Ahh, the only good thing that comes from having to work early is that I get my updates out in a timely manner. (Instead of my normal wakeup-time, ten or so in the morning, because I are one lay-zee girl.) Unfortunately, I'm a real devil before lunch, and no one is safe. This morning I bit the paperboy. Well, he was askin' for it what with being insufferably cheerful for seven in the morning. (What, me? Anger management issues? No way!)

o…o

She felt badly about having to skip out on Hatter the last few times and leave him in the night—in order to get to work on time she kept having to get up and go home instead of spending the night with him, which she didn't like doing but it was either that or come up with innovative excuses for being late to work every other day. So she decided to spend the weekend with him. They didn't leave his apartment once.

Alice was far, far from innocent—she was sixteen the first time she had sex and did it frequently since—and she'd had many a lover in her life. Her mind didn't always, or even often, associate sex with love. Certainly she didn't love all of the guys she'd been with; there were times she didn't even like them, but they were reasonably good-looking and at the time she was absolutely gagging for a good lay. Sometimes she felt very strongly for the guys she'd been with, but just as often there was little affection involved at all. It was something purely physical, pent-up sexual frustration being let out. Not unlike beating the tar out of a punching bag when she was angry. Just an outlet.

Love and sex were two different things to her—sometimes they'd coincide, like a Venn diagram, but they definitely weren't mutually inclusive. So sex with someone she actually had feelings for was something she hadn't experienced much of. She slept with Jack, and she thought she maybe almost loved him at the time, but something about it didn't feel quite right to her. It was like he was trying too hard to convince her he was sincere. And he was kind of lousy in bed. Really well-hung but had no idea how to use it. Sex with Hatter was different. For one thing, she let him top, which was something she hardly let anyone do; she had a compulsive need to be in charge of things and she had to trust a man a great deal in order to let him have the upper hand in bed. But what she said in the casino wasn't a lie: she trusted him completely. And Hatter was a spectacular lover. It wasn't surprising—he was a man of a great many talents. He could do things to her that would make her back arch and her toes curl. Sometimes she had to peel herself off the ceiling.

Whether it was because she had feelings for him or because he was just really good in bed she couldn't say. She felt something strong for him, but she had no idea if it was love or not. She liked him—a lot, very intensely, for sure—but 'love' was, to use Hatter's phrase, another kettle of onions. It was all so soon and so quick, and even though their rapidly blossoming relationship wasn't triggering her flight instinct, something still kept her from calling it love.

The sex was still spectacular, though.

It was late evening on Sunday when he brought Alice home.

"I hope your mother isn't upset that I kept you all weekend," he said as they climbed the stairs to her apartment.

"Don't worry about it," she said, nudging the door open with her hip. "Her car wasn't outside, she must be out."

"So… we're alone?"

She disarmed the alarm. "Don't get any ideas," she told him.

He closed the door behind him once they were both inside. "To be honest, we've been through most of my ideas since Friday. It'll take me a few days to come up with more."

She put her arms over his shoulders and stood taller to kiss him. "I'm sure that won't be too hard for a smart guy like you."

Then she playfully knocked his hat back with her fingers and turned to go into the kitchen.

"Can I raid the bookshelf again?" He asked as he eyed the bookshelves in the living room. Alice and her mother had quite a vast collection of books between them: old textbooks from all of their school days combined, books her father used to read, collected series, popular books, unpopular books, all kinds of encyclopaedias, books that reflected interests that had long been forgotten. And Hatter absolutely loved books. She'd never met anyone who read quite as ravenously as he did.

Hatter would read just about anything and was swiftly making his way through the contents of her bookshelves because he'd borrow more books whenever he was there. He had a card for the public library and he spent a good amount of time there, too, when he wasn't with her—because books, he told her, were probably the quickest and easiest way for him to learn everything about her world—but he just as often came and took books out of her apartment because borrowing her books gave him an excuse to see her more often.

In Wonderland, he'd told her, the Queen had strict control over what material was and wasn't allowed to be seen by the citizens. Anything the Queen didn't like—because she thought it was likely to entice her citizens to rebel, or because it was too controversial, or because she was too stupid to understand it—was banned. Books were contraband. One of the things that enticed Hatter to assist the Resistance was that in doing so he got access to their Great Library.

Words were important to him—a mastery of them was what allowed him to survive for so long living life as a double-agent in such a dangerous place. Sometimes, he said, it was nice to remember that words could be used for something else besides conning.

"Go ahead," she called from the kitchen. "D'you want a bag or something to put 'em in this time? Last time you took too many with you and dropped them."

"So I won't take so many this time," he said, poking his head into the kitchen. Alice was rifling through the cupboards.

"Come on, even you don't believe that," she snorted, trying to find something to eat in the pantry.

"Uh-huh. And you know just as well as I do that your mother's kitchen isn't somewhere you're going to find food."

She backed out of the pantry. That was truer than she liked to admit—she and her mother, between the two of them, could hardly remember to keep any food in the apartment unless it was a special occasion. When Alice was little Carol worked two jobs just to make ends meet and in her spare time tried to track down her missing husband, and she sometimes forgot to do frivolous, useless things like buy food; Alice learned from her mother, and spent most of her own time trying to find her father when she wasn't teaching or beating the hell out of something at the dojo, so she hardly ever remembered to buy groceries either.

If it weren't for her friend's family, they probably would've forgotten so much they'd've starved.

"Feel like ordering pizza?" She asked, heading for the fridge for a look, just for the hell of it, because she knew it was likely empty.

"No—my head associates pizza with sex."

"Why's that bad?" She asked with a cheeky little smile.

"It's just that there'd be a very real risk that your mother could turn up and walk in on us going at it like rabbits."

She shook her head and ducked into the fridge, knowing there probably wasn't anything in there except for that jar of what she thought might be apple butter and which she knew came with them when they moved from New Rochelle. The big paper grocery bag with the note stapled to it surprised her.

"Huh—what's this?" She asked nobody in particular, pulling it out and tearing the note off. Her face lit up as she instantly recognized the handwriting.

"What is it?" Hatter asked.

"Groceries."

"Your mother bought food?"

She shook her head and kept reading and her face broke into a wide and cheerful grin.

"It's from JD," she said, as if that explained everything.

"What's a JD?"

She rooted through the bag, pulling out the contents—milk, eggs, bread, fruit, cold cuts, and other essentials.

"He's a friend of mine," she explained. "We've known each other forever—he's the guy who takes the photos."

JD was a photographer who did weddings and graduations and parties and the like in order to pay his bills and not starve to death, but whose real passion was art photography; Alice had been his on-again, off-again model since they were in high school. Hatter had seen some if the pictures he took, and some of those pictures were nudes, making him immediately suspect of the faceless man behind the camera.

"Oh?"

"Not that kind of friend," she said quickly for at least the hundredth time. "Our parents were always friends—his dad and my dad knew each other. And I know all of his siblings, too. We were all kinda close. His mom died around the same time my dad disappeared, so we sorta went through the whole 'missing a parent' thing together. They look out for us, since my mom and me don't look out for ourselves like we should. He hasn't been around for a while—I think he moved in with some girl, so I haven't seen him in a long time."

"Clearly this isn't the first time he's fed you."

"No, it's not. They do it all the time."

"How'd he get in here, anyway?"

"He has a key."

"Oh."

Alice finished reading the note and snickered softly.

"What's it say?" He asked, going through the bag himself. No tea—how typical.

She read from the note, "'I'm back in the city for the time being, long story. I figured you'd need another visit from the grocery fairy. You need to get rid of the jar of apple butter, I think it's older than we are. I'll call you. P.S, who's the hot guy in the hat you were molesting in the parking lot?'"

His eyebrows climbed his head.

"No, really," she showed him the note. "That's what it says."

He didn't look entirely comfortable and she had a sneaking suspicion she knew why. JD was her best friend—most women had female best friends or even gay best friends and JD was neither. She was really, really close to him and had a sort of… easy, flirtatious, intimate friendship with him that often intimidated boyfriends. It intimidated JD's girlfriends, too. Having a best friend of the opposite sex was sometimes more trouble than it was worth. Hatter might've been different than most of her other boyfriends, and he might be a native of a totally different universe, but he was still a guy, and he was still prone to the same insecurities that all other men were prone to.

"He's just my friend. Really," she assured him. "I wouldn't lie to you."

"You keep saying that—I believe you, you don't have to keep on telling me."

"Then why d'you look like you're so suspicious, hm?"

He gave a noncommittal shrug and went back into the living room to raid the bookshelf.

Here it was, Alice decided. The first major hurdle in their fledgling relationship-thing.

But, hey—it wasn't a Jabberwocky or the entire established government, so considering what else they'd been through she imagined it wouldn't be too wildly difficult to work their way through.

o…o

JD is going to play a rather significant role in this story. So is his family. No, I'm not saying why. I'm an evil old lady for keeping secrets. Poor Hatter, being suspicious. Whether or not Alice and JD really are 'just friends' remains to be revealed.

Feedback is, as always, most welcome but not demanded for continuation of the story. I hope you enjoyed!