I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack~

I never intended for this story to be this long. I don't know how this happened. My writing style has changed so much, it's such a pain to try and go back to this one. Especially writing in past tense. I hate writing in past tense now. Ulg. I'm so sorry. I had pretty much completely lost my motivation for this story, but I just kept getting alerts; someone had faved it, someone new was watching, someone had left a lovely, encouraging review about how much they loved it. So I worked on something else for a while, took my break, and then began outlining again. I still have a gap, and we are currently in that gap, but I know where I'm going and I haven't given up. I'm so sorry I'm so slow, but I hope you guys know that you're the only reason this story hasn't just fallen off the face of the earth. Thank you all so much.

"He finally asks." Stayne huffed, looking for all the world like a bored sinner in mass. "Really, Tarrant, shouldn't that have been your first thought upon seeing me? I can't believe it took you this long- no, I take that back. With your little mind, it really shouldn't be that surprising."

Alice frowned. "Stayne."

"Really, Alice, if you're going to chastise me every time I point out a fault in the mad hatter, you'll never smile again."

"I didn't ask, either." She pointed out, shutting Stayne up rather easily (she shouldn't be able to do that, he thinks, it's not a good sign, how considerate of her he's unconsciously being as of late).

Sighing, Stayne waved his hand. "Questions can resume upon finding a room to settle in and dry off."

"Or ya cud ansa now," Hatta snapped.

"And let dear Alice stand here and catch a cold?" Stayne rolled his eyes, then caught himself again. Maybe using Alice to manipulate Hatta was the easiest thing, but that wasn't why he'd thought of it first.

But it worked none the less, and no one seemed to notice Stayne's annoyance with himself as they continued to their rooms.

Alice had to look at all the rooms in the hall before deciding, noting their differences, weighing pros and cons, wondering about their history. Stayne had picked the one that looked the best taken care of and settled in immediately (not that there was much settling to do, and frankly he probably last five minutes before he was back out int he hall, wondering what was taking Alice so long). Tarrant, being all cheerful and blubbering, followed Alice about patiently, insisting he'd take a room beside hers. Hamish's patience was so obviously feigned and strained that Stayne took a great deal of satisfaction watching the man try to be dopedly devoted as the hatter.

And in that moment it struck Stayne that they were all acting like a rather pathetic bunch of suitors stumbling over each other for a little girl's hand.

He then slammed the door to his room behind him and locked himself in for the night. Never mind that he had told them he'd explain about the Red Queen and it was a good chance to get on Alice's good side, he was tired of playing the fawning admirer to the powerful women of Underland and he was certainly not on the same level as those two miscreants, and it didn't matter if his survival depended on being in Alice's favor, he would not be mistaken for a love struck fool, not even by himself, and he had tried living without dignity to stay alive and it had not been living and he would not do it again.

And with that, Stayne ignored Alice's knocks and half curious, half worried inquiries as to whether he was well, and instead reclined on his bed (the only furniture left in the room that actually had legs, as animals had not been enslaved as bed frames even before the creatures had fled) and tried to clear his mind until he could sleep.

His sleep was not peaceful. It rarely was these days.

Deciding Chess' preference for the woods, despite Quests' supposed speed, basically amounted to a warning that Quest was probably the more dangerous route, Lowell, Margaret, and Helen turned south. It got dark quickly, and none of the group was center whether this came about due to the natural progression of the day and night cycle of Underland, or because the trees simply denied any light be allowed to shine within their domain. Either way, it was black as pitch, cold as ice, and not at all a pleasant place to be and Lowell kept marching on out of sheer stubbornness, for he was not at all okay with how his wife and mother in law shivered and cowered so (not that Helen cowered, per se—more like glared icily at the blackness about her, as though daring it to approach while she held her trembling hands still at her waist).

The journey, for the most part, was uneventful, for which they were all thankful. No sign of life made itself known as they walked, not wildlife or any more talking flora or even their cat-guide. Somehow, Chess' absence was not all that surprising (why be helpful? When are cats ever helpful? Only when it suits them, that's when—crafty little beasties). Despite no dangers making themselves known, the constant feeling of threat hovered over them, dampening their spirits and making small talk and any hope of cheer rather impossible. It was with much trepidation that, when they finally come across a clearing after some time, Lowell proposed they stop and rest (not because he found the clearing any less threatening than the rest of the forest, oh no. Only because they ground was rather flat, the trees weren't hovering over them, making a look out impossible, and he could tell they were all rather tuckered out from all the walking, the earlier falling (and falling again), and in general everything that had happened that day period. Thus, camp was made.

Lowell volunteered (grudgingly, and with no actual intention to follow through with the heroic proposition) to stand guard while the ladies slept. Margaret rewarded him with doe eyed admiration and one of her more impossibly heart-pounding chaste kisses (he still didn't understand how she could do that) before curling up beside her mother while Lowell propped himself against a charred tree stump to feign watch until his charges were asleep, after which he would join them (after all, what good was he if he was to be tired after a sleepless night the next morning—if, in fact, it was night at all).

He fell asleep to the smell of ash in the air.

"Well, it appears we aren't getting our answers tonight." Alice sighed, stepping back into the room she'd chosen for herself, where Hamish and Hatta had waited (with forced patience and stifled indignation, both trying to convince themselves that answers where all Alice had chased after Stayne for). "I'm sorry, Hatta. We'll just have to get at him again in the morning. But I promise he'll explain."

She said this with such confidence, and Hamish hated that this confidence seemed to be in her trust that Stayne would be true to his word. How could she not see him for the scoundrel he was? It was obvious to everyone else.

Hamish almost choked when the phrase "love is blind" skittered through his head.

Oh, no. Not that. He wasn't having that.

"Maybe we should get some other answers for now, then." Alice and Tarrant both looked at him, and he stood, tall and with his hands clasped behind his back. "Fill in some blanks, as it were. Have you two discussed what you've been up to since you've been apart? Tarrant, especially." He added quickly, seeing Alice's horrified expression. "We obviously need to know what's going on in Underland now that we're here. How were things after Alice returned home?"

Tarrant looked at Alice, and Hamish wished he hadn't said anything. The man struggled for several seconds, his face changing between agony, despair, rage, and eventually settling on the most forced smile that Hamish had ever seen. It hurt to look at.

Alice's face mirrored it. For once, she had not missed any of what had flashed across the Scotsman's face, and she herself looked as though she knew, without a doubt, that every emotion there, every bit of his pain, was somehow her fault. And she hated herself for it.

"Oh, things were, uh, rather swimming after ... " He looked down, left, right, and then smiled wider, his throat bobbing. "Well, the White Queen took her rightful place as queen of all of Underland, and the Red Queen was gone, and everything was peaceful and lovely and there was work to be done, so much work, and we set out to get things done right away. Busy times, very busy, you see, and I wasn't able to visit the White Queen's castle very much, no, not much at all, but but! Everything was much better, very much. Yes."

He nodded, as though that was the end of it, and Hamish's brow rose. He glanced at Alice, who was biting her lip.

"So what brought you to my garden, then? I mean to say, why did you come looking for Alice if everything was going so well?"

"I was busy." Tarrant repeated, shooting an oddly nonthreatening glare Hamish's way. "Very busy. Things to be done, rebuilding a kingdom."

"Yes, I know but—"

"But not terribly many things." He admitted then, looking away. "At least, not for a man of my profession. Mostly laws and things, not hatter things. And while I tried to do non-hatterish things and be helpful and then enjoy my tea-time and what not, I was keenly aware Time was doing that thing I don't like where I want it to be a certain time so that a certain thing might happen—"

His eyes shot to Alice then, quickly, as his ramblings grew.

"And it just wasn't that time and that thing wasn't happening and waiting is hard and I wanted there to be things to do but there wasn't and that just left more time to be wanting the thing that I couldn't have and it just wasn't a good time for me all around but Time never really is good for me anyway, ever, you'd think he would have stopped holding a grudge by now but no Alice was gone and she said she'd be back before I knew it so I tried knowing it hoping she'd be back and she wasn't so then I knew I must be doing it wrong so I tried not knowing it but that didn't help either and—"

And Alice could take no more. She took a slow step back, and Hamish's heart almost stopped, certain she would run, and the Hatter would be even more broken then before, but then she threw herself forward, wrapping her arms around Tarrant Hightopp, whose rambling cut off instantly. She buried her face in his hair, holding him tightly, and he appeared frozen in her grasp.

" ... I missed you, Alice." He finally whispered.

"I'm so sorry, Hatta." She replied.

"I've been a good dream, haven't I?" He asked, and she pulled away just enough to gaze down at his open expression, his pleading eyes.

She smiled. "The best."

He smiled back, lip twitching. "Will you dream of me again, then?"

"Of course."

"Will you still miss me when you wake?"

"Wake? Who says I ever have to?"

Hamish wished he weren't here. Hamish wished he were anywhere else. Hamish Ascott would rather have been locked in Stayne's room with him than here, watching this. He felt like he was seeing something very personal, very private.

He couldn't breathe. He couldn't swallow. He couldn't move. He couldn't think.

And he was so painfully aware that it could be Tarrant Hightopp who would be given the honor of having Alice look at him so lovingly for the rest of his days. Or, if it wasn't Tarrant, maybe she would reign in Stayne as her sister had Lowell. Or maybe it would be some other man, some stranger, or some woman or someone else. Anyone else.

Anyone in any world would be lucky to have Alice Kingsleigh's love. It would just never be him.

That thought struck him then, so painfully, that he felt his own stiff lip tremble.

Alice could fall in love someday, and it would never be him. Alice could live her life a spinster and be perfectly happy, but she couldn't be happy with him. Alice could have everything, be anything, but not with him.

He hadn't realized until that moment that he'd still held onto that tiny shred of hope. That, in changing himself, in growing, he might become a Hamish that Alice would turn her eyes toward. Would be proud of. Might care about.

It had been a foolish thing, that hope. And loosing it was more painful than anything in his entire life.

Finding his legs, he walked out.

He wasn't three feet from the door before that soft hand he knew so well took hold of his own.

"Hamish." Alice was smiling up at him.

His eyes burned. He tried to blink it away. His host smile was in place without even thinking (useful things, masks, terribly useful). "I trust I've sufficiently gotten things started. You can take it from here. I wouldn't worry about him figuring anything out, you can ask all the questions you like and I doubt he'll notice anything amiss—"

"Hamish." Alice repeated, a bit of a laugh in her tone.

He smiled harder, his chin jerking in a nod. "Yes?"

"Thank you." Her expression was still cheerful, but a bit puzzled. "I know I've ... torn apart your world a bit."

"A bit."

"I've hurt a lot of people." Her smile slipped away. She glanced back at her open door, then turned her curious face to him again, watching his eyes, seeming to search for something that Hamish didn't know. "I know that now. I didn't mean to, but ... Hatta and ... and Stayne, even, he's said some things and I think he doesn't want me to know but ... Hamish, did I hurt you, too?"

"Never." He replied instantly, all too aware of the thudding in his chest, the pounding in his ears, the aching in his heart.

She stared at him for a long moment, then stepped up on her tiptoes and placed her lips lightly against his cheek. Then she slipped away, watching him as she walked backwards towards her room. "Hamish Ascott, you are one of the best liars I've ever known."

She has turned back around and Hamish watched as Tarrant perked up at her return, standing to great her, and she puts her hands in his. Their mouths opened, talking, but Hamish can't hear them at all.

Alone in the hallway, he murmured to himself, "I'm a gentleman."