- I do not own Alice.

Empty Space

She's gone.

Hatter rubbed an agitated hand across his suddenly numb face, feeling his stubble rub roughly against his fingers. All he could seem to do was stair blankly at the reflective portal as the white coated gate keeper with a stick up his ass pushed oyster after oyster after oyster through the looking glass and back to earth.

And she was just … gone. Alice was back on Earth, right where she belonged. She was finally home and safe and away from the insanity of Wonderland and – and ….

Alice wasn't here, with him.

His heart and soul echoed painfully at the disappearance of that strange, strong, heights-frightened woman, regardless of how much his mind tried to rationalize and reason. She was home … but why did it still hurt so much? Why was the space next to the renegade suddenly so … empty?

With a start, Hater realized that the once crowded room was quickly growing quiet as people vanished like smoke through the gate, leaving only himself, the gate keeper, and the newly minted king, along with a few straggling Wonderlanders. The white knight had longs since made his exit. Something Hatter quickly realized that he should have emulated the moment she was ….

Ignoring the emptiness, the wrongness of the unoccupied space, he sighed. Looks like now was prime time to make his departure before his royal King of Hearts decided that Hatter needed reminding that Alice had chosen Jack in the end. Although Alice hadn't known it, he had seen the way the two had embraced.

She had looked so ….

Before the thought could fully manifest and his heart could take another painful beating, Hatter abruptly turned for the door. What was done was done. The ache would disappear over time. He had to keep reminding himself of that, he just wasn't sure just how long that would take.

Deep down, the rebel had a feeling that all the time in the world wouldn't be enough. Not for her. Not to forget her.

"Hatter!"

The hatted man groaned at the sound of Jacks voice before he quickly pulled on a smile and looked over his shoulder, still walking towards the door.

"Oh, your highness, you're still here?" he questioned in mock shock as he tried to make his exit. "I thought you would have left after Alice …" His throat caught at the mention of her name, his mouth suddenly dry and heart in broken shambles. The pitying look in the new kings eyes was enough for Hatter to regain his composure and continue on. "… After Alice went back home."

Hatter winced inwardly. That had sounded as pained as it had felt, pushing the words out. What he wouldn't do for some liquid Apathy right about now.

"No, I needed to make sure that all those abducted from Earth were safely returned home." Hatter couldn't help but notice the touch of sorrow in the royals voice, no matter how much he didn't want to. His feet slowly stopped of their own accord, pausing in his escape. Hatter hadn't been the only one left behind, after all. Her absence must have been affecting the new king as well.

But she had chosen him in the end. That alone was more than enough incentive to push through his own bleeding heart and get his legs working again. Hatter just needed to leave.

"Well good luck with the kingdom, Jack," the renegade said, swallowing his pride. "I hope you can do better than your mother did." He was so close to the exit, he could see the reflective city before him, calmly waiting to envelope him into its mad maze and make him disappear.

"I asked her to become Queen of Wonderland," spoke the king, his voice booming and echoing madly within the chaotic confines of Hatters mind. He stopped.

Queen?

That one word roared the loudest of all. He had asked her to become queen? Alice would never want to become queen. He was certain of it. She was too much of a free spirit to become tethered to an entire kingdom, but then why had Jack said it? Was her love for him really so strong she would give up her home, her freedom just to be with the two-timing king? Did she love him that much?

Of course she did, after all she came here to save the prince and ended up saving all of Wonderland. Who else would put forth such devotion? The Carpenter might have been a good motivator, but it had all started with Jack.

So that's it then. That's why he said it. Alice was going to become the new Queen of Wonderland and marry Jack Heart.

Hatters heart felt like a heavy lump in his chest.

"Well," said the rebel stoically, "I hope that you two are happy together." There. He said it. Now he was going to jump off the edge of the sidewalk and see just how far down the lake and into the forest he could get before the Jabberwock decided it was lunchtime. He started, once again, to leave.

"She said no, Hatter."

The renegade was, again, stopped in his tracks.

"Huh?" Of all the things Hatter could have said, that was the single intelligent thing that his poor, confused brain could come up with on such short notice. He turned to look at Jack and his mind slowly kicked back in gear. "What do you mean she said no?"

The man frowned at Hatter, obviously not liking the situation at all, before he straitened up and assumed the hard earned composed mask of a king. "Alice denied my request for marriage," the king paused and Hatter only had enough mental state to stop himself from openly gaping at the man. "I wasn't what she wanted in the end."

So Alice hadn't chosen Jack either, huh? A touch of pity wormed its way back into his being, as well as a bit of triumph that he didn't try so hard to kill. Well, at least Jack couldn't have her either. Sure, that probably wasn't the right thing to think, but you know what? It soothed his pride to know that at least the two-timer couldn't catch that evasive, beautiful woman either. Hell, the man was even a prince, and she had still turned him down. Hatter opened his mouth in apology, but stopped. He wasn't sorry that the king had been turned down. A part of him was almost ecstatic at the news, but he also understood what it was like to be cast aside. The king truly was hurting as much as he was, maybe even more, yet he didn't know what to say. What could he say?

"Why are you telling me this?" he finally questioned slowly, "because I don't think it's to start some sort of lost-love club."

Now Jack seemed to be at a lack for words just as he had been moments ago, and Hatter waited patiently, although wearily, for Jack to give his response. Then, finally, the king sighed.

"I wasn't what Alice wanted in the end," spoke Jack softly, his eyes flicking away for an instant before returning to Hatters, "You were."

Hatter was speechless, so the King of Wonderland continued on.

"I've spent a lot of time with her, on Earth, and never once has she looked at me with the same … brightness that she gives you. You helped her through all the mess and trouble my family has put her through, managed to save her countless times, dealt with her stubbornness with a consistent patience that would make the white knight look like he was a fidgety child." The king smiled at this to himself, as if reliving a memory of a better time, then it faded and he looked at Hatter again. "She gets that smile when she looks at you, as if the sun has just shined for the first time in her life, and before she left, do you know who she was looking for? It wasn't me."

Slowly he recalled how relieved she had looked as she caught him right before he tried to escape after seeing them, how her eyes had seemed to reflect the warmth of the sun with just a gaze as she looked at him. Their own embrace had been short and awkward, but beneath it, there had been a certain longing that both had noticed and ignored.

Was it … really him that she had chosen after all?

Yet again, he posed the only question he could to the king. "Why are you telling me this?"

Jack was silent and slowly he began to walk toward the doorway leading out into Wonderland, stopping only at the threshold to stand in the mild sunlight.

"I can't leave Wonderland," came his voice softly. "It's my duty and responsibility to rebuild it and guide Wonderland back to a better time, a time before my mother. I could never go back to earth to try to win her heart again, and you have no idea how much I want to." Jack turned a little to look at Hatter over his shoulder. "I love her, Hatter, and after all that has happened all I want is for her to be happy. And she is happiest with you." Suddenly the king jerked his head in the direction of the looking glass gate, then said, "I'm locking the gate away tonight, so that what happened with my mother will never happen again, but I won't stop you if you decide that Wonderland is a little lack-for-luster nowadays and Earth is more to your liking."

Hatter was speechless.

"Goodbye Hatter," said Jack with a small resigned smile, "and promise to make her happy."

"I promise," he said softly and after a small nod of his head, the King of Wonderland left the gate room to rebuild his kingdom.

Butterflies and sunlight filled his being as the full weight of the kings admission hit him like a lightning bolt. Then a smile stretched widely across his face as he looked over to the gate, seeing only a grinning fool in a strange tweed hat staring back at him. The empty space around him suddenly didn't seem so empty anymore. Alice was just on the other side of the looking glass, afterall.

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