Chapter 19: Alice

The first thing Alice takes note of upon waking is that today does not show much promise for being a very good day. Her head spins and she cannot quite seem to get her eyes to open. Her shoulder burns as if she'd been lanced with a white-hot poker and her tongue seems to be stuck to the roof of her mouth.

"Ugh," she remarks, utterly disgusted with both the universe and her circumstances within it.

The hesitant touch of skin and rough linen upon her brow summons a small smile to her lips.

"Alice?" Tarrant lisps softly.

Alice hums, satisfied that he is here to help her get through this monstrously bad morning. If she can just rest a bit more, she'll get up and help him start the stew for lunch and then they can begin painting the rosebushes.

No, wait. That's not right. She and Tarrant don't have any rosebushes and the last ones she'd painted had been in the Red Queen's garden back when she'd been a little girl and—

Alice gasps, chokes on her own breath, and flinches. The Red Queen! Iracebeth and Hamish's lost gun with its telltale trail of smoke and the hole in Alice's Marmoreal-made dress and Tarrant kneeling without his claymore and—!

BANG!

"Tarrant!" she rasps urgently, at last finding the strength to open her eyes.

"Aye, laddie," he croons, petting her cheeks gently. "I'm here."

"Iracebeth—?" she demands, attempting to blink his face into focus.

"—is with Stayne."

For a moment, she panics. And then she remembers that Stayne is dead. "How…?"

"Hamish," Tarrant replies, his green eyes bright with amusement and relief, "has excellent timing."

Alice frowns. "Well, that's rather odd."

"Isn't it?" he happily concurs, still caressing her face with one hand as he reaches for something just beyond her field of vision. "Here, love, have some water. You sound parched."

Tarrant lifts her head slowly and tips a tin cup against her lips. Maddeningly, he controls the angle so she can't gulp the lot down as she would like to.

"I'm still thirsty," she informs him when he takes the cup away.

"I'm told morphine is exceptionally good at making you feel that way."

"Morphine? So I was…" She glances down at her shoulder but only blankets and the ruffles of a strange nightgown meet her gaze.

"Aye," he replies, his hands fluttering uncertainly for a moment. "There in your shoulder. The Doctor Wellington person here says you've a temporary hole there."

"I'm hole-y?" she jokes weakly.

Tarrant rewards her for the feeble attempt with a kiss to her temple and another half-full cup of water.

"So this is China?" she whispers when he lays her head back down upon the pillows and sets the drinking vessel aside. The bedroom itself is unfamiliar but the style reminds her of British interior design.

"It would seem so. There are several more rooms of it, however."

"I should think so," she replies on a tired giggle. Even that small movement causes her shoulder to flare with excruciating pain. For a moment, she simply focuses on breathing. When the flame within her flesh dies down a bit, she opens her eyes. "Tarrant?"

He leans forward again and Alice realizes he'd been watching, fretting, and waiting as patiently as possible for her to fight her way back to him, to the here and now. "Aye?"

She surveys him for signs of injury. "What of you?"

"China-bound," he replies, clearly still focused upon their previous topic, "thanks to Hamish's invitation through a sizable looking glass."

Alice rolls her head back and forth, marveling at his wonderful nonsensery. "No, I mean… are you hurt? Did she shoot you?" Alice reaches her right hand toward him and he immediately grasps her fingers, lifting them to his cheek.

"I'm fine. As I mentioned, Hamish has excellent timing."

Alice squints at him, "That's very generous of you…" He could have been cursing Hamish for arriving a few minutes too late to save Alice from being shot in the first place.

"Your eyes are open," he replies, "and your hand is holding mine. I endeavor to forget what cannot be forgiven and forgive what cannot be forgotten."

Her heart swells at his sagely wisdom. Is it wrong of her to feel proud of him for saying such a thing? "So, how will we get back?"

"Oh, through the looking glass, I imagine… once Hamish revokes our invitation."

"And when will that be?"

"That depends on you."

"I'm ready now," she bravely informs him even as she cringes inwardly at the thought of standing upright let alone trudging through a mirror… however that's done.

"But your fever hasn't caught up with you yet."

"My fever?"

"Yes, yes, the Doctor Wellington person will explain more thoroughly if you like, but he expects some fever yet to come from an injury such as yours."

The thought of having yet another fight ahead of her is unnerving. She is not ready for it. At the moment, Alice feels as if the barest of breezes could blow her away into infinity. Her fingers tighten around his. "Will you stay?"

"Of course, Alice. I'll stay." Tarrant inches nearer to her bedside and, nuzzling her hand which is still grasped in his own, he closes his eyes and confesses, "Hamish, with all his timeliness, has named me your husband here, therefore my place is here, right here."

"That explains a lot," she muses, her eyelids growing heavy now that her curiosity has been mostly assuaged. "Husband."

He gazes at her over their joined hands, his eyes bright with tears and twinkling with happiness.

Alice isn't sure why he seems to be so delightfully surprised. She spares a thought to ask him but it quickly scatters. Instead, she focuses on smiling back at him, basking in the warmth of his joy.

Tarrant turns her hand within his grasp so that he can place slow, whispering kisses upon the inside of her wrist. He lingers there with his lips brushing her skin and his voice lowers further into a murmur meant for pillows and candlelight. "I would not have been able to go on again and endure it all for a second time."

Perhaps it's the morphine that makes a muddle of his words inside her head, but before she can ask him to elaborate, a soft knock sounds against the door. At least she's sure it's not her imagination that Tarrant leans away from her with gratifying reluctance. Still holding her hand, he calls out, "You may enter at will!"

Later, Alice doesn't remember much from her first meeting with Doctor Wellington other than she'd thought he had a very auspicious surname, given his line of work. She drifts in a daze through the introductions and explanations and such, snapping to attention only when she's introduced to the housekeeper and office nurse, Missus Mallory, who promptly orders Tarrant to help her lift Alice's pillow so she can pour some broth into her belly.

Deprived of Tarrant's warm grasp, Alice's eyelids immediately begin to droop despite Missus Mallory's imposing presence.

"Not yet, Missus Hightopp," the woman commands. "Drink your soup first. There's a dear."

Alice is fully exhausted by the time the woman lets her rest. Her stomach is full and her shoulder is in flames and she feels even more lightheaded than ever, but she stubbornly reaches for Tarrant's bandaged hand again and, squeezing it gently, whispers, "I love you."

Tarrant's reply is little more than an indistinct rumble of a man's voice as sleep folds her into its arms. Time loses meaning and measurement to her as she drifts in darkness. After some indeterminable number of hours, Alice manages to roll free of slumber's hold and opens her bleary eyes.

"Tarrant?" she thinks she whines miserably, immediately hating the sound of her own voice.

"Here, love," he says, pressing a cool cup to her lips. "Drink, my Alice."

"Drink me," she mumbles in reply and falls back asleep mid sip.

She doesn't mind the abrupt departure from Tarrant's side so much as Thackery is there to greet her and it's been so long since she's had a proper chat with him. "Am I late for tea again?" she asks and he hiccups.

"Feel like a heel?" the March hare replies, giving her a thousand-yard stare very similar to Cordwain's.

"I'm an Alishin," she insists.

"No tools on the table!" he declares, tossing a scone at her.

Alice spends much of teatime searching for butter under the table and getting lost in teapots. When she next wakes, she does so on a moan and a shiver.

"Tarrant?"

"I'm afraid not, dear. No, with his poor hands, he'd best leave your bathing and wound dressing to me."

Alice tries to focus on the voice – a woman's – nearby. "Your Majesty?" she asks. Her mind is spinning like a carousel, but Alice doesn't think she sees nearly enough white for the figure leaning over her to be the White Queen.

"You've a fever, Missus Hightopp. Just rest and let me cool your brow."

Alice's right hand flutters atop the blankets. "Tarrant," she repeats.

"He'll be back soon."

"No claymore," Alice hears herself insist. "Absolutely no claymores in the house."

"I'll let him know, dear. Here, have a bit more medicine for your shoulder."

Alice grimaces as an increasingly familiar, bitter liquid touches her tongue. "Pishalver," she croaks discontentedly and then falls back down the rabbit hole.

NOTES:

+ Alice doesn't really return to Underland during her convalescence. That's just the fever at work.

Next: Chapter 19, Part 2 in which Hamish hovers...