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The place that Robert felt best suited for was the Tea Party, and the place that Mimsy felt most comfortable in was the Tulgey Wood, so she chose a location between the two of them, because that seemed fair to her. Still silent, she led him to the border between the two zones, where scattered trees and teacups occasionally overlapped into exactly what she hoped to find.

It was another overturned teacup, cracked and chipped away by something long gone. It was large enough to serve as a little shelter for both of them, and small enough to ensure that they would be left alone.

She ducked inside and knelt on the grass, and began to carefully arrange her coat and skirt around her, nails picking at the hems as she went along.

Just as it seemed as if she was content to do nothing but fidget and adjust and readjust her clothing, she looked at Robert and smiled; crooked, but a smile.

"No." After all of that silence, the word came out so sure. It was also incredibly anticlimactic, until she began to speak again. "No, I do not want to return to Deus Ex. My sense of self is separate from my body, which is little more than the equivalent of our golem technology, in my mind. Even if my body would wither into dust, I would stay, if I could stay forever."

As she spoke, she reached for his hand, and gently brushed her thumbs back and forth over his palm. Information could not be shared via touch or osmosis - she knew that - but the connection seemed important, even if she didn't know why, exactly.

"I do want this to be home! I am confident that we could be happy here. I believe that you could show me the meaning of 'home' in Wonderland, because I would still like to know. And neither of us truly want to be there...if they would not find us, do you really think that we would not have walked away by now?"

It was a serious question, and she paused to let it sink in properly.

"If we do wake up, however." She sighed, and struggled to keep her eyes on him. "Why are you scared of waking? What do you think will happen? I ask because...I would rather not leave Wonderland, but I am not afraid of returning. Do you know something that I do not?"

Was that all that frightened him? Mimsy's brow was knit with deep thought, as she tried to work through why he would feel the need to express his fear of such a thing to her. Certainly he knew that she didn't want that to happen either...or had she kept too much to herself? Was she not sharing enough?

"Regretfully, I am very, very aware of that possibility," she murmured, tilting her head downward as she pulled his hand closer to her. She pressed his palm against her cheek and leaned into it, sighed, and closed her eyes.

"But there are factors that we can help. There are things that could be done, if we return to Deus Ex. And there are constants that are vitally important in both worlds - like you." A little smile briefly crossed her lips, and she pat the hand on her cheek. "As long as I have you, I am capable of making other adjustments."

This would just be a particularly difficult one.

When Robert moved to put his hat over his head, Mimsy did nothing but watch him, baffled. Why was he doing that? It concerned her, at first, that she might have said something that troubled him so much that he could no longer stand to look at her. Then his words didn't match that sentiment in the slightest, and she was back to confusion again.

"I know." She smiled, even if he couldn't see it. "My previous doubts were so dreadfully unfounded! The evidence overwhelmingly proves that fact. You should be proud of yourself, if you aren't, you know. A one-hundred percent success rate is almost unheard of."

While she spoke, she shifted her legs from their place beneath his head, and gently let him rest it on the ground. She crawled on her hands and knees, until she could get a better look at the hat, and tried to stifle her laughter to avoid scaring her prey. Her ears twitched, and she narrowed her eyes...then she smacked the hat away, and leaned back onto her heels.

"But I heard it! I noticed all of it, because I have always paid very close attention to you."

Then she was gone.

Not actually gone - just invisible, as Cheshire Cats were wont to do. The grass was very clearly rustling, and it was obvious when she stopped, because the sound subsided. There was silence for only a few seconds, before she reappeared all at once.

"Very close," she whispered, eyes peering directly into his, inches away from his face. She quickly stole a kiss, and began to giggle as she pulled away and sprawled herself next to him. Or on him, mostly, as that was where two limbs and more than half of her body were now comfortably resting.

When the giggling faded, she took a deep, contended breath, and turned her head up to look at him.

"Are you still afraid?" The tip of her tail curled, like the other Cheshire Cat's had as he asked riddles in the Tulgey Wood."Or is that thought comforting enough to dispel worry for you, too?"

Really, Mimsy should have known that she would not get away with that. She laughed and wriggled beneath all of the kisses, and did not nudge him or ask him to stop, because this was Wonderland. This was a place where she was allowed to give him all of her time.

So she did. Of course she did. It was as tangible as she imagined love and the other emotions of humanity to be, and it was only fair to give him that, after all that he had so willingly provided.

When he answered, it was to voice a worry over something that she thought was obvious again. Could he not tell? Or was there something that she was missing about what he told her? He had mentioned that he couldn't explain it 'good', so it seemed possible that she misunderstood.

She was quiet again as she thought, her tail lightly swaying back and forth as his fingers brushed over her arm.

"Do you doubt that I want you to be here?" The touch on her arm was trembling, and she reached to take his hand in an attempt to steady it. "I do want you here! Or is it a concern that what I 'want' might be divided? That I might not be able to have both Wonderland and you, at some point?"

Anxiety crossed her face, just briefly, only a flash. No. That wouldn't happen.

"Your wording..." she began, hardly more than a whisper. "Based solely on what you chose to mention, you seem to feel as if Wonderland is not important to you...and that you are not important to me?"

She blinked at him.

"Is Wonderland important to you?" With a little frown, she tilted her head to the side. "You are important to me. Surely you know that. You are of greater importance than this Wonderland, in fact. Statistically speaking, I could recreate this world, or journey for years of my life again to discover another like this, but there will never be another...well. You. There will be duplicates and alternates, but none with the specifications that you possess. Which are just the specifications that I happen to like!"

That was not a coincidence in the slightest, which she had probably established by now, but she still spoke as excitedly as if it was one. Admittedly, it was still very exciting to have found someone who so accurately met those requirements.