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Alice of Legend, Charlie had called her, and she hadn’t corrected him. She wondered sometimes if it were true. If she were Alice of Legend. Not the original Alice—little, blond girl with pigtails and pinafore—but Alice of a different legend. Alice of her own legend.
It fit awkwardly, like a hat that was too big and kept falling over her eyes.
That was why she said it, without thinking.
“I’ve had enough of Wonderland for a lifetime.”
She knew when she said it that it was wrong. It wasn’t what she’d meant. But it was too late, and the words hung there a moment, so heavy she could almost see them, and Hatter’s careful façade, the one he’d worn when they’d first met, the one that said he was just fine thank you, slid into place, and Alice couldn’t see through it. Hadn’t learned how yet.
Maybe now she never would.
***
It was Jack.
Jack was the driving force behind all of it.
He always had been, Hatter realized now he was thinking on it. Jack was behind everything. Without him, Alice never would have come to Wonderland. Without him, the Resistance would have failed.
Without him, Hatter wouldn’t have told Alice she should leave.
Of course he wanted her to stay, but he couldn’t ask her, not after seeing how easily she fit into Jack’s arms, how natural they seemed together. The prince and the rebel. Jack was so very much more the sort of man she should be with.
So he’d let her go. Told her to go, really. And it was the right decision.
Wasn’t it?
It was.
It had to be.
He’d stayed, though, after she’d gone through, to watch the others go. All the little oysters in a row, falling back into their world, likely to forget Wonderland or think of it as an unpleasant dream.
And Alice would too, he told himself. Soon enough she’d forget all of this, forget the looking glass and the casino and Jack.
Forget Hatter.
There was a warm hand on his shoulder, and a voice just behind him said, “Why didn’t you go with her?”
“Why didn’t you?” Hatter responded, turning to face Jack.
“I would have. Only, I’ve got this kingdom to run.”
Hatter’s eyes narrowed.
“You haven’t, though,” Jack continued.
They narrowed further.
“And your teashop…well, it’s hardly in any condition to reopen after the Suits were through with it.”
As though he needed reminders that he was nothing, that Jack and people like him had taken everything Hatter had worked for. Even the Resistance. Jack had been accepted there while Hatter was always looked on with suspicion.
Jack opened his mouth again, and Hatter was certain there would be another snide remark coming out of it, but what he heard instead was, “You know, pizza’s really quite a treat…”
Hatter tried to glare at that, but instead his face twisted into a confused frown.
“And the looking glass is still open,” Jack was continuing.
He hardly heard anything at all after that. He was too focused on the looking glass, the last of the oysters stepping through it just now. Jack was giving him directions, papers and identification, a key to an apartment, all the leftovers from Jack’s life in Alice’s world now conferred on Hatter like an inheritance.
He supposed he inherited Alice along with that, and the thought made him uncomfortable.
Not so uncomfortable, though, that he didn’t take the package and stride through the looking glass into a new life.
***
Alice found it strange to think of going on with her life now that she had no search to keep her going. Now that there was only work and home and her mom.
And Hatter.
David.
It didn’t matter what he called himself really. He’d showed up on her doorstep, about as knightly as Charlie had been, and just as out of place.
He had an apartment, but it was Jack’s apartment, and whenever she visited him there, she felt the ghosts of their relationship following them around the building. Hopes and futures and long abandoned plans.
Hatter didn’t seem to notice, or if he did, he didn’t mention it to her, though sometimes she caught him looking at her curiously, as though wondering what she was doing there.
He didn’t even redecorate, and other than his clothes and hats, it looked exactly as it had when Jack was there.
She asked him, once, if he didn’t want to redecorate, and he’d said, “No. Doesn’t seem right. It’s good, isn’t it, though? You like it like this?”
She hadn’t known how to answer him, so she’d just nodded and let the subject drop.
He got along with her mom well enough. Alice supposed that having saved her life, her mom was willing to ignore David’s odd quirks or the way he sometimes referred to her as an oyster.
***
It was Alice’s mum who first suggested that they look for a place together. Hatter had been working for a construction company for some time by then, and he’d saved up a good bit of money along with what Jack had given him, but it didn’t seem right, somehow.
Jack had handed over his life in Alice’s world, and changing it seemed ungrateful.
(And, he’d admit, there was a part of him that thought that maybe if he rejected one part of Jack’s life, he’d lose Alice in the bargain.)
When he said he was comfortable where he was and Alice’s mum suggested she just move in with him, he was surprised to hear Alice say, “No, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
And later that evening, she surprised him further by saying, once they were alone, “Are you sure you don’t want to get a new place?”
“What’s wrong with the place I have?” he asked, pushing his hat up on his head.
“Nothing, just…” and then the biggest surprise of all, “it doesn’t feel like you.”
He thought this over for a few days. What did she mean by it? Didn’t she want it to feel like Jack? Wouldn’t she be more comfortable like that? Wasn’t that what she’d always wanted? Jack in her world?
He couldn’t figure it out.
***
“It’s Jack’s,” Hatter said out of the blue one night over tea.
“Yeah, I know. I…used to come here,” Alice admitted.
“But, I mean…it’s all Jack’s. All of this,” Hatter clarified, including Alice in his sweeping gesture. “It’s a package deal, you know? He gave it all to me.”
She laughed, covering her mouth with her hand. “Hatter…I don’t think he meant it like that.”
“Of course he did,” Hatter argued. “It’s all together. It’s…it’s all for you. So you can have the life you wanted.”
She laughed again, but only because she kind of wanted to smack him. (And a little because it hurt.)
“Hatter…you’re not a replacement for him.”
“No, I know. I’ll never be like him. I’m no prince.”
“No, you idiot.” She shook her head, stepping closer and taking his hand. “I mean, I’m not looking for a replacement for him. I’m looking for you. I want you.”
He looked stunned, so she squeezed his hand and continued. “Hatter…if I’d wanted to be with Jack, I’d have stayed in Wonderland. But he’s not what I’m looking for anymore. And even if he were, I’m not his to give to you.”
“Yeah, I know…I didn’t mean…”
“I’m my own and nobody else’s. I decide who I want to be with and what I want to do.”
He was quiet a moment and then said, hopefully, “And what do you want to do?”
She smiled and kissed him. “I want to find a place that’s ours, and I want to live there, and I want you to open a teashop or a milliners, and I want us to have Mom over for dinner sometimes, and I want to keep teaching, and I want to, maybe, someday, start a family, and most of all, I want to do it all with you.”
***
Hatter didn’t keep any of the furniture from Jack’s apartment, and Alice didn’t really have much from her mum’s, so they sold Jack’s things and his apartment and used the money to furnish the new place.
When they moved in, though, none of the furniture had been delivered, so they spent their first night there on the floor with a cardboard box between them.
Some of the cheese dripped grease onto Hatter’s chin, and Alice reached across to wipe it off with her finger, and Hatter smiled and said, “It really is quite a treat.”