Lucy in Wonderland
Summary – Alice and the Mad Hatter unintentionally conceived a child, and Alice didn't find out until after she returned home. Alice named her Lucy. Now that Lucy is six, Alice believes it's time to let Lucy and The Hatter meet. But, things in Wonderland don't stay happy for long. The Red Queen is plotting revenge against Alice, and sometimes, a child's curiosity can be extremely deadly.
Authors Note – AWW! You guys melt my heart! I got such great reviews!
Disclaimer – I don't own any versions of Alice in Wonderland, nor do I own the Characters, animals, plants, tea time, or the suite of hearts in a deck of cards. :P I do, however, own a poster of the Mad Hatter. That's right. Be jealous.
Chapter 4: Adult Things
The Hatter stared at his lost love and noticed she hadn't changed at all. She still had the same pale blonde hair and the eyes that always seemed to be smiling. But at the moment, they had almost stopped smiling. Now, they looked… sad... almost as if the candle behind them had been burned out.
The Hatter closed the door behind him and looked at his love. "How could you leave me?"
Alice didn't know what to say at first. After a moment of contemplation, she answered slowly. "Because I had to."
The Hatter snorted. "Oh, I'm sure. You could've at least done me the favor of telling me about… about… about her." Alice took a step back as if she had been slapped.
"I couldn't." She said, a hurt expression gracing her petite face.
"And why not, Alice?"
"I didn't know until I got home."
"Why couldn't come back?"
"I tried! I did! But I… I couldn't find it!"
The Hatter began pacing and gave a large sigh. "You're lying, Alice." The Hatter turned and frowned at Alice. "Absolem has been trailing you for the last 6 years, and he told me you never left China."
Alice closed her eyes and sighed for this was the conversation she really didn't want to have. She didn't want him to know, she didn't want to hurt him anymore than she already had. And if she had learned a single thing in Underland, it was certainly not good to upset the Hatter.
"Well… Why not return?" The Hatter's voice grew gentle, but Alice was able to detect the underlying tone of danger in his voice. His eyes were flickering between orange and green as he found it harder and harder to conceal what he felt.
"I…. Well, I only recently remembered you…" Alice said carefully. "Well, that's not entirely true either, I mean, I remembered you when I had Lucy…. I… Her hair…" Alice said lamely. "And… Every time I saw a blue butterfly, I sort of remembered. At least some memories, like…. Tea…." Alice shut up when she caught the Hatter's expression.
The Hatter didn't speak. His fists clenched, his face hardened and his eyes turned as fiery orange as his wild hair. Alice shrunk backwards, and then thought angrily at herself "You coward." She rushed forward and touched his warm cheeks lightly. The Hatter shrunk away at the closeness, remembering what had happened the last time she had been that close to him
"Please. I'm sorry, but I'm back now." Alice said slowly. The Hatter's eyes returned to their vibrant shade of green, but that didn't sway Alice to believe that everything was okay now.
The Hatter turned away and strode to the dirty window, peering out into the spacious clearing. Several minutes of silence passed by and suddenly he began blabbering.
"A long time ago, three little girls lived at the bottom of a treacle well and their entire lives down there they learned to draw things that start with the letter M… Mice, Marbles… The moon and Marmalade, memory and muchness." He suddenly whirled around and took two large strides and stopped just before Alice. He leaned in towards her neck, his warm breath tickling her. She closed her eyes waiting for him to speak.
"Have you lost your muchness?" He whispered.
Alice's brow crinkled at the question. It was a silly question. How on Earth could you lose muchness, in fact, what is muchness? But Alice knew that it was best not to question things in Underland. And Alice knew even better that you should never lose your muchness. "No!" she said defensively.
The Hatter pulled away, much to Alice's demise. "Then answer this question, why is a raven like a writing desk?" The usual amused glint in Tarrant's eyes had returned.
Alice smiled lightly. "I have absolutely no idea. In fact, I think that there is no such thing that can even compare to a writing desk." The Hatter moved very close to Alice again, their faces a mere breath away from each other. Alice grew nervous at the Hatter's closeness. He smiled. "Tables?"
"I don't give a…a…" Alice strained to remember the very phrase that Chessur had used so many years ago. Being that the phrase was in Outlandish, it was even harder to remember, much less pronounce! "…A scuddlers gut about tables!"
The Hatter laughed in all his amusement. His happiness filled the room and his laughter was like a favorite song of Alice's that she hadn't heard in years. "A guddler's scut, you mean?" The Hatter laughed even harder.
"I knew that, I was just trying to make you laugh!" Alice lied. Her pink cheeks gave away her cover-up.
The Hatter quickly sobered himself. "Sorry, leannán." The Hatter murmured before catching himself.
"What does that mean?" Alice inquired – she was very curious about this new name Tarrant had for her.
"Guddler's scut?" The Hatter said quickly, trying to shift her attention from the new nickname to the strange Outlandish insult. "Well, it literally translates to…" The Hatter cleared his throat, "…thief's ass…"
Fortunately for The Hatter, this did momentarily distract Alice. "Really? No wonder Chessur used the phrase."
"He does have his own way of expressing his feelings." Tarrant agreed. Unfortunately for The Hatter, it took more than some swear words to distract Alice away from what could be a pet name.
"So?" Alice pressed Tarrant for answers. "What does it mean?"
Luckily for The Hatter, he knew how to behave gallymoggers. "I don't know. Why is a raven like a writing desk? I don't know. I know mostly what I speak of, but I know nothing of what I say."
Unluckily for The Hatter, Alice was smart. "If you don't know what it means, then why did you call me that?"
The Hatter bluffed with insane laughter. Alice finally decided she'd ask him later – But she'd find out one way or another.
Alice leaned closer to The Hatter, this time making him nervous. "Shall we partake in true adult things?"
Happily for The Hatter, these "adult things" was something he greatly missed of his dear love. Unhappily for the Hatter:
His bed wasn't made and this greatly embarrassed him.
London, 1778
"Wait!" The fair-haired young girl said, "Please, Bethy, you're running too fast!" The other, much older girl seemed not to care. They ran for a few more moments, the older girl hot in pursuit of a white rabbit.
Finally, the younger girl caught up to her sister."Should we go down?" the girl grinned.
The little fair-haired one peered curiously into a hole in the Earth. It seemed to extend indefinitely downward. The small girl looked up. "No."
"Don't be a puss, Mira. You're too small to do anything. Sometimes, you ruin my day. Oh well, best not to dwell on this. See you later, whiney baby." The older girl called Bethy let herself fall down the hole.
"Bethy!" Mira screamed, venturing closer to the hole, "I'm going to tell Mother!" Mira listened to her sister scream all the way down. The smaller girl whimpered. "Mother will kill us both."
So Mira did the one thing she found appropriate to do. She went down the rabbit hole too, after her sister.
"She was an active baby, I suppose. She walked faster than the other babies at the time did. Always exploring, too." Alice chewed on the inside of her cheek. They lay in the bed and talked. Hatter began asking questions about Lucy.
"Well, what do you expect, she's your child." The Hatter said logically.
"No, our child." Alice corrected gently.
The Hatter said nothing in response. Instead he stood up and busied himself about, almost as if he was avoiding acknowledging the fact that Lucy was his. Finally, he turned to Alice with a small smile on his lips. "Lucy has many people to meet and many places to see."
"Don't forget animals."
"Here, in Underland, animals are people."
Alice smiled and The Hatter, and followed him outside. He had the excitement of a four year old, so Alice reached the door several seconds after Tarrant had. She caught him and Lucy sharing a look, but decided to say nothing of it.
Lucy, however, broke the look and ran to me. "We were just playing a game, and Mr. Thackery is very good at such game. He won very many times." The March Hare looked proudly.
Tarrant brought himself up to his full height. "I assume you can hold down the fort, Mr. Thackery, while I take Miss Alice and Miss Lucy to see the White Queen."
The Hare saluted the trio by putting a spoon to his forehead. Lucy gasped, "A real Queen?" Alice smoothed down Lucy's wild curls while explaining who the Queen was.
"And Miss Mallymkun," Tarrant continued, "She shall keep you the greatest company without falling asleep." The Dormouse popped out of a tea pot, yawning.
"Yessir, sir, I'll just…Be real fine… and all that…" The Dormouse yawned and slid back into the teapot.
Tarrant looked briefly annoyed by this, but alas, The Cat choose to grace the group with his presence twice in one day! "Ah! Chessur, I'm so glad you showed up. Excellent, you and Mr. Thackery shall get along well."
"No can do, lunatic. I just stopped to get some tea, being that Lucy Kingsley – even though she's 'at my service' – refused to bring me tea." Chessur selected a random cup, then winked and disappeared. His head stayed around long enough to say "Ciao."
"Curiouser and Curiouser." Lucy observed.
"Well, never mind then, seems like we're all mad. This way!" Tarrant begin leading them off into the forest, and much to The Hatter's delight, he was able to observe the type of relationship his beloved Alice and Lucy shared. Lucy had begged Alice to recite their favorite poem. It went something like this:
"The Walrus and the Carpenter were walking close at hand…" Alice would begin.
"They wept like anything to see such quantities of sand…" Lucy would finish.
"'If this were only cleared away,' they said, 'it would be grand'…" And so on and so on, they would finish each other's sentence. It was quite the odd poem, but then again, this was Underland. Everything here was one or the other: odd, mad, quirky, or just simply strange.
At only one part did the two talk in unison, and this part was by far the part Tarrant enjoyed most.
"'The time has come,' the Walrus said, 'to talk of many things: Of shoes and ships and sealing wax – Of cabbages and kings – And why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings.'" The girls giggled.
And by the time they finished the poem, the threesome came upon the strange and far too white castle of the White Queen. Alice found a sense of familiarity, while Lucy found herself squinting in the brightness. "Ah, here we are, lovely." Tarrant came to a stop.
Lucy was not sure what they were looking for, but she stayed quiet and paid attention. Finally, through the cherry blossom trees, the White Queen appeared. Tarrant paid his respects to the Queen in his own odd fashion, while Lucy and Alice curtsied.
The Hatter spoke first. "Mirana… Alice has returned."
Any questions? Ask me. Any suggestions? Tell me. Any complaints? Be nice to me.
Random Fact – Alice in Wonderland has been put into many different film versions, but in 1976, it was depicted in a Pornographic film
Eww.