Chapter Text
“Hey Miss Liddell! How’s the business today?” Peter greets as he walks into Cheshire’s Café.
Alice tries not to indulge in sentimental pleasures, but it was too good of an opportunity to not name her cat café after her literal cat friend.
“Business is going just fine, Peter. Your usual?” Her favorite regular had been coming in once a week ever since he had found the place a few weeks ago. He had been about to save her from a man attacking her as she had been locking up the place when she took care of the man herself. He didn’t know she knew his other persona, but his attempts to hide it made her laugh.
“Yes, please.” Peter stood at the counter while Alice made his order. “MJ says she’ll be coming to visit you soon to trade books again, she finished that last one you gave her really quickly. I think she wants to discuss a lot of stuff when you meet.”
Alice chuckled to herself, I bet she does. Alice had given MJ one of her favorite poetry books by Janne Robinson. She thought the young girl would appreciate its blunt nature.
“Tell her I’m looking forward to it. How’s your Aunt May doing this week?”
“Aunt May’s alright, she’s been busier and more stressed with all those attacks going on.” Peter responded.
“Tell me about it,” Alice sighed, thinking about her own experience a few weeks ago when she had met Spider-Man.
There had been an increase in the attacks on women that had started last month, but they had been happening too randomly for the police to track accurately and stop the group that seemed to be leading them.
Alice carefully handed Peter his hot chocolate with the signature cat drawn on top with cream.
“Here you go, maybe go find Dinah alright? She hasn’t been interacting with many customers today and I know she secretly loves you.” Alice points toward the black and white cat sitting on the top of the largest cat tree in the corner of the place. She can’t help but always have one cat named Dinah, after all, Dinah had been her first ever cat that had even made it into the book Charles had written about her.
She wiped her hands on her apron and watched as Peter sat down in an armchair near the cat tree, looking up for his favorite feline to join him. Sometimes Peter reminded Alice of her late son, Caryl. Her youngest was the only one she felt she truly got to connect with as he was too young to lose in The Great War. Alice tried not to feel like she was replacing her sons with the young vigilante, he didn’t need another figure like her in his life when he already had his aunt anyway.
Stretching her arms with a smile, Alice walked over to the counter to take orders.
“Hi, what can I get started for you today?”
~
Alice groaned as she made her way up the stairs to her apartment. There had been a small group that walked in just before closing and she was alone, having sent the rest of her employees home.
“Come on everyone, let’s go.” Alice called to her cats. It would be more convenient to leave them in the shop as they had everything they needed, but she was paranoid of leaving them vulnerable to a possible break in.
As she reached her bedroom, Alice’s attention was brought over to her desk where she had left something of great importance.
The black journal lying on the wooden surface was detailed in red and golden stitching, creating a design of no specific significance. However beautiful its exterior was, the contents inside were anything but, filled with whatever recollections Alice could bring herself to write down before and after the many times she killed herself.
Typically, she would keep her journal locked in her safe, but she was tired the previous night and ended up leaving it in the open. Most people would be disturbed by what she had scrawled on the old pages, but it was rather comforting in a macabre sort of way when she was exhausted. After the day she had, Alice picked up the journal and slumped into her chair, falling into a recent memory.
~
Alice was walking the few remaining blocks to her apartment. She had just gotten takeaway after a long day at work; one of her employees had brought red roses in as a thanks for being “The best boss” she’d ever had. Unfortunately PTSD doesn’t go away even after a century and a half which resulted in Alice having experienced a minor flashback that zapped her energy levels for the day.
So at least she had an excuse for being off her game when she was suddenly stopped by a figure in front of her.
“Hey there beautiful, whatcha doing out this late…all alone?” A tall man leered over her, holding a cigarette in his left hand. His hair was dark just like his eyes, nothing about him really stood out except for his height.
Now, Alice wasn’t that short, about 165 centimeters or 5’5”, but this guy just seemed to tower over her. Almost like she had taken the wrong side of a mushroom.
“I’m bringing food to my boyfriend at home, he’s very hungry and I wouldn’t want to keep him waiting, you know.” Alice replied with irritation in her voice. She hated how it was necessary to act like she had a boyfriend to ward off men.
“Well now, did you get any for yourself? That doesn’t look like very much…Maybe I can take it off your hands for you” The man grinned and quickly put out his cigarette on Alice’s arm holding the food.
“Fuck!” Alice cried as she dropped her Thai. Damn, I was really looking forward to that, she thought.
The man smirked and reached into his belt to brandish a knife as he backed a foot away from her. “Look like a good one to you boys?” he crooned.
Alice turned around to see two other plain looking guys walk out of the alley she had been stopped by. They were also holding some sort of knife in their hands, sharing equally douchey expressions on their faces.
“You got a nice one, Ben, she reminds me of my ex, I can pretend she’s that stupid bitch as we gut her. Even has the same brown hair and blue eyes.”
Alice unwillingly blanched as she realized she probably wasn’t going to make it out of the small circle. Without wasting any more time she rushed forward to the first man, Ben, and performed a move she learned at her local self-defence program, forcing him to drop his knife on the ground.
“Shit!”
Alice spun around to see the shortest one right behind her rushing forward with his knife, there’s no time to react before he’s jabbing it into her abdomen. She gasps in pain as the blade twists around, clearly looking to do the most damage possible.
“Nice work, Evan, drag her over here and we can continue.
Alice felt cracks and shooting pains in her ankles as her assailants broke them to prevent any chance of her running away.
When Alice had heard of the rising attacks in New York, she’d hoped they would stay away from her area, if only to spare the several young girls that she knew lived within her radius.
“Nighty night, bitch,” taunted one of the men from above her. Her vision went black as he smashed her head against the ground.
~
Alice had woken up early that morning with only a vague sense of disappointment that homicide wasn’t capable of putting an end to her existence. She had hastily left the building after swiping a report with her name on it from a nearby desk, hoping there wasn’t any night security in the area.
Though instead of security guards, she should’ve worried more about cameras, if she had, maybe she wouldn’t have ended up in her current situation two weeks later.
“Miss Liddell, would you like to explain what we’re seeing in this video here?”
No, she was quite confident she wouldn’t.
“Miss Liddell.”
The man standing across the table in front of her was looking rather impatient, and despite the urge to annoy him further, Alice learned from her years alive it would be best to give him an answer instead of ignoring him more.
“I see someone who looks to be a woman, leaving a room.” Alice smiled.
What she also learned was that it was far safer to deny any sort of confession about her abilities when accosted by authorities.
“You know well enough that is not what I was asking.” The man’s expression went from just impatient to irritated.
“Well I thought that you’d know well enough that the first thing in a visit is to say ‘how do you do?’ and shake hands, then state your name and business. That's manners.” Alice replied firmly. She had a right to be annoyed as well, she had been taken from her place of work which had no doubt worried her employees (she’d told them to just lock up per usual if she wasn’t back by closing).
“Very well, my name is Agent Coulson and my business is figuring out how a woman enters a morgue, appearing to be dead, and exits a few hours later on her own looking very much alive.” The man answered with a pointed look.
“Maybe the woman was never dead at all, people can make mistakes you know, that’s why people invented safety coffins, it happens.” Alice cut her loss of the greeting and handshake, deciding it was better to respond instead of continuing her ruse of complete ignorance.
“Now back in the day, I might’ve believed you, but I’ve seen a thing or two since then, and how else would you explain the detailed report that includes your time of death recorded on the computers at the morgue.”
Well shit, Alice thought. She was hoping that the presence of the paper copy would negate any online backups. She always knew that the advancement of technology would catch her at some point, she just didn’t think it would happen so soon.
Turning her head away to observe the room she was in. “Look, I know just as much as you do, I was scared. I didn’t know where I was, it was the middle of the night, and my last memory was walking home with takeaway before I woke up in a morgue.” There was a large mirror on the wall to her left and a plant in the corner, but the concrete room was otherwise empty.
Alice looked back to Agent Coulson, “I didn’t think anyone would believe me if I told them.”
Normally, Alice would relocate after dying to avoid situations like this, but after aliens had attacked New York, she was experiencing financial hardship like most of the city and decided it wouldn’t hurt to stay a little longer.
“Well despite your fears, thank you for telling me now.”
Clearly, she was wrong.
“However, Miss Liddell, I would like to ask you something else.”
“Please make it quick, I do run a business and would like to get back in a timely manner.” Alice said with a polite smile, holding up a pocket watch.
She had picked up a few habits from her friends in Wonderland, and though they had confiscated most of her things, security had allowed her to keep her watch and key necklace.
Agent Coulson frowned slightly before continuing, “Your miraculous returning to life incident isn’t the only thing of interest about you. Though you say you know just as much as me, it seems that would be false. I was wondering if you could enlighten me with an explanation of these photos.”
Alice snapped her pocket watch shut and stared at the open file place in front of her. Her eyes darted across the collection of images with dates on them spanning decades back into the past–all of them close ups of herself.
“I’m sorry, I don’t really understand your confusion, people often look like their family members from years past.” Alice glanced back up at the man standing across the table, heart beating faster. “You can’t expect me to know any more about this than you do.”
“Ah, but the thing is we can. You see, if you look at the dates, they don’t exactly align with what you are telling us now. And if you were telling the truth, then why aren’t there any daughters in these photos that would make your story plausible. Why is it that when we looked into you, you had false documents. Why is it that there are photos of you dating back to the early nineteen hundreds where you look as you do right in front of me?” Coulson’s voice got louder with each question, causing Alice to slowly drop all emotion from her face.
“Well?” The man pushed.
Alice just stared at him, unblinking.
Now Alice had some temper issues of her own, but over the years she had learned how to tamp them down to avoid reminding herself of the Red Queen. She had also learned that if you gave people what they wanted when they were yelling, they would only continue.
“Do you have a restroom here I could use?” Alice asked calmly.
“What?” Agent Coulson looked confused at the abrupt topic switch.
“I haven’t gone in many hours you see, and I run a café where I often find myself drinking more tea than most. I was hoping you would allow me to use the restroom. That’s manners.”
Coulson sighed and looked to the window to his right, “Very well, follow me.”
Alice grinned and stood up to follow him out of the room.
They walked down a hallway as bleak as the room she was just in, except the hallway had cameras on every ceiling corner where there was a turn.
Once they reached the restroom, Alice walked in and immediately checked under all the stalls to make sure there was no one to watch her.
Satisfied, she reached into her blouse and pulled out the key on her necklace. It was silver and only a few centimeters long, but thankfully it did more than hold sentiment.
Alice took the key and inserted it into the keyhole on the inside of the bathroom door, watching as a dark portal formed in front of her eyes.
Sighing at the problems this was going to cause, she stepped through.