Disclaimer: SyFy and Lewis Carroll own all the characters, the plot is mine
The sun was just rising as Charlie woke up. He would have to leave for the palace now if he was going to avoid being late. Normally he stayed in the city during the week and only went back to his home in the Tulgey Wood when he was off duty. But the Lady Alice and her harbinger had required his assistance, and he could not have ignored their need. Charlie splashed some water onto his face from his washbasin, and then cast his gaze around to find the young people. A smile stole across Charlie's face when he spotted them. He knew it wouldn't take them long to figure out. Charlie left for the palace singing.
A few hours later Alice opened her eyes. The increasing sunlight finally refused to let her sleep any more – the day was simply growing too bright. She opened her eyes, yawning widely. However, something rather solid got in her way as she stretched. Something still asleep. Something that wasn't wearing a shirt.
Oh, I must have fallen asleep next to him last night. She quickly looked around for Charlie but didn't find him. He must have returned to the palace already. A blush spread across Alice's cheeks as she imagined what this must have looked like to the knight this morning. She knew that nothing had happened, but she didn't know exactly what people in Wonderland would assume.
Alice took a few minutes to recall exactly what had occurred the previous night.
He opened his lips to say more, but a moment later they were rather more pleasantly engaged. Alice pulled him back to her, and he didn't attempt to stop her. Honestly, he'd expected a much less friendly reception. During her first trip in Wonderland, Alice had always pushed him away, done her best to keep him at a distance. But this change in attitude was very welcome.
Her hand trailed down his neck, causing goose bumps to appear all over his skin. Even a light touch from her caused a chill to shoot up his spine. Alice let her hand fall to his back as she held onto him even more tightly, starting feel a bit dizzy. Hatter of course didn't have a problem with this, except that he had a few incredibly tender muscles and she had definitely hit one. He released her with a gasp of pain. Confusion swept across Alice's face as she sat back down with a thud.
"What's wrong?" she asked with a tremulous voice.
"Nothing much. Just hit a sore spot, that's all," he forced out through the pain. It began to fade, but slowly. However, Hatter had to laugh as he saw the sheer disappointment on Alice's face.
"Why are you laughing?" she demanded, getting a little upset. "I just hurt you!"
Hatter grabbed her hand and pulled her up to him. "I'm fine, Alice, really. You'll just have to be gentle with me right now."
Alice sighed and pouted, but had a difficult time managing either as she tried to hold back her own giggles. "And just when I was enjoying myself too…"
"Love, I'm not going anywhere. There'll be plenty of time later…" his voice drifted off as his imagination drifted off into the "later". Apparently Alice was going there too, as she grinned wickedly at him.
"Is this what you say to all the girls?" she teased.
"There never have been any others, Alice. I've only felt this way about you. I'm pretty sure that you're the only girl I'll ever care for like this."
Hatter searched Alice's eyes as she processed what he had just said. This was as close to an open admission that either of them had gotten. Sure, he may have finally kissed her, but somehow Hatter knew that Alice needed to hear more from him. She suddenly looked very young, standing there in his arms.
She took a step back, taking one of his hands in each of hers. Alice began slowly, "Hatter, I- I've spent so long pushing people away that I'm not even sure I know how to have a successful relationship… and I don't want to hurt you. I don't want to push you away. That's the last thing I want to do. Ever. But…. I'm scared that I don't know how not to." She stared down at the ground while waiting for Hatter's response. He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry.
"Love, I won't let you push me away. I won't give up on you, and I won't let you hide. I'll always come to find you and pull you out of the dark."
They stood there for a while, Alice staring at the ground and Hatter looking at her. The night grew even colder around them as he waited for her to speak again, but she needed time. Alice had deep wounds in the relational area, and she wasn't going to be able to drop all her baggage so easily. But finally, what seemed like hours later to Hatter, she looked back up at Hatter. Tears trailed down her cheeks, but a smile stole across her face when he met her eyes.
"I'm… really glad. I wouldn't want you to do anything else. I don't want you to give up on me." She took a step back towards him and he wrapped his arms around her again as Alice buried her head in his shoulder.
Hatter would have liked to remain like this for a long time more, but unfortunately his body began protesting. He was sore all over, and his side was screaming where Alice's arm lay across his wound. He attempted to stay silent, but a grunt gave away his physical state. This time Alice wouldn't let him brush it off.
"Hatter, you really need to get some rest," she insisted. "If you're going to injure yourself escaping, you'll simply have to take the consequences of that like a grown man."
"But I'm not tired…" he started to whine, prompting a giggle out of Alice. "There's too much to hold my attention to allow sleep. You can't really expect me to go to bed now. I'm wide awake."
"Really? Because I was actually just about to go back to bed myself. Since you're so awake, why don't you clean up the mess created by getting YOU cleaned up…"
Hatter couldn't stop the crooked grin from spreading across his face. His Alice was certainly a clever one. "Alright, alright, I guess I'm quite exhausted after all." She smiled triumphantly at him. There was no way she was going let Hatter get worse just because he refused to go to bed. She pushed him gently in the direction of the bed. He didn't try to resist and let Alice steer him. He sat down on the edge of the bed once he got there, trying not to show how tired he actually was. However, he sat down a bit too heavily, causing Alice's eyebrows to rise.
"Hatter, you're worn out. You should have gone to bed earlier," she chided him. The only response he gave her was a snort, although she swore that he muttered "as if" under his breath. But he took his boots off and swung his feet up into the bed. Alice turned to go clean up around and the fire and attempt to stay away.
She made it a few feet away when she heard Hatter clear his throat. She looked back, half-expecting to see him trying to get up. But instead Hatter was sitting on the bed, his expression forlorn.
Seeing he had Alice's attention, he asked, "I don't suppose that I could convince you to sit here with me a few minutes? Just until I nod off, mind you." Truth be told, Hatter wasn't at all sure he could even get to sleep that night. He'd only slept for a few hours in the past month. Every time he tried, images of that woman had flooded his mind and brought hellish nightmares with them.
Unable to say no, Alice gave in to his heartbreaking expression. "Of course."
She slid onto the bed next to Hatter, stretching her legs out in front of her. He sat next to her, propped up against the headboard. They stayed that way for hours, just talking. Hatter told her a little more of what he had experienced over the past few months, and she told him of coming back to her world. But mostly they shared their stories – their memories, their hopes, their fears, and their heartbreaks. Eventually Hatter's head had ended up in Alice's lap. She continued stroking his hair long after he fell asleep.
Alice knew it must be past midnight by now, and she needed to get up and at least try to gather the mess that she'd helped create. But she was just so tired. She decided to lie down for just a moment, just enough to get some energy….
Several hours later Hatter shot straight up, gasping hysterically. Alice jerked awake. She hadn't even realized she was asleep until Hatter had woken her. When her eyes got adjusted to the darkness, she saw that Hatter sat bent over on the edge of the bed, his hands wrapped around the back of his head. Alice immediately eased next to him. She carefully placed one arm around his shoulders and drew him closer. Hatter was shaking. Frightened, Alice didn't know what to do other than sit there with him, absent-mindedly rubbing circles on his arm.
Slowly he stopped trembling. As he sat back up, he turned to face Alice. Tears were running down his cheeks.
"Alice," he began, but faltered. She waited for him to begin again, but Hatter just stared at her with wide eyes.
She stroked hair away from his sweat-soaked forehead. When he still didn't speak for a few minutes, Alice whispered, "Whatever it is, you can tell me. I'm here for you. Whatever it is, I'm here to listen." Hatter pulled Alice so that she was as close to him as she could be without actually sitting on him, and she laid her head on his chest.
They stayed that way for a while, neither one wanting to move. They were strangely comfortable like this, more so than either had been with anyone before. When Hatter finally did speak, he was much calmer. He told her while slowly stroking her hair. "That woman was in my dreams. She did everything that… that she'd already done before. But that wasn't the worst of it. In my dreams, she told me that she knew you were here, that she was going to come for you next. And the worst of it was, there was nothing I could do to save you. I was useless to you, Alice."
Alice raised her head and looked Hatter directly in his eyes. "You could never be useless to me. I would have died or been shipped to the casino without you when I fell through that mirror, and you saved me countless times. And I still need you." He tried to look away, but Alice laid her hand along his cheek and moved his face back to her. "What can I say? I trust you. You won't let anything happen to me. I'm not scared of her."
Hatter didn't seem completely convinced, but at least he seemed to have calmed down from the dream. Alice got the feeling he still wasn't telling her everything, but perhaps Hatter just needed time. After a few more minutes he laid back down, and Alice curled up next to him. She wouldn't leave him alone tonight.
Her face turned a brilliant shade of red as she remembered the details of the previous night. Since when did she go kissing guys that she'd really only known for about a week? Even if it had been a rather unusual week, this kind of behavior just wasn't her. And she certainly didn't stay up talking all night with them and then just curl up beside them and sleep. What was worse was the fact that they'd pretty much admitted that they loved each other. Sure, neither of them had actually said the L-word, but it had been hanging around unspoken all night. Alice groaned. She just felt like everything was going way, way too fast.
Whoa, get a grip, she told herself, taking deep, calming breaths. Alice knew that she was going to have to stop running, particularly if she wanted to stay with Hatter. And she definitely did. The knowledge that her father hadn't left voluntarily had gone a long way towards breaking down her emotional walls, but there was still a lot of wreckage left. Alice was going to need a lot of help clearing it out. Hopefully Hatter would be willing to stick around and get his hands dirty.
The growing sounds of the forest made Alice realize that she was wasting the day. The sunlight was already high above the trees. With a sigh, she went to get off the bed and try to do something productive. Swinging her legs out over the edge of the bed, she stood but was quickly jerked back down on the bed.
Alice whipped her head around to catch a grinning Hatter holding her hand in his own.
"Sorry, but I wasn't quite ready for you to get up," he told her with a low chuckle. "I was enjoying watching you sit and think. You can be quite engrossing when you're still, you know, especially since you rarely are."
Not sure whether to be amused or annoyed, a mischievous smile stole across her face. "Is that so? And you would know this? Since you've spent so much time around me? "
"Of course." Really, the man did have a lovely grin. But his mercurial expression quickly shifted from joking to serious. "Speaking of knowing things, Alice, how did you know to come back for me?" The question caught Alice off guard.
"You won't believe me," she muttered after a moment. She wasn't even sure she believed it herself, except that Hatter had described to her exactly what she'd seen.
Hatter wasn't having that however. "Try me."
So she did. Alice described everything, from what she had seen two nights ago in her bathroom mirror to her exceedingly odd conversation with Duchess. Hatter tried to keep a neutral expression while she spoke, but he couldn't keep the worry from darkening his features. Alice saw that he was troubled when she finished her story.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
Hatter studied her through narrowed eyes. "These… these images came to you through a bathroom mirror? They weren't connected to the actual Looking Glass itself?" Alice thought his voice sounded skeptical. She could feel herself tensing. Hatter obviously sensed it too. "Love, I believe you, it's just odd, that's all. And coupled with the fact that you even got back through the Looking Glass makes this whole thing curiouser and curiouser. I was told that Jack had kept the Stone of Wonderland in a vault for over a month now. There's no way the portal should have been open."
"I don't know Hatter, I'm confused myself," Alice confessed, leaning against him. Everything was far too strange to figure out right then. She hadn't wanted her reunion with Hatter to be under these strained circumstances. Of course everything had to be impossible with her love life.
Hatter interrupted her depressing thoughts with a quick kiss on her forehead. When Alice looked up surprised, he took the opportunity and kissed her full on the mouth, taking his time. After they broke apart, Alice had to resist from giggling.
"I thought you were injured. You really should be resting you know, letting those cuts heal up," she teased. Hatter raised an eyebrow at her. Moving back from her a foot or two, he unwound the bandages. Alice couldn't believe it when there was nothing but a rather new-looking scar and some bruising left on his body. Now that she really looked at his face, she could see that even most of the bruises had disappeared overnight.
"I told you, I heal rather quickly." Alice just nodded, completely bemused. "Now, if you have no further objections…." That put a smile back on her face, and Hatter leaned in to kiss her again. He wanted to take things slowly with Alice, but he had been away from her for a very long month.
Unfortunately, Charlie's alarm system went off. Someone had breached the perimeter. Hatter and Alice both scrambled to their feet. He found his shirt and threw it on over his head while Alice tried to hear where the intruder was coming from. They both heard clumsy footsteps approaching through the underbrush and a rather elegant voice muttering curse words at the forest.
Moments later, Duchess stepped into the camp.
Kind of a cliffhanger. I promise the pace will pick up in the next couple of chapters! And of course had to have a little fluff in here :)