Title: Secrets and Mysteries
Summary: Secrets have been kept from Alice and there are mysteries to discover. What will happen when Alice returns to her Wonderland?
Rated: T for a certain too hot milliner...you know who I mean!
Disclaimer: I do not own Alice in Wonderland, but if Lewis Carroll and Tim Burton are willing to give me it as a gift, I would gladly except it.
A dock in China...
Alice was lying on her bed aboard the Wonder. She was in indescribable pain and her screaming was loud. The only people in the room were herself, Lord Ascot and a midwife.
She had been in labour for hours and hours on end.
"Come on Alice you can do it. Not long left now!" the midwife said.
"It seems that your baby has the same concept as you my dear. I can already see that the child has inherited your lateness." Lord Ascot said with a chuckle. He was standing next to Alice, holding her hand, which she was squeezing like mad. Alice had always been like the daughter he had never had, Even more so when her father Charles Kingsleigh had died.
"I can't do it!" Alice screamed with another push.
"Just one more push!" the midwife exclaimed.
Alice screamed and pushed with all of her might. The room went silent.
Suddenly a baby cried. Relief washed the room.
"Alice you have a beautiful baby girl." the midwife smiled as she handed over the tiny baby wrapped in a soft pink blanket. The baby was instantly quiet once in her mother's arms. The midwife left the room.
"She so pretty." Alice said whilst gazing down at her daughter.
"Just like her mother." Lord Ascot said whilst looking at Alice.
They stood like that for a time...watching over the baby.
"Would you like to hold her?" Alice looked up at Lord Ascot and he nodded. She handed her baby to him and he smiled down at it.
"What do you think you will call her?"
"I was thinking of the name Eloise Mirana Mallymkun Kingsleigh." she smiled.
"Such a strange and wonderful name. I would expect nothing less of you." he chuckled softly.
"Eloise means both famous warrior and famous in war. I chose the names Mirana and Mallymkun because of two long lost friends of mine."
"Well I think they are wonderful names. But I still wish you would tell us who the father is."
"It might sound bad but I have no idea of who the father is."
"Look Alice, did a man do something to you that felt wrong in any way?"
"No. Well apart from that tradesman who asked me to go to his home to see 'just how large' his 'boat' was and how smoothly it could enter a small, tight port which had never been touched."
"Yes...Well I am glad that you declined. Let me ask you Alice, do you know what he truly meant by that?"
"Why yes, he was asking me to join him at his house to see his boat. It felt wrong because you shouldn't go off with strange men that you don't know, especially if it is to their home."
Lord Ascot sat down in the chair next to her bed.
"Well Alice, I feel as though I should tell you this now because you have given birth to a child and I am your responsible adult... Now how do I put this?" he paused. "Well when a man and a woman get married, or not in some cases, they...amm...Have you heard anything about what happens in the marriage bed?"
"No because you find out on your wedding day. Margaret has only told me that when the time comes I need to 'lye back and think of England or tea time' and 'submit to my husband's every whim'."
"Okay well, firstly I would like to say that if you find the right man then you won't have to do either of those things." he paused. "How do I start? Amm...well on the wedding night a man and a woman engage in behaviour which is inappropriate to be done in public." he stopped and looked at Alice.
"What like passionately kiss whilst hugging?"
"Something a bit like that. Well this is a different type of hug."
"How can a hug be a different type?"
"Amm...well...that is to say that it is done...in the nude."
Alice gasped scandalized. "Completely naked!?"
"Yes and well...men and women have different parts down below. You did know that right?"
"Yes I did. There was that sweet baby boy at the last port. The different parts are how each gender go to the toilet. It is also how you tell which gender they are when the are babies." she smiled at her daughter which was now asleep in Lord Ascot's arms.
"Yes but that isn't the only thing that the different parts do."
"Whatever do you mean?"
"Well when a man and a woman engage in the nude hug...the man puts his part inside the woman...and that is how a baby is made. The woman loses her innocence. Though a baby is not made every time they hug like that."
Alice gasped. "So that is what he meant. But wait! I didn't do that with anyone! How...how did I come to have Eloise?"
"I don't have a clue. It must be a miracle." he passed the baby back to Alice and it started waking up.
"She's opening her eyes for the first time!" Alice exclaimed.
Lord Ascot stood up and looked over the baby. As her eyes opened they gasped.
There in front of them where the brightest green eyes that had ever been seen on Earth.
Little did they know that behind the looking glass, next to the bed, a matching pair of green eyes were watching them.