o…o

Once upon a time, there lived a man who called himself David Hatter, who loved a woman named Alice Hamilton.

He is a long, long way from Yorkshire and the Great War and Wonderland and tea shops. He finds himself once again in a different time, a different place, but he's well used to change and to adapting because he's done it all his life. There is no Resistance, no Queen, no underworld that he sits precariously on the edge of; his daily bread is neither rationed nor stolen. There are no Suits and he doesn't have to lie to survive.

Once upon a time, a boy named David grew and changed and talked and talked to survive and he became a man named Hatter, who talked and talked still because he knew he could survive that way. Because as long as he's still talking, he knows his heart is still beating and he can keep moving.

He falls hopelessly in love with a woman he can't charm with words and doesn't need his protection and doesn't need him for anything but who likes him anyway and stays with him because she wants to. Words are still important to him, even though his life no longer depends on them.

'Happily ever after' is always a concept that's relegated to the storybooks. It isn't real and he's never imagined it would be. He's not sure that they'll live 'happily ever after', because happiness is all relative. They still argue and fight because truly happiness would be no happiness at all for either of them if they can't have a good row every now and then.

Once upon a time, there lived a man named David Hatter, who figured out that he could stop talking and his heart would still beat. He could survive, but more than that he could thrive because simply surviving wasn't enough anymore.

Once upon a time, David Hatter…

…lived.