Hide and Seek

"Alice."

He was always calling her name. Hour after hour, day after day, she could hear his smooth voice drifting over the warm, constantly summer air. It was always the same, almost as if time had stopped completely.

At this particular point in a possible stopped for good time, Alice was busying herself by stacking all manner of teacups in an ordinary stack. The cups, some blue, some lavender, some chipped, some cut in half, some with holes in the bottom so tea would spill through onto unsuspecting guests' laps (her companion's personal favorite joke), and some with delicate little patterns, were generally spread in a haphazard fashion all along the long garden table, which caused a rather bothersome mess to Alice. Alice, who would have rather been inside at the moment, had felt the need to bring some semblance of order into the garden. This was why she found herself in the warm summer sun attempting, and I say attempting since the teacup stacking was proving rather difficult, to create, or at least try to create, a sense of less chaotic happenings.

"My dear Alice."

His singsong tone floated to her ears, and she attempted quite successfully to suppress a smile. In fact, some days it was easy to not smile at all. A day like the current one, where the sun was beating down so heavily overhead and her fingers were sticky from used teacups, made it very easy to almost forget how to smile. With a sigh, Alice straightened herself up, set a rather chipped cup down on the table, and looked in the direction of the messy house.

She thought she could make out the top of a large green top hot bobbing about just below the kitchen window. She wrinkled her nose as she took a few steps closer, curiosity almost getting the best of her, before stopping as the hat shot up into the air to reveal a man in quite outrageous attire. His face held a confused expression until he spotted Alice, and instead of using a door like a sensible man would, opened the window and climbed out of it, his hat almost getting stuck in the process.

Alice stayed still watching as he began closing the distance between them. She could tell that he was humming. He generally hummed when happy, and she suspected he was quite happy to have found her after his long search through the house. It was the same day after day. She would step out of his vision for a moment, and all of a sudden, he would be searching high and low for her. Time after time, Alice had reminded him that he didn't have to look for her. She would never stray far without a friendly warning of her absence first, but he never seemed to remember that part. In fact, there were multiple things he never seemed to remember. Alice, however, did not have time to ponder his forgetful nature for he was now standing right in front of her bobbing up and down like a small child.

"My dear Alice," he said again.

He called her "my dear" fairly often. Once she had asked him why, and he had simply replied that it rolled rather easily off the tongue. He had then proceeded to accidentally smack her with a teaspoon in his attempt to shoo away a bluebird that he thought was trying to take a sip from his teacup.

"My dear hatter," she answered. "I see you found me again."

He did not respond. Instead, he noticed her attempt at organizing the garden table and stopped his bobbing to bound over. As soon as he reached the table, he gave a little cry and immediately started scattering the teacups up and down the table's length breaking a few in the process. Alice should not have been surprised by this behavior, but it bothered her all the same for she had worked quite a long time on the table already and would now have to clean up the broken china.

"Oh, Mr. Hatter!" She never called him by his proper name. "Oh! What are you doing?"

He momentarily ignored her, surveying his latest chaotic outburst with a most satisfied expression. He then pulled a teacup out of his coat pocket, took a sip from it, and placed it with a clunk onto the once again messy garden table before turning back to Alice with a wide grin spread across his face.

"What am I doing?" He repeated her question slowly as if pondering his answer as he spoke. "Well, it looks like I am standing outside in the garden enjoying a cup of tea with you, dear Alice. I could, however, be wrong."

Alice fought against the smile that was now tugging at the corners of her lips and busied herself with clearing the broken pieces from the teacups off the table to hide the amusement she knew would be visible in her eyes. She had decided some time ago that encouraging him wasn't exactly helpful. He encouraged himself enough, and she had learned that any outside encouragement could possibly mean a few hours of nonsensical stories, or a demonstration of some new talent he had learned. His last demonstration had ended with Alice running for bandages, and she was not keen on reliving the experience again.

"You really shouldn't fling the teacups against the table," she scolded. "You keep breaking them. I should think, since you do love tea, that you wouldn't want to break any teacups."

As she finished speaking, she looked in his direction only to find that he wasn't paying any attention to her at all. Instead, he was inspecting a raspberry tart left over from the day before as though he had never seen such a creation in his entire existence. At this, Alice gave a defeated sigh and scooped up the rest of the broken china before heading toward the house.

After crossing over the threshold, Alice wondered how long it would take her Hatter to realize she was once again missing. She, however, did not have to wonder for very long for as soon as she took a step toward the kitchen, his voice drifted towards her once more.

"Alice. My dear Alice."

With a little grin, Alice continued to the kitchen as the sound of his voice became steadily closer.

I was a little uncomfortable posting this story at first. It's the first one I've written in probably two years, but I am happy with the way it turned out. My inspiration for this was that couple that everyone sees bickering in public, but it's completely clear they couldn't live without one another. I can see that happening with these two, and I just thought it was a cute concept.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the story. Please review if you feel so inclined. Constructive comments are very much appreciated. Once again, if you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading! 