The Halloween story I wrote for the WCMI community in 2009. I got some questions about whether Alice and the Hatter are together in this, and the answer is sort of. I like them better when they're in a weird gray area between being co-dependent BFFs and people who just kiss each other sometimes. It's unclear and undefined, and Alice is weird enough that somehow, I think she'd find a middle ground to be okay with.
The crash that came from the kitchen was what finally arrested her attention, nevermind that she had been faithfully trying to ignore overtures of effort for the last ten minutes. Alice set her needlepoint aside, rose, and gracefully harked to the sound of someone breaking and entering her house. She was only of slight concern: this was not uncommon, but these loud noises tended to indicate some distress above and beyond what she usually wound up hearing about.
She found him sulking in one of the hardback chairs, all smooshed down like someone had crossed his arms for him in an exaggerated fashion, mashed his expression into perennial dissatisfaction, and just left him there to look, perhaps, like a seasonally appropriate decoration—perhaps a vulture or mad scientist's monster. His legs sprawled out, the Mad Hatter did look an awfully pathetic sight, someone in need of a sympathetic ear. He had come in search of solace, a friendly bit of concern for his deep existential crisis.
Alice looked at the window sash he'd pulled up from the outside, set now at a cockeyed angle and still open to the brisk fall clipper wind, and the trail of chaos left along the kitchen counter below it. Smashed herbs in crushed terra cotta pots, the faucet on just enough to be hissing, and along with the crowbar pointed straight up out of the drain hole, somehow the dish rack had been turned upside down despite being a good three feet from his entry point. She had tried everything from closing the curtains on the window to leaving the back door unlocked and ajar—short of her giving him a key (absolutely not), the Hatter was insistent upon seeking Alice's advice and company by climbing in through windows.
The night previous she had awoken to find him sitting upright next to her in bed, mid-conversation.
"--I mean, I like fur pelts, I do find them useful, I do have to use them in business after all, but honestly, these ones are just so realistic despite--" He had taken note of the disheveled girl then, who rose up nose to nose with him with the whites of her eyes very visible. They sat like that, the Hatter momentarily given pause by the unblinking nature of her intense silent stare. He shifted his eyes back and forth and with grave caution raised his hand to his large nose self-consciously. There was a long pause.
"You've been asleep this whole time, haven't you?"
"Yes," she whispered dramatically, "And I intend to return to it tout suite, if you don't mind. Go away," and with that she settled back among her pillows with a flick of the covers.
The Hatter was not dissuaded by her gesture and she soon found herself being shifted about, enclosed, surrounded by long limbs and the stab of a chin in the back of her head.
"Get off me," she said as patiently as was appropriate in the situation—which was very difficult since he was pushing her face down into the pillow.
"No."
"Why are you here? I'm trying to sleep."
"I am protecting... you from... goblins. They are infestatious this time of year, with the—the sunlight and the leaves turning and such."
"I don't believe you."
"I need some advice."
"No," said Alice, "And please tell me you aren't under the duvet--"
"You have no faith in my honor, I've got a blanket this time."
"This time?" she said to herself.
"You're a lot easier to talk to when you're asleep, you know," he commented, somewhat piqued. She wondered if perhaps he would grow bored and amble out through the window again if she stayed silent. Alice kept her breathing quiet and waited.
"You're such a gracious hostess, really," he started up again casually.
She squinted, but Alice did not reply.
"The March Hare always bites me when I try to do this." She rolled over what little she could to look at him. He had a philosophical expression. "He's a biter, that one. Bite bite bite." He clicked his teeth together.
"You climb in through the March Hare's window in the middle of the night and coddle up to him while he's asleep?" Her curious question hung there very oddly, and the Hatter looked a bit ashamed, she thought. There was another pause before he burst out defensively,
"Well, he's got all that nice fur and he never lets me touch it, how am I supposed to be best friends with someone like that?! Serious trust issues—you should be more concerned about this."
"If I bit you, would you go away?" She was only half-joking.
"Probably not," he said truthfully.
"Well," said Alice, "You can watch for goblins, but do let's address this in the morning?"
"You'll be sympathetic?"
"You might be dealing with a goblin in broad daylight if you don't let me rest."
Sympathy later. Answers now. Alice began setting things right in the kitchen with jerking motions, irritated motions. Motions of someone who was not quite ready to freely begin dispensing hugs and eskimo kisses while sitting on laps and calling someone a darling cup of Darjeeling.
The Hatter was not feeling patient, however.
"Oh, would you stop worrying about all this?! I brought you a samovar--" and he lifted from beneath the table an overly large silver filigreed urn, "--to make up for the mess. I tried to find antimacassars, whatever those are, but this seems a lot more..."
"Practical?" she offered.
"Fantastical," he said correctively, and turned the thing round to appraise it. "Might have made the entry a bit more disastrous than necessary, it is rather awkward to carry..."
"Well, I suppose I could put it in the--"
"She's got the rabbits," he said suddenly in an anxious voice. She turned to find him desperate, sitting upright, all traces of slouchy slow burn gone poof. He flexed his eyebrows into a worried entilde and looked so lost-puppy that she set the crowbar on the counter and came near.
"What do you mean she's got the rabbits? Who's got the rabbits?" It was a genuine question of what are you talking about, one which came up as a frequent litmus test in their conversations. The Hatter gathered himself up and bent over his own knees a bit, looking even more at unease.
"That De Vil woman," he said, "She said she wanted to borrow them for a bit, and I thought at first that I was just being neighborly helpful by introducing them to her, but now I'm really starting to get worried. I haven't heard from them in two days."
Alice cringed at the thought of the skunk-tailed one having two rabbits in her possession. What had he been thinking? If dogs were acceptable fare...
"What if she skins them?" he said to himself, "There won't be enough time before the party to fix them—I don't have nearly enough thread to put them back together if she's skinned them, you know, and I--" he paused, and heaved a great sigh before saying in a strained voice, "That is a form of cost-benefit analysis I am simply not prepared for, do you see?"
"Well, what did she say she needed them for?"
"To measure them," he moaned in despair.
"Are you crying?!" she cried as he put his hands up to his face.
"No," emphatically replied the white-haired man who had broken into her kitchen through the window and nearly wrecked her plumbing system, "I got water on my face when the faucet came on." He looked up at her. "This is really important, I need you to see how important this is. You aren't taking this very seriously."
"Well, I'm a bit confused," she said, taking a chair and pulling it up so they were knee to knee, "How is there any guarantee that she'll... skin them?"
He gave her a look, and Alice floundered for a moment.
"Well, I'm merely trying to point out that this doesn't have to be a worst-case scenario. How do you know they haven't just... gone on holiday?" He gave her another look.
"Go on holiday? What, just walk off by their own volition and go on holiday, right before a big party? I need them for that party!"
"Are they part of your costume?"
"It won't be the same without them," he said, and with a distant gaze slumped down again.
"Well, you could always pick a different costume," said Alice, who then cringed at how cruel that sounded.
"That's not the point!" he cried, throwing his hands into the air and letting them flop back down. "The point is that I do not want to have my Hallow's Eve ruined because someone took those rabbits. They are very important to me, costume party or not." He had finished the sentence with a firm declaration, and now sat back, determined.
She was glad for the reprieval knock at the door, but was not glad to answer it and find a lanky hunched man in a Gatsby cap holding a small cardboard box. The Hatter practically shoved her into the doorjamb in his haste.
"Er, I think 'ese are yours," said the chap at the door in a hideous accent.
"Yeahr, we bin lookin' for yeh," said a smaller fat man who was standing behind him. "She's bin arfter us to git 'em back, mightbe a bit worse for wear arfter all the, eh--" and the two men exchanged a look, "--measurin' she done." Alice wanted them both off her doorstep and was glad that the Hatter merely grabbed the box and slammed the door distractedly, headed for the kitchen table again.
"Awright, yer welcome!" one of the men hollered from outside.
"Ungrateful," the other one muttered.
The box was on the table, but the Hatter had the accompanying note in hand, white in the face.
Thanks ever so much, darling, for giving up your little bunnies to me for an afternoon or two, it read. It really does help to have the real thing. I hope their furs aren't too matted—I did try to take care with them, but unfortunately some emergency stitch work was in order. I did so enjoy their company, and they've really given me some fabulous ideas for that chic little costume ball. What do you think of me going as a 'bunny boiler'? Ta-ta and thanks again, darling.
It was signed at the bottom with a thin-lipped press of cracked red color.
Alice felt the dread thrill shoot up her hand and into her shoulder as she peeked over into the box and saw a little pelt of rabbit fur lying perfectly motionless inside the box, bits of red staining and contrasting against the stark white hare. She put a hand to her mouth and was trying to think of something to say when she saw the look on his face, which was inappropriately one of childlike exuberance.
"I was worried for nothing after all! The old girl did get them back to me, safe and just in time." He pulled the pair of white bunny-shapped slippers with fangs and fake blood painted on their snouts out of the carton and dangled them up in front of her. "See, and with my helmet and coconuts, I'll be the entire movie instead of just one character. Best Hallow's Eve party ever!" he cried excitedly, and knocked the voracious monsters' tiny adorable heads against each other, content again.
Alice wrapped her arm around his neck, indulgently kissed his cheek, and left him to his perfect delight to go scare up a princess costume. It wasn't difficult in a place like that.