Title: Close Enough

Author: little_swirl

Rating: PG

Spoilers: End of Part II

Pairings: Alice/Hatter, Hatter/Alice

Words: 2009

Summary: This is not the first time, and none of them were children's stories.

Alice and Hatter. Hatter and Alice. Five syllables, regardless of which way you put it, and always a lovely rhythm. Always one before the other. Occasionally it's the other way around.

One time it was exactly at the same time.

Not really.

But close enough, at any rate.

Alice Parker sweeps into David Brigham's life with all the force of a hurricane.

Not really.

It's just a September-born gust of wind, but when the girl with her long, dark, flat-ironed hair comes into his tea shop, wearing a drenched purple velvet coat, one of those mod dresses that are all the rage these days in blue, tights of that bohemian red-purple everyone is raving about, a tan fedora, and tall, brown leather boots, he finds himself looking up from the Russell Braddon novel just as the door to his tea shop opens and lets in this breathtaking girl, a bit of wind, and rain that forms drops on the hardwood flooring.

There's a moment there, before the door opens again, where eyes meet and it's like a flash of recognition or something and whatever this is, it's better than his friend Harry's funny cigarettes. There is something down-right otherworldly about this chick.

But the door does open again and this time it lets in a a slimy looking fisherman that David knows far too well. Stu Rattigan.

"Can I help you?" he asks, and hopes his voice doesn't betray...well, whatever this is.

"Found this one knee-deep in the river, I did," says Stu, who is eying the bakery counter expectantly. "She said she was looking for you, actually."

"She did?"

"I am right here, you know," she says, hotly, and by God, she's beautiful and American. "And I had just gotten out of a taxi, I can't help it if your sewers aren't draining properly. And I can answer for myself. Are you David Brigham?"

He'd be anything she wanted him to be. "Er, yeah, I mean, yes. Yes I am. What can I do for you?" If it has anything with procreation he'd be up for it. It's 1964, anyway. Free love and all that.

With a triumphant look, she seats herself at the counter and plops the fedora down on it, Ratty long forgotten. "Thank you," she says, relief flooding her features. "I'm looking for a Jack Chesterfield. Have you seen him? He's a reporter for The Times and he mentioned this place the last time he telephoned me. I've been trying to find him for ages."

Rattigan seems to have caught on to the fact he's not getting anything out of this, that nasty fisherman. He slinks back out of the shop.

Jack Chesterfield, that pompous investigative journalist, oh he remembered him. Came in looking for a cup of tea and then had to ask about the haircut. "Well yeah, it's the same haircut that band has," he had shot back at that Swedish blonde who was far too clean-cut for the likes of his shop. "Women go crazy for it. And this is Heathrow, for Christ's sake, they're swarming the place looking for them as is."

"I'm sorry but I haven't seen him but once, and he left after a cup." Crap stuff he gave him, too. Wasn't going to waste anything good on the likes of him. Now he was glad he'd done that; he wasn't good enough for the woman in front of David now, who was most likely his girlfriend. Ought to be holed up in an apartment with a girl like her.

Her blue eyes are suddenly cast downward. "Oh," she says quietly, and then nervously looks about the shop, finally spying the cover of the book he's left next to the register. "The Year of the Angry Rabbit," she reads aloud, then looks at him critically. "Really?"

"It's science fiction and I like it," he defends, picking up the book and turning the cover over. "It's..rattling."

"It's scary."

He feels riled. "Whatever word you want to use, I like it."

She grins. "Well for my review for Vogue I called it 'scary', and that's what it is."

And then the next three hours were spent in the most in-depth conversation into science fiction literature that David has ever had, and with a girl, no less. At some point that nutty hat has ended up on his head and she's halfway over the counter, fixing it, when the clock chimes six.

"I'm late!" she cries, and jumps off of the stool, heading for the door. She stops at it and turns. "And I'm Alice, by the way. Alice Parker."

"Alice," he says, and then out of awkwardness, tips the hat. She laughs. He motions to the room about him. "I'd say what this reminds me of, but it's a tad too ironic."

"Alice and Hatter," she declares.

"Hatter and Alice," he corrects.

And then she is dashing out the door.

He debates running after her for a full two minutes before heading out of the shop with an umbrella-it's not his, anyway, that old loon Charlie, that retired RAF officer, had left it the most recent time he had come in. David considers how he'll pop it open, only after reaching her side, to show how he'd brave the horrific wind and rain for her, how she'll smile at him fondly, accept his help to find Jack Whatshisface gratefully, and then end up back at his place by the time this is through, all thoughts of that square erased from her mind. Then they'll spend the rest of their days drinking tea and discussing Lovecraft.

But she's gone, nowhere to be seen, and David Brigham is forced to move on with his life, always wondering about his Alice, eyes wandering after the girl not there.

David "the Hatter" Stills is in town for the day, he informs hers, looking over the frames of his plastic shades, and he knows she doesn't belong here.

"I can take care of myself, thanks," she shoots back, sipping from her coke nervously. "I'm just not from around here."

David, on the other hand, looks like he jumped from the pages of one of these sort of bands' covers; he's got that big hair they are all starting to do, and a ridiculous amount of clothes on, and-is that eyeliner? It's eyeliner. On a man. Her mom had warned her New York would be different.

It's very different than home, where her purple blazer would be considered fashionable and sporty, and the blue mini-dress she'd borrowed from her cousin- "Madonna has one just like it!" would be obscene, not the only thing that got her in through the door of the club.

"So are you a big fan?" he asks, and there's sarcasm dripping from his voice. Her boyfriend Jack is nothing like him; he likes Miami Vice and George Michael. He's so dreamy and polite, and he was high school royalty before he graduated. She didn't know about that last part, actually, but it was a good guess.

"Of the Sisters of Pity?" She'll realize later that he doesn't even correct her and she'll want to die of pity. "Not really." Does she really look that out of place? Is her hair too big? She'll kill her cousin if she made her look like a space-case. Like, behead her with that poster of Johnny Depp if it comes to it. Maybe not that poster, maybe the Madonna one. She thinks he's sort of cute, actually.

"I'm Alice," she pushes her hand out in front of her, hoping he'll shake it and maybe make her feel less awkward. No luck, he stares at her as if she really is from another planet.

"Sweetheart," he says, concerned. "Don't go around telling people your name? I'm not even from here and I can tell you that's not a good move."

The group of people dancing next to her is edging its way closer to the bar, and getting more violent. She leans heavily on the counter and tries to take up less space.

She orders a real drink and they make small talk, because clearly he feels he needs to or something, and then just as Alice is about to proudly tell him she teaches a Jazzercise class, part-time, while she's in school, a body is jettisoned from the dance floor in her direction. David is out of his chair and pushing the guy away from her in no time.

"Oy!" he hollers. "Watch the lady!"

There is a second where she thinks there is going to be a scuffle, and where oh where did her cousin get to? Dinah is always wandering off. But David appears to be quite intimidating when he pulls back his right first threateningly. The group disbands and he settles back down on his bar stool.

"My knight in shining armor," she says, trying to be pleasant, but he laughs.

"Not me," he says and knocks back a shot. Time passes by and Alice can't feel her nose, and she can't stop laughing at this weird British guy next to her.

He's in the middle of doing a trick with his hat, nearly falling off of his seat, when the bartender cuts them off.

"Hatter and Alice," he addresses them impatiently.

"Alice and Hatter," she corrects between giggles.

"Whatever. Get out."

They're cast out onto the streets of New York. Alice flushes at the idea of stumbling back with this intriguing man, and then brushes it off with the memory of her boyfriend and his red blazer, the sleeves pushed up and his blonde hair all greased back like a Ken doll. That's what she's supposed to want.

Hatter is kind enough to walk her back to Dinah's apartment, and she thanks him and rushes in because she is so very late in returning. She's halfway up the stairs to the tiny apartment her cousin calls home when regret seizes her and she trips her way back down, out the door, and onto the street.

"Wait!" she cries out, but there's no one there.

The concept of what could have been haunts her, through all the years of being Jack's wife, and the ones after she discovers 'the other woman' and divorces him. The images of what might have been, had she really followed David home, pop into her mind unbidden as she drives the kids to soccer practice.

And then there is the time that Alice Hamilton finishes rolling up her world map to discover her much loved, dog-eared copy of her favorite storybook on her bed, and as she stands there, she realizes her mistake in returning, instead of just kissing Hatter like she had wanted to at least a dozen times since they met. Alice tries to figure out how to tell her mother how she's about to go do something that Carol might find abundantly stupid, and then her mother calls her into the other room.

It was only a few seconds after Alice is through that Hatter decides to damn it all and follow through. There's an echo in his mind of the Looking Glass attendants shouting at him to stop as he goes hurdling through, but when he reaches the other side and finds her laying there unconscious, but still alive, still real, and still with him, he doesn't care at all.

So he's standing there and waiting when she comes running to him. He takes a step towards her.

Alice and Hatter. Hatter and Alice. Five syllables, regardless of which way you put it, and always a lovely rhythm. Always one before the other. Occasionally it's the other way around.

One time it was exactly at the same time.

Not really.

But close enough, at any rate.

"Finally," the Hatter sighs, with Alice in his arms.

Notes:

"The Year of the Angry Rabbit" by Russell Braddon was published in January of 1964 and was described as "a scary tale" by the Vogue magazine review. Braddon went on to write a great deal of other things, including two non-fictions called All the Queen's Men, and Cheshire V.C: A Study of War and Peace, and a novel called The Inseparables.

The mop-top haircut was popularized by an infamous British band in the mid-sixties.

Sisters of Mercy had a very popular song called "Alice" in the 1980s.