QA-Thankies to everyone who has reviwed my story and sorry that it has taken so long for me to update.
Girly hasn't really had much free time.
Ali stayed with Hatta and Hare and Dormouse for most of the day. She enjoyed the time she spent with them, despite the fact that Hatta and Hare were both horribly drunk, and that Dormouse was usually asleep.
In the end, Hare passed out, soon followed by Hatta, leaving Ali as the only one conscious.
Ali sighed and maneuvered Hare so she was sitting a certain way so if she got sick, she wouldn't drown in it.
Hatta was fine the way he was, she decided after a moment's thinking on the subject.
"He needs you."
Ali blinked and looked at Dormouse, sitting in his teapot in the middle of the table.
"What do you mean?"
"He needs you. Too help keep him sane, or at least sane enough not to hurt people. Whenever you're not in Wonderland for a long time, he starts with one of his moods again. He get's quieter, he drinks more, sleeps less, eats less. It was hard for him, this time. He started to convince himself that that you had left and wouldn't come back again. He thought it was because of him. He thought it was because he had scared you away you off. Hater tells me things, when you're not here and Hare has passed out. What he's done, what he's afraid he'll do, but most of all, he talks about you. One time, he called you his 'innocence'. He didn't elaborate. I don't know what he meant, but I think he was trying to say that as long as you were around, he could be good. As long as you were safe and happy and near him, he knew he wouldn't have to worry about hurting any one because he had you."
Ali was silent. What could she say to that? She sat heavily in her chair, pushing her hair out of her face.
"I didn't know that….I meant so much to him."
She murmured, looking at the sleeping Hatter.
He looked so innocent and harmless when he was asleep. A few strands of his dark hair fell in front of his face, his lips curled into a small smile at what ever he was dreaming.
His top hat was still on the ground next to him from when it had fallen when she had hugged him. He had taken his jacket off and hung it on the back of his chair, the first few buttons of his shirt where undone and his tie was loosened.
"Well, now you do. It's something you should remember." And with that, the Dormouse went back into his teapot, presumably going to sleep.
Ali sat there in silence, with nothing but her thoughts for company.
It was quite a while before Hatta woke up again, but that didn't stop the migraine that roared at his temples. He groaned quietly, pressing a hand against his eyes.
"Here, swallow this." A pill was pressed into his hand.
He put it in his mouth and didn't protest when a glass of water was tilted against his lips to help him swallow the medicine.
"Al-Alice?" He whimpered slightly, still not opening his eyes.
"Yeah, what is it, hon?" She asked him quietly, her voice soft and caring.
"Can I….Can I hold you?" It was something that he had never asked of her before.
There was a moment of silence. Would she reject him? Would she slap him and tell him she thought him a monster and unworthy of an embrace?
Then she murmured a quiet "okay" and let him pull her into his lap.
She curled against him, there was more then enough room for her in the big arm chair.
He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close to him.
"Thank you." He whispered, burying his face in her hair, breathing in her scent, this time untainted.
She didn't say anything and just relaxed in his arms.
They say there in silence for some time, just enjoying being so close to one another.
"Hatta?" Ali whispered, fiddling with a button on his shirt.
"Hm?"
"I just want you to know that I would never just leave and never come back. If I can't come back for a while, I'm sorry, but I'll always come back. I'll try to tell you if there is a reason that I won't be able to come back for a while if I can, but I can't make any promises. I want you to know, it was never because of you that I didn't come back, it was because I had a lot of work to do and because I was so tired. It will never be because of you that I don't visit. I care about you, Hat, you're one of my best friends. I never want you to feel like it's your fault for my not visiting. Okay? I don't ever want you to blame yourself for anything that I've done, or not done."
Hatta opened his eyes slowly and looked down at her, surprise etched on his features.
She smiled up at him. "You mean a lot to me, never forget that."
Hatta returned her smile slowly, and leaned down, pressing a gentle kiss on her lips.
"You mean a lot to me, too."
She sat there stunned for a moment, then started to say some thing, but stopped as Hare woke up and retched violently.
"Ughhh, I don't feel well."
Ali slipped off of Hatta's lap and went to go look after Hare, a light blush covering her cheeks.
Ali sighed as she walked, staring up at the sky as she listened to "Summer of 69" on her CD player.
She was just so damned confused!
First Cheshire had tried to have sex with her, and then Hatta had kissed her.
It was just too much for her to take in at once.
Which was why she was going to see Caterpillar.
The woman was easy to talk to and she usually gave pretty good advice when she chose to.
"Hey Caterpillar, you here?" She called as she approached the mushrooms.
"So loud." Was the answer she received.
She smiled as she climbed onto the top of the mushroom, using the smaller ones that surrounded it as steps.
The Caterpillar was lying there, on the cushions, like the hookah, always seemed to be there, whether she was or not. Her green-yellow skin shimmered slightly in the sunlight, looking softer then ever. Her long, black hair, hung around her bare shoulders, almost long enough to cover her breasts. Ali never understood how Caterpillar could lay there without any clothes on and never seem bothered about it.
"Caterpillar, I need your help, and emotional support, if you choose to provide it."
Caterpillar motioned lazily for her to sit on the mushroom next to her, blowing smoke tendrils into the air.
Ali did so with a sigh, politely declining the Caterpillar's offer of sharing whatever flavor of sheesha she was smoking.
"What do you do when one of your best friends gets stoned and tries to have sex with you, and then, not to long after, another one of your best friends kisses you and tells you that they care about you? And, I think that they were both, well, I don't want to say sincere, because it doesn't seem like the right word, but….I think that it was more then just a spontaneous thing, at least with Hatta. Cheshire, I think that it's something that he's wanted to do for a long time, and I don't just mean the physical act of sex.
"I'm just so damned confused! It's not something I've never expected from either of them. Okay, Cheshire wanting to have sex with me, that isn't that much of a surprise, he's always been a bit of a pervert, but…." She trailed off and sighed.
"I don't think that it was just motivated by sexual desire. I think he meant something by it, stoned or not. And Dormouse told me things about Hatta, things Hatta had told him, and some of it worries me, ya know? And, don't get me wrong, I care about both of them a great deal, but I don't know if I can handle this kind of stress. If they are both implying what I think that they are, then I don't think I could choose one an risk hurting the other. And I don't know how Hatter would take rejection. Am I even making any sense?"
Caterpillar gave her a crooked smile, "Some what. Do you love them?"
"Yes." It was an automatic answer, but true none the less. She did love them, both of them, and she knew it with every fiber of her being.
Then Caterpillar asked the question that Ali had been dreading since she had opened her mouth to speak.
"Who do you love more?"
Caterpillar was able to ask it so casually, lying there on the cushions.
It was a question that Ali was unable to answer.
She loved them both so much…..
"I love them both to much to answer that question."
Caterpillar pursed her lips in annoyance and blew a perfect smoke ring into the air.
"If you are going to pursue a relationship, you will have to choose. The Cat or the Hatter, the Cat or the Hatter? You will have to choose."
QA-Review, peeps!