A/N: Another Writer's Block exercise. After Alice leaves, Tarrant wants to stop trying to keep going; he loves her, but will that be enough to save him from himself? Rated K-plus for themes of suicide and angst.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Funny how the heart can be deceiving,
More than just a couple times,
Why do we fall in love so easy?
Even when it's not right.
Ever worry that it could be ruined
And does it make you want to cry?
When you're out there doing what you're doing
Are you just getting by?
Tell me, are you just getting by by by...
"Try" by P!nk
Tarrant sat at his usual position at the tea-table, his eyes a dull grey.
He was tracing his bandaged finger along the edge of a teacup, trying not to think about... her.
Why did she have to leave- no. We can't think about her. She'll just worm her way back into our mind, never letting us alone.
But she's the best thing that's ever happened to us.
He shed a small tear, and laid his head down on his folded arms.
I love her, I love her, but she'll never come. She promised she'd remember the last time she left, but when she came back, she had forgotten. She lied, she lied, she lied, she had a promise, but she forgot, she forgot, she forgot me. She thought I was a dream.
He felt a thin, cold stream of tears pouring down his cheeks, and saw his hands wandering towards his escape.
He tried to stop himself, but he felt the cold metal of the blade pressing against his wrist, and the salty sting of the tears in his eyes that blurred his vision.
Mally walked towards the table, and saw Hatter bending over his hands, dragging something across his wrist...
"Hatta!"
She ran up to her chair at the table, and looked down to Hatter's place, and gasped at the amount of blood he had spilled on the tablecloth.
She drew her needle-sword, and screamed, "HATTA!"
He looked up at her with two grey eyes rimmed in red, then looked back down at his wrists.
His eyes turned a weak yellow, then widened as he screamed at the sight of his slit wrists and the bloody knife in his other hand.
He fell out of his chair, and clutched his wounded wrist as he repeated, "Alice, Alice, where are you, Alice? Come back, please, please..."
He said weakly as the puddle of blood surrounding his arm grew, "Please, Alice, try to come back, try to remember, try to fall..."
He looked up at the sky, and said, "Fall back down, fall down, down, down, fall back to me... fall down the hole, try to come back..."
Mally called the Bandersnatch to her position on the ground next to her friend, and said, "Take him to Mirana! He needs help!"
They ran towards Marmoreal at top speed, Mally holding his finger the entire way.
Tarrant looked up at the white-blossomed trees when they arrived, and said weakly, "White, white, who's getting married? Alice is probably married, she's so pretty, she's beautiful, she's so muchy... Here comes the bride..."
Mirana ran out carrying multiple remedy bottles, and almost fainted at the sight of all of his blood.
She shakily prepared a salve, and rubbed it over his slit wrist, trying to wipe away the majority of the blood.
He slowly closed his eyes, and moaned, "Alice... I'm trying..."
Mally shed a few tears, and said through the sobs gathering in her throat, "Hold on, Hatta! Hold on!"
He opened his eyes, and said in a heavy lisp, "Don't tell Alice I tried to kill myself again. She doesn't like it when I get depressed."
Mirana said with tears in her voice, "We promise."
At those words, he frowned, and said as his eyes turned slightly orange and his voice slipped into a heavy Outlandish brogue, "Promises. Promises. Promises are fickle li'le things, every single promise tha' 'as been made 'o me 'as been broken-"
Alice's voice broke through his rant, saying, "Not this one!"
He looked up at her with green eyes, and watched in wonder as she walked towards him in her tattered blue dress, and knelt down to his level.
There were tears in her voice as she cupped his face in her hands and said angrily, "Hatter, I will never leave again, and that is one promise I will never, ever break, do you understand?"
He found his arms wrapping around her waist, and supporting her as she collapsed into his shoulder in wracking sobs.
He said in his heavy lisp, "You don't really want to leave your home?"
She just responded with a soggy, "I'm staying. I want to stay with you, and Mirana, and Mally, and Thackery... I'm never leaving, ever again."
He betrayed a small smile, and found himself kissing her hair slowly.
She broke the hug, and allowed his kisses to rome from her ear to her jawline, all the way to the corner of her lips.
He paused, and said softly, "I love you, Alice."
She shed another tear, and said softly, "I love you."
He leaned forward, and pressed his lips against hers, sealing them in a chaste kiss.
She smiled against his lips, and wrapped her arms around his neck.
A/N: Just a Writer's Block exercise. Don't sue me.