(Okay so I added a huge chunk to the Wonderland part and beefed up the scene at the end, so I recommend rereading it)

Birdie landed with a soft thud. She had expected some sort of back-breakingly painful landing, but instead she landed as if she had only just collapsed into her bed . She opened her eyes, which had squeezed shut in terror, and light flooded through. The sky was a clear blue, and the grass she was laying on was an extreme color of green that seemed as though it was glowing. Small mushrooms were scattered everywhere in the field she was in. In the distance, in a penned off area, she could see some animals grazing.

"You lost?" Birdie heard a voice say behind her. She groaned and sat up, turning her head to the speaker. Three kids her age stood in a group behind her, looking worried. Two girls and one guy.

Birdie bolted up out of her sleepy, relaxed position on the ground. Where she was hadn't sunk in yet. Her brain felt fuzzy from all the darkness of the hole."No, no, no! I was in the forest! And I was running, then the hole? What?"

"Um, you're in Wonderland." A blonde girl said, twirling the end of her blonde ponytail on her finger anxiously, her blue eyes trained on Birdie in part curiously, part suspiciously.

Birdie's eyes widened. "Wonderland? No, oh god, no." Her breathing had shortened and her thoughts were all becoming anxious, swirling around her head. She had left Henry alone. She was in Wonderland. Freaking Wonderland. What would Snow think had happened? What would her mother think had happened? Her head spun round and round with all her worries.

"It was probably the rabbit hole. It's pretty unpredictable. It pops up random places, wherever it thinks it's needed, I guess." The guy said. He had shaggy brown hair and dark blue eyes. He was tall and lanky, and had a very relaxed air to him."Uh, are you, having a panic attack?" He asked, noticing Birdie's increasing breaths and the look on her face.

"No." She said. "Well, maybe. I don't know." Inside, she was thinking about he said. Wherever it thinks it's needed. Why, out of everyone, would some conscious rabbit hole pick her to abduct to this land? Maybe fate was just too cruel.

The last girl, who had long black hair and bunny ears coming out of a velvet top hat, reached out and put her hand on Birdie's arm. Birdie flinched at the touch, a side effect of her time with her mother.

"Um, sorry." The girl said awkwardly, retracting her arm. Birdie looked at her, and their eyes connected for just a second too long.

The girl's eyes were a deep brown color that looked like wood that had just been polished. They reminded Birdie of the wood on the sides of the jukebox at Granny's. She felt a jump in her stomach, but she couldn't tell if it was from just the eye contact or from the panic attack she was fairly certain she was currently having.

'Push through,' she thought to herself.

"Um, do, do you know how to leave?" She asked, more to the group than to one singular person. The boy shook his head. "Once you end up here, it's almost impossible to leave." He said.

The girl with the blonde hair elbowed him. "I don't think that's helping right now."

"Sorry!" He exclaimed, throwing up his arms in surrender.

Birdie closed her eyes. Henry... He was all alone, in the middle of the woods, and he would be waiting for her, presumably with another harebrained scheme of his. Usually she managed to talk him out of the crazier ones, and she shuddered to think what would happen now. And her family, Snow and Charming and Granny and all the rest, where would they think she was? She took a deep breath, the best she could do at the moment.

"Do you need a place to stay?" The brown eyed girl asked.

~~~

Alice pulled Bunny aside. "What are you thinking?! She could be a spy for the Queen!"

Bunny glanced over at the girl. She was still having a panic attack. Cheshire was glancing back at them nervously, uncomfortable with the girl.

"Yeah. The girl who just fell to Wonderland and is currently hyperventilating looks like a major threat." She said sarcastically.

"Well, you never know. The Queen has magic. She could've disguised a guard or something."

"Wouldn't we have noticed? I doubt a middle aged man can impersonate a teenage girl very well. Plus, remember, we gave you a chance when you came to Wonderland. We should give her the same chance." Bunny argued.

"That was before we pissed the Queen off!"

"Yeah, but there was another queen who we had pissed off back then as well, so we were still risking a lot taking you in, but we did anyway." Bunny said.

Alice let out an exasperated sigh. "I hate it when you have a point."

In the distance, they heard a bugle sound out. "Speak of the devil." Bunny said. How the hell did the Queen know where they were all the time? Bunny blamed the farmers. They gossiped about everything.

They ran back to the group. "Hey," Bunny said, tapping the girl on the shoulder. She had calmed down a bit, but she was clearly still in shock. 

"We gotta go. The Red Queen is coming." 

"Who?" The girl asked. 

"Nastiest person in all of Wonderland. C'mon." Bunny offered her hand to the girl. 

Cheshire and Alice were wound up, ready to run when Bunny said the word. The girl grabbed her hand and pulled herself up, and as soon as she had they all set off running. It was an instinct drilled into Bunny, Alice, and Cheshire after a year of running. It seemed like running was a regular practice for the girl as well, because she had taken off in a way no one who wasn't used to running for their lives would have. 

Bunny's mind tried to stay focused on not tripping on any bumps in the ground , but in the back of her head, she ran over what Alice had said about the girl being a spy. The idea was more plausible than she gave Alice credit for, but the girl seemed authentic enough. They also weren't mean enough to leave behind a completely defenseless person in the wake of the Queen. She was called the Red Queen for a reason. 

But Bunny still felt a nagging feeling in her gut. When they had connected eyes so suddenly, her eyes had somehow seemed... familiar. Like she had seen them before. 

She shook away the thought and kept running. That was After a couple of minutes of running, they reached the edge of a dense forest. They all stopped, their breathing labored. 

"Um, I think this may be a little bit after the fact, but what are your names?" 

"Wow, you really are new around here." Alice commented. "Our faces are basically plastered on every corner of a building, along with the words EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. Anyway, I'm Alice." She said. "This is Cheshire," She pointed to him, and he gave an earnest smile, one that always made the palace guards go on edge. It usually meant something would go horribly bad for them. "And this is Bunny." Bunny smiled self consciously. "It's because of the hat." she said, motioning up to her battered top hat with the bunny ears attached.

 "My name is Birdie." She said. She put her hand on a tree to steady herself, and jumped in surprise when it yelled at her. 

Oi! Haven't you ever heard of personal space?!" It rumbled. Birdie backed away from the tree hurriedly. 

"Some trees do that." Cheshire said, clarifying. 

"Some?" 

"Some of them are just regular trees." 

"Yeah, it's best not to lean on any of them." Bunny said. 

"But don't you use wood for firewood and houses and that kind of thing?" 

"Yeah, but the only way you can tell is if you poke them before you chop." Bunny replied, and scanned the rim of the forest, and found the opening to the path she was looking for. 

Cheshire was a step ahead of her and had transformed into his cat form and bounded over, his purple and pink stripes sticking incredibly against the dark foliage. Birdie blinked. "Did he just turn into a cat?" 

"Yeah. He's the product of a very strange relationship. You don't want to know the details. Oh, and also, sometimes he goes invisible." Alice said. 

"Alright. Are more weird things like this going to happen?" Birdie said. She wasn't sure she could take anymore surprises. She was used to magic, but she wasn't used to it being so blatant, so rampant.

Bunny chuckled. "Tons." 

And she headed into the forest and Birdie and Alice followed closely behind. 

Cheshire morphed back into a human and grinned. "Slowpokes." 

Alice rolled her eyes. "Well, if I could turn into a cat and bound over here I'd be faster." She quipped. "Lets go."

"So, Birdie, where are you from?" Cheshire asked as they started down the dirt packed path. 

"Oh, well it's a little complicated, I guess. I was in a land without magic when I fell through the portal." 

Alice perked up. "Oh, really? That's where I used to live." But a second later, her eyes clouded over a bit, as if thinking of her former home had let in unwelcome memories. 

"But is that not your home?" Bunny asked, seeing Alice's expression and ready to steer the conversation away from such troubled waters. 

Birdie shrugged. "I-I guess not. I haven't been home in years. It was a little... hard to reach from where I was. Have you lived here all your lives?" She asked Cheshire and Bunny.

"Yup. I've always lived here." 

Bunny nodded. "Yeah. I've never been anywhere else. Alright, here we are." She said, and they all stopped.

A small path branched off from the larger one, and at the end was a small campsite, with a couple of tents, some logs around a stone pit, and a large pile of logs behind it. 

"Well, this is it. Home." Alice said, a tinge of bitterness and longing in her tone. 

Birdie smiled. "It's nice." She said. 

"Well, this is basically all of it. Tents, logs, pit. You got the full tour." Bunny said, spreading her arms wide. 

"It's getting a bit dark." Cheshire said, glancing at the sinking sun. "I'll get the food." "I'll get the fire started. Birdie, would you mind getting firewood with Bunny?" Alice said. "Oh, yeah, of course." 

They started the fire and had a small dinner of berries. After darkness fell completely, Alice and Cheshire retreated to their tents, leaving Bunny and Birdie sitting around the fire. Bunny noticed the way some strands Birdie's brown hair seemed to turn golden in the warm firelight. Bunny felt her cheeks redden then shook herself. 

"Hey, I was wondering about something you said earlier." Bunny asked. "Yeah?" "You mentioned someone called Henry. Who is he?" 

Birdie looked down, and Bunny could feel her mood shift from relaxed to worried. "He's my little brother. I was supposed to be meeting up with him. I don't know if he's okay. He's some of the closest family I have left." 

"No parents?" Bunny asked sympathetically. She knew how that felt. 

"There's a mother, but we're not on good terms, to say the least. Can I ask you a question now?" 

"Go ahead."

 "What's with the logs? There are a lot more than you would need for a fire." 

"Well, that's a project we're working on. We're going to try to build a cabin. Tents are nice and all, but we need shelter from rain and those kinds of things. Plus, it'd be nice to have a permanent home." Birdie cracked a small smile. "Poked all of them before you chopped them down, did you?" 

~~~

Birdie awakened from her dream, or memory, she supposed, feeling nauseated and sad. She remembered the bewilderment of that day so clearly in her mind. She had been so terrified as well. So unprepared. But She felt a few tears run down her cheeks, and tried to stifle her sobs, so they ended up coming out all choked, which only made her want to cry more.

It felt like forever since she had seen them last, but it had only been a few days. Her heart throbbed with pain that hurt more than her stitched up wounds. They wouldn't be able to come after her. They didn't even know where she was. For all they knew, she could be in Narnia. Her hands curled up into fists and she bit her lip, and tried to hold back her tears

This just made her cry even harder. She had been so stupidly sacrificial. Herself and her stupid honor. Giving up one family for another. She left in the worst possible way she could've imagined. And when she finally got home, her own little brother didn't even remember her.

In between sobs, she heard rustling. Why was it when she woke up that people were always sitting there, watching?

She craned her head up from the laid down position she was in, propping herself up with her elbows, then wincing as pain shot through her wounded arm.

Her eyes focused on the visitor, and her annoyance developed into something much more fatal.

Her mother stood up. "I-I was just about to leave."

"Yeah. You should." Birdie said coldly, her voice still garbled from tears. 

Regina lingered for a second. "I've changed, you know." She said. She had clearly been rehearsing the line in her head.

Birdie scoffed."That's what you always say. It's never true. Please go." She had said it time and time again. To get Birdie to trust her and every time, and Birdie had gotten crushed when she saw that her mother was the same as always.

"It is this time. I promise." Regina said.

"I'm not ten anymore. I don't have any hope anymore that you'll change. So just give it up." Birdie snapped. She felt adrenaline in her veins prepping her for a fight. She was so mad. Her emotions had been pent up for years, while she had thought over everything that had happened between her and her mother. After a long time she had made her peace that her mother would never go back to the way she had been, but now all of those angry emotions came rushing back, and she realized making your peace and burying your feelings were two very distant things.

"I can't give it up. Please Carmen, I swear this time it's different. Please. I'm your mother."

"You're not my mother anymore! You don't get that privilege. And my name is Birdie now. I gave you chances. You screwed each and every one of them up, and somehow I was the one suffering from that. No more chances. No more forgiveness. Leave." Birdie said, her lips pressed together and eyes hard as stone.

Seeing that she would get nowhere with her at the moment, Regina left the hospital bedroom feeling defeated. Maybe she could get Snow to help her convince Birdie. Regina was grasping at straws, hoping one of her attempts might work. She had to get her daughter back. She needed to make everything right again. But she feared there was too much damage. When she saw her laying there, her face calm and peaceful, not contorted with anger, it hit Regina how grown up she had seemed. She wasn't her little girl anymore.

Birdie laid back down. Regina had no right to even come near Birdie, no right to even acknowledge that she had been her mother. After everything she'd done to Birdie. That was the reason she had kept her curse name, to show her mother she didn't control anything about Birdie, not even her name.