Fic: Doppleganger Effect (2 of ??)
Title: Doppelganger Effect
By: Chibi-Kaz
Fandom: crossover: SyFy Alice/ Primeval
Rating: PG-13 (language, innuendo)
Pairings: established Alice/Hatter, Jack/Duchess, plus Connor/Abby UST
Disclaimer: Um, duh. I don’t own any of it.
Summary: “Abby, look - Lester will buy pre-historic, and he’ll buy futuristic, but fictional? Not a chance.” Set post-Alice miniseries by maybe a year real-world time, but sometime between when Primeval Season 2 ends and the start of Season 3. (yeah, I’m playing with timelines here, big time.)
AN1: I keep seeing crossovers where Connor Temple becomes the Hatter. To me, they’re two completely different people……
AN2: For alchemistc even though I started writing that Wednesday morning before I ever saw that WRW post….
AN3: My normal writing style is not chapter format, so these updates will be of varying length.
ONE and TWO: http://community.livejournal.com/new_wonderland/151892.html#cutid1
THREE
(A quarantine room in the Heart Castle)
Abby pounded her fists against the grey walls. The walls were grey, the floor was grey, the ceiling was only a lighter grey, giving off an indirect light. As far as she could tell, there were no doors, no windows into this perfectly cubical box of a room. It was constructed of some sort of cross between metal and plastic, and she couldn’t scratch it or dent it or mar it in any way. There wasn’t even a tinny echo to her yells for help.
She finally gave up, sinking to sit curled in a corner. All she remembered was that one minute she was helping Connor maneuver a hand-truck through an anomaly, then suddenly she was falling from a terrible height. The next thing she knew was waking in this grey box, like some bizarre specimen sample.
She sniffled a little. No doubt she’d been kidnapped or captured by Helen Cutter for some nefarious purpose. She could only hope that Cutter could rescue her.
She didn’t imagine Connor rescuing her, which was strange, given the events several months ago, and that was a mental block she’d be forced to examine in the future.
Silent at last, she slowly noticed she could hear sounds from outside the box. Voices, getting closer. She got to her feet, pressing an ear against the wall. There were definitely voices outside.
Then suddenly the wall she was pressed against began to move. Abby backed away, nervously watching. The wall slid away to reveal a room where a stern man in a suit seemed to be controlling something, while another shorter man in a strange sort of robe and hat combination waited.
“Right then. Come with me, miss.” The little man ordered Abby. When she hesitated, the one in the suit reached in and grabbed her arm, pulling her out and propelling her after the short man. Abby stumbled then walked quickly, following the loon in the funny hat, while mister rough suit guy brought up the rear.
Through a larger room, then up a flight of stairs, a turn and another hallway, and she could see people ahead, standing in front of a pair of large doors. A very tall swarthy man in a loony hat matching that of her escort seemed to be talking urgently with a normally dressed couple. The man and woman appeared to be listening closely. The woman had long dark hair and wore a short black leather jacket. The man had a brown hat perched on his head, with a matching brown leather coat. The tall one looked up in Abby’s direction, and said something that made the other two look her way as well.
“Connor!” Abby cried, recognizing the man in brown. She started to run forward, past her escort, but when she got closer, she stopped suddenly. “Connor?” she asked, bewildered.
Because this was NOT the Connor Temple she knew. The man before her looked identical in almost every way to her geeky flat-mate…. except he wasn’t. He had a completely different air from Connor Temple. And of course, there’d be no reason for Connor to be holding hands with a woman Abby had never laid eyes on before.
“Sorry?” he said, and Abby’s throat closed as she realized even his voice was identical. “Pardon, do I know you?”
“I-“ Abby’s hand flew up to cover her mouth. Oh god, what if she’d fallen through to some other timeline like Cutter said was possible, one in which she’d never met Connor Temple? But before she could descend into full-blown hysteria, she heard her name shouted.
Spinning, she saw Connor - another Connor, her Connor - jogging towards her. “Abby,” he called, holding out a hand to her, and she couldn’t help rushing to him, relieved to feel his arms around her. She wasn’t alone in this weird place.
“It’s ok, Abs, it’s ok,” Connor told her, hugging her tight.
“Well, this IS interesting,” a tall blond man said consideringly, eyeing Abby and Connor, and the hat-wearing double.
“I see why you wanted us to come, Jack,” said the dark-haired woman.
“Yer Highness-ness,” the Not-Connor greeted the blond, sarcasm thick in his voice.
“Hatter.” Jack replied dryly. “At least we now know that this man is definitely not you.” He sounded almost disappointed. “Shall we adjourn to the throne room?”
FOUR
(The Throne Room of Heart Castle)
Connor struggled to keep his cool. But it’s not every day one was presented with one’s exact double. He had Abby clinging to his arm, which was quite nice actually, while everyone seemed to keep stealing glances between himself and his double during a flurry of greetings between the new couple and the three people Connor already had met. The crazy knight seemed garner particular affection from the newcomers. Other people in the hall whispered urgently to one another, pointing at him and his double.
Ironically, his double seemed amused by the attention, whereas it was starting to freak Connor out a bit.
“Wow,” the brunette woman said once the eight of them were alone in the Throne Room. “Wow, it’s really remarkable.” She gave Connor a bright grin, then turned to his double. “It’s your evil twin, hon.”
“Alice, love, don’t you think I should be the evil twin?” the other Connor asked ironically.
“Oh, probably,” Alice agreed cheerfully.
“Please, everyone, be seated,” Jack said, indicating a white conference table gracefully. It stood below a white dais bearing a red throne. The walls of the room were painted white with red and black playing card motifs. Everyone except the swarthy tall man moved to the table.
“Keeping the same-old, same-old, I see,” Connor’s double observed cheerfully, dropping into a chair and leaning back comfortably.
“Hatter, please don’t needle, not now,” Grace begged, a note of resignation in her voice, as if she didn’t expect Hatter to accede to her wishes. Hatter smirked, but kept silent.
Connor and Abby sat together. Abby refused to let go of his arm, and she kept staring at the Hatter with suspicion.
“Well then, let me get everyone onto the same page,” Jack began. “Yesterday, we were in the process of re-calibration the Looking Glass from London to New York, when somehow these two oys-“ he hesitated briefly, “people suddenly fell through the Looking Glass. Naturally, Ten and the agents believed him,” a hand indicated Connor, “to be the Hatter, and swiftly brought them here. Uncertain as to how they could have come through mid-calibration, and why Hatter would return without Alice, I immediately sent Ten through to New York to contact you,” this was said to Alice directly, “For some sort of explanation.”
“At which point,” Alice replied, “I told Ten ‘of course my husband is at home with me’, and asked what the hell he was talking about!” She laughed.
“We were kinda in the middle of something, yeah?” Hatter added, and Connor was surprised to see both Jack and Sir Charles looked pained.
“Hatter!” snapped Alice. “We were washing the dishes, for goodness sakes.” In a lower voice she hissed, “Do you have to make everything sound suggestive?” Hatter’s grin answered yes. Continuing normally, Alice said, with a gesture across the table to Connor and Abby, “And now we’re busily confusing the hell out of these poor people.”
“So where are we?” Abby asked, and Connor suppressed a wince.
“Wonderland.” Hatter announced brightly. Alice smacked his arm. “Ow! C’mon, love. You know I like seeing people’s faces when they hear that.”
“Be nice, Hatter.”
“That’s a kids’ story,” Abby countered. Hatter leaned forward and banged his head against the table lightly as everyone else chuckled.
“Does this look like a kid’s story to you?” Hatter challenged back. Alice held a hand to her lips to cover a smile, though her eyes were laughing as she looked at her husband.
“I already went through this, Abs, and they’re not going to change the answer,” Connor whispered to her.
“It’s not possible - it’s a made-up place,” Abby insisted.
“Why?” Alice asked suddenly.
“Why what?”
“Why isn’t it possible? You’re here, aren’t you? You’re awake. Your boyfriend is sitting next to you. We’re all here. This is real, why can’t it be Wonderland?” Alice’s tone, clearly American accented, made it all seem perfectly reasonable.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Abby responded, and now it was Connor who wanted to smack his head against the table a few times. Of course that’s the one element she’d respond to. She also dropped his arm like a hot potato. Connor’s eyes caught those of Hatter, and the other man quirked up a brow as if to ask, why not boyfriend?
“Abs, the point is that we’re actually in this place, and if they say it’s called Wonderland, then it is Wonderland, yeah?” Connor tried to explain.
“Alright, that’s just eerie,” said Grace suddenly. “They actually TALK alike!”
“Disconcerting, indeed,” agreed Sir Charles.
“Connor, what are we going to do? When we get back - if we get back - tell everyone we’ve been to Wonderland?” Abby hissed.
“No, I don’t think so. I mean, look - Lester will buy pre-historic, and he’ll buy futuristic, but fictional? Not a chance.”
“So what do we do?”
Connor held up a hand. “Hang on -“ He turned to Alice. “You’re a Yank, right? From New York City?”
“That’s right,” she agreed.
“So what year is it at home for you?”
“What does the year have to do with it?” Asked Jack, but Alice answered Connor readily anyway.
Both Abby and Connor blinked, then Connor started smiling. “This Looking Glass,” Connor said, “It’s a dimensional portal, not a temporal one!” He turned to Jack. “You said you were switching it, right, from London to New York? So can you just switch it back and send us home?”
Jack nodded. “Of course. There was no question that we couldn’t send you back to the Other Side. We merely wanted to ascertain how you came to be here. And of course, your identity, understandably.”
Both Connor and Abby sagged in their chairs in relief. They weren’t trapped in some other time, up the creek without an anomaly. But Hatter looked at them suspiciously. “Hang on,” he asked. “What is it you do, that you worry about different dimensions versus different times, and whether or not you can get back to a certain year?”
“Oh, we - OW! Abby!” Connor began to explain, but Abby’s sharp jab to his ribs cut him off. “We have to tell them, it’s the only possible explanation for how we got here!”
“Official secrets, Connor!”
“Who are they going to tell? They don’t even live in our dimension. OK, except for them,” he conceded with a wave at Alice and Hatter.
“There are other portals,” Alice announced, making the intuitive leap from the hints in front of her. “But they’re… TIME portals. And you two … adventure through them? Research them? For some British secret agency,” she finished with a crooked smile. Abby scowled, but Connor grinned back at Alice, admiring her quickness. “Some how, the Looking Glass brushed by one of these portals while you two were passing through, and it dragged you here.”
“That’s right,” Connor exclaimed, despite Abby’s disapproval. “It was an anomaly in Lancashire leading to the Eocene era. We were on our way back home when we got pulled here.”
“That is a problem,” Jack interjected suddenly. “The stable Looking Glass portal is located in London.”
Abby joined in, though her tone was clearly unhappy about the amount of information being shared by her co-worker. “That is a problem. We’ve had anomalies close on people before, but they’ve always re-opened in the same area on our side. How do we explain disappearing from Lancashire and reappearing in London?”
“We could simply dose you both with Forgetfulness. Then you simply wouldn’t remember and have no explanation to offer.” Jack suggested, but Alice made a dismayed noise.
“Oh, please don’t!” Everyone looked at her, and she glanced down at her hands for a moment. “I mean…. I’d like it if you didn’t.” She gave a crooked smile to Connor and Abby, then a warmer but more wistful one to Hatter. “I’d really like to have someone else back home, besides us, who knows. I - I just…” But before she could explain, Hatter wrapped his arms around her and kissed her. He whispered something in her ear that made her smile and sigh.
Jack’s eyes narrowed, but he conceded the point. “Very well. No Forgetfulness.”
Connor glanced around, and could see that the others had their suspicions as to Alice’s motivations, but no-one wanted to talk about it. There was a history here, some story as to how Hatter and Alice came to be together, how all these people knew each other, even though Alice was a New Yorker from Earth. For once though, he kept his mouth shut on his questions.
“You’ll simply have to assert that you have no idea how you came to be in London,” Jack said to Abby and Connor. “We’ll have to trust to your discretion.” He didn’t sound like he was happy about that.
“Jack, if they’re on some secret task force, then they are perfectly discreet,” Alice pointed out.
“Very well. Ten,” the King addressed the silent observer to their discussion. The tall swarthy man had been standing by the door silently the entire time. “Tell the White Rabbit team to complete the New York assignment. Then we’ll recalibrate the Glass back to London, and send our unexpected guests home.”
“Yes Sire. The New York mission should only take two days.”
“Two days!” exclaimed Abby. “But… you said we’d already been here a day. If we’re gone for three days, we can’t possible just say we don’t know what happened!”
“The Looking Glass can send you back to almost exactly the time you left,” Grace explained soothingly. She really seemed like a kind person. “Time passes differently on this side of the Glass. Faster.”
“I was here for several days, my first time, and only an hour passed back home,” Alice told them. Another series of expressions went around the group, and Connor wondered about that story as well.
“Alright then,” Abby sighed with resignation. “I guess that’ll do.” Connor winced again. Sometimes, Abby could be utterly impossible.
The short fellow dressed like Ten opened the door. “Sire, the Librarian is here for your meeting.”
Jack sighed heavily. “Why did I become King again?” he muttered. To the short man, he said, “Thank you, Nine, I’ll be there presently.” Standing and addressing the rest of them, he went on, “Well, then, we have a plan, and an explanation. Mr. Temple, you and Miss…”
“Maitland,” Abby supplied.
“You and Miss Maitland will be our guests for the duration. Alice, Hatter, as always your chambers are at your disposal.”
“Shall we have a feast?” Grace asked.
Jack hesitated, then said to her, “If you wish to arrange one… don’t go to too much trouble.” His voice was noticeably gentler to her than to anyone else, even Alice. Grace smiled back at him brightly.
“I’m sure it won’t be too much trouble.”
“Very well, then. I leave you all in Grace’s capable hands.” With that, King Jack left the room, Nine and Ten following. The rest stood.
Alice grinned at Grace. “When’s the date?”
Grace smiled shyly. “In the spring.”
“About time!” Hatter observed, tossing his hat into the air with a spin. There was no way it would have come down anywhere near him, but miraculously, it landed perfectly on his head. Connor frowned - that little trick just defied the laws of physics.
“You’re marrying the king?” Abby asked Grace.
“Yes. At last.” Then she covered her mouth with a hand and a sideways glance at Alice, who only laughed.
“It IS about time. It’s been what, nearly three years now for you? For goodness’s sake, Grace, we’ve put that behind us all.” She gave the statuesque blond woman a warm hug. “I’m happy for you.”
Grace’s eyes shone with tears. “I’m so thankful, you know. That we were able to be friends after… “ Alice just hugged her again.
“OK, I’m dying here,” Connor announced. “What’s the story with you all?”
to be continued
Another note: My brain is writing codas for every S3 Episode of Primeval, wherein either Abby talks to Alice, or Connor talks to Hatter. It's rather disconcerting, watching the episodes, but having HATTER's voice in my head doing commentary!
By: Chibi-Kaz
Fandom: crossover: SyFy Alice/ Primeval
Rating: PG-13 (language, innuendo)
Pairings: established Alice/Hatter, Jack/Duchess, plus Connor/Abby UST
Disclaimer: Um, duh. I don’t own any of it.
Summary: “Abby, look - Lester will buy pre-historic, and he’ll buy futuristic, but fictional? Not a chance.” Set post-Alice miniseries by maybe a year real-world time, but sometime between when Primeval Season 2 ends and the start of Season 3. (yeah, I’m playing with timelines here, big time.)
AN1: I keep seeing crossovers where Connor Temple becomes the Hatter. To me, they’re two completely different people……
AN2: For alchemistc even though I started writing that Wednesday morning before I ever saw that WRW post….
AN3: My normal writing style is not chapter format, so these updates will be of varying length.
ONE and TWO: http://community.livejournal.com/new_wonderland/151892.html#cutid1
THREE
(A quarantine room in the Heart Castle)
Abby pounded her fists against the grey walls. The walls were grey, the floor was grey, the ceiling was only a lighter grey, giving off an indirect light. As far as she could tell, there were no doors, no windows into this perfectly cubical box of a room. It was constructed of some sort of cross between metal and plastic, and she couldn’t scratch it or dent it or mar it in any way. There wasn’t even a tinny echo to her yells for help.
She finally gave up, sinking to sit curled in a corner. All she remembered was that one minute she was helping Connor maneuver a hand-truck through an anomaly, then suddenly she was falling from a terrible height. The next thing she knew was waking in this grey box, like some bizarre specimen sample.
She sniffled a little. No doubt she’d been kidnapped or captured by Helen Cutter for some nefarious purpose. She could only hope that Cutter could rescue her.
She didn’t imagine Connor rescuing her, which was strange, given the events several months ago, and that was a mental block she’d be forced to examine in the future.
Silent at last, she slowly noticed she could hear sounds from outside the box. Voices, getting closer. She got to her feet, pressing an ear against the wall. There were definitely voices outside.
Then suddenly the wall she was pressed against began to move. Abby backed away, nervously watching. The wall slid away to reveal a room where a stern man in a suit seemed to be controlling something, while another shorter man in a strange sort of robe and hat combination waited.
“Right then. Come with me, miss.” The little man ordered Abby. When she hesitated, the one in the suit reached in and grabbed her arm, pulling her out and propelling her after the short man. Abby stumbled then walked quickly, following the loon in the funny hat, while mister rough suit guy brought up the rear.
Through a larger room, then up a flight of stairs, a turn and another hallway, and she could see people ahead, standing in front of a pair of large doors. A very tall swarthy man in a loony hat matching that of her escort seemed to be talking urgently with a normally dressed couple. The man and woman appeared to be listening closely. The woman had long dark hair and wore a short black leather jacket. The man had a brown hat perched on his head, with a matching brown leather coat. The tall one looked up in Abby’s direction, and said something that made the other two look her way as well.
“Connor!” Abby cried, recognizing the man in brown. She started to run forward, past her escort, but when she got closer, she stopped suddenly. “Connor?” she asked, bewildered.
Because this was NOT the Connor Temple she knew. The man before her looked identical in almost every way to her geeky flat-mate…. except he wasn’t. He had a completely different air from Connor Temple. And of course, there’d be no reason for Connor to be holding hands with a woman Abby had never laid eyes on before.
“Sorry?” he said, and Abby’s throat closed as she realized even his voice was identical. “Pardon, do I know you?”
“I-“ Abby’s hand flew up to cover her mouth. Oh god, what if she’d fallen through to some other timeline like Cutter said was possible, one in which she’d never met Connor Temple? But before she could descend into full-blown hysteria, she heard her name shouted.
Spinning, she saw Connor - another Connor, her Connor - jogging towards her. “Abby,” he called, holding out a hand to her, and she couldn’t help rushing to him, relieved to feel his arms around her. She wasn’t alone in this weird place.
“It’s ok, Abs, it’s ok,” Connor told her, hugging her tight.
“Well, this IS interesting,” a tall blond man said consideringly, eyeing Abby and Connor, and the hat-wearing double.
“I see why you wanted us to come, Jack,” said the dark-haired woman.
“Yer Highness-ness,” the Not-Connor greeted the blond, sarcasm thick in his voice.
“Hatter.” Jack replied dryly. “At least we now know that this man is definitely not you.” He sounded almost disappointed. “Shall we adjourn to the throne room?”
FOUR
(The Throne Room of Heart Castle)
Connor struggled to keep his cool. But it’s not every day one was presented with one’s exact double. He had Abby clinging to his arm, which was quite nice actually, while everyone seemed to keep stealing glances between himself and his double during a flurry of greetings between the new couple and the three people Connor already had met. The crazy knight seemed garner particular affection from the newcomers. Other people in the hall whispered urgently to one another, pointing at him and his double.
Ironically, his double seemed amused by the attention, whereas it was starting to freak Connor out a bit.
“Wow,” the brunette woman said once the eight of them were alone in the Throne Room. “Wow, it’s really remarkable.” She gave Connor a bright grin, then turned to his double. “It’s your evil twin, hon.”
“Alice, love, don’t you think I should be the evil twin?” the other Connor asked ironically.
“Oh, probably,” Alice agreed cheerfully.
“Please, everyone, be seated,” Jack said, indicating a white conference table gracefully. It stood below a white dais bearing a red throne. The walls of the room were painted white with red and black playing card motifs. Everyone except the swarthy tall man moved to the table.
“Keeping the same-old, same-old, I see,” Connor’s double observed cheerfully, dropping into a chair and leaning back comfortably.
“Hatter, please don’t needle, not now,” Grace begged, a note of resignation in her voice, as if she didn’t expect Hatter to accede to her wishes. Hatter smirked, but kept silent.
Connor and Abby sat together. Abby refused to let go of his arm, and she kept staring at the Hatter with suspicion.
“Well then, let me get everyone onto the same page,” Jack began. “Yesterday, we were in the process of re-calibration the Looking Glass from London to New York, when somehow these two oys-“ he hesitated briefly, “people suddenly fell through the Looking Glass. Naturally, Ten and the agents believed him,” a hand indicated Connor, “to be the Hatter, and swiftly brought them here. Uncertain as to how they could have come through mid-calibration, and why Hatter would return without Alice, I immediately sent Ten through to New York to contact you,” this was said to Alice directly, “For some sort of explanation.”
“At which point,” Alice replied, “I told Ten ‘of course my husband is at home with me’, and asked what the hell he was talking about!” She laughed.
“We were kinda in the middle of something, yeah?” Hatter added, and Connor was surprised to see both Jack and Sir Charles looked pained.
“Hatter!” snapped Alice. “We were washing the dishes, for goodness sakes.” In a lower voice she hissed, “Do you have to make everything sound suggestive?” Hatter’s grin answered yes. Continuing normally, Alice said, with a gesture across the table to Connor and Abby, “And now we’re busily confusing the hell out of these poor people.”
“So where are we?” Abby asked, and Connor suppressed a wince.
“Wonderland.” Hatter announced brightly. Alice smacked his arm. “Ow! C’mon, love. You know I like seeing people’s faces when they hear that.”
“Be nice, Hatter.”
“That’s a kids’ story,” Abby countered. Hatter leaned forward and banged his head against the table lightly as everyone else chuckled.
“Does this look like a kid’s story to you?” Hatter challenged back. Alice held a hand to her lips to cover a smile, though her eyes were laughing as she looked at her husband.
“I already went through this, Abs, and they’re not going to change the answer,” Connor whispered to her.
“It’s not possible - it’s a made-up place,” Abby insisted.
“Why?” Alice asked suddenly.
“Why what?”
“Why isn’t it possible? You’re here, aren’t you? You’re awake. Your boyfriend is sitting next to you. We’re all here. This is real, why can’t it be Wonderland?” Alice’s tone, clearly American accented, made it all seem perfectly reasonable.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Abby responded, and now it was Connor who wanted to smack his head against the table a few times. Of course that’s the one element she’d respond to. She also dropped his arm like a hot potato. Connor’s eyes caught those of Hatter, and the other man quirked up a brow as if to ask, why not boyfriend?
“Abs, the point is that we’re actually in this place, and if they say it’s called Wonderland, then it is Wonderland, yeah?” Connor tried to explain.
“Alright, that’s just eerie,” said Grace suddenly. “They actually TALK alike!”
“Disconcerting, indeed,” agreed Sir Charles.
“Connor, what are we going to do? When we get back - if we get back - tell everyone we’ve been to Wonderland?” Abby hissed.
“No, I don’t think so. I mean, look - Lester will buy pre-historic, and he’ll buy futuristic, but fictional? Not a chance.”
“So what do we do?”
Connor held up a hand. “Hang on -“ He turned to Alice. “You’re a Yank, right? From New York City?”
“That’s right,” she agreed.
“So what year is it at home for you?”
“What does the year have to do with it?” Asked Jack, but Alice answered Connor readily anyway.
Both Abby and Connor blinked, then Connor started smiling. “This Looking Glass,” Connor said, “It’s a dimensional portal, not a temporal one!” He turned to Jack. “You said you were switching it, right, from London to New York? So can you just switch it back and send us home?”
Jack nodded. “Of course. There was no question that we couldn’t send you back to the Other Side. We merely wanted to ascertain how you came to be here. And of course, your identity, understandably.”
Both Connor and Abby sagged in their chairs in relief. They weren’t trapped in some other time, up the creek without an anomaly. But Hatter looked at them suspiciously. “Hang on,” he asked. “What is it you do, that you worry about different dimensions versus different times, and whether or not you can get back to a certain year?”
“Oh, we - OW! Abby!” Connor began to explain, but Abby’s sharp jab to his ribs cut him off. “We have to tell them, it’s the only possible explanation for how we got here!”
“Official secrets, Connor!”
“Who are they going to tell? They don’t even live in our dimension. OK, except for them,” he conceded with a wave at Alice and Hatter.
“There are other portals,” Alice announced, making the intuitive leap from the hints in front of her. “But they’re… TIME portals. And you two … adventure through them? Research them? For some British secret agency,” she finished with a crooked smile. Abby scowled, but Connor grinned back at Alice, admiring her quickness. “Some how, the Looking Glass brushed by one of these portals while you two were passing through, and it dragged you here.”
“That’s right,” Connor exclaimed, despite Abby’s disapproval. “It was an anomaly in Lancashire leading to the Eocene era. We were on our way back home when we got pulled here.”
“That is a problem,” Jack interjected suddenly. “The stable Looking Glass portal is located in London.”
Abby joined in, though her tone was clearly unhappy about the amount of information being shared by her co-worker. “That is a problem. We’ve had anomalies close on people before, but they’ve always re-opened in the same area on our side. How do we explain disappearing from Lancashire and reappearing in London?”
“We could simply dose you both with Forgetfulness. Then you simply wouldn’t remember and have no explanation to offer.” Jack suggested, but Alice made a dismayed noise.
“Oh, please don’t!” Everyone looked at her, and she glanced down at her hands for a moment. “I mean…. I’d like it if you didn’t.” She gave a crooked smile to Connor and Abby, then a warmer but more wistful one to Hatter. “I’d really like to have someone else back home, besides us, who knows. I - I just…” But before she could explain, Hatter wrapped his arms around her and kissed her. He whispered something in her ear that made her smile and sigh.
Jack’s eyes narrowed, but he conceded the point. “Very well. No Forgetfulness.”
Connor glanced around, and could see that the others had their suspicions as to Alice’s motivations, but no-one wanted to talk about it. There was a history here, some story as to how Hatter and Alice came to be together, how all these people knew each other, even though Alice was a New Yorker from Earth. For once though, he kept his mouth shut on his questions.
“You’ll simply have to assert that you have no idea how you came to be in London,” Jack said to Abby and Connor. “We’ll have to trust to your discretion.” He didn’t sound like he was happy about that.
“Jack, if they’re on some secret task force, then they are perfectly discreet,” Alice pointed out.
“Very well. Ten,” the King addressed the silent observer to their discussion. The tall swarthy man had been standing by the door silently the entire time. “Tell the White Rabbit team to complete the New York assignment. Then we’ll recalibrate the Glass back to London, and send our unexpected guests home.”
“Yes Sire. The New York mission should only take two days.”
“Two days!” exclaimed Abby. “But… you said we’d already been here a day. If we’re gone for three days, we can’t possible just say we don’t know what happened!”
“The Looking Glass can send you back to almost exactly the time you left,” Grace explained soothingly. She really seemed like a kind person. “Time passes differently on this side of the Glass. Faster.”
“I was here for several days, my first time, and only an hour passed back home,” Alice told them. Another series of expressions went around the group, and Connor wondered about that story as well.
“Alright then,” Abby sighed with resignation. “I guess that’ll do.” Connor winced again. Sometimes, Abby could be utterly impossible.
The short fellow dressed like Ten opened the door. “Sire, the Librarian is here for your meeting.”
Jack sighed heavily. “Why did I become King again?” he muttered. To the short man, he said, “Thank you, Nine, I’ll be there presently.” Standing and addressing the rest of them, he went on, “Well, then, we have a plan, and an explanation. Mr. Temple, you and Miss…”
“Maitland,” Abby supplied.
“You and Miss Maitland will be our guests for the duration. Alice, Hatter, as always your chambers are at your disposal.”
“Shall we have a feast?” Grace asked.
Jack hesitated, then said to her, “If you wish to arrange one… don’t go to too much trouble.” His voice was noticeably gentler to her than to anyone else, even Alice. Grace smiled back at him brightly.
“I’m sure it won’t be too much trouble.”
“Very well, then. I leave you all in Grace’s capable hands.” With that, King Jack left the room, Nine and Ten following. The rest stood.
Alice grinned at Grace. “When’s the date?”
Grace smiled shyly. “In the spring.”
“About time!” Hatter observed, tossing his hat into the air with a spin. There was no way it would have come down anywhere near him, but miraculously, it landed perfectly on his head. Connor frowned - that little trick just defied the laws of physics.
“You’re marrying the king?” Abby asked Grace.
“Yes. At last.” Then she covered her mouth with a hand and a sideways glance at Alice, who only laughed.
“It IS about time. It’s been what, nearly three years now for you? For goodness’s sake, Grace, we’ve put that behind us all.” She gave the statuesque blond woman a warm hug. “I’m happy for you.”
Grace’s eyes shone with tears. “I’m so thankful, you know. That we were able to be friends after… “ Alice just hugged her again.
“OK, I’m dying here,” Connor announced. “What’s the story with you all?”
to be continued
Another note: My brain is writing codas for every S3 Episode of Primeval, wherein either Abby talks to Alice, or Connor talks to Hatter. It's rather disconcerting, watching the episodes, but having HATTER's voice in my head doing commentary!