please excuse her for the day it's just the way the medication makes her

Her first day back at camp starts like this:

Alice, please, put the gun down. Put it down, darling. No, don't... Don't point it at me, daffodil. Come on, oyster pearl, be sensible. Don't point it at Charlie, either. He hasn't done nothing to warrant such treatment. He rattles off poetry awfully strange like, but he's not a bother. Would you like to hear some poetry, Alice, love? Charlie, why don't you... Jesus, Alice, don't point it at your own head. How about... about I make you some tea. Would you like that more, sweet one? We'll do whatever you like, just... Just put the gun down. Alice. Please. That's a girl, just put it down, all quiet and careful like. There we are. Everyone's smiling now, aren't they? Can you smile for me, starling? Alice? Alice? Why are you crying for, my peach? Oh, Alice. Oh Alice. What have they done to you?

...

Two days after they found her a babbling, incoherent mess, Charlie and Hatter sit together on a half collapsed stone wall. Alice meanders about below them, picking flowers and whispering secrets into their petals. It breaks Hatter's heart to see it.

"What have they done to her, harbinger?"

"Wish I could tell you," Hatter closes his eyes for the briefest of seconds. "Sometimes, I swear she's looking at me, and I'm looking at her. Other times..." he shrugs. "Other times, she's holding a gun to her head, swearing and crying to damnation."

"Is there nothing we can do for her?" Charlie asks, his armor creaking, much like his world-weary bones.

"Not much as I can see." Hatter removes his hat, runs a hand through his hair, and sighs. "That's a nice one, you got there." He calls down to Alice. She looks up at him, clutches the wildflower to her chest, and hisses. "Figures," he sighs to himself, as he replaces the pork-pie on his head, and wonders, not for the first time, what it is that the doctors did to break her so.

…

Three days after they bring Alice to the camp, Hatter wakes up to her holding a rock over his head. She's staring down at him with fire in her pale eyes, and it only takes him a split-second to roll out of harm's (and Alice's) way. The rock lands with a terrifyingly powerful thump right in the spot where his head had been. Alice settles back on her knees and dusts her hands off.

Hatter sits up suddenly, staring at her with wide, disbelieving eyes. "Alice, darling, is everything all right?"

"Yes, Hatter," she replies in a voice that implies he is some sort of petulant child. "He," she points to space he had been previously calling his bed, but will now call the scene of his almost murder, "was trying to tell me to kill you. But I tricked him, I did." Hatter narrows his eyes at her proud smile. "Killed him instead."

"Who was trying to tell you to kill me, Alice?" She rolls her eyes, huffing and crossing her arms over her chest. "Humor me, daffodil," he tries to charm her through his exhaustion.

"He was." She points again to the patch of dirt that once served as a sleeping area. "He was muttering nasty, dirty things." Her hands start shaking, and her eyes go wide and feral and she starts babbling to herself. "They're in my brain, and they won't be quiet. Put a bullet in me. Please." She grips her head, digs her nails into her scalp hard enough to draw blood. "Kill me before they can, please."

Hatter opens and closes his mouth, feeling useless, as Alice turns to him and says, in a deadly calm voice that makes her seem sane, "please. Kill me."

…

Her fourth day at camp is spent curled up in a ball of dark hair and blue dress and torn tights. Her eyes are open. Her nails are bitten to the quick and then quicker. All she does is shiver.

Hatter and Charlie pretend she's asleep, so they don't have to look at her.

…

The fifth day starts with Jack Heart waltzing into camp, as if it's just another wing in his castle. Hatter wants to get the first crack at him, but Charlie beats him to the punch. Quite literally. Jack takes one in his perfect, lying mouth, before he can even open it.

"I'm sorry," he spits out a mouthful of blood; it's disappointing to see he hasn't lost any teeth. "I'm only here for the ring. That's all." The prince makes to move towards Alice, who is apparently counting the pebbles at the foot of the skeleton king's throne, but he finds his path blocked by the White Knight and drug dealer.

"You're not going near her, mate." Hatter crosses his arms over his chest, and narrows his eyes. "You and your lot's done enough damage, yeah?"

"She doesn't have it," Jack rubs a red smear across his chin. "He does," he gestures to the skeletal remains of the once past king. "Just let me have it, and we'll leave you be."

"Like we trust that," Hatter snarls. "That's the problem with you royals. You make the empty promises and spin the pretty stories when it's convenient, but you don't care a tick for the people who get hurt along the way." He glances at Charlie, looking for some kind of validation, only to widen his eyes in surprise.

The old man's practically vibrating in anger. He clenches his fists and grits his teeth before taking a steadying breath. "Listen closely, you impudent child, for I will say this naught but once. Your carelessness, your cruelty – your utter disregard for the scantily of human life – disgusts me. Long have I waged war against your kind, and longer still I have, so I pray that you understand the gravity of what I am about to say to you.

I despise your family. I despair of how they treat their subjects. But, if granting you the ring – the sole bane of my existence, my reason for living – means that you will leave us to carry on our meager lives, then the ring you shall have. But know this, and know this well. I do it not for my sake, nor for the sake of the man next to me. I do it for the sake of the girl left broken by your own ignorances. So take the ring, and be gone. If you set foot in my kingdom after this hour, I will find you. And I will kill you."

…

Six days after coming back to camp, Alice tries to kill herself. She finds a knife somewhere in the ruins and carves a pretty good chunk out of her right arm, right where the olive paisley stain is. She staggers back to their little campsite and stands in front of Hatter, who is sitting on a hunk of rock with his elbows resting on his knees.

She drops the knife at his feet. Holds out her arm. Sways a little.

"It won't stop."

…

Exactly one week after they've rescued her, kicking and screaming and incoherent, Hatter and Charlie watch Alice pick listlessly at her bandages. They imagine, with their combined first aid skills – Charlie is rather handy at crushing herbs for healing, and Hatter knows a thing or twelve about tending to knife gouges – that she'll be right as rain in a few days.

Only, she won't really be right as rain because she's still talking to the air, whispering to fairies and pixies that no one else can see. And she's still spending her nights crying and sobbing and choking on her own confusion. And she spends her days with her cheek pressed to the dirt, singing and reciting poetry to the flowers.

Hatter shakes his head. "Charlie, old chap, what are we going to do with her?"

"Look after her, I suppose," he responded, sounding, for the first time, as old as he looked. "What else is there?"

"Not much that I can see," he rubs his hands on his trousers and gets up. Alice ceases in her fidgeting when he crouches in front of her, all honest eyes and gentle smile. "Would you like to go for a walk with me?"

"A walk?" She repeats back to him, cocking her head to one side.

"Yeah. Just... through the ruins a bit." He holds out his hand, a simple peace offering. "Please?" She looks down at it warily, and says nothing. "Alice," he says her name gently, quietly, and her eerie stare shifts to his face. "Alice, please come on a walk with me."

"Okay," and she slides her smaller, more delicate hand into his.