Happily Ever After
Moonlight came in through the window. A dull light fell over the face of Ranma Saotome. He turned over and draped an arm over his wife, Akane. She snuggled closer to him with a sigh and fell into a deeper sleep. Ranma would have as well if the mattress hadn't shifted under newly acquired weight.
"Daddy?" a small voice asked. "Are you awake?"
He sighed and cracked open an eye to peer at the clock over his wife's shoulder. It was 11:42... Way past his four year-old son's bedtime. He yawned and rolled over, reluctantly pulling away from Akane, who was still sound asleep.
"What's wrong Daisuke?" he asked, looking at his son. "Have a bad dream?"
His young son shook his head. "No... I just woke up and can't get back to sleep..." he climbed further onto the bed. "Can I stay with you and Mommy?"
Ranma closed his eyes and sighed. "Dai, aren't you gettin' a little old for this?"
"It's not my fault I can't sleep!" Daisuke pouted.
Ranma sat up, pulled back the covers, got up, and picked up his son. "Shh... let's not wake up Mommy, alright? C'mon, I'll sit with you until you fall asleep.
He walked out of the room and down the hall. When they arrived at Daisuke's room, he peered into the room across the hall. There were two cribs, each with a sleeping baby. He smiled before walking into his son's room and closing the door slowly, silently hoping that, for once, the twins would stay asleep. Ranma gently set Daisuke back under the blue-green covers of his bed and then sat next to him. Daisuke curled up against him.
"So what's it gonna take to get you to go to sleep?"
"Will you tell me a story?" the small boy asked.
"What kind of story?"
Daisuke yawned sleepily. "I dunno... You can make it about what you want..."
"Alright... So once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess..." Ranma began.
"Is this gonna be a girly story?"
"No, don't worry it's won't be."
"Okay..."
"Anyway, there was a beautiful princess and her father, the king, wanted her to get married so she could take over the family's uhh... royal dojo..." he looked down at his son, who had his eyebrows raised in disbelief. "What? It could happen... So the princess met a lot of princes, but she didn't like any of them. One day, a boy came into her palace. He wasn't very rich and didn't have a fancy title or anything, but he was really good at martial arts... Anyway, he came in with his father. They needed food and a place to stay and they didn't have money for an inn. But they heard that the king was a really generous guy so they figured they would ask him.
The king turned out to be just as nice as everyone had said he was. He gave them a place to stay and as much food as they could eat. He only asked for one thing in return: the boy had to protect the princess. She was always getting kidnapped, and the king had had enough. They boy agreed and he and the princess became really good friends.
Over time, they started to fall in love. Even though they would argue sometimes, and they both had people trying to marry them, they still only wanted to be with each other. But, neither of them wanted to be the first to admit it. They were both really shy when it came to that kindda stuff. But eventually, the boy told the princess that he loved her over any other person in the whole world. The princess felt the same way about him and so the boy went to the king to ask if he could marry her. Since the king wanted his daughter to be as happy as possible, he allowed them to get married. So they did. And they had a little boy and then three years later, they had twins: another boy and a girl. And they lived happily ever after..."
Ranma looked down to see his son sleeping peacefully. He smiled warmly and slowly got up. Daisuke rolled over onto his pillow and continued to sleep. Ranma brushed his son's shaggy black hair out of his eyes and rubbed his back before heading over to the door and opening it. He looked back at the sleeping boy one last time before walking back to his room and getting back into bed. Akane was still as he left her. He wrapped his arms around her and she snuggled against him once again before he drifted off to sleep.
So what'd you guy's think? It was a little thing I slapped together in about an hour to see what you guys thought. Anyway, this is meant to be a one-shot, but if you guys like it maybe I'll throw in few more chapters… I guess we'll see…
-Japanime625
