Everyone knew the stories of Alice. Everyone knew that she was the little girl who toppled a giant. Of course the versions differed from world to world, but the basic idea was still the same. The true story was one of a battle, much bloodier than the one that can be found in a children's book. A young girl led a small group of rebels against the entire wrath of the Cards and managed to overthrow the corrupt and ruthless monarchy. That girl was a miracle and a legend. She came mysteriously and left mysteriously. She was the story mothers told their children at night to chase away the monsters. She was the hero of the downtrodden and the scared.
Growing up in Wonderland, Hatter knew those stories. He knew them better than he knew himself. They formed the basis of his upbringing. Like every little boy, he wanted to be one of the characters in his favourite story. He knew better than to believe he was a hero, he was much too interested in his own self-preservation, so he couldn't be Alice. Plus, he didn't want to be his own love interest in his games of make-believe because that was weird, even for him. After giving it some thought, he decided to call himself Hatter (because he didn't want to be mad) and soon enough, everyone else called him that too. After a few years even his parents forgot his first name, because he had found his true one. He fashioned himself after the Mad Hatter of the stories he loved so much, because the Mad Hatter had tea with Alice, and Hatter liked tea and loved Alice.
He had always liked the idea of the underdog and to him, Alice was the ultimate underdog. She triumphed against the odds and saved a group of people she barely knew from a threat that had nothing to do with her. She was everything he was not and he adored her for it. He played games by himself, or with other children, re-enacting the events of Alice the same way children in the Alice world play Cowboys and Indians. One group of children would be the Cards, and the other would be Alice's ragtag group of misfits, always led by Hatter. These make-believe battles often turned into actual wars between opposing sides as the children got more and more involved in who they were pretending to be.
These games of pretend fed his mind and taught him how to fight, until the regime of the Queen of Hearts came into its full power and put an end to any line of thought that could be deemed detrimental to its power. However, those endless hours of pretending to be somebody else paid off; he was a skilled and charismatic liar, who quickly became a capable and shrewd business man with a knack for blending in, despite his rather garish wardrobe.
In reality, he was still playing a game but the game was not his and his possible demise suddenly seemed highly probable. He said what he needed to say to get by and he did what he could to help those around him. He managed to create a lucrative shop that allowed him to thrive while secretly doing what he could to help those who didn't know the Queen's game the way that he did.
One day, when all his ideas and stories had been put aside in favour of his survival, a girl showed up. She was named Alice, and she was wearing a blue dress. She came from the other world. The Alice World. He saw her, and she looked nothing like the Alice he spent so much of his childhood imagining. The Alice of legend was blonde and delicate, with angelic features and eyes too big for her face. This Alice was different. She had brown hair and features that weren't elegant, although they were not altogether unpleasant. She had a different personality as well. The other Alice was reputed to be soft spoken and gentle until she was leading the charge to storm the castle. The new Alice was angry, tough, and blunt. But somehow despite all that, she was everything he had hoped for: gutsy, defiant, smart, beautiful, fierce. She was a force to be reckoned with and Hatter loved it. He liked Alices best when they were fighting, and this Alice appeared as if she was fighting all the time. The only complaint he could muster was that she deviated from the Alice of his childhood fantasies in one major detail; this Alice was in love with somebody else.
Of course he knew she couldn't be the Alice. That one had grown up and died long ago. But despite that, Hatter hoped she was his Alice.
She wanted to go home, just like the first, and she wanted to save her loved one, also just like the first. And he wanted to help her do just that. Partly because he was Hatter, and he wanted to see if he can make some money off of her like the business man he was. Partly because on some level, he still believed that he was the Mad Hatter and the Mad Hatter was a friend to all Alices in need. But there was also a small part of him (which he would never acknowledge) that wanted to believe that she was the Alice of legend, returned to save Wonderland from the Queen of Hearts once more and ride off into the sunset with him by her side, just like he had always imagined. Because he was a romantic at heart, and she was his romantic heroine, and he was prepared to follow her to the end of the world and beyond.
A/N: Hello ladies and gents! If you haven't seen Alice yet, GO NOW. FIND IT. WATCH THAT SHIT. Then come back and talk to me about how great/terrible you think it is.