Mad woke early the next morning and slipped quietly through the house, his eyes adjusting easily to the faint dawn light. He wasn't interested in goodbyes, he'd said too many of them, but never managed to get good at them.

"Are you really leaving, Mr. Hatter?" Alice's soft voice stopped him at the front door. 

So much for not saying any goodbyes. Mad turned, a smile that was just barely polite on his face.

"I'm afraid so, Miss Alice." He tugged on his gloves, moving his shoulder gingerly. He wondered if there was anything he could say that would change her mind. He wondered if there was any way to stop this impending war.

Then he decided that wasn't his job. If war wanted to come, war would come. Men couldn't stop it no matter how much they pretended they controlled it. Mad knew it was the other way around. War controlled men with its siren call of glory, then it claimed them for its own in one way or another.

Alice's voice startled him away from his musings.

"But why? You don't seem like the kind of man who would run from anything." She walked closer to him, looking up at him with those big blue eyes. Eyes like cornflowers.

Mad sighed. "There's a difference between running and avoiding a slaughter. It's very similar to the thin line between bravery and stupidity."

"Seems like an excuse to me, Mr. Hatter. It seems more likely that you're just afraid. You can make a difference but you won't because you don't have the guts." Alice finished, then took a step back as Mad leaned close, towering over her.

"Now," Mad said in a very low voice, "I understand that you don't know me. So you couldn't possibly know where I've been or what I've endured, so I'll say this as nicely as I can. You," he hissed, "can lecture me on fear or bravery when you've been through what I have."

"Oh and what exactly would that be, Mr. Hatter? What have you been through?" Alice asked, her lip curling like he was an over-reactionary child.

Mad rubbed a hand over his mouth before saying, "Do the words Japanese POW camp mean anything to you?" He knew they did when she paled slightly.

"Mr. Hatter, surely you aren't saying," Alice began.

He nodded. "Oh yes I am. I'm just one of the lucky bastards who managed to stay alive." Mad didn't like using foul language in front of a girl, but there really was no other word for it. He continued on as she pressed a hand to her mouth in horror. "I'm sure you heard the stories. Like I told Cheshire. I'm done watching friends die. I spent two very long years doing it."

Alice brought her hand down. "How did you manage to survive until you were set free?"

Mad smiled humorlessly. "I escaped. Managed to hook up with some guerrillas. Tried to get some of the other boys out."

Alice seized on this. "But Mr. Hatter! That just proves my point. You save people! You did in the war and you can do it here. Maris told me of the horrible oppression of the Heart Queen. You can help us end that! You can save more people!"

Mad exhaled, fighting the guilt that now reared its ugly head. He placed his hat on his head and said, "You're assuming I was able to save anyone the first time. Goodbye Miss Alice." He quietly opened the door and vanished into the early morning mist.

Mad managed about twenty yards before the memories took him. He began sprinting, trying to escape the brutal, clawed beast called Guilt.

But he wasn't fast enough. He never was. Mad felt the echo of the beatings he'd taken. The way his skin had blistered under the tropical sun. He felt the ache of hunger and the burn of thirst, the weakness of disease.

Worse than this, always worse than what had happened to Mad physically, was remembering the others. The ones that had collapsed and been bayoneted to death. The empty eyes watching him run, escaping into the jungle. Himself watching from afar, with food in his belly while they starved and were eaten away by sickness.

Mad ran harder, lungs burning. Eventually he couldn't maintain the pace and stopped, dropping to his hands and knees. Though he wasn't proud of it, in that moment he hated them all. Alice and Maris and Chesh. All of them for bringing this to the surface.

He was already jolted from sleep by nightmares that left him sick and shaking. He didn't need it when he was awake too. But all he could do was ride it out as waves of guilt and remembered terror racked him.

When it was over, Mad walked through the forest slowly, making his way home. His house wasn't dark the way he had left it, though. Bright lights shone through the diamond paned windows and smoke curled gently from the chimney. Mad pulled out his right gun, favoring his injured shoulder as he racked it, making sure there was a round in the chamber.

Carefully, he nudged the door open to find Sota Heart adding a log to the fireplace.

Sota Heart was the bastard brother to the Queen and hated his half-sister as much as Mad did. Mostly because the Queen had tried to have him jailed and executed on some trumped up charges of thievery.

Mad sighed, re-holstering his gun. "Breaking and entering into the house of one of the three people in Wonderland who own guns is a really good way to get killed, Sota."

Sota stood from where he had been crouched by the fire. He didn't turn to look at Mad when he said, "I need to ask you to do something, Madison."

Mad edged closer. "Okay. What's going on?"

"I need you to kill the Queen."

It was so quiet after that, Mad could hear the clock on the mantelpiece ticking. "I... I don't understand," said Mad. "I thought you had more or less reconciled with your sister?"

"Don't call her that!" Sota hissed. Then quietly, he said, "Would a sister do something like this, Madison?" 

Sota turned as he spoke.

Mad stood staring, not quite believing what he was looking at.

It was important to know that Sota was the product of an affair Mavros' father had had with a servant. The girl had been a Spade, which was part of the reason Mavros hated them so. As a general rule, the Red and Black Decks didn't mix. It wasn't unheard of, it just wasn't very common.

The resulting children were easily recognizable and often ostracized. They had hair like blood swirled with ink and mismatched eyes, one black, one red.

Sota stood staring at Mad from a single black eye. The red one had been torn out.

"Sota... Sota why don't you come sit down, buddy," Mad said gently, the words rough in his throat. He watched as blood dripped steadily from the empty socket.

Sota did as asked and Mad collected two hand towels. One he tore in half, forming a pad. The other, he ripped lengthwise and wrapped around Sota's head gently, securing the pad over his ruined eye.

When Mad had finished, he sat on the coffee table looking at Sota. Very softly, Mad asked, "What happened?"

Sota blinked, then looked like he was struggling to focus. He looks shell-shocked, Mad thought grimly. The kid's hands trembled where they lay in his lap and he refused to look at Mad.

"Did the Queen..?" Mad began, prompting Sota.

"She... she said that I had no right to appear as anything other than a... a Spade. You know how she is, Madison. One moment everything's fine, the next she's screaming for someone's head." Sota stopped, appearing lost, his remaining eye drifting around the room.

Sota started again, his words abrupt. "We... we were finishing dessert. I had thought it strange that the Ace was there... but he'd always been rather a pet of the Queen's. So I didn't think too much of it. Then she said... she said she hated that mix-bloods got a... a red eye. She said they didn't deserve the honor. It..." He drew in a shaky breath. "It didn't make any sense to me. Then the Ace was on the table in front of me. He smiled, in that way he does. I'm sure you know it, Madison?"

Mad nodded, rubbing a hand down his jaw. He knew it all right.

"He, well," Sota let out a wild sort of laugh, "I guess you know what he did."

Sota's breathing had become hitched, quickening as the shock wore off and the trauma caught up to him. His hand crept up to feel at the bandage, but Mad stopped him. Mad had seen soldiers tear off bandaging before, when their minds tried to reconcile with what had just happened to them.

"It's okay, Sota. You're safe now," Mad said, knowing that he might very well be lying.

Sota just shuddered and said, "No Madison. No, I'm not. And I'll never be as long as she's alive."

Mad rubbed at his forehead, Alice's words coming back to him. Without his permission, he heard himself say, "Okay Sota. All right. I'll help you. I'll keep you safe. I won't let them take you back there."

Sota looked at him, his onyx eye wide and vulnerable. "But what can you do, Madison?" he asked despairingly. 

Mad closed his eyes as he realized what he had to do. Not just because of Sota, but because he had come to the sudden realization that this would be something like his own fate if he didn't do something about it.

Frankly, he was just sick of waiting for the Queen to send Tamsus after him.

Mad let out a heavy breath and said, "I'm gonna kill the Queen, and put a Spade on the throne."

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Sota means Knave in Catalan

I dedicated this chapter to @Browniegirl678 since she got my Knave of Hearts reference first:)