Take My Hand (Rewritten)

chapter 5

Tarrant left the room moments later telling his sister to go in and sit with Alice.
By the time she got to the room, Alice was sitting up in the bed and looking rather confused.

"Alice! Your awake!" Hetty exclaimed. "Where am I?" "Oh, the castle in Marmoreal." "Okay, em, why does my hair.... and nightgown smell like..... Mercury and...... Tarrant's tea box?" "I don't know.... speaking of which I should probably tell him that you're awa-""No don't!"

Hetty was very confused by this and continued with,"Okay, why?" "I don't want him to think I'm weak, I mean, he'll just want to take care of me and then I'll really feel weak." At this point Alice was getting rather upset. And Hetty was doing her best to calm her. And forgot to tell her that the Hatter had been taking care of her the whole time and he had only just left the room when Alice woke up.

Hetty was being to realise how strange the pair were. How are Alice felt that she always had to show Tarrant that she wasn't weak, how Tarrant knew that she needed to be looked after even before she collapsed. How he noticed her hair was shorter with moments of seeing her, enough though there was barely a difference. How she only saw Tarrant before she collapsed, even though we were all at tea together. How the site of her and her reassurance that there was no-one in overland who held her hand and her heart, calmed him instantly, when no-one else would probably have been able to do so for weeks.

There was only one thing for it. She had to find her brother. And talk sense into him, before he broke the love of his life's heart. But it was sunset before she had any time to do so, and she knew Tarrant's schedule, like it was the back of her hand. A sunset walk, daydreaming the whole time. Then tea in the moonlit balcony, like he was reliving a memory. After that he went to bed. And didn't wake again until morning. Also he didn't like to be disturbed during any of this, the same as whiles he was taking care of Alice if you entered her suite, you had to be as quiet as a mouse, or else Tarrant released this biggest Hightopp anger that there had been since his great-great-grandfather. His voice turns strange, its an overland accent Absolem says, his eyes turn orange, usually its just orange but during his nightly routine and his time looking after Alice there were glints of purple in them. No other living Hightopps have ever been that mad, and that alone, for so long. But she knew what had to been done, no matter how much she didn't want to do it.