For the last six weeks, Hatter had known what to do. Blend in. Protect Jack. Watch Alice. Follow the White Rabbit. And ensure that the past that was the future happened as it should.
Jack was gone. The White Rabbit was back on their side of the looking glass. And Alice was in the hospital being watched by her mother. And the past had come full circle back to the present.
Now all Hatter could do was wait. And he had never been good at waiting.
Initially he had gone back to his hotel room, deciding that sleep was probably the best way to pass the time, that and it was the middle of the night. But the city was feeling too loud, and he was far too restless, so he had gotten back up.
At first, he had reached for a plain blue t-shirt, but then had paused. He didn't need to blend in so perfectly anymore. With that thought, he reached into the bottom of his bag and pulled out a paisley shirt (not the one he had worn on all his adventures, that one had been a favorite, but it had been so torn and bloodstained that he had simply left it where he had let it fall, in the apartment in the lower city). This one was blue and green with hints of gold. And he pulled out his old leather jacket, and it felt good to shrug into it. He opted to still wear his jeans. The once hated blue trousers had proven to be quite comfortable and were even half-ways stylish if paired properly. The final result was a blending of his style from Wonderland and this world, and he found he liked it.
Then he reached past his hardhat, his caps, his fedoras, and dusted off the old tan pork-pie and perched it on top of his chaotic mop, with a slight smile.
He wandered, rather aimlessly. It was the middle of the night, and although there were still a few cars and even a few people around, nothing was open at this time of night, so he really didn't have anywhere to go.
As he walked, he worried about Alice. He hoped that she was alright. He hoped that a concussion wasn't as serious as it sounded. And he worried that the policeman hadn't given the number to Alice's mom, and he wondered how best he could work it to be reunited with Alice. Probably the dojo. He could sign up for lessons, maybe. He cringed when he realized that would be taking a page from Jack's book.
He had been so lost in his own thoughts that he hadn't realized where he was going until he was there. Standing in front of a plate glass window with a sign that promised All-Day Breakfast.
His heart lurched down in his chest with the heaviness of the guilt. He turned to walk away, but then he noticed that the light was on. And that someone was inside.
The disheveled waitress sat at a table, looking at her hands. But at the same time he noticed her, she looked up and saw him.
They stared at each other for a moment through the window. Hatter had initially felt a mix of relief and joy that Tessa was back. That means she had been one of the people that Alice had saved. But it was quickly replaced by fear, especially when he saw more emotions than he could identify in her eyes as she rushed toward the door that separated them. Confusion, wonder, desperation, doubt, possibly even a bit of anger?
He resisted the urge to run. Why was fight or flight always his initial reaction to uncomfortable situations? Survival skills, he supposed, but bothersome all the same, especially since he doubted very much that Tessa could physically harm him.
She had pulled open the door. "David," he heard her call.
He spun around with one of his charming smiles, but unsure that his eyes weren't betraying him. "Tessa, hi. You're here late."
She paused, a little uncertain. Then something caught her eye, and she was staring at him. Or rather, staring above him. And her brow wrinkled, as though she was trying to remember something.
Nervously he ran his fingers through his hair and felt his hat. That hat. The tan pork-pie he had been wearing in Wonderland. He quickly yanked it off of his head and hid it behind his back, and shrugged a bit apologetically.
Now she was really staring at him. And she gasped out, "Oh my gosh, it wasn't a dream, was it?" She looked as though she was about to fall over.
He swallowed hard, and prepared to catch her if she did pass out.
"You're Hatter."
He nervously ran his hand through his increasingly unruly hair and reluctantly but simply stated, "Yeah." He let out a breath that he didn't realize he had been holding. "Maybe we should go inside and talk, yeah?"
She had made them tea. After all she had been through, her first thought had been to look after his appetites, he thought with rueful amusement.
But the truth was, her sanity was hanging on by a thread at this point, and something as mundane as making tea was having a calming effect on her.
When she sat back down, she looked David... or Hatter, once over.
"You aren't from Britain are you?"
He shook his head no.
"You're from... there."
"From Wonderland, yeah."
She took a moment to digest this. She could see honesty in his eyes, although mixed with fear.
"Is your name really David?"
"Not exactly," he replied. She waited for him to continue. "Over there, everyone called me Hatter. That's all I've gone by for years. David was the name Jack gave me before I came here."
"So your name is Hatter?"
"Sort of." He paused, but she was obviously waiting for his answer. "Hatter is a family name, so to speak. My name's Andrew."
"So why didn't you go by Andrew here?"
"Well, Jack didn't know my real name." He hoped she would drop the name thing.
"So, Andrew then."
"No, don't call me that... You can call me Hatter. Or David."
She nodded. Then her brow crinkled again. "So if you're from Wonderland, what are you doing here?"
"I was protecting Jack from the White Rabbit."
"What?"
She had a lot of questions, and he forced himself to answer them as honestly as possible. She deserved that much. And she seemed surprisingly willing to believe anything he told her. Although, considering she had just come back from another world on the other side of a mirror...
He told her about how the last six weeks to him had been the future of what had, to her, just occurred over in Wonderland, how he had been sent here to ensure that the same Alice who had overthrown the queen would actually go to Wonderland in the first place and how he had seen the White Rabbit taking Tessa through the looking glass and had tried to stop them, tried to save her.
After she had taken some time to think this over, she said simply, "But you did stop them in the end. It was you and Alice who saved all of us."
The guilt came rushing back. "It wasn't me," he burst out. "It was all her. I wasn't trying to save anyone else, I was trying to save her. She was the one who saved everyone." He felt hot tears pricking the back of his eyes, but they didn't fall. "I'm not a hero. It was all Alice."
He had been playing with the edge of his hat, and he now realized that he had bent the rim completely out of shape. He worked at straightening it out for a moment, then he continued, so low that, even in the silence of the restaurant, she could barely hear him.
"I'm not a good person, Tessa. When I was in Wonderland, I ran a tea shop. I sold the emotion teas that were made from people like you at the casino. I served the people who were addicted to your emotions. I was playing both sides – the queen and the Resistance. I did a lot of things I wish I hadn't, but I didn't think about it back then, because I told myself it was what needed to be done." He gave a shuddering sigh, and as he looked up at Tessa with tormented eyes, a hot tear slid down his cheek. "Tessa, I'm so sorry."
Tessa stared at Hatter, a far different Hatter then had stood beside Alice that day in the field. No, this was definitely David, and now she knew why he had looked like he was carrying the weight of the world.
She couldn't tell him it was alright. She knew that was what he wanted, for her to forgive him so that he could forgive himself, but she didn't feel right offering him absolution for the things he had done before she had met him.
Instead she just reached over and squeezed his hand. She felt him hesitate, then squeeze her hand back.
…
The sky was already getting light when he made his way back to the hotel room. It had been an emotionally draining night, but it had been somewhat soul-cleansing. He knew there would be more questions. And he'd answer them. But a weight had been rolled off of his chest, knowing that she was still his friend.
And he felt like he had reclaimed a bit of his identity, now that someone else knew he was Hatter.
The next chapter is the one you've all been waiting for... I promise!
But I needed to give this storyline closure. Let me know what you think
(Side note - Couldn't resist making Hatter's real name Andrew... lol)
