Disclaimer: All your Alice are not belong to me. They are belong to Syfy. (poor grammar intended)
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One-Eighty
The smell of human vomit mixed with alcohol was more than enough to ruin Hatter's good mood. It was more than enough to ruin anyone's good mood. Hatter thanked everything that he held dear for the fact that he didn't have to clean up the mess. He just had to communicate exactly whose responsibility it was. But he did, however, have to make certain that the vomiting man found his way home alright. It turned out that the man was at cROOKed with a group of friends who were more than happy to drop the drunk off at his apartment on their way to the next club of the night.
With that minor disaster averted, Hatter went in search of Alice. She wasn't on the dance floor or near the bar. He didn't think that she would go up to the catwalk or into the backroom. Thatcher assured him that she wasn't in the bathroom. So, that only left one place for her to be.
Hatter made his way to his office, fending off a few more advances from willing women along the way. Maybe he should cool it with the hat tricks. Women in this world seemed a lot more impressed with them than girls back in Wonderland.
He opened the door to his office quickly, slipping inside before too many customers could get a glimpse of the interior. As far as he knew, Alice hadn't even been in the room yet.
But there she sat, in his large white chair, smiling at him.
"I must say, I really like the flowers." There was a collection of wildflowers growing against one wall of the room, opposite the Looking Glass. Alice had helped him bring most of the furniture over from Wonderland. But there were a few new pieces as well, such as the chair that he had purchased for her. It looked almost like the one that she sat in except the fabric hadn't been torn and it was a pale grey rather than white.
He tried to raise an eyebrow, but only succeeded in stretching the creases out of his forehead and sending the brim of his hat skyward.
"I did get you your own chair you know." He commented, walking over to the new chair and gesturing to it. "I would appreciate if you surrendered mine to its rightful owner." It was a game, and they both knew it.
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"I don't know, it's pretty comfortable." Alice wiggled her way further into the chair. It was a bit lumpy in places, and she guessed that Hatter had sat in it often. But the lumps didn't bother her. This chair was tangible evidence of his previous life, and she didn't want to forget it.
Alice didn't want to make the mistake of starting to believe the lies that she told others about where he was from or what he used to do. As nice as the lies were, a person in those situations wouldn't have become the man that she loved.
She watched as he put his hands on his hips, trying to look stern and annoyed. He failed at both.
"You could fight me for it, but I'm wearing a dress…" This drew an outright laugh out of Hatter.
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"Wearing a dress never stopped you before." He crossed over to her chair and crouched down in front of her, bracing his hands on either side of her head to keep himself from toppling over. "But if you want to fight, I promise to play dirty." He didn't know exactly what he had said, but Alice broke out laughing.
Her eyes seemed to grow lighter as she laughed, inviting him to join in her mirth. But he refused. Someone had to pretend to be the sensible adult around here…
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By the time Duchess knocked on the door of the office, Hatter's coat was on the floor, his shirt was mostly unbuttoned (revealing the body armor that he wore beneath it) and Alice's silk scarf was no where to be found. They were both out of breath and blushed a tiny bit as the blonde walked in.
"I thought I would find you two in here. You can't just disappear on opening night. There are some people here who want to ask questions about the club."
It turned out the people wanted to do more than ask questions. They wanted to write an entire article about the new "underground" music scene that cROOKed represented. It took a lot of careful maneuvering on Hatter's part (guided by Alice) to convince the writers that the type of music was relatively new, and was only produced by little known foreign bands. That was true enough; one didn't get much more foreign than being from another world.
Explaining the sixties influence fell to Alice, who had some knowledge of music from that decade thanks to the fact that her father had left behind a rather extensive collection. But other than that, Alice and Hatter worked together to make a set of lies that would do any author proud.
"Thank you for the interview, Mr. Hatter." said one of the writers as they were packing up to leave.
"Please, just call me Hatter. I much prefer it that way." He replied, sticking out his hand to the men. They seemed genuinely interested in the club and swore that they would come back sometime when they weren't on business and have a drink.
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The night finally ended at two in the morning when the last customer stumbled her way toward the curb to the cab that Fowler had hailed. It had been a long night, and all of the staff was tired. Now that they had all survived a full night of work, Hatter thought that he could start splitting them down into shifts. Things had gone remarkably smoothly, even if there had been a few too many waitresses running around.
Carol had surprised Hatter and Alice by staying the entire night.
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"You know, this is the most fun I've had since your father used to take me out." She said to Alice, as they walked into their apartment. Hatter had stayed behind at the club to make sure that clean up went as planned.
Alice felt a stab of guilt at her heart. She still hadn't told her mother the truth.
"Mom, you know how I stopped looking for Daddy?" There was no good way to lead into this conversation. And Alice felt the weight of what she was about to do settle on her shoulders. Hatter had said that he was fine with Carol knowing the truth about him, but it was still a secret that she had been keeping for months. It felt strange to try to sort through the lies and work her way back down to the truth.
"It's because I found him." Those words hung between the mother and daughter as they stared at each other across the living room.
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AN:
A little bit more of the opening. And of course a little fluff.
The newspaper reporters are there because a reader thought they should be. If you have any ideas you want to share, go ahead and do so. It's always fun to see what people think.
Alice finally gets to tell her mother what happened. It isn't one of those things that she can keep secret forever.
Any reviews are appreciated, though today is a double update, in case you just want to skip onto the next chapter and leave a review there.