Chapter 1

It had taken seven and a half seconds after watching Alice disappear into the rippling mirror for Hatter to decide.

He stood there, decision ringing golden in his chest, and a wicked smirk lit up his features. "Wait for me, little oyster," he whispered, tipping his hat in promise, "I won't be long." And with that, he ran.

Time ticked by and he felt it like pulses beneath his skin, a constant reminder of seconds, minutes, hours. It took him nine hours, thirteen minutes, and twenty six seconds to arrive back at his tea shop, now rendered delightfully useless by the fall of the Queen. Dormouse was sleeping at the gate, and after rustling her awake, he began taking the shop apart. Hatter wasn't particularly sentimental, sorting through the mess that was his former trade. But when he entered the office, something strange caught in his chest, the memory of a raven haired girl in a drenched blue dress standing proud and wary rendering him motionless. But the clock kept ticking and he resumed pace. He moved to the left side of the room, opening up a wall that was actually a door and making his way upstairs to his flat. He entered his bedroom, and with just a pause to run his fingers over the soft material, tossed the velvet jacket onto the bed and returned quickly downstairs. He then rummaged through disordered files and papers and notes until they were strewn haphazard at his feet and he had the one he wanted firm in his grip. With a parting shot to Dormouse, he was out the door again.

After a journey of one hour five minutes, mere moments of greeting, then forty six minutes of haggling, bargaining, threats, insults, and a firm handshake, Hatter had sold his former tea shop to Gryphon, an overbearing but absolutely brilliant businessman that had his hand in every possible trade Wonderland had to offer. While Jack Heart's rule made it certain that the harvest of emotions was officially dead, the tea shop was prime retail location, and Gryphon had been drooling over that particular spot for years. Hatter had always been quick with a dash of mockery and a two fingered salute at previous offers, having absolutely no reason to part with his lucrative business. But everything was different.

He had reason now.

He returned to the shop one hour and eight minutes later, a tidy sum in his pocket, and the promise of three days to get everything in order before Gryphon kicked him out. He entered his office, and without any sort of warning, Hatter stopped. He moved as if drenched in syrup, unbearably sticky, and sat behind his former desk. He had sat behind this desk for many years now, so many that he couldn't remember the number. To his right was the secret door that led upward to his small flat, where he had hung his hat at the end of day every day for a very long time, removed from the whirlwind of muddy chaos that was Wonderland. Every night he poured himself a cup of tea, real tea, from his vast collection of flavors, and sat in his worn green armchair by the fire. And he spent all those evenings alone.

There were a variety of reasons for the lack of company. He was a con man, after all, balancing the precipice between loyal subject and resistance fighter, and that didn't lend himself to a plethora of companions. He had never desired the loud, clattering company of many to bugger up his life when tea and silence had always suited him just fine. But the truth was something else, as the truth usually is.

Hatter had lived for a very long time and met a great many people, but none had ever ignited any sort of spark inside his chest. Inspired any sort of emotion. No, for as long as Hatter could remember, the space inside his ribs had always rung hollow, an empty crevice that channeled the sluggish flow of his blood and echoed weary with his breath. Just an empty cavity, echoing silence and utterly useless.

However, he had always refused to sample from the tonics of emotion that he sold everyday. For an owner of a tea shop, that may have come across as odd that he never tested his wares, but nothing in the world would convince him otherwise. Those brews might drench those empty places with whatever vintage he chose, whether it was excitement or happiness or love, but they could never erase the knowledge that they were mere reproductions. Synthetic. Fake. A quick fix that would bloom into addiction until the slim chance that he could feel anything real would disappear.

And that was the mad in itself, Hatter supposed. Living in Wonderland, a world topsy turvy backwards and brimming with colorful creatures and fantastical landscapes and all swirling together with a cheerfully dark insanity, but he was never satisfied. The only thing he had ever dreamed of, ever craved, was realness. Always searching for something real in a world composed of dreams.

He sat at his desk for twenty four minutes and seven seconds, immersed in memories. Memories, that for the most part, were tinted gray and faded at the seams. Until five days ago. Until Alice. When Hatter remembered the last five days, his mind swirled in Technicolor, bright and vivid and real. God, so real. Everything suddenly bursting with a realness that was so good it hurt. That organ inside his chest, once ticking and ticking with no end in sight, was overwhelmed to the point of bursting and for the first time, Hatter realized his heart was beating. He had a heart and it was beating. Because of Alice. For Alice.

He stood abruptly, making his way to the right hand side of the room and opened the secret door, twisting up the staircase and entering his flat. He wandered, his eyes taking in the worn furniture and colorful tapestries and assortment of knick knacks he'd acquired throughout his lifetime. The clocks on the wall struck loudly, warbling out of tune, and he remembered time was still marching forward. It had been twelve hours and thirty four minutes since Hatter had watched her, not the Alice of Legend but his Alice, step through the Looking Glass to the Other World, leaving him alone with his jacket that was now her jacket and she didn't know it. He wandered into his bedroom, and there it was, right where he had tossed it earlier, sprawled on his bed. He sat down and gathered the soft velvet cloth in his hands, brushing the lapel delicate. Just another jacket before, nothing special, not even his favorite. He hesitated a moment, then brought the material to his face and breathed deep. Yes! It was still there, that Alice scent, like lavender tea and spice and stubbornness and it was so uniquely her that something in his chest constricted tightly and Hatter could barely breathe.

He laid down, his bones suddenly aching weary, and he cradled her jacket against him, burying his face in that wonderful scent, trying to make her materialize by just wishing hard enough. But wishes rarely came true in Wonderland, and Hatter found himself clutching only her jacket as he fell into sleep and tumbled into dreams, dreams that were so much more real than he had ever known, the soft tick of the clock keeping time.