Author's Note
Set before the miniseries (or as a stand-alone with any Alice films/series/game) The first Alice written is one based off the original Disney movie, the Tim Burton one, and a little of my own concept. Idea came from the line that goes something like this- "The last time she came here, she ended up knocking the whole house of cards down."
The Hatter hadn't always been mad. He'd been young once. When she turned up with her blonde waves and sweet smiles, he'd been beautifully young and carefree. She was fourteen and a third while he bordered on eighteen (in her world anyway)
All he wanted to do was make her smile, the way that his sister used to smile. His sister, with her ginger strands and brown eyes. Alice, with her blonde locks and blue orbs. His sister, with her dead smile and cold shoulders. Alice, with her fiery grin and warm touch. She could never be his sister, and he knew that the moment that she left.
All she came for was a rabbit, and what she got was a kingdom searching for her head. She played the Queen in the warped little game they'd created, one that no one really knew the rules of. She painted the roses and stole the Jabberwocky and brought Wonderland to it's knees.
She was fourteen.
"The Alice?"
"Alice. Just Alice."
"You're late!"
"I arrived exactly when I wanted to arrive; when the tea was cool enough to drink, and the Hatter was mad enough to like."
The night before she left, when she took the potion the White Queen had given her, Hatter held her in his arms and promised her he would always love her.
She laughed and told him not to waste his time. It had been a wonderful dream, but she thought it was best to leave it at that.
As he grew older and madder, the White Queen fell to her sister's sword, and Wonderland crumbled into drugs and darkness, the only thing that seemed to tie him down was the prospect of blonde curls and blue eyes and a sweet smile. It consumed him; an addiction far more powerful than the doses of tea he served out. Doses of the little parts of her he never seemed to match.
Wonderland hadn't ever forgotten how to use it's emotions, more how to recover them from the layers of lies they'd built up over the years.
Every night, captured in a hazy relapse, he'd see her, all perfect and prim, like a rose amongst their thorns. But as the night drew on and his mind grew sober, her white dress would splatter with blood and her perfect smile would carve itself into a sneer.
It has been a wonderful dream, Hatter, but I think it's best to leave it at that. After all, the only real one here is me, and why would I waste my kisses away on a figment of my imagination?
Her name was a mantra in his head. Alice. Alice. Alice. A pray for her to return and fix Wonderland like she tried to all those years ago.
And then, on a rainy day in 2009, when his youth had escaped under insanity's wrath, a young woman fell through the Looking Glass and found her way into his teahouse, and the whole story began again.