Please see first chapter for disclaimer, rating, warnings, pairings, etc.
Author's Note: I hope all of my readers who celebrate it had a great Independence Day, and everyone had a great Fourth of July! I really enjoyed writing this chapter - a few of the twists it takes surprised even me - and I hope you enjoy it! Thank you all so much for your continued support of me and my story, and thank you for reading!
-Chapter 7-
Preparations
Tarrant had quite a bit of trouble sleeping that night since he was so in anticipation of teaching Alice how to dance. Well - how to dance like an Underlandian, anyway. He knew she must have danced in Otherland, because she had spoken about balls and boring dances there.
He had every confidence that she would be a natural at Underland dancing, however.
So it was with no little amount of excitement that he met Alice in the east ballroom after breakfast. She had dressed in something a little fancier than what she had worn the day before, undoubtedly to prepare herself for dancing with all those layers of fabric and frills.
Alice faced him with a smile, her eyes sparkling, her cheeks touched pink with excitement. "I am ready to learn at the feet of the master," she said.
Almost immediately he felt his face flush. "I'm no master," he said hurriedly. Whatever or whoever had led her to such a Ridiculous Idea? "I've hardly ever danced anything but solos at balls, really. Occasionally, if prevailed upon, I have danced a couples dance, and obviously I know how, but-"
Her small hand rested on his arm, cutting off his nervous rambling mid-stream. "Tarrant," she said, sounding slightly amused.
"-Thank you." Clearing his throat, he offered her a smile. "Kindly allow me to start again. I shall endeavor to do my best to teach you these dances, and have little doubt that you will become a much better dancer than I. You are Alice, after all, and there is no doubt that Alice can do much better than a hatter at dancing."
"Except for the Futterwacken," Alice said.
He carefully examined her face for any hints of amusement, but it was clear she'd said those words in all serious. "Ah - perhaps," he said vaguely. "Now then. Shall we begin?"
Alice nodded, and he reached over to turn on the phonograph Thackery had thoughtfully loaned him for the cause. Turning back to his companion, Tarrant swept his Hat from his head and bowed at his waist as any good gentleman would. "May I have this dance, milady?"
He was rewarded by seeing Alice's cheeks once more color becomingly. She curtsied back and said, "It would be my honor, kind sir."
The moment her small hand slid into his large (and suddenly clumsy) grasp, he began to wonder at the wisdom of offering to teach her how to dance. His skin suddenly felt warm and tingly, and he was having trouble forming a coherent thought, let alone remembering the dance that went along with the somewhat upbeat song cheerfully playing from the corner. "I - ah." Shaking his head sharply - twice - to clear it, he turned to face Alice when they'd reached the center of the floor. He offered her his other hand, which she took without hesitation. "This is one of the more energetic dances," he said. "All dances in Underland fall under three broad categories - Joyful, Sorrowful, and Romantic. I see no point in teaching you the second, unless you have a desire to learn it." He paused long enough for her to shake her head before continuing. "This is one of the first. Ready?"
Alice nodded, her fingers tightening around his.
"All right then. Just follow my lead."
He started out slower than the music required, voicing each step before he took it. Before long he was merely mouthing the moves, and then in no time he and Alice were moving silently and flawlessly about, twirling and dipping and shimmying their way across the floor in perfect sync. Tarrant grinned proudly, happy at how easily she was picking up the moves. It was almost as if she'd been dancing Underlandian dances her entire life!
Alice laughed as she spun under his arm, her soft curls brushing his face as she did so. "This is delightful!" she commented as their hands found each others' again. "I never knew dancing could be such fun!"
In truth, neither did Tarrant. Oh, he enjoyed the occasional Futterwacken, but that was a dance meant to be performed by a single person, not a couple. In truth, all former experiences he'd had with couple dances had not been enjoyable at all - they were stiff and formal and not at all fun.
But dancing with Alice was enjoyable. She learned so quickly and moved so flawlessly with his instructions and guiding that it was impossible for him not to relax and enjoy himself.
When the current song finally ended, they took a step away from each other so he could bow and she could curtsy. Then Alice immediately clapped, her grin of pleasure so wide it looked like it might split her face. "I agree! Dances in Underland are far better than those Above. I have not had so much fun in a long while!"
After a few seconds of scratchy silence from the phonograph, another song started up. "This is a Romantic dance," Tarrant said. He felt a little awkward now, since that particular form of dance was much slower, and demanded a closeness between partners that the Joyful ones did not.
Alice spread her hands and smiled again. "Show me."
He didn't know if she had meant to whisper or not, but the tenor of that sound made a good kind of shiver run up his spine. Swallowing hard, he stepped forward into what could technically be called Alice's Personal Space, something he felt like a Horrible Person for invading - even with her permission. He decided to place her hands first, since that felt slightly less awkward than placing his own. "This hand goes here," he said, guiding her right hand to his upper arm. "And then I hold your other." With one final breath to fortify his lacking courage, he reached out and gently rested his right hand on her waist, trying not to apply more pressure than he had to. "And now…" He took the first step, nearly stumbling over her feet at the unexpectedness of his own move. Inwardly flaying himself, he tried to keep his grip on her relaxed as they went back to dancing. While it was easier to guide Alice through the steps since the music was slower and the placement of their hands were more suited to steering motions, Tarrant found the Romantic dance to be one of the most torturing experiences he'd ever had in his life. It wasn't even that it was really unpleasant, for it was quite the opposite. It was just awkward. He wasn't used to being in intimate positions with a Lady, and he especially wasn't accustomed to it when Alice was involved. She tended to complicate everything, though usually in good ways…
It took Alice a little longer to catch on to the Romantic dance, and each moment stretched longer than the last. He knew Time was playing with him again, hiding somewhere and snickering as he watched his friendly foe stumble over his own feet and sweat in nervousness at his closeness to The Alice. Tarrant would wring its neck next time he saw the fellow, if not for the fact that killing Time yet again would, undoubtedly, do Unmentionably Bad Things to his friendship with Alice.
And then he made his next mistake. Tarrant looked down into Alice's face, which was closer to his than it had ever been. Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly when she saw his face. He had no idea what he must look like, though he had some vague inclination that his Madness was buzzing at the back of his skull a little more than normal, dueling voices demanding he kiss her, and others cautioning him to be a Gentleman to her Lady. That it was too soon for this, because she'd just come back yesterday, after all.
Inevitably, the first voices won.
The music played on as Tarrant tilted his head down and bent a bit at the waist to press his lips to Alice's. Once there he felt so stiff he couldn't move, from fear of rejection or bliss from the feeling of finally being able to kiss her, he couldn't say for sure. Perhaps it was a little bit of both.
It took him a moment to realize that the voices in his head were completely silent for once. They seemed to be waiting in a breathless hush, just like him, to see if Alice would respond to his kiss or reject his kiss, and him.
Alice stood unmoving in his grasp, her fingers tightening around his arm and hand. She felt almost as stiff as he, unyielding, her feet positioned just so in relation to his. Her hair was just brushing his temple, soft and silky. Her skin, which had started out cool, was rapidly growing warmer - he wished he knew if it were with fury or embarrassment or pleasure.
At last his body remembered how to move, and he pulled away from Alice. She stood staring at him with flushed cheeks, wide eyes, and slightly parted lips. Her mouth opened further as if to say something, but she seemed at a loss for words.
Tarrant wasn't. "I'm - sorry, Alice," he whispered. "I didn't mean - I mean, I did, but…" He forced himself to cut off before he started rambling too badly and made everything worse. Without another word, he turned on his heel and stalked toward the door, pausing only long enough to snatch up the phonograph on his way.
At the doorway, Alice's strangled voice stopped him. "Hatter, I…" She couldn't seem to finish the thought.
"I'm sorry, Alice." Maintaining his white-knuckle grip on the phonograph, he left the ballroom as another slow, Romantic song started. It took great control to prevent himself from throwing the thing against the wall to shut it up. All he wanted to do was escape.
Things would surely never be the same again.
Despite his mortification about what happened in the east ballroom, Tarrant was halfway hoping that Alice would come to his workshop at some point. The gentle throbbing in his head made it clear, however, that she was keeping her distance - and a good bit of it - from him.
It was just as well, he thought ruefully, that this had happened. A stack of orders had magically appeared (or so it seemed) while he'd been dancing with Alice. Apparently news of his returning to work had spread, and everyone was clamoring to have a new hat.
For a while he was able to distract himself with work. Whenever he was making something, he devoted his complete attention on it. He refused to do anything but his best, and if a final project turned out anything less than best, he would throw it in the scrap heap and start all over again. That day, more items than usual were winding up in the trash.
His frustration built more and more with each failure, complicating matters further. Eventually he had to give up, which really set off the voices in his head. Grinding his teeth, he headed off to the depths of the castle, desperate to find something to do that would get his mind off his ever-increasing number of problems.
Eventually he found himself in the Library, which was deeply shadowed by the slant of the late afternoon sun. "Your Highness?" he whispered. He was rarely in the Library, since he had a collection of his own books, but when he did, he always felt the need to speak very softly.
"Over here, Hatter."
Tarrant made his way through the many shelves until he found Mirana seated in a chair, a book propped up on her knees, her head on one of her hands. She looked tired, dark shadows staining the skin beneath her eyes, her hair a little rumpled from where she'd either been running her fingers through it in frustration or unconsciously playing with it as she read. "My lady." He bowed formally.
The White Queen looked up with an abstracted smile, returning almost immediately to her book. "How did dancing lessons with Alice go?" she asked. Her tone made it obvious she was being polite, since her concentration was obviously focused on the book in her lap.
"Alice learned the dances very quickly," he said. It was the truth - just not all of it. He was glad Mirana wasn't entirely paying attention to him, otherwise she probably would have caught his hesitance. "How is your research going, Milady?"
Mirana very carefully closed her book, and Tarrant got the odd impression that she was doing it so gently to keep herself from slamming it. "Not well," she admitted. "I know I'm missing something, however. Despite the fact that Chess and I can't seem to find anything in the Library to indicate what this might be, meaning something like this has never happened before, I know somewhere deep inside me that this is familiar. If only I could isolate that Thought and pull it forward, I know I could find the answer for this."
Tarrant shifted nervously. "Is there anything I can do?"
"Unless this recalls something in your memory, I'm afraid not." Setting aside the book, Mirana stood and discreetly stretched. "For now, it's almost time to eat. I didn't realize until just now, but I worked straight through Brillig."
In truth, he'd completely forgotten about tea, as well. He wasn't really in the mood, either, but Thackery would undoubtedly be in a tizzy since at least two people hadn't shown up. "I'm afraid not," he said softly.
The Queen shrugged. "I'm thinking about making myself a Remembering Potion. But I don't have all the ingredients, and without a more firm idea of what I'm searching for, it won't really do me that much good." Her darkly stained lips turned downwards a bit in dissatisfaction. "If only I could remember what part of this sounds so familiar…"
As they exited the Library, Tarrant dared reach out to brush Mirana's shoulder. "It will all work out in the end," he said reassuringly.
Mirana smiled, her head going up a little. "Of course," she said. "I will not give up until I have the answer."
A soft sound from behind him made Tarrant turn just in time to see a flash of blue fabric disappear around the corner. Alice. She had left without saying a word, and he knew it was because he was with Mirana.
His stomach twisted. Why was everything getting so complicated and more puzzles kept piling up when they were trying to simplify things and solve their problems?
~To Be Continued~
Well, that had a few surprising turns in it - but hopefully all you angst-lovers out there liked it. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed!
