Same ole story, I took forever in updating yadayadayada. Anyway, this is the third to last chapter. This is also probably the longest chapter, and probably the chapter that nobody expected and may not make anyone happy. Well, it won't, that's for sure.

~Black~

-Death-

The day he lost his Alice, his eyes never turned any other color besides a black that took all that it could in his irises. The pain he felt in his heart was the cause, but it was acceptable for someone who had loved another as much as he had to feel this deep agony that he felt.

Hatter had lost the light and quite literal color in his eyes.

After everyone had stopped seeing the color in his eyes, they stopped looking at them. All except Hatter's son, but the young man, just into his twenties, had no other parent to see their eyes really. But he was not above being affected by the death. He wasn't as completely noticeable in his grief, though the young lady princess Miranda did remark that he spoke less to all now. Tarrant heard this, though found his voice as void as his eyes.

Only thing that wasn't a void was his mind. It ran thoughts of death much more than ever before. Nothing he did could get them out of his mind. His heart felt gone, as it really was. Without his Alice, he felt as if death was also waiting patiently for him. Of course, he use to laugh and mock Death, since any friend to Time was a sad friend.

But now, he couldn't mock that which took the light and love from his eyes. No, he had not the strength to do so. He felt so powerless, even more so since the first time he had dealt with this horribly. But now nothing could cure this ache within him. Nothing could bring back that which he had lost now.

So he sat in the armchair in the suite that once had been so homely for him and his darling wife. Now this was his resting place of a haunted mind. A mind that made him relive that horrible tale over and over.

It was a battleground of battlegrounds. Another fight between the Good Queen and his Alice against the ones that would destroy their peace. The battle had begun and reigned on between the two armies. At first, it seemed as though the White Queen's forces were winning. They were pushing back the other forces, pushing them back and keeping them away. His Alice was proud in the front of that. But then as he watched on by next to the Queen, he saw what would be the start of the death of his heart.

He caught the glimpse of the attack far too late and too far to have stopped it. All he remembered that once it had happened, he was running over to Alice. He made it there, fighting away the remaining enemies with a fueled fire. Once they were gone or on the ground, he too fell to his knees on the ground next to Alice. She had a hand over the wound in her side, just threw the armor.

"Alice," he got out in a whisper, eyes wide and tearing up. She smiled up to him, reassuring him that she would be alright with that small gesture on her face. Hatter just focused on that and her, even as the others came to help and began moving her.

However, something in him told him otherwise about her being well after that.

The battle came to end after that. They won. But that wasn't on his mind at that moment. He was more concerned about his Alice.

She had been placed in the wing of the castle for medical purposes, though so little those were in Underland. The healers did all they could. Alice seemed a bit better, but Hatter still waited at her side for full better. She smiled to him, to their son there as well, and to the others that came to visit. She would be fine, she told them.

They all believed her.

It was only a few days later when she would be gone.

Now that remained was a broken man with a pain-filled heart and black eyes.

My Alice…my Alice…I miss you so much. Alice…I love you so much…

Yep, really sad chapter. Sorry that this story took such a turn, but things happen as they happen. This isn't the end though, I still have two more chapters to go before it is done.