Who the hell is…?

At the dinner table, she felt a downright cold breeze running down her back when her sister opened her mouth to speak:

"My dear Alice, do you know that we have quite wonderful neighbor?"

Alice waited for the following advertisement. But there was none.

Usually, Margaret would have been talking by now about the uncountable amenities of The Chosen One, how it would benefit her financially, socially and her family and status as a whole. She would have praised his heritage, his manners, his fortune and probably his strict hand over women.

None of that happened.

She just sat in front of her and smiled.

Alice was astonished, this disrupted the usual way things went and she didn't felt that great about even having this strange, uncomfortable feeling about something not going the normal way. She never wanted to be -that- normal. However something in this disruption gave her a tingly shiver, something wasn't quite alright and she couldn't bear the silence and the broadly smiling face of her sister anymore – especially in the contrast of the dark, sulking brooding of her husband.

"… So?" She really couldn't think of anything better to ask and felt immediately stupid for that fragment.

Margaret beamed of joy "Indeed! And I …" her gaze fell upon her husband "… we…," she smiled assuring "We have invited him over for the spring lunch. Now isn't it quite a fantastic coincidence, that you arrived sooner than we all expected? Now you will meet him tomorrow!"

And don't end as a spinster, Alice thought to herself.

"I don't know Margaret I…" she was harshly interrupted by her sister and the stern look on her face showed her, that she was deadly serious and wouldn't accept any resistance: "You come to the lunch. It's also your welcome back lunch, so don't dare not coming and driving roots into the floor of your room!"

Alice bit on her lips. She just had no chance, to not fully disappoint her still too caring sister, she had to accept the invitation and at least take a look at that man before running…

Alice took a deep breath. Why did she deserve all this? Couldn't they leave her alone? Everything she wanted to do… no, everything that was left for her to do, was business. She didn't care for all those societal things; she didn't care for status and everything that came with it. But now she sat here at a dinner table wearing a quite charming blue dress, that was partly made of silk, on a really quite charming spring day, her "Welcoming party" but more of a "Goodbye party" she guessed, it was noticeable how Margaret tried to step into the tradition of her mother in trying to marry her off. She loved her sister dearly, but she prayed it would stop. She knew with every possible husband whatsoever she would lose all the freedom she ever had and she had worked exceedingly hard for it.

Margaret was buzzing through the guests, many of them Alice didn't know much, as they were affiliates her brother in law had made in the past years during their institutional spring lunch. However busy her sister seemed, however, she still kept an eye on Alice, making sure she wouldn't suddenly jump up and vanish like she had done some times before. Suddenly Margaret seemed to be even more tensed and at the same time beaming than anyways and she made a subtle but hurrying gesture towards her husband, who realized that quite slow, but then moved a bit disapprovingly towards the blossomed gate of the garden.

Alice had good eyes and saw not that far away, near the street, how someone was led to the garden by the maid. That someone seemed to be a rather but not overly tall, lean man who just bent down to get something from the ground. Obviously that man wasn't only unwanted by her, he was clumsy, too.

While they were coming near, she saw that the man in the fawn-grey suit placed a cylinder back on his head. So he was a fashionable man, Alice wasn't sure if she could ever like someone superficial, too long had she tried to make her innerness become outness, but the cylinder was a little bit too fashionable for this place and time, a new chiqué from America, it seemed a bit out of place – none of the other gentlemen at the lunch party wore a hat, none.

However a maybe fashionable man wasn't the big problem she had with that unwanted contender, she didn't have a grudge against American hats, either – it was the sting into her heart that this piece of fashion gave to her. The shape and form of wearing it remembered her too much of someone else. Someone who she had betrayed, someone she would never see again, which only made it worse.

That man and the lot came nearer; she caught the weird look of his hair. It wasn't really weird, not as weird as she knew several examples of. The intractable hair was a bit darker than hazelnut brown and it was unusually long, it reached his shoulders and maybe even a bit farther down. He would surely catch the eye of all the guests. The eyes of Alice, however, got caught by another development: Margaret wavered cheerfully over to greet him and possibly just grab and drag him in her direction. Right now, through, she didn't look and Alice took this opportunity and RAN.

Guests would later tell that they only felt a breeze and saw the hint of a very light blue dress vanishing into the hedges, it was quite a spectacle again, as always with this Alice.

Alice tried to strike out every sense of normal in her mind. But her mind just wouldn't shut up: She should have stayed there, it was very late for marrying and she would stay alone, what if Lord Ascot finally fell ill from the drug? What when his son took over? He still held a grudge too her. She could loose her work and would fall into debt to her sister and even worse, her brother in law. They both really wanted the best for her and it was unfair to run again and gave her into the pity of the guests who were already used to this kind of event. That noisy voice in her head told her how mean she was, how egoistical, how selfish and how damn desperate although she had no chance, she couldn't run forever.

This voice in her head was reason and she had never given another thought to it, but now she felt her legs slowing down. She shook he head, felt the tears in the corner of her eyes. Why must that noisy reason try to convince her of the better -now-? It wasn't fair, she was already on the run and she still wasn't able to marry a man she neither loved nor even knew, not for the best social reasons there ever would be. Why was that reason so annoyingly insistent?

Again she tried to force those thoughts out of her head, she had to concentrate, to focus on running, and run she did as fast her feet let her.

However the garden of her sister, through partly connected with a foreign park, wasn't nearly as large as the Ascots estate. There was no hedge labyrinth and places to run to unseen were limiting themselves more and more. At last she found herself in a corner surrounded by high hedges, with a quite small pavilion, white garden furniture… this had to be the nest her sister had written about in her letters. The nest she withdraw too with her husband when they wanted to be unseen and thinking of this, Alice felt like an intruder and even more bad.

Kept in these dark thoughts she had no chance of hearing the steps behind her. People had stopped long ago to run after her, they knew it was of no use and would take their lovely while slowly walking till they found her – usually to scold or shoot disapproving looks at her, which she sometimes felt she earned and at the same time not.

Suddenly someone grabbed her arm and she shrieked from the shock and tried even more to scream when a hand was put over her mouth. She struggled desperately; whoever that was, she would give him a worthwhile fight! To the contrary of being grabbed and carried off, she was turned around and now faced someone holding out one finger in front of his lips to show her to be quiet "Shhh," then slowly retrieving his hand from her mouth.

Alice didn't feel this anymore, through, she felt nothing sensual for a moment, neither the ground beneath her feet nor the wind stroking through her curly hair.

She just looked into his eyes. Between those streaks of brown there, there were big, green eyes opened widely, more widely than from any caution. She -knew- these eyes; they felt just like the first breath of English air she had drawn while still onboard the ship that took her back home. They felt like the voice of her sister, which was similar to the voice of her mother. They felt like the worn out blue dress that still lay in one of her boxes, because she never had dared to give it away.

They felt so familiar, so touching, they easily brought memories back she had casted aside. However the thought that crossed her mind now couldn't be, so she closed that chest in her mental wardrobe again.

Slowly waking up from the daze that in reality hadn't lasted for more than a few seconds but felt like hours, she still recognized that this was the man her sister wanted to introduce her to. That meant he didn't know her yet and she had made a horrible first impression, why did he come after her?

"Who ARE you? What do you want from me?" she screamed in a not that loud tone at him.

He didn't seem too angry and he didn't seem too shocked, he neither seemed to hold an open grudge against her. First he straightened himself and then he straightened his suit which lay over a fine white shirt. Miraculously the cylinder was still on his head and didn't fell down during the quite hasted hunt he must have run after her. He didn't seem to be too annoyed, he didn't seem to think of her as mad, he neither answered her first question but then came a bit nearer again and offered his hand to her:

"I've come to bring you back."

Alice heart sank; of course he just wanted to bring back order to the party and took this deed if he wanted to make a good impression, as he was a new neighbor counting the telling of her sister. But then she sensed that the sentence wasn't finished by now and the hand still offered to her.

"… for tea."

TBC

A/N: Yes, I am indeed able to write direct speech. No worries, there will be more in the future, but until now I felt more comfortable with the internal thoughts and feelings of Alice, I felt it was important.

This is where the story would have ended if it didn't have a will of itself. However, it has and you know what this story also has? Annoyingly many questions, so I'm destined to answer these questions to my best capabilities in the following chapters. Questions like: Is that the Hatter? (I guess you can answer this by now) What happened to him? Why does he look so strange? Is it glamification-fic? (No, it isn't) And what happened to the other inhabitants of Underland?

The answers to these questions and many more you will find in the coming days. I hope you like the fic so far, I know I am very fond of the word "very" and I promise to use a thesaurus for the next chapter. As usual, if you find mistakes I am more than glad if you point them out so I can correct them. I have also corrected the first chapter already.

Please review if you like. I'm a bit insecure because I haven't written in a long time and only slowly start to become warm again.