Disclaimer: Do not own Alice in Wonderland or any of the characters. A few pieces of dialogue came from the movie, cause they just were awesome, and of course I didn't write them only borrowing. The plot however I do own cause it came from my mind.
A/N: Sorry this took so long. Real life caught up to me a family member died and on top of that this chapter just did not want to come out the way I wanted it to. Please review!
Chapter Five
Stepping up into his chair, he took off across the table; a smile still plastered to his face. Teacups and food shattered and smashed as he stepped on them without care. Chessur, seeing he was about to be run over by the man, evaporated to another chair. The poor Hare was trying, in vain, to keep everything on his table from falling over, while the mad man walked past him on the table. Reaching the end of the table, the man used Chessur's abandoned chair to step off the table as fast as he could. Mallymkun and Alice stood there staring up at him; one with a look of awe and curiosity; the other with a look of reprimand.
" Hatter! Look at what ya done! Now there are likely no scones left for me!" Mallymkun said in a disproving tone, with her paws fisted on her hips.
"Mally! I'm terribly sorry, but I just couldn't help it. Alice is back! I've been waiting for a while now for her to get back, and I thought she never was going to come. You see, Time and me got into this row, and being such a dreadful fellow that he is, I had to kill him, we all know how hard that was, but now Alice is back, and Time can come back to do his worst. Though, I don't know how he…"
"Hatter!" Mally finally shouted to Hatter to try and break him out of his ramble.
Looking over to the dormouse, Hatter replied in a choked voice, "I'm fine." Smiling a bit sheepishly, he looked at both Mally and Alice. "Well come along then, let's get some tea; there's much to discuss!" He said as he walked ahead of the two, taking the normal way this time. When they arrived at the end of the table where Hatter normally set, he picked up Alice and put her in the chair next to him, after adding some books and pillows to even out the height of the table and chairs seat. Mally walked under the table to climb up into her normal chair in the middle of the table on the right side. When they were all settled, including Chessur going back to his original seat, talk washed over the four Underlandians as they had tea. Mostly it was if Alice was truly The Alice, or not. Mally stood by her first thought that the girl she rescued was not The Alice. The Hatter adamantly disagreed with Mallymkun.
Alice could only look on, as the two argued back and forth; she had no clue what to say to end it. Looking down at her hands, she noticed the scratch on her arm out of the corner of her eye. While no one was looking she tore a piece of fabric off the bottom of her tattered dress, and tied it around her arm as she listened to the argument continue.
With her voice rising, Mally said, "But McTwisp brought us the wrong Alice! She didn't even know what to do with a Bandersnatch."
"No she's absolutely Alice! I'd know him anywhere!" Hatter replied passionately, not noticing his little pronoun mix up which cause the others to giggle, including Mallymkun. The laughter seemed to break up the argument for the moment, and everyone returned to his or her tea. The Hare and Mally were throwing Food and cups at each other and laughing at the aim and dodging techniques of the other. Chessur had disappeared sometime during the argument, and it was anyone's best guess of where he went.
Alice, feeling someone staring at her, stopped watching the food fight going on at the other end of the table, and looked in the direction of the feeling. Only to find it was the Hatter staring. Confused as to why the Hatter would be staring at her, she asked, " What is it?"
Hatter being pulled from his thoughts at the question said, " Nothing, nothing. It's just the last time you were here you were taller. Now you're here after so much time, and I had thought you would be much taller, not shorter!" He said sheepishly. A thought hit him and he just went along with it. "Of course, everything could be different in Otherland. You could very well shrink with age, not grow. But you would think the aging would go the other way too. Not that you're too old! No, it's probably you're world that's odd. Not that you're odd, because you come from there! You could never be odd! Just your world is different…"
Alice, realizing he wasn't stopping anytime soon, remembered what Mally had done when he did this earlier and shouted, "Hatter!"
Looking startled at being broke off his tangent, Hatter choked out in a high voice, "Sorry…I'm fine"
"To answer you, In Otherland as you call it, we do grow. It's just when I got here I had to drink some liquid, and it made me shrink."
"Ohh, pishsalver. That explains it. Well, I believe we still have some upelkuchen somewhere. Mally, do we have anymore upelkuchen?"
"Hold on a tick. " Mallymkun said as she climbed down her chair to look for some. A few minutes later she appeared on the table with a piece of cake in her paws. Carrying it down the table to the Hatter she said, "You're in luck, we have one bite left." She handed it to the Hatter, and went back to her fun with the Hare.
Turning to back to Alice, Hatter held out the piece of cake to her. "Here you are, my dear, but only take a small bite. Wouldn't want you to grow as big as a house now would we?"
Alice took a small bite, and felt the same warm sensation as before pass through her body. Slowly she grew to her right size. Looking down, she couldn't help but to blush. Her dress grew with her, but was tattered and missing fabric in some places from the last time she grew. Luckily, everything important was still covered. Hatter, noticing her blush, quietly asked her what was wrong.
Alice looked over to the Hatter and flushed even more. Not only was she improperly dressed even to her standards, but she was also in front of a handsome man too. "My dress is barely covering me. It's hardly what I should be wearing."
"Well, I'll make you a new one. Besides, it's late and we need to head to Marmoreal tomorrow. The White Queen will be waiting anxiously for you." Hatter said happy that he could fix the situation. Standing, he led Alice to the windmill. Alice could still hear Mally and the Hare talking, laughing, and throwing thing in the background as she shut the door behind her. Away from the noise of the table, Alice noticed how tired she truly was. She barely made it to the room and bed the Hatter showed her to before collapsing. Within seconds of falling onto the mattress of the bed, she was asleep.