Summary: Alice is preparing to return to England from China. A conversation with a stranger and quadrille with an old friend help her decide what to do from there.

Disclaimer: Neither one of us own or have anything to with the people who make money off of this. We're just writing for fun.

Genre: Fluff, mostly.

Rating: K+

A/N: Please note that this story is a collaboration between two authors, Amaranthea and Niphuria. We both have several different stories posted here on FF, and some of you may be familiar with our work there. It's a bit different than what either one of us have previously written, but we hope it'll amuse you nonetheless.

Alice sat upon her bed in her quarters, aboard the Wonder. She and her crew had been in China for several weeks, and they were due to return to England soon. She hadn't appreciated how complicated the actual 'trade' part of her duties were going to be, when she first agreed to apprentice with Ascot. The shipping business always took its own time, he'd told her. One can travel to the country in question on their own terms, but the actual business of the trading and payment and signing of documents and the negotiations for the return shipment always took time.

Not that it was a bad thing, necessarily. It certainly gave Alice and her crew plenty of time to explore the area they were in, to learn and enjoy its people and their customs. Oh, and her favorite guilty pleasure: discovering the local foodstuffs! While she was terribly interested in many aspects of the rather fascinating local culture, she had to admit to a certain fixation with the new flavors and textures that awaited her, so at odds with the blandness of English cuisine. She always had a bit of a sweet tooth, she mused, and here in China they had many different delicacies to amuse her!

Sweet tooth...one of the images that always plagued her during the day and every night came back to her in full force once more. The Hatter. Tarrant Hightopp, a man with his own considerable fondness for sweets. Adorable and...yes, lovable Tarrant! Tarrant with his wide, engaging smile. That smile featuring the gap between his teeth, and the adorable lisp he had when he uttered her name.

She missed him. Alice missed all of her friends in Underland, but he was the one she had promised to return to. Well, she would. But she had a few things left to do in order to solidify her father's company before she could leave it in the capable hands of Lord Ascot. She wanted to make sure, down to the last detail, that her family would be amply provided for, before she returned. To Underland….to Tarrant.

Tarrant. Again his welcome image appeared in her mind. Thoughts of he and of food swirled together, and suddenly, unbidden, an image came to Alice of she standing before his happy form as he grinned his gap-toothed smile. She saw herself reaching forward and pushing a raspberry between the endearing gap, and his reaction to such behavior. It would match his lush lips perfectly. He would giggle and so would she.

Would he then smile and lean forward and tease his lips across hers? Maybe even his tongue would gently graze her lips, and perhaps...perhaps touch the tip of her own tongue, gently. She would taste the raspberry and something else... but what else? What would Tarrant taste like?

Taste. Oh, she missed him so much! For now all she had were fantasies and dreams, until she could return to him. Of taste, and fruit, and her Hatter.

All of her ponderings of fruit were making her quite hungry.

Oh! Yes, she had almost forgotten. She had purchased some items from a local vender that owned a stand near the docks. Pulling out something that looked suspiciously to Alice like a bunch of grapes, she studied the fruit the vendor had told her in pinjin was called wampee. It looked and smelled intriguing. The skin's greenish cast reminded her of Tarrant's eyes, as well. (She really needed to focus on something other than her inaccessible friend, she scolded herself, even as the back of her mind noted that perhaps they were not the same exact shade as his eyes, but more of a light lime green as opposed to his deep emerald green.)

Alice was tired, but the fruit's delicious aroma beguiled her into taking some into her eager mouth. Its familiar-yet-new acidic grape-like taste assuaged her craving for sweetness and the burst of fluids into her mouth made up for the necessity of spitting back out the seeds and skin, as she'd been instructed to do by the vendor.

He really had been an odd little man, Alice thought. Before she'd been able to pay him for her purchases, he'd simply handed her the wrapped bundle of her selections and said, with a shoo-ing wave of his hands, "Off you go, now."

"But sir, I haven't yet paid you for-" she'd tried to tell him, but he interjected with "No! No. Off you go!"

Amused at this point more than anything else (for her trip to Underland had given her a considerable amount of tolerance to being bossed into doing strange things for no good reason), Alice had asked, "And where, sir, am I going to?"

He'd adjusted the round cap upon his head, gaze focused on the beaten path under their feet. "How should I know?" he'd groused. "So long as it's away from my stall, I do not care!" The man had then looked up at her, his shrewd eyes seeming to see much further into Alice than a stranger's usual stare. "Where to you want to go?"

Alice had started a bit at the familiar pattern this conversation was taking. "I-I'm not…"

Harrumphing, the vendor had turned his back to her. "Figure that out, and you'll be where you need to be. Good day."

Despite her many attempts and pleas for him to turn around and explain herself, the man had from that point forward refused to turn back or even acknowledge her, until finally Alice had needed to concede defeat and return to the Wonder. She had left what she approximated the goods to be worth of money behind, but still had felt dissatisfied, and slightly like she was cheating the man.

What did she want? Alice was not so certain anymore. When she'd been in Underland, her entire driving purpose had been to return home again, to wake up. Do what needs doing, and come home, she'd told herself; it had seemed so simple. Once she'd done that, she'd initially been quite busy with learning various aspects of business and preparing for her voyage; but now that the end of her first of what promised to be many trips to the Orient was drawing to a close, all she could think of was Underland and those she left behind there.

"Perhaps Absolem is right, Alice." she murmured, popping another wampee into her mouth, "you are a stupid girl."

She spit out that skin as well and crawled onto her cot, exhausted. Tomorrow they would be setting sail again. Tomorrow, she would start her journey back to England, and back to the rabbit hole that could take her to Underland. She had much to think on, she decided, about where she wanted to go and who she wanted to be, and approximately three months in which to do so. Three months, she repeated, until she was back on English soil.

Alice lay back and fell asleep, trying to think of telegraphs and trading posts more than bright red hair and gentle hands, and mostly succeeding.

"Dance with me?"

The Hatter held out his hand. He wore no gloves tonight, and Alice was able to see all the small cuts and welts plaguing his flesh. But he seemed completely unaware of them and not in the least bothered or pained by them.

"There is no one else to partner with us. We need at least one other couple to quadrille, and three more to do it properly!" Alice said, looking around at the empty garden surrounding them.

They were on the Ascot property. It was set up just as it had been that fateful day when Hamish had proposed to her; tables and chairs were still scattered about the lawn, with forgotten tea cups and spoons piled atop them; except when Hamish had proposed it had been daytime. Now the lawn was bathed in silvery moonlight.

Hatter took Alice's hand as she was preoccupied with glancing around, and led her gently and gracefully to the dance floor.

"We'll simply pretend there are others here, if that is what you wish." His lips quirked into a smile as he said, "Although I will confess I was rather hoping you would enjoy what Time has given us without longing for the company of others."

There was a long, silent pause as they turned about the set, and when they should have switched partners, Hatter spun Alice around, bowed to the air, and then turned away, as if he were holding someone about the waist. Alice giggled, and the Hatter turned to her, expression stern, but his twitching eyebrows giving away his amusement.

"Quadrille is serious business, my lady." he said. "Giggling is most improper. What would the lobsters think, if they could hear you?"

Not knowing what lobsters had to do with dancing, or anything whatever right now, but thinking it would be great fun to see the crustaceans of her Above world attempt such a thing, caused Alice to giggle even more.

They spun back around, and Hatter returned his invisible dance companion to her equally invisible partner, and grasped Alice's waist once more as he marched them about the set. "There is no sea here for me to toss you into - I am sorry about that. I do hope you can forgive me."

The Hatter was quite close to her, and Alice shivered as his breath ghosted past the shell of her ear. Somehow or other, the dance had changed from the quadrille to something else altogether…something much more intimate. Their hands were lingering longer than they should upon one another, and they were no longer pretending there was anyone else present with which to dance.

"That's quite fine." she demurred, having no desire to be tossed into the sea, anyway. "I'm fine just where I am."

"Are you?" He grinned the gap-toothed smile that Alice had been waiting for. A blush spread across her face, and she glanced away, hoping he did not see her flush.

There, right with them on the dance floor, where previously had been nothing, now sat the round table from the Room of Doors. A small glass dish sat on its centre, piled high with plump, ripe raspberries. There was no note with the fruit, no placard that said Eat Me; the implication of the table being there was enough. If there the table was, and it had food upon it, then that food should be eaten, should it not?

She led them closer to the table, and as soon as she neared it snatched a handful of the berries as they twirled by. A twist of her body after that, and she was pressed right against the Hatter, front to front, his body a solid warmth in the cool night air. His arms hovered indecisively over her waist for a moment as they gazed at each other, but finally settled about her.

Alice brought one of the raspberries she'd taken from the table to the Hatter's lips, and traced the delicate fruit across them. Their bodies were so close to one another that she could feel when his breathing hitched, and it emboldened her. She teased the fruit across once more, and giggled as she saw that the color did indeed match his lips, before pressing it more firmly against the seam of his mouth. Alice watched, mesmerized, as he accepted the fruit from her and drew the tips of her fingers into the wet warmth as well.

The raspberry squelched a bit between the gap in Tarrant's teeth due to his eagerness to suckle her now-stained fingers, and they both laughed softly, slightly relaxing the building tension of the moment.

The Hatter was taken by surprise, but he licked the juice from her fingers and smiled. "Raspberry," he lisped. "I adore raspberries. A fruit fit for royals, and for lovers."

Alice blushed once again as she was once more acutely aware that she was in his arms. Tarrant stopped the dance and leaned into her.

"Alice?" he whispered softly.

"Yes?"

"I'm going to kiss you now," he replied, his eyes taking on sparkles of gold.

"I'd like that very much," she whispered back, completely captivated by his gaze.

His lips brushed across hers. Alice held her breath at this first ever touch of their lips. It was heavenly and so...right. Then his tongue gently flicked across her lips.

Raspberry and…and cherry. Cherry was what the Hatter tasted like, she sighed. And that was even more right.

Alice's eyes flickered open. For a moment she felt as if someone had been holding her, but there was no one in her cabin. She looked around. The very emptiness that should have been welcome felt wrong, now. She felt as if someone...no, not just someone. The Hatter. She felt as though Tarrant had just been there with her.

Unconsciously, she licked her lips. The faint taste of raspberry and cherry met her tongue, the same taste as Tarrant's lips. But it had all been a dream! Hadn't it?

Alice licked her lips once more. The taste was still present, refuting her vague sense of disbelief.

A slow smile spread across her face. It seemed her decision had been made, with much less fuss than Alice had thought would be possible. After returning to London and insuring the welfare of her family, she would go to Underland, and Tarrant. She would be with him, and not just in a dream-that-was-not-a-dream.

Raising her hand, she flexed her fingers in front of her eyes, more than a little happy to find that the tips were lightly stained the color of raspberries, as she'd still had that niggle in the back of her mind telling her that perhaps she would not see it. The smile curled up at corners of her mouth, becoming Chessur-like.

"Where I want to go is where I need to be." she whispered. "I'm coming, Hatter. Soon."

Tarrant awoke with a start. He had just had the most amazing dream. Alice was in a place called China, but she was going to return to him soon. In the dream, she had danced a strange English dance with him… And she had even allowed him to kiss her! Her kiss was like the raspberry she'd fed him and also something else...lavender. Yes, his Alice also tasted of lavender.

He touched his lips where he could swear he still felt the lingering warmth of hers. And then he felt it. A small dot on his lower lip. He wiped it away, and stared at the object on his fingertip for several moments.

There, impossibly, was a single raspberry seed.