{ further adventures } how should i know all the shocking things you do
"I'd begun to think you lost to the night for good."
Wendy pauses at the threshold, creeping back into the Hatter's own chamber wearing nothing more than the shirt and hat that she'd absconded with an hour or two before while he was still fast asleep (rolling over and dropping off, just like a man). "Did you wake and find me gone? Were you very disappointed?"
The door falls shut behind her before anyone who might have seen her saunter through the castle can be privy to the look on his face so very like a smile. He had worn that self-same expression hours before when, tiring of her endless games and smug confidence in her upper-hand, he'd taken her firmly by the wrists and kissed her gasping. It had been startlingly appealing then and is equally so now, which must be why she crosses to him with his hat askew on her tumbled hair.
"I wasn't at all surprised," he says, in his quiet voice, and she laughs like an ungentle clashing of bells.
"How unjust you are to me; I am sure to leave Wonderland nothing less than broken-hearted."
"I'd as lief see you enter a nunnery. One is as likely as the other."
"Oh! Shall I get me to a convent? I think you should be dreadfully bored if ever I did."
The candle burns low next to them and Wendy considers her company with critical eyes, examining him as one she's never seen before and finds most intriguing; it seems to her that that's precisely what he is. Certainly he'd given her no indication before that he might be other than slightly exasperated by her persistent refusal to stop placing herself in his orbit, or even that he might keep pace with her easily if he so chose. She thinks now that she ought to have known - to have considered his position and the nature of a man who must occupy it - but instead she soundly underestimated him and finds herself in the unenviable position of not only having to reassess but also to dash along in an effort to regain her ground.
Though her position is not, she reconsiders as he sternly removes the hat from her head and draws her back into bed, entirely unenviable. "Dear, handsome Hatter," she says, fondly, "you are a bastard and a liar and I like you not at all."
"I shall make a note of it, Captain Darling."
"See that you do."
Wendy waits until he's almost asleep again before she mentions, drowsily, that Alice had told her to bid him goodnight, and after that she has no peace at all.