Author: ILoveThesePeople
Word Count: 468
Rating: T
Genre: Friendship/Angst
Characters/Pairings: Mad March, Hatter, can be seen as Hatter/Alice
Warnings: Implied murder, assassination.
Summary: Wonderland was and always will be Hatter's penitentiary.
A/N: So, I watched Alice a long time ago, but I never really thought about writing for it. Then I found an Alice fic and I just had this insane urge to write for it. I have a lot more plot bunnies out for this show, so this will be the first of many. Please review!
"Twinkle, Twinkle, little bat, how I wonder what you're at…"
Wonderland was beauty, pure and innocent despite all of its oddities. The wildflowers grew tall in the seas of growing grasses, their songs of merriment floating on the wind for all of Wonderland to hear. The Cheshire's smile was teasing and taunting, yet never cruel as it showed travelers the correct path. It was the home of the beloved king and queen and their exquisite daughter. It was the adventure of two best friends since birth, hand in hand as they fought off imaginary monsters and hid from bemused mothers.
Wonderland is daunting, malicious and vindictive in all of its ways. The fields are gone as are the flowers and their songs, all of their beautiful land devoured in rising blocks of cement made to remind people of the fine line between life and death. The Cheshire's smile is filled with glinting teeth and barely hidden contempt as it directs each traveler senseless enough to listen down the path towards their death. It is the prison of an abandoned queen after a successful assassination attempt, an ignorant king, and their rebel prince. It is the battle field between two enemies, secrets and lies stretched between them.
Wonderland was and always will be Hatter's penitentiary. Wonderland is barely faded memories that stab at the heart and mind. Wonderland is a repeated lullaby that used to calm the soul, shared between two scared friends hiding from an unforgiving world in a forbidden forest. And sometimes, when his eyes roam the landscape that only just barely registers in his mind as "Wonderland; home." that lullaby replays in his head until he swears someone really is singing it.
All of these reasons and so much more is why, when he sees that creature made of human flesh and pristine white porcelain he grabs onto the warm skin of Alice's arm and pulls her away from Conrad March, no Mad March, and tells her- promises her- he will protect her. It's that promise that holds him together because he will not- cannot break that promise. It's the only promise he's made since he told Conrad he wouldn't let anything happen to them and he won't make it if he breaks this one too.
This doesn't make it easier as the porcelain crumbles, giving away until only jagged broken pieces lay on the floor. Yet, somehow, it gives Hatter an excuse to not mourn his best friend yet again. Maybe it was because his best friend had already passed long ago, his mind warped by the lies he would have once laughed at. Or, maybe, it was because he hadn't killed his friend, not really.
He was simply keeping a promise.
"Up above the world you fly, like a tea tray in the sky…"