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Eventually, Mimsy felt sleepy instead of simply exhausted. For the first time in recent memory, she didn't fight the feeling, and opted out of another cup of coffee to get her through the day in favor of actually getting some rest for once.

It was more in favor of attempting to dream a very specific dream, but that was not obvious on the outside, and Svensyl was still not talking. Not to her, or to himself, or into the silence. The lack of nonce chatter did make it much easier to fall asleep, but she missed it now.

They had done so well together in Wonderland.

Everything was just as it had been when she had the first dream, in her attempt to recreate it. She took a deep breath, put her head on the pillow, closed her eyes, and settled into the embrace that carried her to sleep.

It was a wonderful dream, but it was not the Wonderland that she had expected.

Elsewhere, a sleeping Mimsy might have almost smiled in her sleep as she looked out over the cosmos. In the dream, there was no smile - just a look of contentment as she basked in the silence and the sense of belonging.

Maybe it was the sight of the Earth so far away, or a reminder in that sensation, or something else entirely that made her abandon her observation to access the communications system instead. The people on the screen were familiar, people she saw every day, except for a child, who--

Mimsy stared.

She reached through the silence (which she maintained for the moment) to touch Alice's image on the screen, just once. Twice. The third time, she just kept her fingertips against it. Was she supposed to answer? It was difficult to believe that Alice was speaking to her, despite all of the evidence to suggest as much, because she could not quite process that she was 'mommy'.

"Yes." The answer came out of her before she ever decided to say it, like a reflex that had grown too impatient of her delay. "I like it here very much. This is one of the greatest experiences of my life. It is incredible. I wish that you could experience it too. It is almost as incredible as Wonderland, in fact. Do you remember the story of Wonderland, Alice?"

It was more frightening than it should have been to see the screen flicker, and Mimsy quickly pulled her hand away from the screen, clutching it at her chest instead.

Alice didn't remember Wonderland. She didn't remember the story. What kind of mother was she.

After a deep breath and a nod of determination, she placed her fingers on the screen again, cleared her throat, and spoke.

"I will always be here, any time you need me, Alice," she reminded her, because she was certain that she would have told her that before. "I will tell you a story, if you promise to sleep. Have your father or Lucky to tuck you into bed, all right? It would make me very happy to know that you are resting safely and comfortably."

Then she smiled, and told her a story of someone very special: someone named ALICE, who watched over all of Wonderland. She told her of the day that a lost girl came to visit her, and how hard ALICE worked to make sure that she was satisfied. She spoke of the adventures that ALICE led her through, and all that she showed her, and all that she helped her understand. She introduced her to the Red Queen, a strong and admirable leader for Wonderland, and the White Queen, who was too caught up in impossible things. She proudly relayed their victory over the White Queen, all thanks to ALICE's help, and left out the part about the Red Queen's demise.

It was better that way.

"It is a very good story, I think, but I cannot say 'the end' with this one - that is not the ending." She smiled again, one of clever amusement, pleased with herself. "Perhaps you will write the next chapter, Alice. I hope that you will tell me your story, should you ever find Wonderland."

There was darkness, and Mimsy did not mind. She never had. Darkness was comfortable.

Then there was emptiness, and isolation, which felt very different. It was not like the feeling of separating herself from everything and everyone. That almost felt like belonging.

This felt like she did not belong anywhere, that she would never belong anywhere again, and it felt so final because--

In the end, you will always be alone.

The voice crept out of her memory and into her dream, and she frowned into the nothingness. This was not supposed to be the end. She told Alice as much, because she believed it was true.

And it was Alice - or ALICE - that proved that it wasn't time for her ending. Not yet.

She recognized the door that had appeared in front of her as the door to ALICE's room, but it was not as she remembered it. Why were there vines across it? Had stealing her key caused this? Why had someone trapped her inside, after what she had done for them? How appalling!

"I will help you. I promise. I said I would be here, and...I will help you." Her voice rose in volume, and cracked in her attempts to sound calm. As the scratches came from the other side of the door, she began to claw at the vines with her own hands, desperately pulling as hard as she could.

"I will help you," she repeated, over and over. "You can make a better story, and you can rest when we are done, you can and I will help. I will."

As the vines shifted, Mimsy pulled her hands away and watched. They did not move away from the door, not exactly - but they moved in a way that would help, as the voice told her.

"Of course," she replied, brow knit with concern. There was no reluctance as she stepped forward, and as she touched the vines with her fingertips, it was an action meant for careful observation, not one made of hesitance.

After all, she had promised.

"I want to help you. My gains are secondary to your needs, I assure you. I will be grateful for anything that you choose to bestow upon me, but I hope that you do not feel obligated. I only want what I earn, as you see fit."

What was her secret? What would she gain from taking a piece of her? If she could learn, just incidentally...maybe all would not be lost.

"If any part of me can help you, then it is yours." She leaned towards the door, and slid her right arm into the indentation that the vines provided.

As she had expected, Mimsy quite literally gave Alice her arm. She did not mourn its loss; it was just an arm, and it was just a body, and it was truly the least that she could offer to her.

But it was not all that she had offered. 'Any part', she'd said, and there were still pieces of her that Alice required.

She asked for her eyes, and her eyes were very important, but she still gave them up.

Through the darkness, she asked for her heart. Mimsy opened her mouth to let her regret spill out, to painfully inform her that she could not offer a heart, but nothing came out. There was nothing to say, because Alice found something to take. Something that must have looked like the heart that she was looking for.

What was it? What was missing? How was this of use to her?

Mimsy had been so certain that there was no benefit to obtaining the heart that held all of that love for her, and now Alice needed one. Why?

"What is beneficial within that heart? Will it truly be able to help you?" She took her hand and held tightly onto it, and Alice was more of a lifeline than she ever had been before, in any iteration of an Alice's existence.

There were so many questions in her mind, but she didn't raise any others. She just followed, in silence, until Alice spoke again. One more thing, she assured her.

"Yes. Together. I like that," she sighed, as she curled her fingers around the fleshlike form. Their eyes, hers to take, and their arms, hers as well, and she wanted so very badly to open their chest to see their heart, once she could see again.

Alice didn't offer the heart.

With the small hand guiding her, she pressed her fingers into one socket, then the next, and took the eyes that were hers - like Alice said they were. She knelt with her knee on the place where its chest would be, and dug her nails into the flesh near its shoulder, and pulled as well as she could with one arm. She pulled until it came free, and sighed again, content in this fulfillment.

"I love you, Alice," she said, and they were hollow (heartless) words, but she didn't seem to mind.

Better eyes. Improvements. Alice was so kind, even after they achieved the goal that she helped them complete. It was so encouraging to know that she was still watching over her, still helping her through a new set of difficulties.

As grateful as she was, her attention was captured by the strings that Alice showed her. She called them 'dreams', which was intriguing, and she wanted to reach out and touch all of them, just to see what would happen. Remnants of a string theory from a world less rational than Wonderland rose warnings in her mind, but she found no reason to listen to them.

She extended one finger, and--wait. Lucky.

"Oh," she gasped, hands held at her chest again. "Oh, Alice. I knew that you could see how special he was! He is better - much better - and I am honored that you still want to share him with me."

Alice nudged her, and she giggled through her overwhelming sense of anticipation until it was gone. There was nothing stopping her now.

She made her selections and moved with efficiency, to avoid leaving Alice to wait on her too long, and spent some time swapping portions of Lucky for portions of her. Very pointedly, she made sure his left hand was intact, as that was the one she'd marked back at Deus Ex. It paid to be safe when it came to her ownership over other human beings, after all!

The work had been so diligent that it seemed almost abrupt when she paused, eyes set on his chest. She had saved this one for last, just in case she changed her mind...but no. She did want this chance. Lucky was very good at using his heart, so it might help her if she tried to use it too. Her fingers dug into the flesh, one last time, and she retrieved his heart to call her own.

Alice had given her a better one. Now she had a second chance.

"Thank you, Alice." She reached for her hand again, when she made it to the door. "Thank you for improving me, so I can be of greater assistance to you. I want to give you the best that I can offer."

A smile from something faceless was an expression that Mimsy had not seen in a while, and she found it quite curious that this was how Alice smiled. It was intriguing to know that she felt like she needed to smile at all - had she really helped her that much?

It felt nice to think so.

When she stirred and felt the warmth of Robert next to her, she stretched to retrieve her glasses, put them on, and opened her eyes, intending to wake him to tell him about her visit with Alice.

That was not going to happen.

Slowly, she sat up. Just as slowly, she reached out to run two fingers through the hair, looked at it in the faint light, then touched an unidentifiable section of flesh nearby. Without a word, she stepped out of bed to survey the room, steadying herself with the bed frame to avoid slipping in the marbled mixture of blood and fluid on the floor.

"Oh," she breathed out, not nearly the same sort of response that pieces of Lucky had earned the first time. Cautiously, she bent down to sit in the middle of the floor, in the middle of all of it, and began to examine each piece within reach. With slow, steady breaths, she turned them over in her hands, cataloging what was left of her brother.

You can take everything you want from him.

And she had.

"Alice?" she called, in a voice that sounded awfully tired for someone who had just woken up. "Alice? Are you there? I wanted to compliment you on your sense of humor, it...well, it is really very refined."

With a finger clutched in one hand, she began to laugh. And she kept laughing until it was impossible to breathe in slow, steady breaths any longer, and slipped far into hysterical laughter when she could no longer maintain the rhythm.

She laughed so hard that she couldn't sit up straight, so she fell onto her side and just kept laughing, despite the fact that she was lying in a pool of someone else's blood.