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Alice, Hatter knows without a shadow of a doubt, is going to kill him. She is going to come into his little curtained off room any minute and kill him dead. And he'll deserve it, for worrying her, for sitting here (bored) while the policewoman lectures him about the dangers of trying to stop a man that mugged an old lady. Like the twenty-seven stitches in his arm and fifty-three curving along his left side from the knife the bastard carried wasn't enough of a learning experience. He had finally just stopped feeling naked and exposed without body armor under his clothes and now he is getting stitches.
At least they had gone through the trouble of getting him a proper identity. It hadn't been easy or cheap, but Hatter had an instinct for finding the right people, the ones that fed off the underbelly of society even here on Alice's Side (he always thought of this place as that, in capital letters). Even in a place that seemed to document every single one of their citizens and those from other countries (his papers claimed he was from England – Alice said it was necessary due to his accent and pretended to be unamused when he countered that she had the accent) you could fake who you are. This was the first test of the identity they had made up, and the cop hadn't even batted an eyelash, so it must have worked. Or he was bleeding too much and being not the perpetrator but the victim that made the woman not look so hard.
This, IDs proclaiming his name to be David Hatter, is what he'd rather think about than Alice. Because, yes, again, she was going to kill him. He deserved it, deserved the stitches, and the odd look the doctor had given up when he took off his shirt, Hatter forgetting about the scars, the faded but never fully disappearing scars from the prod wielded by those bastard twin 'doctors.' The scars were mostly faint, but odd, lines of pale pink scar tissue spiraling out from the darker pink perfect circle where prod had connected with his skin, thus attracting attention. Alice had cried the first time she really saw them, after that first frenzied, desperate time together, as they laid naked in his hotel room, her tears making her eyes shine in a way he never wanted to see again. Alice was not a sober, not under normal circumstances, but all she had to produce to make him putty was a few moist drops in her eyes, or help him, out of her eyes and on her cheeks. He would do anything to prevent seeing her in pain; she had enough pain in this life, thanks to His Side. And now she'd be like that again, worried with moist eyes, and it would be his fault. He deserved it, weird looks and lectures and all because he was an idiot. A fool that had lived through playing two sides of the fence in a revolutionary war (and a sadistic Queen, and the twins prod and their mind games, and an assassin with a ceramic head…and being separated from Alice) but wasn't smart enough to think ahead about degenerates carrying weapons when running into an alley chasing after a man that had taken an old woman's purse. He hadn't thought at all, really. He just acted. And now he hurt her, and it didn't make his chest feel that good. It made it feel like his ribs were trying to smother his lungs.
Hatter thinks it might be because he is so tense, waiting for Alice, thinking about not thinking about Alice's pain he is the cause of, but it feels like the numbness from the needles (the needles they gave him to numb his skin before they used another needle to sew his skin shut – the process was a lot better than the last time he needed his skin mended, and Hatter was smart enough not to say that to the doctor sewing him up) is starting to wear off, replaced by an all too familiar stinging-burning sensation that is torn skin knitting back together (at least the itch hasn't started yet). His side hurts more than his arm, but his arm isn't moving with every breath even if he is trying to breath shallowly. It must show on his face, the pain returning. The policewoman pauses her lecture and gives him a sympathetic look, the same one she gave him when she found him sitting on top of the unconscious crook, holding his side where the knife had slashed him. Hatter interpreted the look to mean: 'You pathetic prat.' At least he got the guy. That was something. Sitting here stitched and with his blood drying on his clothes (and some of the purse snatcher's blood on the knuckles of his right hand, thank you very much), would just be sad without having stopped the man.
"I'll get the doctor." The cop tells him, and he wants to argue that he's fine, he doesn't need anymore doctors in his life thank you, (how does this place work? does he pay by the minute a doctor spends with him? by the injection?) but she's gone and comes back with the man who is (still) disappointingly not wearing a white coat. His first experience with a doctor this side of the looking glass and they're not even wearing the right clothes!
The doctor's solution to his pain is yet another needle and Hatter, as a rule, doesn't take any kind of drugs, nor does he let strangers inject him with things. Just the man giving him something to numb his skin enough to be sewn up, that he didn't know what it was and what it would do to him nearly sent Hatter into a panic (or running for the doors, for his Alice that would tell him if it was safe or not). He is not ready for another go at that, for the fear of what is in the needle given to him by a doctor who doesn't even wear the right clothes. He starts to open his mouth, to argue with the doctor about not needing whatever is in the needle, but moving to raise his arms in protest pulls on the stitches in his side and his protest stops for a moment. A mumbled "I really…" when he can catch his breath, isn't very convincing, even to his own ears.
"This will help." The doctor says. Hatter realizes that the doctor does not understand Hatter's fear at all, or he may be used to skittish people afraid of needles and thinks Hatter is just like anyone else, simply nervous about the sting, not convinced that the man is going to give him something that will make him hurt (die painfully) or make him talk (and then die painfully) - the only two reasons on His Side to inject someone with something. As the doctor injects the medicine into his uninjured arm (why did they poke holes in two arms?), Hatter, watching the man and needle carefully, distantly thinks he read something about people here on Alice's Side fearing needles. People on Alice's Side have time for examining their phobias, had time to think and be afraid of things that might not ever happen to them, like being struck by lightning while being chased by clowns. It is very strange how people act, and his new, slow way of life that doesn't involve so much fear and adrenaline as his previous life.
"A few more minutes and we'll have you ready to be discharged." The doctor promises. Hatter nods, debates asking where his white coat is, but the man is gone before the words come out of his mouth. He has to be careful on this side. He has to think about how his past sounds to Oys—people on this side. He doesn't always know things a normal man should. Alice tells him to just say 'I'm from England' if anyone asks too many questions about what he doesn't know, but Hatter hates being ignorant of so many things here.
"Do you need a cab?" The cop asks and Hatter wonders if she knows why the doctor is not wearing a white coat. "I can ask the desk to call you one," she offers.
Hatter opens his mouth to say something about needing to wait for his…Alice (not his wife, not his girlfriend either…just his Alice), but the words die in his mouth because the stuff in the needle has suddenly made every nerve in his body tingle at once and he can't breathe for a moment. The no-breath feeling passes after a few long seconds (or maybe a full minute, he's not sure), but the body tingle remains.
"My…" his mouth is so dry. "Alice. My Alice is coming for me. To yell at me. Maybe kill me." Why is it so hard to talk all of a sudden? What did the doctor in the wrong outfit give him?
The cop looks at him and shakes her head, laughing lightly. "She should kill you." Hatter nods at this, he deserves it. "I gotta get back out there."
Hatter nods again, wondering why she was hanging around with him for so long anyway – but then he remembers that people here are nice for no reason, sometimes. "Be careful," he says instead. Because he really hopes this woman who took the time to tell him how stupid and just how dead he could be right now, is safe. She is kind. Even here, the police do not have an easy job. At least the leader here doesn't cut off their heads on a whim.
"I will be. You be smart. Don't let me catch you doing my job again, Mr. Hatter," she says it sternly but there is a slight smile on her face as she says it and disappears from his little curtained area.
Alice finds him a few minutes later, staring at the curtain to his little room with rapt attention. He blinks at her, kind of amused that the person he was thinking of showed up like magic and that has him giggling a bit. She gives him a confused look, but lets it go without a question and comes forward. Hatter's shoulders drop, ready for the tongue lashing he fears, the one he won't even defend himself against because even drugged he knows he deserves it. He can't even look at her face, so he looks at her shoes (sneakers – she had been at work when he called).
Instead of what he expects, she hugs him tightly and it kind of hurts, or should hurt, but instead it just makes the tingles where the stitches are spike a bit in a not exactly unpleasant kind of way. She pulls back to look at him, trying for mad, he thinks, but instead just happy to see him okay. His message of "They're taking me in an ambulance to saint…something…hospital, I'm bleeding..." probably didn't do much for her nerves, he can see that on her face, but she isn't doing what he expected. She isn't screaming, like she should be. Like he deserves.
"You're stoned." She says, moving to look at him at arms length, studying his face, catching his eyes.
He nods very seriously, but can't stop a giggle at her look, the look that is so Alice it makes something shift somewhere in his chest. Like it always does. The sensation is not unpleasant. It feels like his heart is squeezing out its own little love tea out, for her only, drip by drip every time she looks at him with love in her eyes. "I didn't mean to." He blurts out. Or really, he tries to blurt but it comes out all slow and heavy, the tripping over themselves and making his accent thicker. Damn doctor and his needle.
"Get stoned?" She asks, looking confused. How is she so cute when she's confused? Not that he'd dare call her that right now. Or ever. Alice can flip him over her head. She's done it more than once to prove she could (once in her gym, once in bed, laughing).
He shakes his head once, then has to wait a moment for the room to settle back down. "No, get hurt." He grits out.
"Of course not." She says, and even when he can't feel his nose (he touches it just to make sure, and it's there still), Hatter knows that she is mad. She may not sound mad, but it radiates from her body.
"I'm sorry." He starts. "There was this old lady and a guy and…" He makes a face, the details of the whole thing slightly fuzzy around the edges now. Or making the words come out is the hard part. He's not sure. His head is really spinning. Alice's anger was spinning him more.
"You tried to stop him." She finishes for him.
He shakes his head, slightly pouty look on his face, he knows it. Because she said 'tried.' "Didn't try, Alice. I did. Stop him. He was in the other ambulance."
She laughs and shakes her head, kissing his forehead. "I'm sorry." He's good, he thinks. Even drugged, he gets to kisses and apologies within minutes and he's the one that screwed up.
Someone clears their throat and they turn to see a small man with a clipboard of papers. "I have all your discharge papers." The man tells them, handing Alice the clipboard and papers. "Might be easier for you to fill them out." He tells her before backing off. Maybe Alice isn't as calm as Hatter thought she was.
Alice looks at him, and Hatter holds up his right arm, puffy with roughly ten yards of gauze wrapped around the long line the knife traveled up his forearm. He threw up his forearm to protect his face, his neck. "I can't feel my arm so well." He tells her, a little too nonchalant about it, he realizes, when he sees the look on Alice's face. Something crumples in his chest, knowing he's the reason she looks like that.
She is silent, filling out the paperwork as much as she can before handing it to him to sign. His signature is horrid on a good day – he doesn't write it very often and his name was new, after all, and now with his arm still kind of numb it's atrocious, but it's apparently good enough. She takes the papers and then kisses his forehead and he thinks (stupidly) that maybe he should get sewn up more often.
She must see the look on his face because her hand connects with his cheek and it takes a moment for him to feel the burn, for him to realize that she just slapped him.
"Ow." He says, the word drawn out in a way that would be dramatic if he wasn't so drugged, and though nothing really hurts at the moment and he didn't quite feel it, he's supposed to say it because she slapped him. She can do worse, and he doesn't want it to come to that (even if he deserves it). "What happened to the kisses?" He pouts and it is cheating and he knows it. Alice is a sucker for his pout, just as he is for her pouting. Fine pair, they make.
"No more trying to save the world, Hatter." She tells him, her voice stern, but her eyes are love and that is all that matters. For the first time since realizing he had been cut, since seeing the flash of metal, (maybe since he ran through The Glass knowing he could never change as much as he should, as much as she deserves), Hatter is not afraid of what she'll think or say to him for being stupid, reckless. Because he knows she will do just this: tell him he's stupid (in kinder words, because she is his Alice) and kiss and hold him until the pain doesn't matter, until both their fears and anxiety melt away.
He knows, as she helps him to his feet, putting his ever present hat (he could give up wearing body armor but he wasn't giving up wearing a hat!) on his head for him, that he'll never be able to stop the urge to fix things, that he'll never not run headlong into danger if someone needs help. He knows she knows it too. He thinks that if she was with him, Alice might have run into that ally with him, chasing that man. He could say all this, but he also knows he doesn't really have to say it all. Alice knows.
"I'll be more careful." He offers her as they leave the little curtained off room. It is the only truth he can give, the only words that aren't a lie. He will be more careful because he doesn't want to see her like this again.
She stops walking and turns to look up at him. "Best I'll get?" She asks. It isn't really a question. She knows the answer.
He debates lying, just to surprise her, to assuage some of her worry, but nods instead. He can't lie to her even if he wanted to, even to make her feel better.
They stand there for a moment, right there in middle of the Emergency Room, then she leans up and kisses him. It is not her blessing. He'll never get that, he knows, but he is getting her understanding.
They resume their walk out of the hospital. He's leaning on her more than he needs to, yes, but it's nice to be close. Alice may look soft (and parts of her are, parts Hatter likes) but she can easily hold him up. He's not really sure if she needs to hold him up now, or if he needs her holding him up. He could easily walk without her (admittedly, he'd be a bit unsteady, but he'd manage), but that's not what either of them wants or needs.
"My first time in a hospital and the doctor didn't even wear a white coat," he mock pouts as he says it, and of course she looks up to see that pout, because she can hear it in his voice and she smiles up at him and anything he has to do or change within himself to be in this world, to be on Alice's Side, with Alice at his side is worth it just to see that happy amusement and love in her eyes.
He may not always get things right, he may fail and he may trip, but he will try for his Alice.
~|~
End.