A/N:
Sorry it took so long to update. I've been having severe writers block. This chapter is from Reggie's POV and I've not only never written from a man's POV, I'm also not sure how they think. So don't review to harshly. Constructive reviews help though. I am open to suggestions as well.
I was stunned. She missed me. I found myself gazing at her hair; the color of sunlight. But what was going on with her head? The doctor briefed me before I came in to her room. He explained that Tessie had selective amnesia. She didn't know what was happening to her. As far as they knew her brain was coping with the lost of space by immersing her into what I knew was me and her favorite story. Tessie knew everything there was to know about Lewis Carrol's Alice in Wonderland. She loved it. Nonsense was her forte; anything that didn't make sense really. So far all the help at the hospital had a part to play in her minds game. Her nurse, was Queen Ivory of the White Castle. Her doctor the White king. Ironically her nurse and her doctor are married in real life. Her extended family took the places of the other characters. Except apparently me, my best friend Mark, and Mark's cousin Macie. Tessie herself thinks that she's Alice. It wasn't till I saw her that realized why everyone is who they are in her mind. When we were small. We would role play Alice in wonderland. She was Alice and I was the Mad Hatter. Mark played March Hare. One day he brought over his cousin Macie and she looked so much like a mouse that me and Tessie couldn't help our selves. We made her into the Dormouse. When Tessie's Aunt Verna came to visit she told me to help her prank the woman and the nanny that took care of her Aunt's ugly baby. I made it into a game. Her mean old Aunt was the Duchess from our story. With the cook, and the ugly pig baby in tow. I laugh at the memory. Tessie said we should put black pepper into her Aunt's tea. And we did. She was sneezing like an elephant for almost three hours. The nasty woman never came to visit again, much to the relief of me and Tessie. Her parents had never really been a part of her life. They were too busy to bother with her, so they had relatives and nannies to watch her. When I first met her I asked her to my birthday party. It was wonderland themed, the mad tea party to be exact. We hit it off. I had just moved to England from a little island off the coast of Scotland. She told me that my accent was exactly how she imagined Hatter's to be. We became fast friends. By the time we were 10 we always dressed like our characters. I called her Alice and she called me Reginald Theophillus the 3rd. After a while that was to long and she called me Reggie. There was a wheat field behind my house where we would meet everyday. My father was a rather eccentric man. I always wore his clothes around. Dark green pants rolled up, sky blue top hat lopsided, wood brown shirt with a purple vest falling off my rail-thin body. And of course his old rust orange trench coat. The first time she saw me in that get up she was so happy she kissed me. Smack on the cheek. She blushed so red! Haha! She bought me a red silk bow tie for my 15th birthday.I looked down. Said bow tie was hanging around my neck undone. I sighed. I had grown attached to the eccentric style of my father. I couldn't dress normally if I wanted to, which I didn't, because it reminded me of Her. My Alice. The girl I'd been in love with since the day I met her. The only one who could look at me and see a man. The man I wanted to be, the one I was, and the one I used to be. But still she only saw the good. She didn't know about my family. She met them of course. But they always made an effort to treat me normally in front of her. There was a madness that ran in my family. It was carried by the males and I was my fathers only son. Well I was now. Mother always told me she didn't blame me. But she always treated me different after Zanik disappeared. My little brother when missing right after my madness manifested at age 8. He was five at the time. My madness had been slowly becoming ingrained more obvious.My family never spoke about Zanik with me after he disappeared. It was always implied that they're least blamed me if not held me responsible for him being gone. They didn't love me. They never treated me like I was a person; like I was their son. I was a desperate child, longing to be loved. I just wanted to have someone, anyone, love me. For me. Not because they needed to. Or because they liked my face, or family. But because they knew me. That was my Alice. My sweet angel in blue. She kept me stable through the rough times. Strengthening me when everything went wrong. She was so trusting of me. When I told her that I was mad. That I was crazy. She laughed. She threw her arms around me and put her nose against me. "All the best people are" she whispered. I never forgot that. She didn't believe that I was anything but perfect. Then puberty hit. I laugh aloud at the thought. We were so confused when that happened. She was a head taller then me for 4 years. Once we hit 16 I shot up. In all the wrong places. My legs were easily compared with those of a giraffe. My arms dangled. I was skinny as hell. But by that time I was spending most of my time with Alice. I didn't care what girls thought of me. Alice helped me get it together. Hygiene. Need I say more?
I basically lived at her house. She had a room for me, a couple doors down from hers. She had clothes for me in the closet. Things that we had found around town that fit my style.
I remember some nights she would crawl into my bed, her mind frought with nightmares. She would snuggle up to my chest and cry into my neck. Quiet sobs sounding, she would ask me to sing to her. I had never thought of myself as any musical genius but my Alice loved my voice, and that was enough for me.
Her favorite was a gentle song I had learned from the radio.
"Stay With Me" by Taron Egerton. She loved it. I would sing it softly so as to not wake the house, until she was asleep. I couldn't bear to wake her up. So I would let her sleep in my bed. Head on my arm, back against my front countless nights we slept so.
Not often, but occasion my dreams were taken by the madness. I would awaken in a cold sweat to her standing in the doorway. She would smile sadly, and beckon me. Taking my hand to lead me to her room where the sheets were not soaked with sweat. And I would stay with her those nights.
Those days for me had ended only after I left. Then I had been forced to spend the sleepless nights in my office with a cup of tea. The tea that Alice always made me. Chocolate-mint tea. She always said there was a secret ingredient but she would never say what. The tea I made didn't taste the same; close enough to the real thing though, to calm me.
Leaving was her was the worst decision I ever made. But the truth of it is, I didn't leave her.
I always kept tabs on her, even when I was busy. Unbeknownst to most, Dormie, is a bloody genius with electronics. He was able to hack into cameras all over the city. He and I worked to create an algorithm that would project my picture some where near her if any number of things happened. What we didn't think of was when there weren't any cameras.
Mentally, I hit myself. How could I've been so stupid! I knew she went to work on her uncle Liz's roof every Saturday. She's even invited me over a time or two.
But I wasn't thinking.
I figured it out in time though. I rushed to Bill's house, just in time to see her fall. I couldn't...she almost...all because I wasn't there!
I try to swallow the lump that's formed in my throat as I look as her, asleep in her hospital bed.
A broken sob escapes my throat and I stumble out of my chair to her bedside. My brain finally seems to understand how close I came to losing her. Again.
I grasp her hand as I kneel on the floor. Alice. My Alice. I love you. Even if you don't love me. I will protect you with my very life, my love. Tears whisper silently down my freckled cheeks. I kiss her hand, silently praying for her. For a life and world where she is safe, having nothing to fear. I drift off to sleep as I breathe in her intoxicating scent. A sleep full of hopes, wishes, and terrors.
