"How long was I there?"
"An hour," her mom's voice reverbrates in her mind, mocking her.
Like the original Alice, there was a distinct possibility everything she thought she experienced was a dream... she had nothing, after all, to remember Wonderland by, not that she'd really want to, but... well... the Stone of Wonderland she had left there, the jacket Hatter had given her she had returned to him, her father had died there...
Her fists bunch in the sheets of the hospital bed as she swipes angrily at the tears pooling in her eyes. All she had left was a headful of memories and a morose feeling of loneliness whenever she spots someone walking by her room with a hat on, especially when she looks past the hat and sees anything other than a wide grin that seems to be generally used to cover some other emotion up and unruly dark brown hair fanning around the rim.
She doesn't understand how, after years of always telling her boyfriends that things were moving too fast-- oh, yes, Jack definitely wasn't the first--, Hatter could've wormed under her skin so quickly but he definitely had, just to... just to... well. There's the crux. He hadn't really left her, she had left him... only it had seemed he was trying to do the right thing-- get her back to her world, where she'd be safer and where she had family and friends, a life.
She closes her eyes and sighs, dropping her head back against her pillow. She doesn't miss Wonderland but she does miss Hatter, his inane chatter when things are peaceful and the soft twinkle in his eye when he looks at her.
A night is how long it takes to collect all of the oysters and prepare the Looking Glass, to crown Jack Heart as the new king and, even figure out what's to happen to the former queen.
Winston Heart is declared dead following the collapse but his words and actions leave a lasting impression-- the queen had always been too addled from her obsessions with the teas and the artificial feelings to really be a worthwhile leader, Winston had truly been the brains behind everything. This fact takes little time to come out as the former queen is screaming about her people looking at her and taking orders from that nasty tart of an oyster as she's led out of the clearing, to the scarab where Jack had determined she'd be held.
Ten of Clubs looks distinctly uncomfortable but finally explains when asked by the soon-to-be crowned king exactly that-- they listened to the queen to some extent but if Winston suggested they do something else, they tended to do that instead. It was a juggling act of epic porportions but the queen was so far gone, she never noticed even when it came to monumental decisions.
Which is why Alice thinks it's some kind of irony that exile, initially put into the queen's mind by Winston in the first place, is what Jack decides for his mother, finding a far out of the way place in Wonderland where only a few people live and tea never found a good hold on its residents. It seems the perfect place for her to detox and live out the rest of her life.
Once everything is done, Alice is relieved to find Charlie is well despite his insane way of helping to overthrow the queen, lurking outside in the shadows as night falls, singing "Hey noni noni" as he tends to do. She wonders if Hatter is nearby and hopes that he is, since she's not seen him since just after the ring was forced from the queen. She'll be leaving as soon as they finish collecting the oysters and it's a strange thought-- after all this time to be going home...
She watches Charlie with a fond smile for a minute before turning to continue looking for Hatter, growing more and more despondent as she goes further into the crowds of people lurking around outside the room containing the Looking Glass without seeing him. She knows she should sleep while she can but if this is the last chance she has at talking to Hatter, she doesn't want to waste it.
He had helped her so much, she thinks she just wants to thank him... yeah, totally, that's the only reason... she forces a smile as she sees the police officer who tried to defend her from the queen earlier. "Excuse me, do you remember that man with the hat that was with me earlier?"
"I ... hm, can barely remember my name but yeah, I do remember him. I saw him over there a little bit ago," the man says, waving his hand over to a couple of trees off in the distance.
If she squints, she thinks she can see a form laying beneath them in the twilight so she thanks him before walking over there. Don't walk too quickly, Alice, she tells herself. No point in seeming desperate... As she reaches him and looks down at his hat-covered face, she wonders when how she acted around him began to matter so much. He might be asleep, she ponders to herself and turns reluctantly to leave.
She's not even taken a step when there's a shifting sound at her feet and he says, "'Ey," in a sleepy kind of manner.
She smiles despite herself and kneels down by him, watching as he pulls the hat off of his face and settles it on his chest, his eyes gleaming in the soft glow from the setting sun. "Did I wake you?"
"Nah, was just havin' a minute of quiet," he says, shrugging off her apologetic glance and sitting up against the tree trunks. "Lotsa oysters-- uh, people, over there," he says, glancing back at the hall entrance.
She nods and pokes at the ground, trying to wonder how to word her thank you... after everything, all the close calls, his nonstop attempts at helping her, no word in her vocalbulary seems to be efficient, every sentence she forms in her mind appearing to be lacking in one way or another.
"Ya alright?" he asks, leaning forward with a worried pinch to his face. "Just because I said I wanted silence earlier doesn't mean you can't talk, Alice."
He looks so earnest and worried that she can't help the smile that spreads across her face as she thinks about how she's going to miss this-- this easy connection that she never really had, even with Jack. "I'm fine," she confirms. "Just... thinking. I'm, uh, probably going to be going home tomorrow."
He nods, the old emotions fading away to be replaced with vulnerability and a little sadness. She takes in the subtle changes in his demeanor and finds she approves-- at least she's the only one not thrown a little off kilter with the thoughts of her leaving so quickly.
What scares her is if he asked her to stay, she might be tempted to say yes... but that doesn't exactly seem Hatter's style.
"What from your world do you miss the most, outside of your mother?" he asks curiously, trying to distract from the emotions swirling in his eyes as he grins at her, all teeth and gleam and falseness.
She thinks about it and smiles, "No offense to Charlie but I really miss our food."
"What's your favorite meal then?" he wonders, seeming to be content to keep the conversation light as time ticks past, too quickly.
She smiles, remembering the look in his eyes as she explained pizza to him. She looks around at the empty room before her-- her mom getting some food from the cafeteria now that Alice is awake and more steady emotionally-- and sighs, shaking her head. "It can't be a dream," she decides, a calm kind of certainty suffusing through her like it's always been there, just waiting for her to vocalize it.
She's thumbing through the old Alice in Wonderland book that was her father's when she's called to meet the construction worker who found her and one look at him takes away her lingering loneliness, cements her conviction that it wasn't a dream-- there's no hat, no unruly hair tempting her to play with it, but there is the familiar face and wide eyes with a hint of uncertainty in their depths. The last few pieces of the puzzle fall into place as she dashes to him, clinging to him desperately-- if it's been two, empty days for her, she doesn't want to think about how long he's missed her if time between the worlds are so off that an hour here is days there (And yeah, that's a little cocky of her but he wouldn't be here if he's not missed her, right?). Her thoughts are derailed as he kisses her hungrily and murmurs the very words she had been thinking.
Finally, everything just fits.