Please see first chapter for disclaimer, rating, warnings, pairings, etc.

Author's Note: The end of this chapter has been my favorite thus far in this story to write. Thanks to everyone who reviews and alerts my stories, you all literally do keep me writing. Thanks again, and I hope you enjoy this chapter!

-Chapter 4-

Marmoreal

Alice was back! And this time she wasn't his imagination. She was actually there, quietly walking alongside him, looking exactly as he'd remembered her, but - somehow better.

His right hand kept twitching, no matter how hard he tried to keep it still. It wanted to reach out of its own will and touch Alice - her arm, her hair, her hand. The few brief moments he'd touched her before still warmed his palm, leaving a somewhat tingly feeling behind.

There were so many things he wanted to ask her, to tell her; at the same time, all he wanted to do was sit down and stare at her until he had her re-memorized. He hadn't realized how much his mental image of her had faded until he came face-to-face with her again. Or maybe it wasn't so much that his memory of her had faded, it was that she'd changed while Above. He had yet to determine if the changes wrought in her were good or bad.

The same thought kept spinning through his mind, unwilling to leave him alone. Alice is back! She's back, she's here, she's in Underland again! Another thought hovered just beyond - how long was she going to stay this time? - but he didn't allow himself to think about that one just yet. She was there now, and that was what really mattered.

Since Alice seemed quite content to walk in silence, Tarrant swallowed back everything he was wanting to say. There would (hopefully) be time to talk later. After the White Queen had figured out what the connection was between his headache and Alice's, and why they had vanished at exactly the same time.

It seemed like half of forever before the spires of Marmoreal finally came into view. Letting out a sigh of relief, Tarrant unconsciously sped up a bit. The silence between him and Alice had become awkward, and he wasn't sure what to do to break it.

Whispers immediately started whenever the occupants of the palace spotted the group headed to the throne room. Tarrant heard the word "Champion" mentioned several times, and it made him smile. It would appear everyone else was happy to have Alice back in Underland, though he doubted any of them were as happy as he.

Mirana was sipping tea when the quintet entered her throne room. She looked delighted to see them, but even more so when she spotted who was with them. "Alice!" Setting her teacup aside, she stood from her throne and swept down to come embrace the returned Champion. "You've returned to Underland!" The joy in her voice was palpable.

Alice's cheeks flushed becomingly. Though she opened her mouth to say something more, Mirana had already gone on. "We've all missed you so much! But please, you all must stay for tea. I want to hear all about how you were able to return, Alice." She spun away gracefully, lowering her hands to pour more tea for her friends.

Stepping forward, Alice twisted her fingers together. "Though it is nice to see you again, Your Highness - all of you - I'm afraid I've come more for answers than a social visit."

Lifting her head from the tea set, Mirana looked at her in surprise. "Whatever is wrong?" she asked, sounding slightly anxious.

Tarrant stepped up next to Alice. "That's just the thing," he said. "We're not sure. We were hoping you would be able to tell us."

"Wha' he's not tellin' ye, Majesty," Mally added from Tarrant's Hat, "is that 'is headache is gone. An' it would appear our Champ'n 'ad th' same thin' - until sh' came back."

Smiling thinly, Alice nodded slightly in affirmation of the Dormouse's words.

Mirana abandoned the tea and sat down on her throne again, forehead wrinkled slightly. Tarrant wasn't sure if it was in thought or concern, though.

"It got better after I came back to Underland, Queen Mirana, but the closer I got to Hatter, the better my head felt. And once I reached the Tea Party - well, it vanished completely. It's like I never had a headache. While I was in Otherland, though, my head hurt so badly I couldn't stand to be around light or loud noises. It felt like my head was being crushed. But now, there's no pain. At all."

"And though I didn't notice it at first, the same thing happened to me," Tarrant added. "Once Alice arrived at Thackery's, my headache was gone. There was no more pain." Even when he'd escaped into his Madness, more now than even before, the pain had still been present. Even his one escape had not been working anymore, though he hadn't wanted to mention it. Madness was bad enough without having to call attention to it at every turn.

A wisp of blue smoke swirled past him, then manifested itself into Chessur. "So you haven't figured it out yet, have you?" he drawled, eyes wide with excitement.

Mirana looked as displeased to see the Cat as Tarrant felt. "What are you talking about, Chessur?" she asked.

A swish of his tail conveyed his smugness even more than his expression. He looked like the time he'd gotten into the cream while Thackery had been preparing tea, which had caused the poor Hare to nearly fall apart until he was able to find a suitable replacement. Tarrant always remembered that incident with distaste, because his friend had decided vinegar had been the "suitable" replacement. The back of his throat burned at the memory.

"I'm here to help, of course," Chess said. He examined his paw with feigned concentration. "But if you don't want my assistance…"

"Are ye suggestin' th' Queen don't know wha's wrong?" Mally demanded. The tip of her hatpin sword appeared from beyond Tarrant's brim, and he fought the urge to duck so his friend wouldn't accidentally poke his eye out. She seemed to have a fondness for doing that…

A sigh from the direction of the throne drew their attention in that direction. Mirana had lowered her hands to her lap, where she'd primly folded them and was even then studying them studiously. "That's just the thing," she said softly. "I don't know what's wrong. I shall have to consult Absolem and the Library, I fear." She looked at Tarrant and Alice apologetically. "I shall try to be quick, but for the moment, I think it best you stay close to each other. Whatever is happening, it seems to be connected to your proximity to each other. So it's best if you don't wander too far. I will let you know when I have something." Gracefully accepting everyone's bows, she exited the throne room, hands floating in the air. Chess grinned a little wider and swept his tail downwards over his face, vanishing into smoke as he did so.

Thackery glared after the Vanishing Cat for a moment - obviously he still remembered the Cream Incident - before heading off in the general direction of the kitchen. Even though the clock was ticking for him again, he would be working on tea-things. Tea was his favorite thing, so he was always doing something related to tea time.

This left Tarrant, Alice, and Mallymkun alone in the throne room together. For a while the three stood in awkward silence until the Dormouse finally cleared her throat. Hatter and Alice both jumped at the sudden sound. "Tea, anyone?" Mally inquired.

Tarrant gently set his friend down by the tea service, ignoring her glower as he turned back to Alice. She was looking at him with wide eyes, her mouth open as if to ask him a question, but no sound was coming out of her mouth. At last she closed her mouth and shrugged apologetically.

All the things he'd wanted to ask and tell her earlier had fled his mind. Inwardly cursing his madly forgetful memory, he tried to recall something, anything, to his mind to fill the awkward silence between them.

At last an image of his abandoned workshop came to mind, and he nearly jolted with relief. Hoping everything was just as he'd left it, he reached out to grasp Alice's hand in his. "Come with me," he requested.

Alice looked relieved as her fingers curled around his, and she allowed him to tug her after him as he led her toward his workshop. It wasn't too far away from the throne room, but there were several halls and confusing turns between the two places.

"I'm glad you know where you're going," Alice said with a soft laugh. "I think I could quite easily get lost in here if I didn't have you as a guide."

Tarrant remembered his first few days - weeks, really - in Marmoreal. The place was quite a maze until you'd been there for a while and got used to the twists and turns. "It is confusing, but you get used to it all after a while," he told her reassuringly.

A flash of darkness crossed Alice's face, but it was gone almost as soon as it was there. He glanced away quickly, wondering if his words had betrayed his hope that she would permanently stay in Underland now. He had wanted to ask her how long she was staying, but perhaps not this soon. And the very last thing he wanted to do was press her and potentially frighten her into returning Above.

The whole thing was enough to make him go even madder. But he was saved by the familiar door to his workshop, and he flung it open and stepped back with a nervous smile. "My workshop," he whispered.

Alice glanced at him with a bright smile before preceding him into the room. For a moment she stood still just within the door, her intent eyes gazing around, wide with what he hoped was pleasure. He noticed that things were a bit disorganized, since he hadn't cleaned it up after Mirana had come in and told him, however gently, that it would be best if he stopped working, at least for a while.

He followed her, leaving the workshop door open behind him, as she almost crept across the room and reached out to touch a hat sitting on one of the shelves on the wall. "Beautiful," she whispered.

Tarrant had to bite his tongue so he wouldn't agree with her, except he wouldn't have been talking about the hat. "I made it for you," he said softly.

She spun so quickly her long hair almost slapped him in the face. "Me?" Her eyes were wide again, this time with disbelief.

Reaching past her shoulder, he picked up the hat and cradled it in his hands. "If you don't like it, I-I can remake it," he said. "Or - this whole shelf, they're all for you. Once I got started, it was hard to stop, and I just kept making them, and each time what I thought looked like an Alice-hat was complete, I put them on this shelf, hoping you would come back so I could give them to you because I made them for you, after all, and-"

Alice took a step forward, resting one of her hands over his. "Tarrant," she prompted.

He stopped cold. This time it was he staring at her in wide-eyed surprise, for that was the first time he could recall her ever speaking his given name, not his title which had become a sort of nickname. "You called me Tarrant," he said before he could stop himself.

Her expression suddenly went guarded as she stepped away from him. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I won't do it again if it-"

"No," he said, a little louder than he'd intended. "I-I like it."

A very small smile curled up Alice's lips, and a sudden urge to kiss her had him scrambling to place the hat atop her head. It would be difficult to kiss her if they were both wearing hats… Taking her hand, he led her a few feet over so he could pull the sheet off the looking glass he kept there. When someone wasn't admiring one of their hats in it, he kept it covered, for he didn't like to see his own reflection. Ever.

Alice tilted her head to the side, one hand lifting to touch the brim of her blue and white headpiece as she smiled at her image in the looking glass. If not for the dirt smudged on the dress she was wearing, not to mention the tears and ragged hem, the two pieces would have complimented each other perfectly. He remembered that he'd just started working on a dress to match the hat when the Queen had ordered him to stop…

Unintentionally, he looked up. His eyes caught Alice's in the mirror, and for a long time they just looked at each other's reflections, a thousand silent questions and answers and promises passing between them. He desperately wanted to voice half of them, but he couldn't. Not only did he not know if she had come to stay this time (and he was too afraid to ask), but he was scared to speak, for fear he'd break the spell. There was still a part of him, after all, that was afraid he had gone completely Mad and was having the most realistic hallucination he'd ever had.

His eyes drifted from Alice's perfect, smiling image to his own reflection, shocking and hideous in comparison. And there it was - hints of yellow around his mismatched pupils, a growing blackness around his eyes. For a moment he was caught in his own rapidly-morphing glare, watching as orange swallowed the green in his eyes and he remembered why he never got near a looking glass. He felt his fingers curl into fists at his sides as a great shuddering started in his core, threatening to shake him apart. In his eyes he saw the demons he was constantly at war with, forever trying to fight off though he knew it was a losing battle. His fist lifted, ready to shatter the glass that was surely mocking him…

And then came an entirely new sensation, the feeling of warmth pressed against his chest, arms around his middle, a head resting just beneath his chin. Of their own accord his hands shifted course, fingers opening and relaxing as they met the soft silk of Alice's hair. The tension slid out of his body, and at last he was able to break his own gaze and look down at the girl - nae, woman now, even more than she had been the last time she'd come - pressed up against him, face buried against his bowtie. He felt where she had fisted one hand into his jacket, and where she was clutching her hat in the other.

Tarrant opened his mouth to apologize, but his throat was too dry to allow any sounds to escape. So instead he smiled and gently patted the back of Alice's head before he reached down to unwind her arms from his waist. He had to get her a proper distance away from him before he gave in to the almost overwhelming urge to lower his head and kiss the golden head resting less than an inch from his lips.

If Alice felt the tremor in his body, most particularly his hands, she didn't show it. She hesitated a moment before yielding to his gentle but firm touch, lifting her head to smile softly at him. Then, reaching up to put her hat on, she turned and tossed the sheet over the looking glass again, adjusting it until she was sure it covered every inch of the mirror and wouldn't accidentally slip. When she turned to face him again, the expression in her eyes shone with understanding.

He remembered Alice's having once told him that she believed in six Impossible Things before breakfast. Well, it wasn't before breakfast, but he was pretty sure that he'd just come up with six (or more) Impossible Things in the span of two seconds. They all had to do with him, and Alice, and that ever-elusive Happily-Ever-After.

Impossible Things, indeed.

~To Be Continued~

I hope you all enjoyed reading that as much as I did writing it! Thanks again, and I hope you enjoyed it!