Hatter

G O O D B Y E

"We need to save her." Hatter's eyes shone with desperation.
Absolem gave him a smile, nudging his shoulder playfully. "Come on," he joked. "Stop messing around, will you?"
"I'm being serious."
There was a silence as his words sunk in. The twins shifted uncomfortably, Tweedledum fiddling with the strap of his backpack, while White Rabbit jittered in unease. Tweedledee let out an uneasy squeak.
"Hatter," he whispered, his childish eyes fraught with worry, "let's just get this over with. Please, this is the most important night of our lives-"
"And you're being a selfish idiot," Absolem completed with a tinge of irritation in his voice. "Really, just look at yourself. First you go off on your own and almost botch up the entire mission, then you try to take charge by implementing the plan that I had come up with, then when we somehow manage to acquire the staff after all our mishaps you suddenly decide the Queen's the victim after all this time." His voice rose dangerously high. "Have you forgotten everything she's done to us? Have you forgotten everything she's done to you? She tore you out of your house and tried to destroy everything you loved-"
"But she's not a monster." Hatter stared back at him defiantly. "She's-"
Tweedledum bit his lip. "Hatter, if you're not feeling well I have some pills with me to-"
"Please," pleaded Hatter. "Just hear me out."
Absolem's eyes flashed. "So you're going to bail on us too like March Hare did? Are you going to abandon your friends when they need you the most?" His grip on Cat tightened and his eyes flickered to her face as it rested on his shoulders. "What about her? Doesn't she matter to you at all?"
Hatter glanced down. "She does, but-"
His brother stepped closer and pushed him in barely disguised disgust. Hatter stumbled backwards, not so much from the force of Absolem's shove but from the shock of seeing the open revulsion on his brother's face. Hatter took a few steps backward, then stopped as his feet touched the Bandersnatch's slimy body. He recoiled instinctively.
Cold.
Its skin was cold.
Hatter crouched, raising a trembling hand to the creature's neck. It looked so pitiful, lying there in a wretched heap as if it were a mound of dust waiting to be blown away by the slightest hint of wind. He waited patiently for a pulse, a strange mixture of emotions settling in his stomach. He had seen his brother's tranquiliser syringes in action before; all they did was to put the victim into a deep sleep- but this time it was different. He prised the syringe out of the Bandersnatch's skin, watching drops of liquid seep between his fingers.
Hatter got up. "So, Absolem," he said, his voice calm. "What a great opportunity it was to test out one of your new poisons, wasn't it?"
His brother gave him a sneer. He seemed different now; Hatter didn't know why- there had always been fissures and cracks in the experiences they had shared together, the sort of fissures and cracks that lingered on for a few days before dissipating once more into the friendship and affection that accompanied siblings; this time, though, there was a rift between them, a gaping gash that yawned wider and wider with every passing moment. For some reason, Hatter felt an odd sense of deja vu, as if this sense of loss were something that had repeated itself before in some other timeline, in some other life of his.
"Now you're sympathising with the Queen's little pet?" Absolem let out a shaky laugh. "Really, Hatter, I knew you were always mad, but this-"
"Why did you kill it?" Hatter's tone was cutting, sharp, like the first wisps of a storm foretelling disaster. His voice shook slightly, and his hands clenched into fists till they were drained white. If Hatter could have seen himself, he knew exactly what he would have looked like; strands of hair covering half his face in a dishevelled mess, streaks of blood lining his cheeks in ragged jets of lightning, his eyes wide and dilated in a crazed expression-
Yet he had never felt more sane.
There was a suffocating silence. Finally, Hatter spoke again.
"I'll ask again, in case Mr. Solemn here is deaf." His voice rose and his eyes flashed. "Why did you kill it?"
Absolem's gaze flickered round the group. "Because if I didn't," he replied slowly, "it would have killed us all."
"Killed us? Killed us?" A laugh. "If you had just tranquilized it like you said you would, what difference would it have made?"
"What difference would it have made, indeed? What difference would it have made if that monster lived or died? What difference would it have made if I slipped in a poison syringe instead of a tranquiliser one? What difference would it have made if I, to preserve the future of my team, put an end to a creature incapable of feeling? It's just the Queen's puppet- a beast without a consciousness. A puppet designed to fight, to kill; you were there when that bloodhound creature attacked us at the doorway, weren't you? Didn't you see-"
Hatter gritted his teeth. "But it was human at one point, wasn't it? The Queen's staff turns humans into puppets, but how do we know her puppets don't have consciousness? What if they're still inherently human?"
"It doesn't matter." Absolem's voice rang out, cold and clear. "They're against us now. And they're beyond the point of return."
Hatter paused, fury and betrayal welling in his chest. When he finally spoke, his voice was curt: "Well then. That means I'm beyond the point of return too."
With that he stepped forward, toward the direction they had run from. Tweedledum's eyes widened, and he ran forward to clutch Hatter's leg.
"Hatter," he pleaded. "Don't... don't do this. Please-"
"Running back to the enemy, are you?" said Absolem, spitting out the last words in contempt. "First March Hare, and now you."
There was a moment's silence as Absolem waited for a response.
He tapped his foot impatiently. "Well? Don't we deserve some semblance of an explanation? Don't I deserve some semblance of an explanation?"
If Hatter had an answer to give, he would've given it. To tell the truth, Hatter didn't know anything, really; he didn't know why the death of the Bandersnatch had hit him so hard, he didn't know why he was now suddenly sympathetic towards the Queen of Hearts while she ruined people's lives and wreaked havoc over everything she touched, he didn't know why his heart gave him an uncomfortable sense of dread that whispered that he didn't belong here, that he didn't belong with them. It was confusing, and Hatter had no idea what he was doing here or why he kept hearing snatches of voices in his head or why he kept switching consciousness between two worlds or whether any of these worlds were real in the first place- reality and imagination had meshed together to form a cacophony of hallucinations and noise and chaos where it was virtually impossible for him to find the rhythm of thoughts he was looking for and to find the peace that his mind needed, that he needed. He knew he couldn't explain all this to his brother, because no matter how hard he tried Absolem would never understand.
Hatter gently prised Tweedledum away from his leg, patting him on the head lightly and giving him a small smile. The twins always insisted they were grown ups fit for taking down armies of any size, and their healthy builds more than made up for their boasts- in Hatter's heart, though, they were still just little children.
He straightened, raising a hand towards his brother. "Take care of Cat."
Hatter then walked back the way he had come from, towards the Queen of Hearts.