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Where Jervis Tetch was at that particular moment was the other side of Gotham, a good many miles away from the sewer that had initiated the voyage, as he opened the door to the run-down hat shop for the second time in as many days to allow his weary guest to enter.
Alice couldn’t even remember how they had got there, the nervous exhaustion from the whole ordeal having left her in a daze. She had been vaguely aware of exiting the underground labyrinth somewhere near the water front before taking some sort of boat from somewhere to somewhere else, part of the journey spent passing through a plane of sweet-smelling rushes that she had never known grew within the city limits. After that there might have been five minutes or two hours of walking, for all she could recall; some amount of drawing back into side-streets to avoid people distorting the time, but with the early night drawing in to their advantage nobody had given a second glance to the couple hurrying back to their lodgings in the December chill.
Now finding herself in a narrow, old-fashioned boutique, Alice fell into the first chair she came across, almost falling asleep against the radiator right there and then as her guide set to lighting a gas lamp. She blinked at it in bleary confusion as he explained something about the electricity still being shut off apologetically, unused buildings, something along those lines.
“Oh, that’s fine… Jervis, I don’t mind…” Her half-comprehending response cut itself off in a long yawn behind her damaged hand before she finally succumbed to sleep, her body and mind relapsing from the shock and exertion.
How many hours later she woke she couldn’t tell, save that it was light, and from the angle it was falling in across the bed she found herself in it must have been well past ten in the morning. Sitting up she rubbed her eyes, trying to process the most peculiar dream she’d just been having, when she realised her hand was wrapped up in something.
A sleep-smothered second of figuring out that it was not bedding as she’d supposed resulted in her blinking in mild confusion at the neat binding, the scent of ointment issuing from beneath the small bandage. Attempts to flex her fingers summoned a dull but entirely real pain which dispelled the last of her drowsiness, along with the remaining impression that what had happened had simply been a dream.
Looking around the unfamiliar room with its unfamiliar ceiling and unfamiliar curtains sent the revelation slamming home like a judge’s gavel; she hadn’t dreamt all that. She really had run away from home. She had run away from her husband by following a white rabbit to fall down a hole and escape underground to some unknown location with a notorious villain, a man condemned as insane as the product of her own influence on him; the Mad Hatter.
She sat back against the pillow, quite winded from the analysis.
“Jervis…” Straining her ears above the distant sound of traffic she could make out some sort of activity taking place downstairs. Looking down at her sleep-crumpled clothes she wondered whether one ought to feel so self conscious about one’s appearance regarding an escaped lunatic.
“But he did save you, my dear,” she reminded herself, “and one really ought to try to be presentable for people who do that sort of thing. Besides,” she patted down the worst of the creases in her dress as she made for the door, “he did sound terribly sane for a lunatic.”
But how did one know what a lunatic sounded like? Alice wondered, as she made her way down the narrow stairs, finding herself in the shop front along with a good many dusty shelves and plastic-wrapped hats, the sounds of what might have been cooking floating from behind the door marked ‘employees only.’ Deciding that if Jervis counted as an ‘employee only’ then she probably did as well, the curious lady opened the door incrementally, the fact that she could have just as easily walked out of the front door to her freedom not even crossing her mind.
“Oh, Alice! You’re awake, excellent.”
The man who was beaming at her, waving a spatula cheerfully over something that Alice could only suppose had been potentially edible at some point, hardly looked like a mad-man escaped from an asylum for the criminally insane. Indeed, it was taking her some effort not to laugh at the sight of Jervis trussed up in a faded chequered apron, evidently enjoying his new-found freedom, if in a rather disastrous way. It was beyond her not to smile and wave a shy greeting, as she walked up to see what he was doing to unfortunate contents of the skillet, waving aside plumes of oily smoke.
“Jervis, what are you making?” Other than a glorious mess, she wondered.
“Why, breakfast of course! Or, well,” the blond-haired man looked down at the smouldering substance in a puzzled way, “I thought I was; only it doesn’t look quite right, does it?”
“It doesn’t look quite left,” she giggled down at the charred food through a small fit of coughing- it was a wonder the fire alarm hadn’t gone off, “it’s all but disappeared! Whatever did you do to it?!”
There was some discussion over the fact that scientists evidently shouldn’t take up the culinary arts before the pair disposed of the blackened stuff, laughing like school children after a chemistry experiment gone awry in the most spectacular manner. It took them both a good five minutes of talking like this to notice that they probably ought not to be; a moment of soberness falling over the pair as the mirth left the atmosphere along with the smoke.
“… Perhaps,” Alice started, after an awkward silence that was about as hard to swallow as the ill-fated breakfast would have been, “I could cook for us instead?”
“You?” The escapee blinked at her in abject surprise at the suggestion; “But, you couldn’t possibly, after I…”
“After you what?” The former secretary rested her knuckles on her hips in a manner that he found quite charmingly stubborn, if rather surprising given the circumstances.
“Got me out of a terrible mess that I got myself into? I’d be the one returning the favour.” She pointed at the remaining charcoal attached to the pan, not giving Jervis so much as a second to point out that she had hardly gotten herself into that situation in the first place, let alone deserve it.
“Please,” any further thoughts about arguing flew swiftly out of his head when he found a familiar hand squeezing his in a kindly insistent way, “I… know we haven’t seen each other for a long time, and things have been rather… odd, between us,” wasn’t that the understatement of the year, “but I really wouldn’t mind, and I really am terribly fond of cooking, you know.”
“You are?”
Alice nodded, honestly, lighting up as she expounded on the topic. “I could make you an omelette I tried making last week? It’s got courgette and red onion and paprika and, oh, all sorts of things in it! Billy really li-” Another awkward silence practically clouted her over the head, as she stalled, replacing the impetus of speech with a bite to the lip.
“W-well, I think it worked out pretty well, anyway; it’s my own invention.” Her optimism recovered itself at the last part, which she announced with innocent pride. Part of Jervis was tempted to ask whether it was based on blotting paper and sealing wax, but the ramblings of the white knight would probably have confused the matter more than aiding it.
“That sounds positively frabjous! Oh, only, there aren’t any eggs…”
“I could go and get some?”
“You would?” He regarded Alice yet again with surprise, as her platinum locks bobbed in confirmation. He knew he ought to protest and offer to go out himself, but with the news having circulated so far and wide, and his distinctive appearance… a gloved hand rubbed guiltily on his sleeve as he tilted his head in admittance; “It might prove more successful than my own endeavours… are you sure you’re alright with going alone?”
Alice smiled fit to out-do a Cheshire cat, the prospect of exploring an unknown part of a dangerous city seeming to be quite a delightful prospect to her. “Oh yes, of course! I’ll be careful, don’t worry; and I’ll try not to be recognised.” She confirmed, although she wasn’t really sure of how to do this last part at all.
Jervis seemed to have some idea though, as he smiled in an appraising manner. “Well then, you needs must have the appropriate headwear for the purpose…” Walking back through to the shop frontage, the scientist sent a hand skimming along a row of boxed objects before landing on a wide blue parcel, faded to grey on the edges.
Lifting the lid after blowing off the worst of the dust he extracted a superb piece of millinery craft, holding the object up to the light to make sure it was in good condition; it was a generously brimmed hat, the carefully formed felt a fine-brushed light blue elegantly trimmed with white lace, a wide satin ribbon in a warm, translucent pearl colour flowing over the side to accompany the bow and arrangement of feathers seated on the left side. It was an astonishingly beautiful thing, more beautiful than any hat Alice had ever seen before, as Jervis placed it over her head in a gentle sweeping motion, tying the ribbon under her chin in a surprisingly practiced manner. Tilting it by just the slightest degree he stood back to observe the result.
“Picture perfect, in every way.”
Alice blushed to the tips of her ears, touching the sides of the bonnet with reverent fingers as she stuttered; “Y-you think so? Really?”
“Absoposilutely. Why, I’d venture that hat was made for you!”
It really did look like it had been, as well; the felt was almost a dead match for the colour of her irises. Jervis had to catch himself before he started looking too smitten (although really it was already far too late for that), as he turned to the counter to extract an amount of money from the till that caused Alice to inhale sharply; there had to be at least two month’s worth of Billy’s wages there. Noticing her expression as he handed her the cash the former work-colleague shrugged with a confessing smile, if not an entirely innocent one.
“Sadly, my less-honest methods of living proved to be somewhat more lucrative than my former employment… don’t worry, it isn’t stolen.” Not exactly- more a voluntary donation of sorts, he added mentally, as she looked on the verge of handing it back; although he couldn’t read her mind to understand it was the generosity, not the origin of the money, which had flummoxed her for the present. “There’s a high-street just to the South of this area; you’ll be needing some new clothes and other such conveniences. I’m afraid this establishment wasn’t designed with visitors in mind... Please; get anything and everything you want, it’s the least I can do.”
Walking down the main street, which she had found with little difficulty, Alice had to confess that life under the hat was a vast improvement. There had been some continued argument on her part that she simply couldn’t take such a beautiful object and such a vast sum of spends, but there had been no acceptance of any such claims on the Hatter’s part, Alice eventually having to give in and leave the shop with a final farewell smile and a wave.
Now looking up at the tall, graceful buildings that rose either side of her with their long glass windows and brightly varnished doors, Alice had to check that she wasn’t skipping instead of walking; she felt elated. How wide the pavement was here, how very like a horse’s whinny that woman’s laugh sounded, how bracing the breeze that chased itself amongst the bustling crowd was. Realising that she herself was a part of this crowd, an individual amongst a great mass of individuals, Alice had to find the excuse of laughing at a street performer to permit the bubble of joy that had found its way of her mouth. She threw a coin into the musician’s hat on the floor, touching the brim of her own to him when he bowed obligingly.
Continuing on at a spritely pace she considered her reflection as she walked alongside it, watching it skip between clothes shops and bookstores as easily as a ghost. And how very lovely that hat looked on the mirror girl, and how well it hid her profile behind the slanting rim and ribbon; it made her feel as if she were wearing a mask. Even from behind one could only catch sight of a little of her long yellow hair, and in this part of town, why, she couldn’t even claim to know the postman. She smiled to herself again, thinking it a terrific game- to be able to walk a street, as invisible as any other stranger.
“Ah, but you aren’t quite yet, you know,” she reminded herself, looking down at her familiar grey-green dress, earning an odd glance from a couple walking past her as she spoke to nobody; “-and it would never do for you to turn down such generosity.”
Noting the shop that she had stopped outside was a dress-makers of some sort, a smile lit up her face at the pantomime display in the window; the outfit between the rendition of Peter Pan’s Wendy and the Sugar-Plum Fairy seeming to leap out at her from the glass, as she eagerly stepped in through the door to converse with the old lady at the till who looked uncommonly like a sheep.
“I won’t have it!”
The young man with the blockish jaw smote the commissioner’s office with the flat of his palm a second time, as the white-haired gentleman attempted to pacify his ill-tempered client.
“Now, Mr Antrim, you have to understand; these procedures take time, and if the neighbours say you had an argument before she left… well, we can’t afford to spare the police force on-”
“You think I’m jumping to a conclusion?!” Billy leaned over the hard-working man’s papers in a manner that didn’t intimidate the experienced Gordon in the slightest. “Well perhaps I am- because it’s the correct one! Don’t tell me you’re going to take this as a co-incidence; that lunatic breaks out, and Alice goes missing the very next day?”
The commissioner grimaced in a slightly more relenting way; “The two do lend themselves to the suggestion…”
“Lend themselves to the-?!” Billy threw his hands into the air in a passionate gesture; “It’s as near to infallible proof as be damned! We can’t waste time debating it as a possibility! For all I know she could be trussed up in some car’s trunk, or tied to the mast of a sinking ship, or being forced to-“
“Yes, yes, I get the point,” Gordon held up a hand to stem the tirade; “I have dealt with these sorts before, you know…”
“So you agree?”
The experienced man pondered for a moment, fingers pressed together under his chin as he considered his opinion despite the impatient agitation that Billy was exuding.
“I agree that these two instances may well be related,” he tapped a finger against the papers on his desk indicatively; “however, with the police forces spread so thin at the moment, I simply cannot spare the man power at the present time, and considering Jervis’s history with Mrs Antrim, I do not believe her to be in any immediate danger. Dr Leland supports me in this theory.”
If Billy had spluttered any more he might have been in danger of literally choking himself.
“No immediate danger?!”
“I’d extend that to ‘any’ danger, myself,” the Doctor stood, having been sat quietly in the corner watching the proceedings until now, as she endeavoured to explain; “Mr Tetch’s case is a particularly unique one. As… unpredictable as he is, from our observations of him during his stays at Arkham, I would say that the concept of harming Alice would be as abhorrent to him as it is to you, Mr Antrim.”
Billy frowned at her persistent logic, and really, ‘his stays at Arkham’? What was that place meant to be, a hotel? “So that’s it. You aren’t going to do anything? Just leave her to whatever depraved imaginings that buck-toothed freak had planned for her?”
“Now, we never said that,” again, Gordon defused the irate man by placing sagacious hand in the air, ignoring the icy look Dr Leland was giving the irate husband, “I’ll set however many men I can spare onto it straight away, but I can’t say I’d expect that to be more than half a dozen, and Bullock is still following a lead on Posion Ivy. Until we’ve settled the panic this whole affair has caused that’s all I can offer, but I assure you that we will do everything in our power to return your wife to you, safe and sound.”
Seeing that the commissioner seemed unlikely to take this discourse any further, Mr Antrim muttered a few black sounding words under his breath as he swung himself out of the room, Dr Leland breathing out through her nostrils with narrowed eyes as the door closed behind him.
“Well, he was a pleasant customer.”
Gordon wiped a tired hand over his face with a sigh; “Now, Leland; he has good reason to be concerned. His wife was at the heart of the matter that started all of this, after all. He was a victim himself at the time; becoming distressed over a development like this is quite forgivable.”
Dr Leland made a noise that could have been interpreted as begrudging acceptance. Gordon took it as sufficient signal to proceed with their discussions; “Now, you were telling me about your theories as to where Miss Isley may have retreated to…?”
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Having bidden Alice farewell on her voyages, Jervis had decided to set about making the shop look a little more like a shop and less like a derelict hide-out. Dusting the front of the store had taken a great deal longer than he’d thought, but finally the place could be traversed without a cloud of dirt rising behind your every footstep, and he stood back to observe the layer of polish he’d just given to the service desk with a glimmering of pride at the accomplishment; circuitry, yes, but woodwork had never really been his forte.
“There now, that’s at least two impossible things done before breakfast;” he commended himself, as he set about arranging the packaged hats in order, selecting a few to take out to put on display, “and I dare say that you could count it as three, with dear Alice being so accommodating.”
Who would have supposed she’d even talk to him after all that, let alone after causing her to fall down a manhole? The fact that she’d offered to make breakfast, well; it was enough to make a Mock Turtle dance! He swept a fine wool bowler onto a hat-stand, setting it at a becoming angle whilst humming a snatch of something that might never have been written. Still, pulling the watch out of his waistcoat pocket, he had to wonder how she was faring; certainly she needed the time to get her bearings and adequate supplies, but it had been quite a few hours since…
“Oh, you foolish, foolish man.”
A gloved palm smote his forehead at the obviousness of the situation. Of course she’d fled; gone to the police, little doubt, and who would blame her? Certainly not he: sighing in resignation he couldn’t even bring himself to contemplate making a run for it. No, he’d earned this, and she’d every right to be the one to turn him in. Then again, perhaps she just wanted to escape from everything; leave this city and its bad memories behind, and him with it.
He smiled a sad smile of acknowledgement at this plausible notion;
“Always such an intelligent girl.”
“I do hope you aren’t talking about me behind my back.”
The hat Jervis had been reluctantly removing from its box almost shot straight out of his hands to the ceiling, as the voice came in through the door laughingly- he’d been so occupied he hadn’t even heard the bell sound when she’d stepped over the threshold.
“A-Alice! Ah, I was just…”
Just…
What had he been doing?
Whatever he’d been doing, thinking or otherwise, had completely evaporated from the poor man’s mind, along with his mind, for the sight that greeted him on turning around had quite robbed him of any and all remaining senses he had.
It was if an illustration by Sir John Tenniel had come to life. Everything, right down from the charmingly natural blond hair down to the shining silver buckles on the simple black shoes, was something that only his most wonderful dreams could have conjured. For a moment he wondered whether he had become trapped in his own dream machine, as he observed the young woman beaming from ear-to-ear conduct a spritely twirl in the sky-blue dress, swaying it from side to side whilst admiring it herself.
“What do you think?! Isn’t it darling?”
Alice deposited the half-dozen bags on the counter, holding the skirt out at the sides as she conducted an experimental curtsy, though she didn’t really know how to do one. She explained brightly to the stunned looked scientist; “You ought to do that, when you’re thinking. It saves time.”
This seemed to send Jervis into even further dizziness, as he quite forgot about the hat which had tumbled to the floor, taking a step back from the vision of beauty. “You… that’s… you know that line?” He pinched himself quite hard to ascertain that he was not dreaming; to his astonishment it hurt. Regardless he repeated the action just in case.
“Of course!” Alice pouted so prettily Jervis thought there ought to be rules against that sort of thing; “My parents used to read me Alice in Wonderland when I was little- I mean, I am called Alice, silly, of course they would!”
“Of course they- no… no this is all wrong, I can’t, you can’t possibly…”
Watching the flummoxed man back himself against a wall Alice quirked her head to the side curiously; why, he almost looked afraid! And what on Earth would he ever be afraid of me for? She wondered, justifiably.
“What’s the matter? Don’t you like it?”
“Don’t I-?! I, of course, but you-” Jervis’s head looked as if it didn’t know how to nod or shake properly, as it ending up doing a funny sort of diagonal twitch occasionally. “You really shouldn’t have… I mean…”
It appeared to be something that had to be addressed whether he wanted to or not, as several therapy sessions at Arkham about the subject came back to clock him around the ears as he sighed in explanation, remembering what Dr Leland had said about the matter; “Alice, you’re you, not that Alice… you’re your own person, you didn’t have to… this is degrading for you, isn’t it?”
“Stuff and nonsense.”
His eyes couldn’t have looked any more shocked if he’d had ten thousand volts sent through his nervous system, as Alice assumed the same hand-on-hips pose of indignation that she had before. “I’ve not had this much fun in years; and it matches this hat perfectly. Besides, you gave me the money, and I absolutely refuse to take it back.”
Grinning in a comfortingly teasing way, Alice’s face fell slightly when she saw that Jervis still looked utterly guilt stricken; really, some people were impossible to please.
Sighing with gentle reproach she walked over to take his hands, ignoring the look on his face which might have been comparable to a frightened deer.
“I got this for myself, and to say thank you.” She gave his numb fingers a little shake of encouragement with a final smile before returning to the bags, extracting an array of ingredients;
“Now, won’t you please let me make you something to eat? I kept you waiting an awfully long time for breakfast.”
She smirked, ignoring him as she walked past him into the kitchen with her arms laden with food; “How many impossible things did you manage?”
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“Useless.”
Billy spat the word venomously to himself, setting to work cutting out the jagged black shape that he’d marked out on the vinyl he’d purchased on the way back to the apartment, the craft knife working around the silhouette in ill-tempered scores.
“The whole lot of them, completely useless, sitting back twiddling their thumbs while a maniac runs around the place kidnapping people, it’s like they’re waiting until it’s too late to do anything-!”
Mr Antrim had not returned to his very big and important job at the very big and important office that evening, having stopped by a general wares suppliers to pick up some materials. Holding up the finished icon he looked at it with grim determination; the helipad floodlights on the office roof would have to suffice for the rest of the signal.
“Well, even if they’re not going to do anything about it, I know someone who will.”
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“Now come on, Crane. We know you and Tetch have had a close relationship ever since he walked in here. You're hardly the type to adhere to the idea of honor amongst thieves, but you must know something.”
The professor returned the head doctor’s scrutinising look with one of perfect boredom; “He was an interesting subject, other than I can safely say that I had no particular affections for him, or any other inmate. Have you known me to before?”
The bespectacled man frowned through his lenses at the stubbornly laconic inmate. The questioning had been going on for twenty minutes, and hadn’t turned up so much as a single clue as to why Jervis Tetch had escaped this time, nor where to.
“Perhaps not, but are you telling me that you had no knowledge of this ‘interesting subject’s intentions? Come now, he must have told you something for you all to have allowed him to escape rather than hold him back with the rest of you?” His fingers laced together in a professionally reassuring manner; “You understand that we only want to help him, don’t you? This is all for his own good.”
“That’s exactly what our former warden used to say.”
The doctor’s face blanched- he’d been hoping that Crane wouldn’t resort to that topic as a means of defence. Observing the red-haired man’s unreadable face for one last time he finally sighed in resignation, waving to the escorts; “Alright. Take the professor back to his cell, I do not believe we will make any further progress today.”
The Scarecrow having been permitted his leave, the doctor ran a hand through his greying brown hair to look askance at Leland; “What do you make of all this? Do you think we might be wasting our time here? Perhaps it was just co-incidence that forced them to work together…”
“I don’t know,” Leland shared his looked of puzzlement, although hers was more thoughtful than fatigued; “It’s just so unlike Jonathan; spreading mass panic amongst the inmates, yes; letting other villains out and helping them to escape? No.”
“Perhaps he owes some debt to Tetch? Something that happened back then-?”
“Let’s hope not,” Leland stretched, her finger hesitating over the intercom to summon the next interview subject; “Or won’t have a hope of getting any clues out of him.”
The buzzer sounded dully as she requested; “Alright, you may send Miss Quinzel through now.”
It looked like this long day was not going to end any time soon.
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Two people who didn’t mind this notion were two who both knew they really shouldn’t be having such fun, or talking like the old friends they were as if nothing strange had ever happened between them, but really, with it being so close to Christmas, what was the harm in it?
The rest of the day seemed to pass far too quickly for the pair, as they caught up with each other, discussed what their respective families used to do at this time of year, and generally whittled away the hours with pleasantly aimless conversation. Alice absently marvelled at the fact she was laughing at a joke that Jervis had told her as they chatted, not a day removed from their usual routine back at the Wane Corp’s laboratory. Everything in this place seemed so entirely opposite to the world that she had left yesterday before she fell down the rabbit-hole; the world was backwards, mirrored from everything that had been usual. The convict was a funny and faithful companion, her husband a deranged and frightening spectre. She was almost in danger of returning to the realization that she shouldn’t be enjoying herself at all, when the topic shifted again, and she happily went along with it
Well, it had been an awfully long time since she’d had such a good conversation with someone who wasn’t herself; why not enjoy it?
At some point during the discussions Jervis had commenced some repairs on the remaining cards before he set about constructing more, the only allusion to it in the dialogue being a mere question as to “why” he was making them from Alice, which was responded to by his simply replying that he’d “run out”.
Naturally this made perfect sense, and really seemed all that needed to be said on the matter, so the talk proceeded, blithely ignoring any questions that a more demanding audience might have had to contribute.
So it continued; a perfectly ordinary day spent between two old friends who hadn’t seen each other for a long time. Nothing more, nothing less, and neither could have been happier with the arrangement.
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“You called?”
The shadow-black voice caused Billy to jump considerably, as he turned around to come face-to-face with the cowl and cape that had surely not been there two seconds ago. Recovering himself, Mr Antrim produced the photograph he always kept in his wallet, handing it to Batman as means of explanation. It was downright surreal, meeting a costumed vigilante in the middle of the night on his workplace building’s roof; goodness knows what they’d do if they found out he’d broken in to use their helicopter lights to summon a man most of the police classed as an outlaw.
Batman’s unreadable visor scanned the picture. “Alice Pleasance?”
“You remember then, and it’s Mrs Antrim, now,” Billy corrected the imposing figure; “She’s missing.”
This caught the masked man’s attention, as the thickly eye-browed husband registered the sharp look up with a feeling of satisfaction; finally, someone who recognized trouble when he saw it.
“Since when.”
“When do you think?” Billy took the photograph back with a grim look that turned to an imploring one. “The evening after he broke out. The police won’t act; say they don’t have enough men, not enough evidence to be sure…”
Watching the eyes that seemed to pierce the darkness around them narrow into slits, Billy accurately guessed that Batman was sharing his opinion on this matter already. No great wonder; he wasn’t about to say it out loud, but with the Hatter posing as the Joker like that, it seemed that even the Batman had had the wool pulled over his eyes. At least, that was the general feeling that had been circulating thanks to the media, who seemed more intent on making the criminal look like a genius than a mad man.
“I’ll look into it.”
“What? Bu- wait!”
But he was already gone. It was hard to even tell when he’d swept off the roof in that pitch-black cape of his, but the sound of fluttering cloth and of a rope pulled taught was all that Billy had to look after; the man already vanished into the silhouettes of the night. Giving a small grimace of annoyance-come-content, Billy turned off the light and set to removing the evidence before heading home; forget the police, if anyone could return her to him, Batman could.
