A/N: I can't believe I'm doing this. I am so rusty it is ridiculous. I haven't written anything in quite a while, but wouldn't you know it, I got inspired after what feels like years (It probably has been). Well I fell in love with the mini series Alice on syfy and Andrew Lee Potts, and while watching a fanvid by Lizabethsay to the song Use Somebody by Kings of Leon but covered by Laura Jansen (look it up it is amazing!) I found myself inspired to write this story. Like I said, I'm rusty, and it probably sucks, but it is a cool concept anyway. By the way, I should mention that I am an English major so I definitely know about all the fragments and run on sentences in there, among other things, but I strangely found it fitting to the style of this story, very floaty and dreamy. Even with all of this, I hope you like it anyway.
She was trapped. It was a dream. She knew it. She had it so often, it was unmistakable.
She was locked inside her own mind staring at the empty shelves on the wall and the dust covered hard wood floor that no longer was littered by papers and old worn furniture. The walls were bare with nothing but outlines of where pictures used to be. She remembered those pictures: a happy family with big smiles and perfect lives. That was what they were, but when those pictures were finally taken down, that was the end of those happy faced family members. They were no more. Her smile was forever plastic after that moment.
She looked at the old bookcase that was unable to be moved as it was attached to the wall. What a shame that it could not be removed because she couldn't help but think of so many memories when she looked at it now.
She was wearing a baby blue dress with lace trimmings and there was a blue ribbon in her hair. She was 10 years old. There were tears in her eyes.
It was not the room itself that terrified her, but the thing it represented. The emptiness of that room that once held so many happy memories. That room was her Dad's room and everything about it screamed him. The now sudden emptiness of it, was a physical sign of the emptiness of him in her life. She couldn't stand it. This was why she had never stepped foot in that room after he left. Yet, her memories still tortured her with this image. A small 10 year old girl cried. Inside and outside of herself, she was surrounded by emptiness.
She needed her Daddy. The comfort of his hug.
But Daddy was never coming back, and, somehow, even at 10, she had realized this.
She was crumpled on the floor staring at the sliding wood doors that were her only escape, and yet she knew she couldn't open them. Why could she not? How did she have this understanding? She did not know, but she was sure of it.
Like a crack of a whip, something changed. It was darker, more sinister. The room reverberated a maniacal laughter from wall to wall. It was not a deep loud laugh, but instead just barely a whisper. It was enough, though. She heard it.
Crack. More noise filled the room as a floor board collapsed. At least, she seemed to know it was a floor board, for she didn't dare to look and see.
Crack.
Another.
Crack.
Another.
And then she couldn't ignore it anymore. She jumped up, no longer a small girl, but a 20 year old woman in cranberry tights and healed boots. She was still crying, only now it was because she was slowly loosing her grip on life. Just like she had always feared loosing control, which manifested in a fear of heights, her mind was torturing her again. It's just a dream, the words echoed in her mind. Had she said that before? She remembered jumping into an abyss, but grabbing hold of the slowly crumbling wood flooring when she realized it was not a dream. Could it be happening again? Could this dream be real?
She dared not guess.
She was hovering on a platform in the middle of the floor as the boards around her broke off and disappeared. She closed her eyes and tried to think of other things, happy things, but she had nothing.
She was about to give up hope, when a light opened up on her closed eyes. She felt the light strike her from somewhere in front of her. She dared to squeak open one eye to see if it was a saviors light or simply a trick of her dream.
She saw purple slacks and tan leather men's dress shoes.
She saw purple and tan and red and patterns. She saw a curious grin and an open leather jacket.
It was too bright to be sure that she was seeing it correctly, but she dared to hope. She dared to hope that her savior had come.
A hand came out of the light.
She knew she was not imagining this. Then, a head popped out lit by a halo of light, partly due to the tan color of the knit hat that sat atop his head. Yes, it was a man. A man with big brown eyes, a beautiful smile and a soft dimple just creasing at the corner of his wide grin.
His hand was reaching out for her, asking a silent question. She felt tears rise in her eyes as she reached out, finally realizing that this light and this man had come out of the door that she was unable to open. He was rescuing her, as she could not do alone.
She had needed him.
*
As she snapped awake she realized that she was sitting atop an expansive hill top looking out on a forest city with huge chess pieces to mark the territory.
Oh yes, she remembered now. The Kingdom of the Knights. Wonderland.
She did not remember lying down, but somehow she had fallen asleep, wrapped in the warmth of her purple velvet jacket.
His purple velvet jacket.
She jumped up, brushing off the dirt and grass that might have clung to the fabric of the purple jacket and the cranberry tights, for no other fabric showed when she wrapped herself up in the jacket.
She was looking at a full sky now, with the bright sun blaring in her eyes. It did nothing to dispel the dream that was still lingering as though it was the sleepy film that covered her eyes. She almost felt a tear slip out. Why was she here?
She dared not think of her savior. She knew even without thinking it that he would have done it again in a heartbeat. He would have saved her over and over again. He was the somebody she had been too scared to cry out for. He was the somebody she had needed all along.
She glanced down the hill as she heard a rustling in the grass. After the week she had had, she was ready for another jabberwocky to come storming up the hill. She had not expected to see his hesitant stare and that serious look from his big beautiful brown eyes.
He stopped dead in his tracks as soon as he saw her. She didn't have to guess this, she knew it by the way his nonchalant facial expression had fallen into one of intense concentration and concern.
They had been through so much together after only a few days. How could he look at her like that after so little time? How could she feel like her heart stopped beating in that moment when she had just met him.
Surely, she was imagining things. Surely, he didn't care for her. Surely, he was still waiting for his pay off at the end. Surely, he wasn't meaning to make her heart burst purely at the sight of him.
It had only been a few hours, but she had missed him. Somehow she always seemed to expect nothing of people so they would never disappoint her. She would simply play housekeeper in her own heart and vanish any traces of the person who had just walked away. She fully expected that every man she met would eventually leave and she would inevitably have to renovate in her heart again. She had not expected him to come back.
But he wasn't her father. He had come back.
He was talking now. She couldn't help it, she wasn't listening. She just wanted to wrap him up in a hug and tell him how much she was thankful that he was back, that he wasn't going to leave her.
She spoke her concern, with less emotion than her heart asked for, but she uttered the words, "I was beginning to think you weren't coming back."
He shuffled his stance, pulled one of the classic faces of his, and leaned in to say, "Still don't trust me?"
She ignored the charming demeanor of this man, and the way he smiled nonchalantly.
He had regained his brain somewhere in the discourse. The serious face was completely gone.
She could not be so calm and collected. She stared at him intensely. They stood there a while, just staring, though neither felt awkward. Not until she felt the light touch of his fingers upon her back directing her back to the path he had just traveled did she break the stare.
She was silent.
She knew, even if she never trusted him, that he was her savior. She would always need someone like him to rescue her. He had been there to take a bullet for her, he had rescued her from the truth room, and he was now the one with his long fingers fanning out on her back helping her to watch her step.
She stopped, before they descended the steep slope that lined the throne room. He turned to look at her. His face said, "What is wrong?"
She responded to his unasked question, "Thank you, Hatter."
She didn't know what she was thanking him for, but he seemed to understand as he opened his mouth to respond with a twinkle in the corner of his eye.
"Alice…" he stammered. He visibly gulped down his nervousness. Took a deep breath and…
"Your welcome, Alice."
*
Even if they couldn't say it, she knew deep down that she needed him.