wanderamaranth | Best Intentions, Chapter Five (Reply)

The next day Alice was too shaky to pull herself out of the bed. As soon as Hatter entered the room, she requested his help with getting to either the privy or a pot. Blushing slightly, Tarrant carefully put his arms around her and pulled her into a sitting position, then attempted to help her stand. Upon the realization that her legs would not support her weight, he'd tucked one arm under her knees, another round her back, and carried her to the washroom two doors down.

Usually, Tarrant would help her walk down the hall, and then she'd go into the washroom herself and knock upon the door when she was ready to exit. That day, though, she needed more than that. Assisting her with her business was an awkward and clumsy affair, but soon they were done, and Tarrant carried her back to the bedroom.

There he set her upon a chair, and she'd watched, silently, as he'd stripped the bedding and replaced it with new. “I should have done this yesterday,” he acknowledged, but did not apologize. Once this was complete, he'd turned to her, and without even seeing if she were able to stand on her own once more, picked her up and tucked her into the veritable pile of quilts he'd though necessary to make her bed up with.

“I'll return in but a moment,” he lisped to her after this, reaching up and tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

The entire business had been humiliating in the extreme for Alice. Being unable to rise on her own, requiring being carried just to empty her bladder, having to sit in impotent disuse and watch as he remade her bed...the situation was no longer bearable the way it was. Yesterday she'd resolved herself to the fact that she would, indeed, need to eat while she was in Underland; this morning only cemented that resolve. She would stop doing as the Hatter had accused her of yesterday and harming herself with her stubbornness, and she would eat.

Tarrant returned, bearing a tray with tea and toast, and naught else. The toast was plain and dry, the tea weak and watery. Setting the tray down, Hatter sat on the edge of the bed, set the plate of toast in Alice's lap, and began shredding the bread into smaller pieces. The reason for this became evident when he reached for the still-steaming cup of tea.

Wordlessly, he soaked a bit of the toast, and held it out to her. Her eyes moved from his hand to the toast and then his face. A challenging expression rose on her own, and she clamped her mouth shut. She'd not be fed like a child! Yes, she wished to be well, and yes, she'd agreed with herself that delaying eating any longer would be foolish, but he'd already--! How would Hatter ever be able to look at her the same way again, if he not only carried her about, assisted her with...and fed her?

“I was hoping you would be reasonable to-day, Alice,” Tarrant said. Guiltily, she noted the gray pallor to his skin, how his lips were even darker than usual against the ash tone. Her mind abruptly veered away from any other thought of his lips, a flush covering her face, neck and chest.

He leaned over, forced her jaw firmly open with one hand, and shoved the bread into her mouth with the other. Alice would have spat this soggy and unappetizing concoction back out, but he held her jaw shut, and reluctantly, she swallowed, tears brimming in her eyes. She wanted to cry over her weakness, but refused to allow herself.

“It is my responsibility to see you well, Alice,” Tarrant told her, voice low. “I will not be so remiss as to allow you to harm yourself. Not anymore. I...I only agreed to fetch you in order to heal you, not to...” Tarrant trailed off, and Alice was uncertain if he was trying to convince her, or himself. “There was no other reason. There can be no other reason.”

“I never said there was,” Alice replied, softly. Hatter blinked, his green eyes very large in his face, and a flush crawled up his neck and across his cheeks.

“So you didn't,” he agreed. Silently, he dipped another small corner of toast in the tea, and held it out to her. Alice opened her mouth and looked into his eyes. Peripherally she saw him swallow convulsively, and then he was lowering the toast into her mouth, and after that her concentration went to swallowing the soggy mass before she had a chance to taste how unpalatable it really was.

She allowed him to feed rest of the toast to her slowly, scrap by scrap. She no longer had the urge to try and fight him, and when he saw this, he no longer tried to hold her jaw shut. When she was finished he stood slowly, and Alice realized (for perhaps the first time) that he is not exactly a young man.

“Tomorrow I shall take you out to the gardens,” he told her, touching her hair softly. “Mayhap I should arrange for a few of the others to be there? Mally? The boys?”

Alice said nothing, but just nodded slowly, her thoughts elsewhere. “Alice?” Hatter called to her, but Alice didn't respond. “The expression on your face...” he said, slowly, “Reminds me of someone who is perhaps Pretending Things They Ought Not To,” Tarrant mused. “Doing that is something I know about very well...” he said, almost to himself.

“Who is that in the distance?”

“Which distance?” Hatter asked absently, sipping at his tea. The Unicorn really did have the better of the Lion today, poor fellow. A few more pummelings such as this and they’d be ready to pass ‘round the plum cake.

“That one, there.” Thackery pointed, his skinny arm going directly under Tarrant’s nose. His gaze followed the arm right to the end of the pointed finger and beyond; there, at the edge of the woods, stood the White King, conversing with a disturbingly familiar mass of blue skirts and golden curls. Tea and bread and butter stuck in his throat, and he coughed to clear it, eyes watering. Despite having obviously seen what his friend wished to point out, Hatter turned away and focused with new intensity upon the match. “I am sure I do not know what you mean,” he said.

“Shall I go and fetch them, then? Bundle her up and bring her directly message-like from he to you? You are the one that is to carry, after all.”

Hatter’s eyes opened very wide on hearing such a suggestion, but before he could turn back to his friend and tell him to not do such a thing, Haigha was gone. Tarrant took a new sip of tea from a tea cup that was now shaking unsteadily in his grip; perhaps it wasn’t the same little girl as before. Maybe it was just a child that looked and gestured like an Alice child should (for her could not tell anything else about her other than her general appearance at this distance). Maybe, he thought, but knew it was unlikely. The swirling in his guts told him otherwise--he’d know her anywhere.

It was sooner than his shaken nerves would have liked when Thackery returned, Alice walking by his side. (Tarrant saw this out of the corner of his eye, for, although he was loathe to look directly upon the Alice for fear of how he might behave towards this wife-who-was-not-yet-still-was, he also felt terribly curious about her. What would the child be like now?)

“He’s only just out of prison, and he hadn’t finished his tea when he was sent in,” Thackery said in a sotto whisper to Alice, and Tarrant felt a surge of annoyance that his friend had thought it necessary to mention his having been in prison at all; “and they only give them oyster-shells in there--so you see he’s very hungry and thirsty.” Sidling up to him and throwing an arm around his neck (Tarrant wasn’t sure how Thackery managed this, being so much shorter than himself, and without even a box to stand upon! Yet he did, and the arm was still there, and he was not one to usually doubt things that were right before his face, even if he wished to. “How are you, dear child?” Thackery teased him, speaking the words that he believed Hatter should have been speaking to the Alice at their side.

Color still high, Tarrant nodded quickly at the girl and then returned to facing towards the action (the Lion had somehow managed to flip the Unicorn around, so now he was the one with the greater advantage for the moment) . His stomach knotted dreadfully, despite the bread-and-butter he was munching upon, when Thackery pressed, still in that teasing tone, “Were you happy in prison, dear child?”

Hatter quickly looked round again, and saw girl-child Alice watching him, waiting for him to answer the Hare with obvious curiosity. For some reason this upset him greatly, to think of his small wife being privy to such humiliation as having been caught up in the Queen’s prisons. To his horror, shamed tears sprang to his eyes, and one or two trickled down his cheek. He’d not speak to her, then she’d go away, and he could go back to Pretending, even if Pretending was what had gotten him into trouble in the first place. The way he figured it, he’d already been punished for the crime of Pretending Things he Ought Not to, so he should to just do it, now; there was no incentive not to.

“Speak, can’t you!” Thackery warbled at him, becoming impatient with his continued silence. Tarrant was just resolving himself again to not say a word for a very long time when His Majesty the White King Asher came up behind him, and pounded him heartily on the back.

“Speak, won’t you? How are they getting on with the fight?”

Hatter made a desperate effort, and swallowed a large piece of bread-and-butter. “They’re getting on very well,” he was finally able to manage past his nearly closed throat, “each of them has been down about eighty-seven times.”

A small, eager voice near his one side said, “Then I suppose they’ll soon bring the white bread and the brown?” Her hazel eyes flashed with excitement, her small cheeks rosy. She was the perfect epitome of innocence, and Hatter felt like a miscreant of the worst kind, to be looking upon her, even knowing that Underland had united them and, had he his choice in the matter, it would have never happened at all.

“It’s waitin’ fer ’em nauw,” he finally replied, blinking solemnly at her. “Tis a bit o’ it as I’m eating.” He swallowed hard. He was just thinking he should say perhaps something else to the girl (for he’d like to think that he could learn to be friends with his little wife) when the King announced that he should like to have the refreshments brought round. He sketched a half-bow in her direction and then walked away, kilt swinging about his knees.

When next he saw her he was passing round the breads White and Brown. Alice’s small hand reached for a White piece, and he tapped her hand, gently. “No, ye’ll no be wantin’ tha one,” he warned her. Asher gave him a look of incomprehension when he went to leave her side, and he had no choice but to serve her something. Was all of Underland conspiring against him to make this troublesome child stay? “The Brown, perhaps, would be more to your liking?” He knew this was unlikely; no one liked the brown bread. It was terribly dry. Hopefully she would do as all the others did and take one bite and…

She did. Her small face scrunched up into the most comical of disgusted expressions and she spat the bread out upon the ground. “That was the most dreadful bread I’ve ever tried to eat!” she accusingly informed him, and Tarrant couldn’t help the smile that curled his mouth at the corners at the sight of her indignant muchness.

“Tis awful, isn’t it?” he agreed, to which Alice only gaped at him.

“But you said--”

“Why don’t you see about the drums, old chap?” King Asher broke in, looking from Tarrant to Alice and back again, seemingly to only just then make the connection of who they were and what they were to each other. Mirana would be most cross with him for his meddling, but Tarrant looked like he needed an escape, and he thought much the same way their Royal Hatter did about such things: if he’d already been punished for Pretending Things He Ought Not To, then he saw no reason for him to not carry through and actually do the Pretending.

Hatter looked up with alacrity, and bounded away.

“Hatter?”

Tarrant gasped and turned to his young wife, blinking hard, deliberately. “Yes, I'm fine. What was that you asked, Alice?”

“Where were you, just now?” she softly inquired.

“Right here, I believe,” Tarrant answered. “It doesn't feel like I went elsewhere, but one can never really tell, can they?”

His answer seemed unsatisfactory to Alice, but she let the matter go. Licking her lips in a nervous manner, she said, “If you will not tell me where your thoughts had led you just now, Hatta, will you tell me something else?”

Nodding, Tarrant asked, “What do you wish to know, Alice?”

Taking a deep, fortifying breath, Alice said, “Why am I here? In Underland, I mean. When you came Above, you told my mother that my health required it. And before yesterday, you said that being here would not be enough, but that I would also have to eat the food to be well...What has happened to me, Hatter? I've thought and thought on it, but I can not form a clear answer on the matter. Will you tell me? Please?”

How much to tell her? Tarrant was very nervous, indeed. While he wanted nothing more than to be able to tell Alice all, to explain the situation in its entirety, to assure her that despite the nature of their Binding, that he still had somehow fallen in love with--! But he was still not certain that was the best decision. After all, he'd tried that very thing (explaining what was happening in an honest and direct manner) when she'd come on Griblig Day, had he not? And look at how that had almost turned out! Still, Alice deserved the truth, did she not? Even if the idea of delivering the truth to her ears terrified him.

“Underland learned...I learned...that your health was very poorly in Above, Alice. After consulting with the Queen on the matter, it became clear that the reason for this was a connection to Underland that was stronger than what we had anticipated. By all rights, you should have been able to return to your London, your Above world, with no ill effects...we hadn't known that you'd eaten of the food, you see. Eating even just a dribble of soup, or a bite of an apple, or even a nibble of bread is enough, my dear Alice...enough to bind you to Underland. Permanently. Without the land the bounty you ate from to sustain you, you will...Fade. So I went Above to collect you...to save your life.”

“Couldn’t there have been another way?” Alice pressed. “Bring me food, perhaps, make visits Up There?”

Sniffling (he would not start to cry!) Tarrant said, “I did what I thought was necessary.”

“Well, you should have thought of something else,” Alice asserted, softly.

“Aye, you're right.”

Alice stopped all motion. It appeared that he'd shocked her by agreeing.

“Why didn't you, then?” This question was asked through a bitten lip.

“Because,” he said, and that answer might have been enough for a lesser woman, a different woman, but it was not enough for an Alice. A touch on his forearm, and she pressed forward.

“Because why?” she asked, and Tarrant grimaced, his face refusing to follow his mind's order to not show an outward sign of pain. A glance in the mirror revealed his eyes to be bright yellow; he turned from Alice, so that she might not see this physical manifestation of his internal struggle.

“Because I was afraid of losing you to Death,” he whispered. “It is one thing to know that you are Above, and happy, and another altogether to...”

Lose her? This man, who'd already lost so much in his life, had been afraid of losing her as well. She'd known that they were friends, that they cared for one another, and that he would have willingly laid his life on the line for her, had laid his life on the line for her, (more than once!) but she was beginning to allow herself to suspect....could his regard really be that strong, to...her left hand twitched, the weight of the ring on her finger suddenly seeming heavier than it had been moments before. Alice felt terrible for badgering Hatter, but she'd needed to Know, and there was still more she wished to have Answers about.

“Hatter--” she reached for him, but Tarrant was already withdrawing into himself. “I'll bring you another tray. Perhaps broth this time?” he said, refusing to meet her eyes as he slunk out of the room.

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