Disclaimer: Disney, Lewis Carrol. They're the masterminds. I'm lucky to be functioning with my limited brain. xD
Author's Note: Okay this is supposed to be sort of like the Disneyland characters in Wonderland, sort of thing. So don't get all "EW! Mad Hatter and Alice?! Age difference, much?!" on me. This is a gift for a friend and also my inspiration is Bri-chan for her own Disneyland!Alice/Mad Hatter. So anyways, I hope you enjoy.
The young girl, Alice Liddel, who had first stumbled into that rabbit hole so many years before, has finally returned. It turned out that she had been so tired of the life she had returned to. The normal world, where everything had a place for something and every something was in its place. It had become so utterly boring; she decided to escape to the world she had been so frustrated with before as a new frustration of the world she originally came bloomed. If that made any sense to you then I applaud you, reader, for your understanding. If not, then I do not blame you. Sometimes things might seem out of sorts, including the logic of which that comes from Wonderland.
Anyways, currently, Alice has settled into a small town of Wonderland. The world made more sense this round as she had grown smarter and more accepting to the absurdness of it all. She even owns a bookstore along with her partner, Belle Everhart. Between the two was a close friendship for which Alice was grateful for. In her haste to escape her old home she had forgotten how confusing Wonderland truly was. It was helpful that Belle was so willing to help her learn how to deal with daily life. As Alice adapted to the life of Wonderland, she quickly realized what this place really was. It was the collection of the dreams of children. So whatever a child dreamed, it was made into the reality of Wonderland. And this was the other difference between her older and younger self, she was finally able to realize that.
And thus ends my explanation of how things came to be and such. The real story is now, a love story, if you will. So please, dear reader, I hope you will hang strong as I tell this tale.
Alice Liddel was just now locking up the small bookshop. It was chilly and the air was filled with snowflakes. She fumbled with her keys; her hands were ungloved and trembling with the cold. She finally grasped the slippery key and finally locked the door. She stowed the key in her purse and clasped her hands together, rubbing them fiercely. Oh why had she forgotten her gloves? Well, it truly hadn't been the fact she had forgotten them. It had probably been Gordy, her neighbor, snooping around her house for something to add to his odd collections. Note to self, buy more locks to add to all the doors, Alice thought irritated as she continued to rub her hands as she made her way up the icy streets.
"Cold, Miss Liddell?" An all too familiar voice rang through the air. It was annoyingly cheery for such a cold evening, and it belonged to a certain hat enthusiast. The only one she really knew, come to think of it.
Alice turned with a scowl on her face to the Mad Hatter. He was dressed in his usual attire, except his ridiculous blue bowtie was replaced with an equally ridiculous blue scarf with orange polka dots. His famous and huge green hat still rested jauntily upon his white hair. The mad man grinned down at her revealing his huge front teeth, his eyes were twinkling with their usual teasing manner. "Why what caused you to come to that conclusion, Mr. Hatter?"
"Well, cricket, when one person is shivering without any gloves as you are on a chilly night like this, one will get the impression that the person is cold," the hat maker returned obviously attempting to mimic the same cool composure Alice was trying to keep.
The young woman just held her head up high and gave him an icy glare. The Mad Hatter only grinned down at her smugly, knowing he had trapped her in their small battle of banter. "And one should know that you are absolutely mental. Assumptions made by you shouldn't be trusted by any sane person," She snapped and turned to make a clear message she was done for today. But Hatter never was good at picking up non-verbal messages.
"Do you consider yourself sane, Miss Liddell? You freely chose to live here in Wonderland, the place where everyone is completely mad. Does that sound like the actions of a sane person?" The Mad Hatter quipped. He still grinned as he watched her stiffen, with what he knew was annoyance, and turn to glare at him.
Alice tilted her head with a hesitance, as if she was figuring a way to approach this. "Indeed, not many people would actually try to live in Wonderland, but that doesn't mean I'm insane. So, now if that clears it, I am leaving, Hatter. Good night." She turned on her heel and started off again in the direction of home.
"Only the insane claim to be sane," Hatter said, trying to provoke her into argument. It was always enjoyable and fun to get going with fighting her. She was always so interesting to watch because even though she treated him crossly with her frustration and annoyance, she always was so easy to read. It was just fun to see her get riled up and watch what might go through her.
Alice paused briefly in her steps but other than that she ignored his bait. She was cold. She was tired. She was going to go home and drink a nice warm cup of tea, underneath her snow barriers of course. Suddenly, she felt the sudden impact on her back. He had done it. He had hit her with a snowball. She felt the clump of snow slide down her back leaving a trail of wet chill. As she heard the snowball plop to the ground the blond felt her anger boil. She turned in a flash, also ignoring how frozen her hands already were, and scooped up a pile of snow and threw it wildly in the Hatter's direction, missing her target by several feet.
Hatter clucked his tongue in mocking disappointment before laughing outright, and Alice could feel her face burn with embarrassment. She scooped up another ball of snow and, careful to actually aim, launched it at his head. Hatter was able to see the snowball coming and ducked, but his poor hat suffered the blow of Alice's ice cold snowball.
The Mad Hatter yelped as his hat, his signature hat that should never leave his head, was suddenly missing. "Millie!" He cried in horror as he ran to rescue his poor, damp hat. He cradled it in his arms as he dusted the snow whispering to it as one would to comfort a traumatized child.
At first Alice was frozen, stunned by the Hatter's affections for his oversized hat, but then she dissolved into loud, boisterous laughter, with occasional snorts. She had never seen such a ridiculous display by a Wonderlander. Okay maybe she had but this, at the moment, was the most hilarious.
The Hatter scowled at the laughing blond, but his anger seemed to disappear as he realized how perfect of a target she was at that moment. Her guard was completely down and now was his chance. He quickly tried to gather a snowball and he took his sweet time aiming, his tongue sticking out through his buck teeth in concentration. He launched the snowball and SMACK! It landed right on top of the girl's head.
This caused Alice to abruptly stop laughing. Her anger was now flaring up again and she tried to gather a new snowball quickly when SPLAT! Another ice cold one hit her on the side. She gritted her teeth and formed a quick snowball aiming in the Hatter's direction, this time finally hitting him, right on the nose.
Hatter and Alice glared at one another. This meant war.
Alice didn't care about her dignity anymore. That left her sometime before when she had laughed herself silly or when she tried to form a snow fort from a broken, overturned shopping cart. Now that she had started this she wasn't going to end until she brought that Hatter and his ridiculous, freckled arse down.
The Mad Hatter was taking cover from Alice's pelting snowballs behind a wall of snow, some old crates of fruit that had begun to rot. It smelled bad but it was shelter against the reigning menace that was the dull blond across the street. It also wasn't helping that the Mad Hatter was already insane. This war was going to bring out just more of his madness than usual (And it also didn't help he found a bike helmet and was pretending he was in an army of some sort either).
Mental mission log: It seems the snowballs never end. The terror is getting stronger. I fear she is making alliances with the squirrels from that old Laurel tree. They've been eyeballing me I swear it! And some of those snowballs seemed harder than they should be. Oh no! INCOMING!! Phew! Missed me. Must return fire!
Hatter let out a loud battle cry and began blindly throwing multiple snowballs at the overturned cart. Only a few hit their target. Alice ducked under the shelter of the cart as she was being attacked. Think, Alice. Think! What can you do to end this and win?
Mental mission log: The terror isn't returning fire. Now's the time to strike! Hatter crept out of his fort and combat crawled his way across the street. Must stay low! Must keep element of surprise! As he crawled he would dodge between various hiding places, none particularly good or helpful, in an attempt to be sneaky. Approaching the enemy's fortress. No sign of any return fire. Must stay cautious. That might just be what it wants me to think. Ooh, what a clever terror! But you'll have to stay up pretty early to surpass the intelligent mind that is Hatter's. With that last confident thought the Mad Hatter crept to the side of the cart before standing and releasing another warrior cry.
Alice jumped in surprise, she had been gathering snowballs in a neat pile to return fire with. She quickly got up to defend herself, but Hatter tackled her to the ground. Alice, after a few seconds from recovering the shock and pain of being knocked to the ground, started kicking and punching Hatter. She continued to screech at him to get off of her.
Hatter blinked confusedly, as if realizing for the first time he wasn't on a real battlefield. He just stared down at Alice with a befuddled look. This was "The terror"? Suddenly he remembered what had started the entire thing and smiled to himself with the cheerful. Well that was fun, he thought happily to himself, but was cut short by the screeching and punching of the blond girl beneath him. "I don't know what you're complaining about. Every woman in Wonderland pays for the chance to be underneath me," he said flashing a grin worthy of Cheshire to Alice.
Alice's cheeks flushed red and she smacked him hard across the cheek at that moment. "Get off of me you bloody arse!" She screeched.
This time, the Hatter obliged and got off of her, rubbing his sore cheek. The woman could smack hard! He watched her get to her feet, determinedly turning her back to him, and brush off the snow. He couldn't say that he minded, he got a very nice view from behind that he enjoyed. When Alice turned he let his eyes drift back up to her face slowly, deliberately showing he was checking her out. As he met her eyes again he noted, with a small smirk, that her face was as red as a tomato, and definitely not from the cold.
Alice turned up her nose with a loud "Hmph!" How dare him! Trying to make her blush with his perverted intentions, and how stupid of herself to let him get to her! The blond held her head up high and began walking away down the icy streets. She was just going to go home and warm up in her bed. How humiliating it is that she got sucked into such a childish war!
She could now hear the steps of Hatter's oversized shoes. Alice refused to look to her side and just urged her feet to move faster. Now that she wasn't so wrapped up in revenge, she remembered her hands were practically frozen to the core. Hatter's decision to walk her home wasn't helping her at all. She just wished he would disappear. Especially how he humiliated and provoked her all evening! No, he could just go get lost in a blizzard and it would only lift her mood.
Finally she whipped her head around and snapped at the white haired hat man, "What? What do you want?!"
Hatter only grinned and pointed to her hand. "Your hands are cold," He said simply. Alice was about to retort a sharp sarcastic reply when he took her hands in his. His white gloves were off, but his hands were so warm. Alice's hands welcomed the heat, but the rest of her wanted nothing more than to pull away from him and smack him for his audacity; especially after putting her through the snowball war.
The blond hadn't realized it, but they had stopped walking and were just standing in the middle of the road, holding hands. Alice blushed a light pink, but she just couldn't pull her hands away. Who knew her source of warmth would be the Mad Hatter? There was also the matter of the tingling in her hands from his touch, but that was simply because of her hands defrosting, right?
Suddenly, Hatter let go and began searching his pockets for something. Alice's hands missed the heat of Hatter's and she had to control them not to reach out for his warm hands. But what he pulled out of his orange pockets made Alice's jaw drop. Her gloves!
"I just remembered! This was what I came to give you," Hatter proclaimed triumphantly. He took Alice's hands again (Quit bloody tingling!) and stuffed the gloves into them. "There you go."
Alice looked from Hatter to the gloves. "You mean to tell me… that this was the reason you came to the shop earlier?" She asked slowly.
"Yep!" Hatter answered proudly.
"Before you made me go through that entire snowball fiasco?"
"Yep!"
SMACK! Alice had picked up a big snowball and smashed it into the Mad Hatter's face. He looked rather bewildered and stunned from such an icy thank you. Alice glared at him. "Next time an item of mine comes into your possession return it by mail or messenger because I will file a restraining order against you after what you put me through tonight!" She snapped before shoving on her gloves and stalking away huffily.
As she made it back to her front lawn, she had enough time to cool down from her anger. She realized now that Hatter must've been the one to steal her gloves in the first place for them to have come into his possession. She looked back down the icy street she came from and thought, almost amusedly, Yeah I definitely need to get more locks.
A/N: Hope you liked it! And I hope you all have a very happy holiday! I'm sorry if it's very rushed and all. I was trying to finish this in time for a Christmas present for a friend. I hope she likes it too!
Please Review! Thank you for reading.