#if BJ died three years before Alice was born then Lizzie was five not eight

[victorluvsalice]

Forgotten Vows Friday: Forgetting You Chapter 5 -- Director’s Cut Edition

NOBODY PANIC I’M NOT ABANDONING EVERYTHING TO GO ON A WILD EDITING SPREE AGAIN. This is simply the addition of a single scene to Chapter 5 of “Forgetting You.” So why am I going back and sticking new scenes into an old story again?

Well, you can blame my new fan/buddy MartyrFan, an Iced Tea (Alice/Jack Frost from Rise of the Guardians) fan who recently got into my Valice stuff and started binge-reading a lot of the Forgotten Vows Verse. He recently wrote a slew of reviews for “Forgetting You,” and one of them contained this quote:

It's a little late for me to be asking about this, but what about Hysteria? Alice uses it for the first time after the first memory of the fire. I think that being to do THAT was definitely worth writing about, no offense. 

Seeing that made me remember something -- I actually HAD written a scene showing off Alice’s first use of Hysteria, which also introduced the “burning Liddell doors” memories (aka the plot-important memories you have to see to progress). For some reason I don’t remember, though, I never put it in the finished product. With MartyrFan asking about, and me knowing that it was probably WAS a little weird that Hysteria and mentions of it appeared later in the fic as normal, I figured it was worth going back, rewriting the scene up to my current standards, and slapping it in Chapter 5. It comes between Alice collecting the Victor memory and Alice finding the Hatter (as Alice gets the tutorial on Hysteria right before she meets up with him again). I’ve touched nothing else save the first couple of lines of the “meeting the Hatter” scene to help it merge in a little better.

Chapter 5 on FF.net

Chapter 5 on AO3

Chapter 5 on my website (formatting went funny there though, and I still haven’t managed to change my theme)

One of the things Alice hated about the human brain, and her brain in particular, was its tendency to associate certain innocent objects and events with rather less-pleasant ones. White sheets with her bed in Rutledge, for example. Old keys with Bumby's hypnosis sessions. Red-and-white stripes with Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum.

Or, like at the current moment, the front door of her house with her first fight with the Jabberwock. She glared at the portal before her – familiar white wood tarnished with gray ash, flames leaping behind the decorative iron flowers in the window, LIDDELL written in charred letters across the top. What it was doing here, set into a pile of old junk cogs and springs in the depths of the Lost and Found, she couldn't say. But it was there nonetheless – and, annoyingly, appeared to be the only way forward in this maze of clockwork and steam. "Come on, Alice," she scolded herself. "You mustn't dillydally. You saw the Jabberwock's skeleton blow away on the breeze. He's not a threat anymore. And this – it's just a door. It can't hurt you."

Her right hand ached from a long-healed wound, reminding her that yes, when the door was on fire and the knob blazing hot, it could hurt you, and very well. She sighed. "I'm wearing gloves this time – well, most of a glove," she corrected herself, wiggling her bare fingers. "And there's metaessence galore in all those boxes and barrels scattered about. I can heal myself in moments. We've barely started our journey – there's no point in stopping now."

Evil yellow eyes, thick sharp claws, a boiling furnace that poured out streams of flaming death – Alice shook the image away. "He's gone. I can't spend my life afraid of something I've already defeated." She squared her shoulders. "And if anything like him lurks behind that door, it'll have to face my Blade and my Grinder, and fall like all the rest." As encouraged as she could possibly get under the circumstances, she stepped forward and grabbed the knob, twisting it quickly and wrenching it open to reveal –

The library.

Alice stared as she stepped inside. The room was just as she remembered it, back in happier times. Shelves on almost every wall, filled practically to bursting with books old and new. Papa's photography equipment, lovingly spread out over a nearby table, filling the air with a chemical stench. Toys scattered across floor and chairs (including a jack-in-the-box – that explained a lot about where the Jackbomb had come from). The family portrait at the head of the room, showing all four Liddells in their Sunday best. And beneath that – the fireplace, blazing away to chase off the early November chill. Alice swallowed as she took it all in, only too aware of how little effort it would take to turn pleasing heat into a raging inferno. A single malignant spark, as her mother had said. . . . "Our lovely library was a fire trap. A conflagration waiting to happen!"

. . .Which I already knew, so why on earth are we belaboring the point?

Alice put her hands on her hips, letting out a frustrated growl as the memory faded back into darkness, leaving only the flame-licked door behind her. Wonderland was playing games, and she didn’t like it. Why dress up such a simple reminder so? She'd just had a memory from Mama about how dangerous her father's "unnatural devotion to printed paper" was to them. Granted, Lorina's tone had been more jocular, equally a playful complaint about her husband's hoarding habits and a hidden warning to be careful when in the room, but still. It had delivered the same message. What had been so special about this brief image that it warranted further dressing up from the little crystal house? Was there a clue she was supposed to have seen – a little thing out of place that hinted at the true cause of the fire? But everything had seemed in order. . . . If you want me to get to the bottom of things, Wonderland, you have to give me more than that!

Well, at least she hadn't had to shed any blood in her family home this time around. She turned and opened the door again. More heaps of rusty junk greeted her eyes – but they were different heaps this time, at least. Apparently she'd been taken just that bit closer to the Hatter. Which is the absolute least Wonderland can do to help – oh damn!

She burst into butterflies, just barely avoiding the steaming, oozing hand. The Insidious Ruin flapped its china jaw and waddled after her. Alice turned and sliced it to ribbons with the Blade, but more were already forming, thick black puddles rising up through the junk. . .she darted around the trash piles, trying to keep track of them all without taking a hit. Two – three – four – five – “Ah!”

She stumbled, pinwheeling her arms wildly as she teetered at the edge of a sudden drop. The Ruins (two more, seven now, she'd never faced so many at once) took advantage of her distress and charged. Alice butterflied out of the way again, but a straggler managed to sear her side as she reformed. She went to slash its hand off, only to be knocked off-balance by one of its friends scorching her back. And then another rammed into her, sending her to hands and knees. . .she butterflied once more, looking for free space, but they just followed, an inescapable black wall of pain. . .she got her feet, but another hand came out and she was stumbling backward again, terrifyingly close to the edge. . .a leap took her over them, but they turned with distressing speed. . .one tore at her hair, another grabbed her arm, and she couldn't get to one without opening herself up to another. . .it hurt, it hurt, it all hurt so much. . .so much pain, so much fear, so much – so much –

So much anger. Her jaw clenched as the Ruins kept up their attack, chipping away at her life bit by bit. She could have returned to the Home by now. She could have just gotten the stupid pills and been back in time for lunch. She could have found a book to read, or told another story to the children, or gone for a walk with Victor. She could have even been doing more chores like a normal person. But no, Wonderland couldn't let her have that, could it? It had to drag her away from reality and torture her with happy memories gone sour and never give her a straight answer to any of her questions and try to bloody goddamn KILL HER EVERY TIME SHE TRIED TO PROGRESS – Her entire body throbbed with pain, and it was too much, too much, too MUCH –

The scream exploded out of her throat, a shockwave of sound that sent the Ruins flying back. Moments later, her Blade was in her hand, and she was slicing and dicing with a fervor she hadn't felt since the last time she'd been hit with a Ragebox. "How fine you look when dressed in rage," Cheshire purred across her memory, and she did, she was a goddess of destruction in black and white and red and the Ruins were screaming, doll heads tumbling into the abyss, pipes and pulleys crashing to the ground, and it was all glorious she could do this forever kill and kill and KILL –

And then, suddenly, brown and gray and brass were back in her vision, and she had no idea how she was even staying upright.

She braced herself against a junk heap, looking around. Not a Ruin to be seen, but a whole field of metaessence roses, glittering in the dim light leaking through the ceiling. Alice collected the nearest, shaking as it broke apart into red mist and soothed her pain. She was glad that the threat was gone, but – how was she capable of such intense fury? Had some somehow managed to internalize that horrible sprayed poison from the boxes? Or was that rage just an essential part of her being? I know I can be moody, and snappish, and just plain mean, but. . .oh God, I hope I haven't hurt anyone in reality. She wiped the sweat from her forehead. Probably just proved all those doctors who liked to call me "hysterical" right. . .actually, thinking about it, "Hysteria" wouldn't be a bad name for that. . . .

She took a deep breath and steadied herself. It's over with now, she thought as she circled around the battlefield, touching each rose in turn to regain her strength. And to be fair, it got me out of a very bad situation just now. Hopefully it only triggers when I'm that near death. And, doubly hopefully, only here in Wonderland. Otherwise. . . .

She didn't want to finish that thought. She picked up the last rose and brushed off her skirts. "Over and done with," she repeated. "And I don't think Wonderland would keep me if I'd actually killed someone. Just have to keep a close leash on it." She ran her fingers through her hair. "Come on. You'll feel better when you find Hatter." I hope.