Sunday in the Park with Carol
Rating: R for language and allusions to adult situations
Summary: Carol and Hatter get to know each other one summer afternoon… No, not like that! This is in response to mariana_oconnor's request on New_wonderland! The title is a take on "Sundays in the Park with George".
Hatter wasn't quite sure how it happened, or exactly when, he just knew it began in the Oyster month of March. He knew it was March because Carol had said that someone was "mad as a March hare" and he had practically hyperventilated, imagining the assassin that wouldn't die stomping up the steps, heading for Alice's home. "Sorry," he wheezed, shoving past her, out into the corridor and bolting for the stairs. "Tell Alice…tell Alice I'll be back later!" And then he ran. He didn't stop until he reached the park, the duck pond that reminded him of the one behind the foundling home in Wonderland. He sank down and put his head between his knees, striving to catch his breath before the dark spots before his eyes coalesced into one massive spot and he fainted.
"David?"
iFanbloodytastic. /i "Sorry," he breathed, not looking up. "I…panic attack. Sorry."
"It's okay. I just couldn't let you go off on your own like that and…well, I wanted to make sure that you're okay." He felt her sit beside him on the old wooden bench, felt the weight of her make the slats settle a bit and smelled her perfume and coffee scent that sang 'mother' to him. A pang settled in his chest, becoming a splinter of awareness and awkward realization. He tilted his head to one side and found Carol peering down at him, her face a mask of concern. "I used to get panic attacks myself. Started when I was in high school, after my mom died and my father remarried. They kept right on till Alice was about six. They came back for a bit after her father…after he left but they weren't nearly as bad as they had been when I was younger."
Hatter let his head roll back into its original position and he breathed deeply, trying to calm the hammering in his chest and the shaking in his hands. "This wasn't usual for me," he laughed unsteadily. "I just heard something that made me think of…of someone I once knew. Well, I didn't know him really. I thought I did. We…worked together once. He went a bit mad." Even he could hear the near-manic trill to his laugh then. He swallowed hard and forced himself to sit up and face Carol. "I'm sorry. I don't want you to think your daughter is seeing a mad man," he admitted, the flickering thought of Mad March still teasing the corner of his thoughts, drawing his eye to the man in the dark suit who strode past on the pedestrian path, the rabbity shape of the sign just barely visible over the hedgerow, advertising a tea shop of all things.
Carol hesitated visibly, then reached out and patted the back of Hatter's hand. "It's my fault, not getting to know you. I think I just got so frustrated about Alice's…well, her commitment-phobia that I started taking it out on you. Did you know her last boyfriend?"
"Jack? Yeah, we knew each other pretty well," he admitted ruefully. "We…moved in similar circles for a bit. Then we didn't." He paused and sighed. "I know he asked Alice to marry him."
"She almost said yes," Carol said after a moment, her gaze returning to the ducks. "I could tell. But something held her back. She ran out after him…well, you know that part of the story. You're the one who found her, after all. But I was going to have a talk with her that night, a serious one, about how she was letting her obsession with finding her father ruin her relationships. When you and her…well, when the two of you had that dramatic little reunion in the foyer, it was like I didn't know my own daughter all of a sudden. She went from being almost engaged to being openly affectionate with another man in less than a handful of days."
Hatter shifted uncomfortably, the panic fading but unease spreading. "We'd known each other before…"
"I know the story, too," she said, her smile a bit thin. "I don't believe a bit of it, but I know the story." She held up a hand when Hatter would protest, cutting him off. "I figure that the two of you will explain things to me when you feel comfortable doing it but in the meantime, I'd like to know the man my daughter is dating. You're nothing like Jack, or the ones before. You're…well, pretty much the exact opposite."
Hatter looked around listlessly before letting his gaze rest on Carol. "I'm hungry. Are you? It's nearly tea and I haven't had a bite since breakfast." He popped to his feet like a jack in the box, the faint wave of nausea remaining from the panic attack making him wobble only a little. "Come on, I'll buy you something to eat."
"I…what?"
He held out his hand, wiggling his fingers impatiently. "You want me to spill my guts and I'd like to have something on my stomach before I do… Oh, wait, that sounds disgusting…"
"I catch your drift," she chuckled, unable to stop herself. "Are you sure you feel up to walking?"
"It's either walk or sit here and get the hairy eyeball from the ducks. Up to you."
Carol rose and shrugged. "I could go for a soda."
"We don't have these back home," Hatter said with the air of a man indulging in an expensive, well-trained courtesan. "These are a-bloody-mazing."
"It's just Gray's Papaya," Carol said, the amusement clear in her tone. "It's more a tourist trap than anything."
"Honestly," he said around a mouthful of hot dog, "I don't care. They're fantastic. Alice brought me here the day after the day I found her." He took a long draught of his papaya drink and smiled. "Sorry. Like I said, we don't have these back home."
"I thought you'd been here a while."
"I have. But still," he shrugged. A while, he decided, was a flexible unit of time and he wasn't truly lying…
"I know the feeling." Carol's smile became reflective as she took a sip of her own drink, something they called coconut champagne. "When I first moved to the city, I think I came here about twice a week for the first four years. The only reason I stopped was because I got pregnant with…well, with Laura."
Hatter sat back, his hot dog momentarily forgotten. "Laura? Alice has a sister?"
"Had. Has. I…Laura died before Alice was born. She was born too early and…" Carol stopped talking and stared at her drink for a long moment. "Twenty six years and it still feels like yesterday. She died because her lungs were too weak. They tried to help her but it was just too much. Alice was born years later, a big, healthy girl but I was still scared. She was two weeks late and I had to be induced but I was so scared that she would have the same problems Laura had."
"Alice…Alice never told me," Hatter said quietly. "I'm sorry."
"I suppose, to her, it's like a faerie tale or something. She never knew Laura and I only have one picture. The nurses at the NICU took it for me." Her fingers went to her throat and Hatter noticed the glitter of a fine chain. He knew where the picture was kept but he knew it was too private, too painful to ask to see. "Are you an only child?" she asked, her tone full of forced cheer.
"I honestly don't know. I was left at the foundling home when I was about one or two—the proprietress guessed my age. I had a few teeth and could eat mush but still wore nappies, so she had to make a leap." Hatter shrugged again and resumed inhaling his hot dog, trying not to think of Carol's sorrow lingering over the table. He could feel it like a cold wraith and he wondered if all Wonderians felt Oyster emotions like this, when they visited. "No one knew who my mum or dad was. There weren't any pregnant girls or women in the village around the time I was born so they figured my mum came from another village over or something and left me there." He could feel Carol staring at him so he looked up. "What?" The word was muffled by sauerkraut and pickles but the startled tone was clear.
"You're…very at ease, talking about this."
"It's the only life I knew," he replied, washing the last of the dog down with the last of his papaya drink. "I lived at the home until I was old enough to work, then I worked. I found a place to stay with some blokes from the home who were about my age and…" he trailed off, uncertain how to finish the story without sounding like a total thug. "Well, that's in the past."
Carol fingered the locket chain a moment more and deliberately folded her hands atop the table. "Alice tells me you want to open a tea shop in the East Village."
"Well, maybe not there," he admitted, idly dragging his straw the slushy remains of his drink. "But somewhere nice. Close to home if I could but somewhere…cozy." He smiled quickly. "If the lads could hear me talk about this they'd call me a bloody girl."
"I thought you had a tea shop back home?"
His smile flickered then brightened. "Something like that. Tea was sold but there were…other things. Curios, mainly. Rather a bit of an apothecary shop."
"…you ran an apothecary?"
"I managed it, more like. The Qu…The government owned it." He gestured to her drink. "Want another?"
"No, I'm good…"
"Let's go back to the park, then. It's getting too crowded in here." He was on his feet again, quick as a rabbit, and holding out his hand. This time, she took it and let him help her to her own feet. She kept stealing glances at him as they made their way onto the sidewalk and headed back the way they came. Finally, Hatter sighed. "What? Have I got a bit of hot dog on my chin or something?"
"No…I'm just trying to figure you out. You work construction, you're English and…well, that's about all I know. Alice doesn't talk much about your relationship, which is unusual for her. Typically, I know everything about the guy by her second date."
Hatter hid a smile. "Well, what else would you like to know?" They crossed the street and headed back towards the park.
"Is your name really David? Why does Alice call you Hatter?"
"I prefer to be called Hatter," he said, proud that his statement was not entirely an untruth. He felt odd about outright lying to Carol—he didn't feel guilty, he allowed, just…odd. Being able to tell at least a half-truth made him feel marginally less so. "People call me a lot of things but Hatter is what I'm best known by and what I prefer."
"Call me Carol. I feel old when people call me Mrs. Hamilton or Ms. Liddell."
"Liddell?"
"I took my maiden name back after Alice's father left. Well, not immediately after he left. It was a few years." She glanced sideways at him as they neared the park bench, still empty, and the ducks who now seemed to be holding some sort of conference in regards to an interfering goose. "Has Alice told you much about her father?"
"That she loved him very much, and misses him every day. And she thought, for the longest time, that he was still alive somewhere and just couldn't come home to her. To you." Hatter saw the Carpenter in his mind's eye, saw him dying, saw the blood on Alice, the torn and destroyed look in her eyes as she realized that her father, the dream of him, would never come true.
"Does she…does she think he's dead now? Wait, don't answer that." She closed her eyes for a moment and again, her fingers went to the necklace chain. "I think I do, most days. He wasn't the sort to leave. We had our problems, like any couple might, but even when things were bad, even after Laura…he didn't leave." She sat, scooting to the far end of the bench to allow Hatter some room, and frowned. "I don't know why I'm telling you all of this…"
"I've just got one of those faces, me. Makes people want to open up." He grinned at her and she laughed; he could see a spark of Alice in her mother's smile, the way her eyes crinkled at the corners when she was amused. "Alice loves you very much," he said after a moment. "She doesn't want to hurt you, you know."
"I know."
"Probably why she hasn't told you the truth…" It was on the tip of his tongue. He wanted to say it, wanted to name it. Make it real for her, he thought, make it a true thing, but he just could not make the words come, couldn't say Wonderland and Looking Glass and Hearts and Spades… Instead, he sighed and looked away. "I don't exactly have a great background and she was worried you'd flip if you knew I'd been involved in some not so nice things."
Carol went still. "Like?"
"Like…back home, I worked with some, ah, freedom-fighter types. Forcing regime change." He wanted to tell her all about Alice, how Alice-of-Legend saved his world, really. Though, to be fair, she did have some help… He shook off the thoughts and continued, putting it in a way Carol would understand. "I ran with some bad crowds; we did what we needed to survive and I'm not ashamed of it."
"David… Hatter, I figured as much." She smiled thinly again and patted the back of his hand. "You're not exactly a master of disguise; I could tell by the way you talked, the way you dress, that you're from a rougher side of the tracks than Alice is used to…" An odd look came over her face and she sat up straight, startled. "Alice! She's probably back from the store by now and worried sick about us!"
Hatter stood with her and smiled. "A little worry may do her some good. Let her think we're off killing each other, eh?"
She laughed. "As weird as this has been, I'm glad we talked. What set you off anyway?" she asked as they headed for the apartment, several blocks and half a park away.
"Just a phrase, something tripped a memory." He looked over his shoulder at the rabbit-shaped sign and frowned. "Bound to happen from time to time."
"Tell you what," Carol said thoughtfully, making him stop and face her. "Next time it happens, come to the park. See the ducks. Have a hot dog…give me a call and we'll talk."
He stared openly for a long moment. "Really?" He sounded incredulous and he knew it, but Carol didn't seem offended. She simply nodded.
"Really. I'll tell you stories about Alice growing up and you can tell me about…York. And tea shops that aren't tea shops."
He laughed. "Right."
"I mean it!"
Shaking his head, he took her arm and began the walk once more. "You're not what I expected, Carol Liddell."
"Neither are you. But oddly, I think you're what Alice needs."