Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, hobos and tramps, long-nosed mosquitoes and bowlegged ants, to my very special Christmas special! I hope it appeases your expectations. (If not, then, please, tell me how I might remedy this!) Now, a few boring notices, and we'll head on to the real treat...
Disclaimer: "Do I really look like I know? Your judgment must be severely impaired." By this, I mean to say that I have ABSOLUTELY NO OWNERSHIP of AmericanMcGee'sAlice or its characters and setting; those rights go to American McGee and his company. I do not own the story of AChristmasCarol; as everyone knows, those rights go to Charles Dickens. So, to make a long story short, I own nothing. At all. Period. There are a few quotes here as well, not only from both games and the book, but from other adaptations of Dickens' tale, as well (for example, the kids' film AnAllDogsChristmasCarol). I have no ownership of these, either.
Rating: T (for death and – hopefully – disturbing or depressing scenes...mainly just to be safe)
Summary: Alice hates Christmas, and has no desire to celebrate the Holidays anywhere, be it London or her imagination...but will Wonderland allow her to stay a Scrooge? The answer is a resounding...NO. Slightly AU; takes place after Alice:MadnessReturns.
Chapter I: Alice...Scrooge?
Bumby was dead, to begin with.
As if anybody really cared.
Did Alice know he was dead? Naturally: she killed him herself.
Of course, no one knew that; following the mysterious disappearance of the corrupt psychiatrist the papers were calling "Dr. Demon," Alice Liddell came forth, and, with the aid of a few stool pigeons, and her former nanny, presented evidence to the courts of Dr. Angus Bumby's crimes. When the wicked doctor's mangled, headless corpse was found in Moorgate Station, he was posthumously found guilty of crimes far too numerous to mention, from murder, to arson, to petty theft, to abuse, to prostitution, to…well, you get the idea.
Nobody ever questioned the doctor's death, and nobody cared…the court's readily chalked it up to an accident. The psychiatrist's place of operations, the Houndsditch Home for Wayward Youth, was closed and demolished. It's still-sane inhabitants found jobs elsewhere, if adult, or were sent to a different orphanage, if a child.
As for Alice…well, let's just say she got along well.
…Okay, let's come out with it: she was miserable, to say the least. After Bumby's death and post-mortem trial, Alice roamed the streets, searching for a job. Her nanny offered her a place at the brothel where she now worked, but the young, disturbed woman quickly turned the offer down. Again.
Now, she worked as a clerk at a counting house. She lived alone, in a dark, old house that was only large enough to hold a bedroom and a kitchen. Her already homely garbs had grown worse over the course of the few months following her retribution; her stained apron was in tatters, her faded blue-&-white striped dress with long sleeves was rough and grimy on her skin. Her integument itself was pale, her whole being gaunt, her raven hair disheveled and greasy. Her plain stockings, along with her worn, muddy shoes were at least a size too large…one might call her pathetic.
But no one did, for one simple reason: her eyes. Sunken in black-skinned sockets, they glared out at the world, at the universe, cutting into anything that stared into them like green shards of glass. She walked, despite her untidy appearance, with a sense of dignity, but her fists were always clenched tight, her claw-like nails digging into the flesh, as if she was itching for a fight.
Treachery, madness, abuse, and plain weirdness had frozen her, inside and out.
Well…until the time our story takes place in, anyway.
The day? Christmas Eve. All of London was in the Christmas mood as Alice walked home. For the people in the highest districts, this meant gay displays, snowy streets, grand parties, and carolers crossing down the road. Brightly lit trees, a burning Yule Log, rum punch, cake, and other goodies were seen throughout the city, shop windows boasting bright-colored clockwork toys that reminded Alice too much of a certain tea party, and wreaths over every door.
For Alice, it was quite a different story.
As she moved on, heading home from the counting house, the world seemed to show a sense of fear in her presence; a blind man's dog took one look at her, whimpered, and hustled into an alley, tugging its owner so hard that the poor fellow lost his glasses…which were crushed, quite intentionally, beneath Alice's foot. Beggars dared not ask for a token of any sort from the young woman, wrapped in a black wool shawl in an attempt to stave off the biting cold, partially because she looked just as bad-off as themselves, but mostly because of the dark mood that seemed to seep from her very skin.
She came upon a group of Christmas Carolers, braying out-of-tune the traditional lyrics and melody of CaroloftheBells, and glared fiercely at them when they rattled the change in their cup. The gulped in chorus, and took a small step back.
She glanced down at a young boy, with red hair, dressed in a tattered blue coat and brown cap, who huddled closer to an adult woman in the group, dressed in a warm pink dress…presumably his mother. Alice's gaze softened slightly, but she said nothing, nor gave anything…she simply moved on, her green eyes growing cold once more.
The slums of London were radically different from the high points of the city;it was extraordinarily bleak weather: foggy and fiendishly cold. She could see people wheezing and coughing, clapping their hands and stomping their feet in vain attempts to warm them. The clock in the old butcher shop only read 3:15, but it was very dark already...it had not been light all year. The fog came pouring out of every nook and cranny, it seemed, and was so dense that, although the street was narrow, the houses on either side seemed like nothing but vague shadows.
Her eyes became harder than stone when a passerby whispered, "Merry Christmas" to her.
Balderdash.
Alice entered her hovel-like home, grumbling and cursing as she entered the gloomy residence. She went into her kitchen, and silently prepared a bowl of broth – she had a terrible headache – before grabbing an old wooden spoon and heading to her bedroom. She sat on the old, moth-eaten mattress, wrapping her black shawl around her closer, like a cloak of night, and began to eat. Briefly, her venomous gaze fell upon the bookshelf (almost devoid of books, save three, which she really hadn't read), and the keepsakes she had atop it: a portrait of her family, her mother and father standing side by side, proud and smiling, with she and her sister, Elizabeth, between them; an oddly shaped key, retrieved from the villainous Dr. Bumby, that had once opened her sister's bedroom; and, finally...most importantly...her white rabbit doll, one of its button eyes missing.
Help us, Alice...
Alice shook her head and blinked.
"Nonsense..."
"GOOD AFTERNOON, ALICE!"
Alice winced. This was the LAST thing she needed...
"Hello, Hatter," she said, her greeting spoken monotonously.
Her friends from Wonderland had been paying her visits more frequently as of late...two weeks ago, Bill McGill, the chameleon handy-man, came by asking for brandy, claiming he needed some to make a bowl of eggnog. Even if Alice had had any, she would not have given it to the reptilian alcoholic. The very next day, an Oyster Starlet invited her to the Carpenter's newest show: a Christmas Pageant. She quickly refused. The next week, the Duchess appeared, standing in the kitchen, frying a rasher of bacon; she claimed that she wanted to make Alice a special dinner for Christmas, despite the fact it wasn't for another week. Alice almost regretted driving the ogress out...the bacon had smelled delicious, but, when the horrid hag had vanished, the pig-meat went with her. Indeed, the very morning of Christmas Eve, she had found the Mock Turtle in her room, caterwauling like a banshee at the foot of her bed. She felt no ounce of regret when she threw him out the window...he had said that the joy of Christmas always brought him to tears.
It seemed that, even if she wasn't in the Holiday Spirit, her mind was.
The Mad Hatter, like most of Wonderland and its denizens, was, as the Cheshire Cat had put it, "damaged, but safe;" he retained his cyborganic form, the gear in his back slowly turning, as the clockwork mechanisms that acted as his internal organs churned and tick-tocked audibly. His long, gangly limbs, which ended in thin hands, had traded out their rubber gloves for black mittens. His bowlegs, shrouded in black trousers, now bore fur-lined boots, instead of their usual shoes with spats. About his thin, olive-skinned neck was a scarf, striped in black and red. His teapot-topped cane was leaned against his shoulder, and his eyes, silvery and unblinking as ever, held a giddy, childish sense of simple happiness over the ever-present glint of raw madness that he had always carried, and had been accentuated following the Queen's corruption of Wonderland years ago. His thin, green lips were turned up in a foolish-looking grin, revealing his buckteeth, and he tipped his hat, never noticing, or else ignoring, Alice's irritated scowl.
"Hello, Alice! Merry Christmas, and may God bless you!"
Alice scoffed.
"Bah, Humbug!"
Hatter stared, stunned, slowly replacing his hat onto his balding green head. Then he smiled; surely the fine lady was jesting!
"Christmas a Humbug, Alice? You don't mean that, I'm sure!"
"Oh, but I do! I mean what I say, and I say what I mean, Hatter. Merry Christmas? What right and reason have you got to celebrate Christmas, anyway? All you care about are your precious clocks and experiments."
Hatter frowned, confused and upset by Alice's demeanor.
"I've changed. You know that."
"Not all change is good."
Hatter chose to ignore this.
"Please, Alice...don't be cross."
"Well, what should I be? Merry Christmas, indeed! If I had my way, every nincompoop that walks about saying "Merry Christmas," or "Happy Holidays," or anything of the like, would be impaled on a stake of holly, poisoned with miseltoe, and boiled alive in a bowl of plum pudding...not necessarily in that order. In fact, I'd do all three myself!"
"Alice!"
"Hatter! Keep this Season in your own way, and allow me to keep it in mine."
"But...you don't keep it! You haven't 'kept' it in years!"
"Let me avoid it then."
Hatter had a strong urge to try and "fix" this girl, and cure her of her uncanny bitterness…but he knew better. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself...going into a fit now would do no good.
Patience...patience...plenty of time...time...time...time-a-plenty...
"Besides," Alice added, harshly, "the last few times I've gone to your tea parties, something dreadful has happened, and I've barely been able to escape with my life, and, in one case, I lost my sanity...well, whatever I had, anyway..."
"I ask nothing of you, Alice. I want nothing from you! Why can't you just forget and accept that truth?"
"Firstly, I hate the word 'forget,' and you know why. Secondly, and in case you've forgotten, 'Truth is always bitter to those who fear it.'"
Hatter flinched; he'd tried so hard to forget the past…to push the memory of his horrific crimes and twisted experiments back into the bowels of his mercurial mind. But he couldn't.
He suspected this was Alice's will, but that only served to irritate him more.
"The March Hare and the Dormouse forgave you, I understand. And you forgave them."
"Of course; I wronged them, and they returned the favor. I deserved it."
"Yes, you did."
Hatter's eyes became stony and dark.
"Please, don't rub it in. We three are friends again, why can't we just put all those horrors behind us, at least for the Holidays? Why can't you and I be friends again, too?"
Alice blinked, and then returned her gaze to her broth.
"Bah, Humbug."
"Alice, I beg of you...come to tea with us tomorrow! For Christmas! We shall have a party to end all parties!"
"Really? How? Will you be using the sawblade, or laudanum-laced tea? Oh, and do the favors include exploding spoons and acid-filled teapots?"
"Alice...!"
Hatter stopped short; a familiar, decorative chef's knife had appeared in Alice's hand, and it was leveled at his chest. The wood of his torso vibrated as the pumping, steampunk heart beat violently against the Vorpal Blade's tip.
"I'd sooner be eaten by a pack of rabid Jabberspawn than go to your deplorable tea party again, Hatter. Now GET OUT."
Hatter gazed at Alice for a moment. One of his eyes twitched, and Alice half-expected him to strike her with his cane as his fist squeezed it.
Slowly, he exhaled...not quite a sigh, but close.
"I'm sorry with all of my wiring to find you so resolute...but, if you insist on being such a Scrooge this year, I shall go."
"Good," Alice said, and the Vorpal Blade vanished into thin air. "Leave, now."
Hatter turned, and went to the door. He opened it, and began to leave...
Then he paused.
"Oh, Alice?"
"Yes?"
"I'll keep my Christmas humor to the last tick-tock, no matter what you try! Therefore, I repeat: MERRY CHRISTMAS!"
Laughing wildly, the Hatter slammed the door, as a handful of sharpened metal jacks imbedded themselves in its wood.