feel pain. As they dug needles into her body that made her wail with incontrollable pain, so too was Hatter burning on the inside.

There was absolutely no way that things could be worse than they were at that moment. But, undoubtedly, they did.

"Hatter!" Alice screamed through the pain.

Hatter's eyes widened as he tried to catch his true love's eye.

"I'm here," he answered, banging on the bars of the prison. "I'm here Alice don't worry everything will be—"

"Hatter!" she yelled again with bitter tears.

"Alice I'm—" Then Hatter stopped himself, because he realized that she too, along with the suits, and the people, could not see him.

He cringed as she yelled out his name again before collapsing into pain.

He rested his head on the prison trying to block out her calls.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked the doctors.

"Shh!" commanded Dee.

"It's going to get better," said Dum.

"Silence girl!" commanded a voice behind Hatter.

He recognized that voice.

He turned around and braced himself against the cage and came face to face with the queen of hearts. But Hatter could see that she could not tell that he was there….just like everyone else.

As the queen moved closer to the prison Hatter moved away instinctively. His pulse was racing as the queen smiled at Alice and then pursed her lips and sighed.

She turned to one of the suits. "What was she squabbling about?"

The suit shrugged. "Something about a Hatter."

The queen nodded. "Get out, I will speak with her."

The suits obediently left the cage, walked right through Hatter, to the other side of the room to join the rest of the Court to watch their queen converse with the oyster.

The queen of hearts stood over Alice. Alice did not meet her eye. "You will look at me when I speak to you."

Alice looked up at the queen. "What?"

"You were yelling something earlier, it quite disturbed me."

Hatter watched as Alice said nothing.

"Something about Hatter," said the queen.

Again Alice said nothing.

The queen bent down and touched Alice's bruised face. "How fragile oysters are. They hurt you pretty badly didn't they?"

Alice bit her lip. Then she said something under her breath which, though the queen had trouble hearing, Hatter understood clear as day.

"He'll come for me."

Hatter brightened despite the circumstances he was witnessing.

"What was that?" asked the queen.

"I said," repeated Alice with new found strength, "that he'll come for me."

The queen chuckled, unblemished by Alice's threat.

"No my dear," she replied shaking her head. "He won't."

Hatter's shook with anger as her eyes widened at the queen's words.

"Why not?" asked Alice trying to sound unshaken.

"Because he is dead," replied the queen in a voice deprived of emotion.

"Dead?" repeated Alice.

"I'm not dead!" Hatter said, though he did not scream.

"Yes," said the queen with a nod. "His head was decapitated not five minutes ago."

Alice shook her head and tried to stand up, but realized she could not defeat her shackles. "No, no, he's not dead! You must have killed someone else named Hatter." Despite the courage of her speech, she was crying.

"I'm afraid it is true," said the queen though she did not sound like she regretted one word of it.

"No its not," Hatter said though he spoke in a whisper. There was no use in trying to make himself heard to a room where all seemed to be blind and deaf to his presence. Even the one soul, the one girl, the one person in his world, who he had made a real connection with. Even her ears were out of joint to his cries.

"Alice," whispered Hatter desperately. "I'm not dead."

He watched her eyes grow watery with tears ill spent. And he wished that he could command them to halt in their flight down her cheeks for just a moment. He wanted, more than anything to speak with her.

And the doctors, with their trickery, seemed to be completely and utterly in tune with his emotions.

"Shame," remarked Dee, "isn't it?"

Hatter said nothing.

"You should have been kinder to the girl," said Dum. "You should not have let her love you and then pretended you loved her in return."

"I never—" Hatter was about to reply when suddenly the queen spoke.

"He did not love you anyway," she said.

Alice, to Hatter's shock nodded. And, to add to his shock the queen suddenly turned into Jack Heart. He put his hand to Alice's cheek to wipe her tears, but his touch seemed to cause Alice to bleed, and Hatter felt like he had been kicked.

"He never loved you," said Jack kindly. "Otherwise he would not have left you in the forest. He would have held you as I do now." Jack then wrapped his arms around Alice and embraced her. But the embrace, though did not involve Hatter, seemed to be cutting and bruising him.

"And," said Jack, "he would have kissed you as I am now."

Jack then closed his eyes and kissed Alice in the spherical cage, in the middle of the court, in front of Dee and Dum, in front of Hatter. And it was that act that caused Hatter's vision to blur. It took him a moment to realize that tears were streaming from his eyes to his cheeks. And this was quite odd for Hatter because…well….he was not one to become emotional. He was driven to anger, to passions, to hatred, to greed, but never driven to tears.

Alice looked up at Jack. "I never loved him."

"Alice, no," Hatter whispered.

And Hatter closed his eyes. He knelt to the floor and covered his face in his hands. There was too much chaos for him to take. Every inch of happiness he could gleam from this situation was suddenly and atrociously removed.

And she did not love him.

She doesn't love me.

"She never did," said Dee suddenly as if he could read Hatter's thoughts.

"You knew it before," said Dum. "Try looking a little more pleased."

Though Hatter's eyes were closed and he could not tell how close they were to him, they sounded as if they were whispering into his ears.

But Hatter, in this vulnerable state of being, thought of Alice. He remembered the trembling girl in the wet blue dress observe him uneasily. Do you know why they call me Hatter? He had asked trying to sound important. Because you wear a hat?

And then it was like everything he had ever said to her just flooded back to his consciousness.

Why are you still hooked on Jack?

You still don't trust me after I just…I risked my neck getting you out of there!

I wouldn't let you do it if I didn't you'd be safe.
Then he remembered wandering through the dense forests with the confident girl in the blue dress. She stood in front of him and looked up into his eyes weakly. What if I do get stuck here? There was true terror in her words and her eyes at the thought of remaining a branded object in the backwards world. And, for his part, he did not need to think about his answer. Then I'll make sure that you're okay. And he was about to kiss her when…

Suddenly Hatter opened his eyes. He stood up and faced the twins.

"So?" said Dee.

"What do you have to say?" said Dum.

"This can't be real," said Hatter.

He had not come to such a conclusion before, because it all seemed so real to him. Everything that was going on could truly happen. The beatings, harassing, cries, and tears could all be taking place. And perhaps they were indeed going on somewhere in the world in some alternate universe. There could be a universe where people could change into other beings and convince the pure to believe in lies.

But Hatter did not live in such a world.

And, though Alice's cries of pain might be truth, though her tears a reality, and her wounds a certainty, the words were lies. The lies were not merely in the misconception of Hatter's supposed death, but that he did not love Alice.

And he knew now, now more than ever, that his love for her was true.

Once Hatter realized that, other things were coming into their rightful place. All the words that had been spoken by the queen, by Jack, by the twins, were all manifestations of his own insecurities and doubts. They spoke out what his true fears were as if they….knew…them…

"This is not real," said Hatter.

"In one definition of the word real," said Dee, "you are right."

"These people," said Dum, "are not really real so to speak."

"But—" Hatter began, then he stopped himself. He tried to remember something that Charlie had said to Alice when the two of them had saved her.

Believe it or not, we're in your head.

"We're in your head," said Dum, "you already know that."

"So then it didn't work," said Hatter, "whatever you're trying to do….I already know this can't be happening."

"But these are your creations Hatter," said Dee sweetly.

"What?"

"We don't make up what we find," said Dum. "We simply enlarge molehills and bring forth the worst possible fears. You already knew that she was here, probably being examined by the queen's court."

"And we let you take us through the rest," said Dee.

"But I know what you're doing," said Hatter. "I know this is all in my head. I can stop this if I want."

Dee nodded. "True, true, but Hatter, why are you still bleeding?"

Hatter was covered with wounds and blood. His arms were cut, as was his face.

"This is real," he said.

"We didn't care if you found out we were in your head," said Dee flashing a smile.

"We just needed to make you vulnerable, to see your weakness," explained Dum. "And we've found your weakness."

Dee nudged Dum. "Observe brother," he said as if examining an object, "human tears."

"This pain you feel now," said Dee in a whisper, "is actually happening."

Suddenly Hatter felt himself wake up, wake up from this nightmare, from this scene. And found himself back in the room in which he had begun. The goo continued to fall and rise without any hint of stopping. It sickened him. But he felt inwardly sickened, like his mind had just been poked and prodded. More than that, he found that his wounds were true and lasting, even in this real state.

And Hatter found that he was still sitting in the chair. He was tied up, like Alice had been, and he was being hurt just like her.

Instead of this weakening him, Hatter felt alive, deeply angry, but alive. He felt that there was something he had to do, had to say, before all chaos fell. It was a mistake that the twins told him they were no longer in his head. That meant that for the moment his thoughts were his own and he needed to think. He was forming a plan…a definite plan.

"We've been breaking you," said Dee.

"Slowly," said Dum, "but surely breaking you."

"Mad March," said Dee, "is here. We best leave."

And as they left Hatter looked up and saw Mad March.

"Hatter," said March in a raspy voice.

"Heard about the weakening love you have for the oyster," said March shaking his rabbit head.

"Why," said Hatter who was finding it hard to breathe, "is a raven like a writing desk?"

"I see that you appear untouched by the twins' games," said March. "They're supposed to be the best at this cracking business."

Hatter said nothing.

"They will kill the girl Hatter," said March. "There's really nothing you can do to stop it."

Hatter again said nothing.

March sighed. "Twinkle, twinkle little bat, how I wonder what you're at. Goodbye Hatter."

Mad March stepped closer to Hatter. Hatter knew it would all be over soon. It would be easier to let himself be defeated. After all there were a number of things that could go wrong. The twins had accurately assessed Hatter's doubts and thoughts. He loved Alice but…

Jack.

But Hatter had something going for him that Jack had not. Hatter maybe couldn't offer her a safe return through the looking glass. He couldn't offer her complete security and wealth. But he could offer her his love. And maybe the backwardness of Wonderful was in need for a straight answer like that. And this thought, which could break any bond of man did so.

Suddenly Hatter escaped from the invisible cuffs and used the chair to beat March. As March lay on the ground suffering or dead, Hatter, with his new power broke the glass that bound him in this room.

sooo whats going to happen??? you can see its a little AU and if ppl want it i'll do a part two thats a little different from what actually happens...anyway let me know what you think!!