Blonde, golden and beautiful, yellow and so impractically tamed, recognizable, easy to be spotted. There was no doubt she was Alice, but there were red stains all over her yellow hair, so red and deep and horrendously staining her beautiful head. "A-Alice! There's red! Red, no, no, horrible. This is horrible, it's all over yo- what are you doing?"
Her face was scrunched, eyes too busy to make note of the orange-haired, hatted man standing by her side, too busy looking at a rosebush laying before her; she held a brush in one hand and a small bucket with red paint on the other, the roses had been painted the same crimson color that was not staining her dress, face, and hair. "There's a spot." She stroked the once-white-rose with her brush soaked in red. "Done with this one."
She looked up at him, smiling softly at her friend's confused look. "A-Alice? What are you doing? P-why are you painting the roses?"
She shrugged and giggled lightly before answering, "I'm painting the roses red." There was a small pause in which she had decided to observe Hatter's expression, but there was still confusion. "For old times' sake, Hatter." She placed the small bucket on the floor and, swiftly, stroked with her brush Hatter's nose, leaving a rather visible red stain.
"Of all colors, why red? Red, bloody red, bluddy behg hid Red and big and round and horrible head to hat, horrible horrendous and slurvish behg hid slurking urpa-why red?" Something Alice had noticed since her third visit to Underland was that there had been, with no doubt, improvements in Hatter's anger. Yes, it was still easy to resurface, but it'd vanish in the blink of an eye. "Of all colors, Alice, of all of them, red. Bloody horrendous red. Don't you rememb-have you gonegallymongers?" It still, however, took little for him to fixate his mind in one simple little detail and not let it go until it had been explained. Patience was key with him, but, then again, Alice didn't have to try so hard; she was used to it, so used to him. "And now it's all in your hair. Your hair, Alice!" he screamed in realization, running a desperate hand through the tips of her hair. "Red. It's re-Alice, your hair is red." He held a small lock of hair between his gloved fingers, showing her the spot in which a stain of red covered her normally blonde hair.
"Hatter, it will come off; I promise." She smiled at him reassuringly, tossing the brush next to the small bucket. "And red because this is how I first came here. Everything was red."
"It shouldn't be red anymore. Red's a hideous color, hideous, horrible, horrendous, horrid, horrific." His hands waved manically as he tried to make her reason. One rosebush had been painted red, of all colors, and she had to realize how horrifying that was; she had to realize how completely dreadful it was. "And look at your hair! Red, red of all colors. Of all co-" A delicate index finger was pressed softly against his lips, signaling him to calm down.
"Hatter," Alice began, "You quarreled with Time, spent years sipping tea and stuck in one place in the same hour. Tea party after tea party, and even after Time came back, you still have tea parties, despite you loathing all those years." His eyes looked down to their feet, aligned one in front of the other, hers small and delicate, his ridiculously enormous. "I wanted red roses. Just one bush. Is that okay?" As soon as her finger had left his lips, he breathed in, his breath being held in for too long.
"I-i-it's red. It's alright. Yes, of course it's alright, Alice. Red. But not in your hair. It needs awful cutting, too, but that is alright too." Hatter glanced at the rosebush, once-white-roses soaked in red "The red, can-can I take the red out? I don't like the red in your yellow and bright and golden."
He held so strongly onto the past, onto how her hair was not always that long, how her dress was not always the shade of blue of that Time he first saw her, how she had grown up so big. Changes overwhelmed him because of the years he had spent with Time not working for him, because he grew used to nothing changing around him: The Hare, the Dormouse, him, all the same, unchanging as Time passed by around them. And thus, as he saw Alice, his Alice, changing so drastically, and now the red on her hair! It had taken him Time to adapt to the bloody big head not being around, to their White Queen ruling like she used to before, and not a single spot of red was to be found there, but now Alice, his Alice with red on her hair and Time passing by with so many changes, he just couldn't take it. That red needed to be gone, but Alice missed the red; that hair needed to be cut, but Alice was so reluctant to stop those awful changes.
"Hatter?" Her eyes looked at the swirls of red and green that had spaced out moments ago, engulfed in her hair and in the spots of red that were tainting his Alice. "I'll wash it if it makes you ts upset," she chuckled as she approached him until she was right before him, only to stand on the tip of her toes and snatch his beloved hat from his now unhatted head.
Alice was always so oblivious to him and to what his rambles meant and to how he always fixated his attention over such small details. She could never quite understand because Time had always worked for her, because she changed and her hair grew until it needed awful cutting, and she became much taller to the point that her blue dress and black bow wouldn't fit anymore. Everything around her changed, except for him. Alice just couldn't understand, but she tried just to see him smile with his crooked teeth stained yellow because of so much tea. "I'll wash the red off me, don't worry, alright?" she finished as she placed one small kiss on the unhatted Hatter's forehead, only to place back his hat in its rightful place and pick up the bucket of red and the brush with which she had been painting that one sole rosebush. "Let's go; I believe it's time for tea."