Author's Note: This should really probably be posted under my collection of songfics entitled "Mad Musical Melodies," but I really like how this one turned out, and I felt like it deserved to be separate story on its own. (Plus I'm OCD about having an even number of chapters on my long fics, and I didn't want to end the collection of songfics on a sad note.) Anyway, for anyone who doesn't know, I don't own Alice in Wonderland or Taylor Swift's amazing song "Last Kiss." Please listen to the song before you read this. It makes it so much better!
Last Kiss
"You still believe this is all a dream, do you?"
Alice sighed. "Of course. This has all come from my own mind…" She glanced at the Hatter with a playful grin. "I would dream up someone who's half-mad."
"Yes, yes. But that would mean you would have to be half-mad to dream me up." He smiled anxiously, hoping he hadn't offended her.
Her soft, pink lips lifted in that perfectly-Alicey smile that made his heart beat faster. How he longed to kiss those lips! "It must be then…I'll miss you when I wake up."
I still remember the look on your face
Lit through the darkness at 1:58
The words that you whispered
For just us to know
You told me you loved me
So why did you go
Away…away…
The Hatter stood on the balcony of the White Queen's castle, bathed in the silvery light of the moon suspended in the late summer sky over Marmoreal. It had only been a few months since he stood on the very same balcony with Underland's Champion, but it felt like ages. He sighed. He could remember that night very clearly, but what he couldn't understand was why it hadn't worked out between them.
He remembered the angelic aura that had seemed to surround her – present even during the day – brought out even more by the lunar light that made her eyes sparkle like diamonds, her pale skin gleam like the stars, and her radiant curls shine like white gold. He remembered that smile of hers that took his breath away, the way she looked at him like he was precious to her – a dear friend and, perhaps, he dared to hope, even more. She had seen past the madness to the man and brought out the best in him. She had thought him to be nothing more than a dream, but she didn't seem averse to having him in her dreams – in fact, she'd said she would miss him when she woke up, which was both a comfort and an emotional blow for the Hatter, for although he was elated to know that she cared for him, the thought of Alice leaving was discomforting. He knew she would have to leave eventually, but he wanted to put that off for as long as possible. Though he didn't tell Alice, he wondered whether he might be the one dreaming and she, the fair angel from Above, might be the dream. In truth, he didn't want to go back to sleep for fear that when he woke up, she might not be there anymore. So he stayed on the balcony, standing by her side, until sleep overcame her, and he carried her gently to the bed. There had been so much he had wanted to tell her, but he had been dreadfully afraid of the reaction he might get, not wanting to ruin their friendship or distract her from the upcoming battle, so he had remained silent and waited until he was certain she was asleep to plant a gentle kiss on her lips. So much for his muchness. Now, more than ever, he wished he had spoken up.
I do recall now
The smell of the rain
Fresh on the pavement
I ran off the plane
That July ninth
The beat of your heart
It jumps through your shirt
I can still feel your arms
He glanced down at the walkway leading to the castle. He remembered walking that path after escaping from the Red Queen, leading the Tweedles by the hands. He had watched sadly, and somewhat jealously, as Bayard ran to Bielle and the pups, nearly knocking his wife over with a sloppy, wet kiss and nuzzling her gently. He should have run to Alice, he thought. He should have come flying at her with open arms, lifted her off the ground and spun her around and held her close. But he hadn't. He had simply walked up to her, casually, and started rambling off about how glad he was to see her at her right-proper-Alice-size again, sounding every bit as mad as everyone knew he was. Alice had had to remind him to stop, and he'd felt the heat rise to his cheeks. He cursed under his breath. Blast that annoying rambling habit of his!
But apparently, Alice hadn't minded his ramblings. Or his fits of madness. Because, instead of running away, she had come to him. Even now, when he faced the madness, all he had to do was think of her to calm himself. Sometimes, if he closed his eyes, he could still feel her hands on his face.
But now I'll go sit on the floor
Wearing your clothes
All that I know is that
I don't know how to be something you miss
The Hatter sighed again as he turned to back inside. The room where Alice had stayed had been converted to his workshop now that the White Queen was in power again and in need of his services. Mirana had been kind enough to let him choose whichever spare room he wanted to work in, and he had specifically requested to stay in Alice's old room, knowing that, while it would pain him to be there, it would also be where he would feel closest to Alice – his source of inspiration and his best friend.
His legs suddenly gave way, and he fell to his knees in the floor, trying unsuccessfully to hold back the tears that escaped his cerulean eyes. He took off his hat and reached inside, pulling out a scrap of light blue fabric, a piece of Alice's dress when she had first arrived back in Underland. He held the silky cloth to his face and tried to imagine that she had never left. He wondered if she missed him as much as he missed her. He doubted it. Who would ever miss a madman when she had all the men of Overland falling at her feet?
Never thought we'd have a last kiss
Never imagined we'd end like this
Your name, forever the name on my lips
He should have kissed her. When he asked her to stay, he should have done something to show her how much he needed her, how he wanted her as more than just a friend. Maybe then she would have stayed. Maybe then she would have realized the damage she would do to his heart if she left. Maybe she wouldn't have cared, but at least, she would have known that he loved her. He'd had every intention of kissing her when he had leaned in, but for some reason, his muchness had all but vanished, and instead of saying he loved her, all he said was farewell. He never thought that their first and only kiss – when Alice was asleep – would also be their last kiss.
"Alice…" he sobbed, "Alice please come back…I need you, Alice."
I do remember
The swing in your step
The life of the party, you're showing off again
And I'd roll my eyes and then
You'd pull me in
I'm not much for dancing
But for you I did
Far away, in another land, staring up at another moon was a young woman with golden curls and warm, chocolate-brown eyes. From the deck of The Wonder, Alice gazed up at the night sky, counting the stars and wondering what it might feel like to pluck one from the heavens and hold it in her hand. She smiled sadly. Another impossible thing. The Hatter would have been proud of her.
She missed him. Every day since she had left Underland, she had missed him. Every night a pair of emerald eyes haunted her dreams. She kept looking for a top hat, a kilt, a flash of orange hair. But whenever she caught up with the person, she was always disappointed to find that it was not the man she had hoped. Sometimes she wondered if she had made the right decision to return.
She remembered the day she had slain the Jabberwocky when the Hatter had first shown her the dance Chess had called the "futterwacken." She had no idea how he could make those moves, gyrating his hips and spinning his head so that it looked as though it wasn't even attached to his shoulders. Then again, it was Wonderland, so anything was possible. Had her mother been there, she probably would have fainted, averting her eyes from such inappropriate behavior. But Alice had found the dance captivating, and before she even knew what was happening, the Hatter had pulled her in close and started showing her the steps. Alice had never been one for dancing – she absolutely abhorred the Quadrille, and she was usually too clumsy to do the waltz properly – but with the Hatter as her partner, something was different, and for a moment, she thought that, perhaps, dancing was not that bad, after all.
She remembered the look on the faces of everyone at her engagement party when she tried out a few steps of her new favorite dance. It had been priceless.
Because I love your handshake
Meeting my father
I love how you walk with your hands in your pockets
How you kissed me when I was in the middle of saying something
There's not a day when I don't miss those rude interruptions
She wished her father could have seen it. He would have loved the futterwacken…In his younger years, he had always fancied her tales of Wonderland. He had encouraged her wild imagination and independent personality when everyone else had told her to grow up and act like a proper young lady.
"Everyone has to fight their own dragons, Alice," he had once told her, "some are physical, some mental, some spiritual, but only you can defeat your dragons – not me, not your mother, not Margaret. Just Alice. And that means that you must learn to think for yourself, for if you are always depending on someone else to tell you what to do, you will never win that battle. Don't take the path that everyone else is following just because it's easier, Alice. Do what you know in your heart is right. Make your own path."
How true his words had been! She had no doubt that her father would have been proud of her for slaying the Jabberwocky. He would have loved the Hatter, too. She could just imagine how wonderfully they would have gotten along…Secretly, she had once hoped that the Hatter might come up top with her to find her father's grave and ask for her hand, but now she was a long way from home and from Underland, and she did not foresee such an event happening at any point in the future.
She sighed. She had wanted to stay in Underland so badly, but she could not bring herself to leave her family behind. The loss of her father had been a crushing blow to her mother, and she didn't know if Helen could handle losing a child only a few years after Charles' death. But maybe she would have stayed, or at least, returned to the rabbit hole after saying a proper farewell to her family, if she'd had reason to believe that the Hatter wanted her there. True, he had been the one to ask her to stay, but he probably only thought of her as a friend…and she wanted so much more than that. She'd wanted to throw her arms around his neck when he'd escaped the Red Queen, but he had given no indication of feelings toward her, so she'd held back. She'd wanted to kiss him on the balcony in the moonlight, but he seemed nervous and lost in his own thoughts. And at the last minute, right before he faded before her eyes, she'd thought he was going to kiss her. But he didn't. He'd had plenty of opportunities to show his feelings, but he hadn't, so she assumed he didn't feel the same way that she did, and she left him standing on the battlefield. When she'd said Hamish wasn't the right man for her, she had wanted desperately to say that she knew someone who was, but it wouldn't have mattered. The man she loved was in a different world. Still, she knew in her heart of hearts that he would always be the only one for her. That's why she had decided to get involved with the company – to give her something to do with her life, since she wouldn't be marrying anytime soon. If Alice had her way, she would never marry because even if he didn't love her, she felt like she would be cheating the Hatter.
But now I'll go sit on the floor
Wearing your clothes
All that I know is that
I don't know how to be something you miss
Alice went to her room and sat down on the ship's cool, wooden floor. She hugged her knees to her chest and finally allowed herself to shed the tears she'd been holding back since she left the battlefield in Underland. She ran her thumb over the rough wood, pretending it was the Hatter's weathered, bandaged hand as she wept into the folds of her dress. The Hatter had made it for her. She inhaled deeply, trying to calm herself. The cloth still smelled like him – tea leaves and mint with a hint of cinnamon-orange. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine her cheek pressed up against his chest.
Never thought we'd have a last kiss
Never imagined we'd end like this
Your name, forever the name on my lips
Once, on the night before the Frabjous Day, Alice had dreamed that the Hatter kissed her. It wasn't a passionate, rough kiss but gentle and soft – a kiss of love, not lust. Alice had seen enough of Lowell's behavior to know the difference. She knew for certain that she had been dreaming – dreaming within a dream seemed unlikely, but now she knew for certain that Underland was real and the dream was, indeed, just a dream and nothing more. Still, it had felt so real…She could have sworn she felt his lips on hers…Alice shook her head. Perhaps it had seemed real only because she wanted it to be. The Hatter had given no indication the following day that anything had passed between them, so it must have been her own wild imagination acting up again. Sometimes she still dreamed of the kiss…
Her eyelids fluttered and, against her will, she drifted off to sleep, with thoughts of the Hatter in her mind and his name caught on her lips in a silent whisper.
So I'll watch your life in pictures like I used to watch you sleep
Since Alice had left, the Hatter had begun to make much more frequent trips to see Absolem. Most people assumed he was going to check the Oraculum to see if anything had changed, to see if Alice was coming back. But in truth, that wasn't the case. He knew, somehow, that she would never return. Her adventures in Underland were over, while her adventures in Overland were just beginning. He went to see the Oraculum not because of what it foretold for the future but because of what it told him of the past. As he watched Alice's adventures in Underland from the time she was a child up until the day she slew the Jabberwocky played out by the moving pictures on the ancient scroll's weathered paper, he could almost forget that she was gone. He remembered the night before the Frabjous Day, when he had spent hours just sitting by her bed, watching her sleep, the gentle rise and fall of her chest matching his own shallow breathing. He had slipped out of her room, unnoticed, with the first rays of dawn, but he had kept that image in his mind even after she left. She had looked so beautiful, so peaceful. He'd hoped that one day he could lie down beside her, could make her his own – though, in truth, he knew that Alice's independent spirit would never belong to anyone. Even if Alice did marry, she would never let a man tame her wild heart. Sometimes the Hatter wondered if she had found someone else, if there was another man holding her like he should have held her, another man watching her sleep, who could love her like a befuddled mad hatter never could. He hoped whoever that man was would treat Alice right.
And I feel you forget me like I used to feel you breathe
Sometimes it was more than he could bear, thinking that there was another man in Alice's arms, another man kissing her rosy lips and porcelain cheeks. She had promised not to forget him, but he swore he could feel her memory of him slipping away. He knew she would eventually forget. She would eventually move on, maybe have a family...She would probably age faster than he did. It had only been a few months since she left, but who knew how long it had been in Overland?
And I'll keep up with our old friends just to ask them how you are
Hope it's nice where you are
He was constantly asking McTwisp and Absolem – the only two Underlanians privileged enough to visit the surface world on a regular basis – if they had heard from Alice. He found out from Absolem that Alice had travelled to a place called China, far away from London and the rabbit hole. It was over a year in Overland before she returned home, but when she finally did, he asked McTwisp to check in on her nearly every day to make sure that she was okay, though he asked the rabbit to remain out of sight. He didn't want to interfere with her life. He wanted her to be happy…even if it wasn't with him.
And I hope the sun shines
And it's a beautiful day
And something reminds you
You wish you had stayed
You can plan for a change in weather and time
But I never planned on you changing your mind
The Hatter felt sick. He was so close to Alice – practically living in her backyard…quite literally living in her mentor's yard – and yet he could not see her. Time after time, he had prepared to go up top, rehearsing the scene in his head when he would walk up to her door and tell her what he should have told her before she left. He would tell her he loved her. He would tell her he needed her. He would ask her to come back, to come home. He would – No. He would not do any such thing. She was probably already being courted by someone much better than himself. Someone much muchier. Someone less mad. Someone she deserved.
As Alice sat down to tea with Lord Ascot, she wondered what her friends in Underland were doing. She kept glancing over toward the rabbit hole, hoping to catch a glimpse of a rabbit in a waistcoat – or better yet, a man in outrageously mismatched clothing and an oversized top hat – but had no such luck. She sighed slightly and frowned as she glanced back down at the papers in front of her. Lord Ascot was rambling on about something to do with the price of rice in China, but she wasn't really that interested. Though she looked to the man with the love and respect of a daughter, right now her mind was elsewhere. The sun was shining overhead in a cloudless sky, the trees were lush and green, and the flowers were bursting in bloom, the light breeze carrying their sweet scent. For a moment, Alice wondered whether perhaps the garden's growth was a result of Lady Ascot talking to the plants, but she immediately revoked the thought, deciding that even if the woman would talk to a tree or flower, she wouldn't make very pleasant conversation.
Suddenly, a bright blue butterfly landed on the bouquet in the center of the table. Alice gasped. "Absolem?" she whispered hopefully. But the butterfly remained silent, giving her a rather sympathetic look – if a butterfly can look sympathetic – and fluttered away as quickly as it came.
Lord Ascot lifted a bushy gray eyebrow. Alice could be a bit odd at times. It didn't bother him, but sometimes he worried about the girl. "Alice, are you alright?"
"Yes," she replied. But in truth, she felt as though all the air had been squeezed from her chest.
Before she knew it, she was up and running toward the rabbit hole. Breathing heavily, mud on her shoes and tears in her eyes, she finally reached the edge of the portal that would take her back to Underland, back to the Hatter. She paused for a moment, hesitating. How she wished she had stayed in Underland! But now she had even more obligations than before – to Lord Ascot and the company as well as her mother. She realized, with a heavy heart, that she could never go back to her Wonderland – at least, not to stay as she had once hoped. She felt the hot tears trickle down her cheeks as she leaned over the hole one last time. "Fairfarren, Hatter. I love you," she whispered, then turned and walked slowly back to the tea table where a rather confused Lord Ascot still sat with a steaming cup of tea in his hand.
She didn't notice that a rather familiar looking rabbit had been watching her in the shadows. His whiskers and ears drooped sullenly.
So I'll go sit on the floor
Wearing your clothes
All that I know is that
I don't know how to be something you miss
Never thought we'd have a last kiss
Never imagined we'd end like this
Your name, forever the name on my lips
No one had the heart to tell Hatter she had moved on, that she was not coming back, but they didn't have to. He knew by the look on their faces that something was wrong, and it wasn't very hard for him to guess what it was. It was not unexpected, but that didn't make it hurt any less.
When he had first heard the news, he had flown into a rage, tossing chairs, smashing tea pots, destroying hats, ripping the dresses he had made for her from their hangers and throwing them across the room. When he finally calmed down, he sank to the floor amidst the fragments of broken glass, torn ribbons, and ripped fabric, the dresses strewn in a semicircle around him. Suddenly, he gripped the clothing at his chest and screamed in agony, for it felt as though the Vorpal Sword had pierced his chest and slit his heart right in two. He collapsed on the floor.
"ALICE!" The word rang out like a thunderclap in the night. No one in the castle had to guess why he was in pain.
Just like our last kiss
Forever the name on my lips
Lying with the cool marble floor against his feverish brow, the Hatter slowly drifted off to sleep, imagining Alice's cool, soothing hands cradling his tear-stained cheeks and her soft, warm lips against his own.
Forever the name on my lips
"Alice…Alice…Alice…" The words, broken and garbled with emotion, were barely a whisper on his lips as he fell into sleep's comforting arms, dreaming of the woman who broke his heart and what might have been.
Just like our last….