Alice entered quietly, as if she were visiting a friend on their deathbed- or a corpse falling to bits. She saw immediately that had been the correct course of action.

Tarrant was still milky white, but his hair had become less bouncy, matted and tangled in a most unpleasant manner, as if he hadn't the mind to wash it without help, which she doubted he had any often. His back was to her, as he gazed out the balcony. His shoulders were slumped, and shaking. He was quietly weeping, she realized.

"Alice is so late, I'm afraid," his quivering lisped voice startled her. "You don't have to pretend to be her for me anymore, Your Majesty. I know she's not coming back. It dawned on me this morning as I woke up from the dream again. You know the dream, don't you? I tell you about it every time I pretend you are Alice" his voice hitched at her name. "The dream where she comes back and tells me she's staying because she wants to, for me. For the love I know she will never show, or see, or even admit to herself. She's probably forgotten me by now. Probably married, with a child perhaps. It's been ten years, after all. Why would she want to? Why would someone as lovely as Alice want to come back to a place she can't recall? To an old, odd, mad Hatter?"

He had not turned to face her, but Alice heard the brogue in his voice to know that he was angry, bitter, sad, lonely, and in desperate need of some muchness to overcome the madness.

"Hatter," she whispered. "Hatter, HATTER. TARRANT! For the love of God, Tarrant!"

She grabbed his arm and spun him around. The stains on his eyelids were deep blue, with tear stains punctuating them.

"Oh... Hatter," Alice lamented, but a grin spread across Tarrant's face.

"Oh, Alice! You've finally come back!" he beamed. "You're back and you'll never leave me again and it will be a glorious day of futterwhacken indeed!"

"Hatter!" Alice gripped his arm a bit tighter.

"I'm fine."

They stared at each other a moment, and Alice saw the flurry of emotions quickly shift, but the color of his eyes worried her. They were muted, with gray tinging them.

"Hatter," Alice met his depressing gaze. "I've only been gone four years in my world. I'm so sorry. They filled the rabbit hole."

Tarrant frowned at that, then started looking into the distance, in a fun train of thought. "I wonder how much soil that took..." Hatter grinned his gap tooth smile. It still seemed a bit broken, but Alice was confident that one day it would become whole.

"Hatter."

"Tarrant, please Alice. Call me Tarrant." he pleaded softly.

"Alright, Tarrant... where are you staying?"

"Here of course! I'll show you to my sitting room. We can talk. I... I didn't have the mind to make any tea today. I'm sorry." Tarrant's hand gestured over the tea table, empty and clean.

Better empty than with everything broken, she thought. But Alice did find it surprising that he had the room in such order. It seemed... unlived in. Unused. It unsettled her. All things that started with the letter U.