Hatter stopped tapping upon the glass, seeing the tears that glistened in his beloved's eyes, before backing away from the mirror, very slowly.

He didn't want to leave Alice all alone, but he couldn't exactly harass her via a mirror; it wasn't exactly something one did to the person one was in love with.

He felt that he needed to tell her that he loved her, but he knew that taking care of the little queen was more important at this moment. Even if he knew himself to be completely insane, the queens could be more so, aside from the cruelly sane Queen of Hearts who hated Alice from the very bottom of her dark and dreary heart. Red often manipulated people to try and keep them close, but White was so fragile that he sometimes felt that her sisters' tempers had broken her in some way.

White sobbed into his jacket. "She's grown up! She grew up, Hatter!" Tears fell onto his waistcoat and he folded his limbs so he could sit down and hug the crying little girl.

"Only recently. Anyway, you know that they do over there. It's just something that happens with time." He patted the pale little cheek to try and calm her down. She stopped crying and looked up at him.

"But I can't sleep without her, and she promised she'd come back!" The little girl buried her face back into his jacket. It made his heart break. Didn't White think that it might hurt him, break him even if Alice were to die, if the love of his life were to fade from that world? He knew it would cripple him, and a tear rolled down his cheek.

"What's this?" A mocking voice interrupted them and they turned around to see the Red Queen. "White's not behaving and Hatter's crying?" The Red Queen stood there, and her sister immediately hid behind Hatter.

Tossing crimson curls, Red laughed. "What can have happened to make you so pathetically miserable, White?" She stepped forward, carmine skirts rustling and hopped quickly to catch White's face between her palms.

"Is it the mirror? Seven told me that it wouldn't let you through. But did you perhaps see her?" Her eyes twinkled merrily at her sister's unhappiness. "What had happened?"

Hatter removed Red's hands and stepped between the two. "Leave your sister alone." His voice trembled slightly and Red's eyes twinkled a little more.

"Could it be she's aged?" The look of shock in their eyes told her that she'd managed to land upon the truth. She grinned wickedly.

"She has! Your precious Alice has aged!" She danced around laughing, while Hatter tried to reign in his anger. He couldn't show his anger to White, and while he could get away with taking Red's hands from White's face he couldn't get away with attacking the Red Queen.

White began to sob and he wrapped an arm around her, hoping to quiet her.