He hadn't known what it meant to breathe before he met her. I mean sure he took breaths, he filled his lungs with air, but after he met her he knew what it meant to truly breathe….To live.
Before he met her he thought that his life was complete, was it missing something? Honestly he never really cared enough to check, to stop and take stock of his life. Besides he was the Hatter, he really didn't need much, just his tea shop and the feeling that every once in a while he was doing something good. Like helping the resistance and those refuges. Sure the fact that he was running a tea shop for the Queen and was in part helping to speed up Wonderlands demised therefor causing the increase of refuges that needed help bothered him sometimes, but hey helping those same refugees normally took away the nagging guilt that caused.
But all in all he was happy with his life, sure in the fact that he needed no one and nothing. That emotion's were just something the oysters and those dumb enough to drink his tea's felt, not something an intelligent business man like he needed or wanted for that matter.
And yet the moment Ratty brought her to him in his tea shop, the moment he set eyes on the soaked girl in the blue dress it was as if everything in his life had clicked suddenly, like he just knew that she was his whole purpose for living…For breathing. And yet he didn't even know her, sure he knew her name, but to know a name and to know a person, really know a person is so different. So why did it feel like he knew her, knew he needed to help her, knew that he would do anything for her, knew that he would give up his own life to save hers?
And so he offered his help, he followed her through countless dangers, was shot, beaten, and almost killed for a girl who refused to trust him, but had NO problem trusting a stupid prince was kept lying to her over and over again and it infuriated him to know end. But for some reason it was okay, because he was still able to be with her, by her side, even if there were times she didn't want him there.
And then she left him to follow said stupid prince and he felt the difference right away. The heaviness in his chest that he hadn't known was there before he met her, the inability to take a deep breath. He felt like he was drowning and yet somehow he still felt the air pass into his lungs and it felt wrong, as if the moment she had left his sight he should have dropped dead.
It was such a different feeling from when she had snuck off in the middle of the night because he knew where she was going and what she was doing and he was sure he would be able to find her, to save her. This time...Well this time he wasn't wanted, she had her prince and he was going to take her to her father and that was something he just couldn't compete with and so he had let her go.
Thankfully he had come to his senses in time to follow them…follow her, after all he wasn't going to lose her to that, that prince. No he was going to do whatever it took to make her realize that he was as much her reason for breathing as she was his and so he went after her. Didn't do much good in the end, but he was there and when everything had fallen apart in the casino with her father he was the one there to hold her for a moment, to tell her everything would be okay and then to get her out safely.
And now here they were at the end of their journey and he didn't know what to say, what to do. And so he screwed it up, his brain got in the way of his heart with all its worry about the fact that she might not feel the same about him and what would he do if she rejected him. And so he let her go, he stuttered and stumbled his way through their goodbye the whole time wanting nothing more than to take her in his arms and tell her the truth, that he hadn't know what it meant to breathe before her, that without her he wouldn't be able to take another breath.
But he didn't, he just let the man in the white coat toss her into the Looking Glass without so much as a word, a whimper. And this time, this time it didn't feel like he was drowning, no it felt like he was dying. The pain was so much that he really truly could not breathe, there were no gasps for air, there was nothing because he knew without her his life was nothing.
His eyes never left the spot she had just stood, not when his knees hit the floor, not when Charlie, and surprisingly the Prince, came rushing over to make sure he was okay, not even when he realized the wetness he felt on his checks was from his tears. It was only when he realized the impossible did he finally take his eyes off the Looking Glass.
And what was the impossibility one might ask. It was that he was, in fact, still breathing. It wasn't the same as when she was there sure, but he was breathing and he realized that he could go back to his life. Could somehow rebuild his tea shop with real tea, go back to his normal routine and that with time he would forget what it felt like to hold her hand, to feel her as she clung to him, her smile, and her smell. That in time he would forget her and therefore what it meant to breath. That if he let it things would go back to being okay and he knew right away that okay wasn't enough anymore. That okay was wrong when he could have so much more.
And so he stood, startling the people who were standing around him try make sure he was okay, and with a smile to Charlie and a nod to Jack he ran. Ran right through the Looking Glass and into the world where he knew she was.
He hadn't known what it meant to breathe before he met her and he wasn't about to let that feeling go.