A\N: This is what happens after babysitting two cousins with a penchant for Disney princesses.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own NCIS.
It was like a fairytale.
Once upon a time, there was a handsome knight. The knight battled bad dreams and dark omens, and he was loved by all. Everywhere he went, he had fair maidens sighing over him, and wise men smile upon his fate, because such a cheerful smile like his could surely not bring despair in the future.
This knight was happy. He had good friends, a wise father and a little sister he adored. No matter the setbacks that could sometimes throw him (once, the bad dreams had been able to poison him with dark dust, and they could take away friends very easily), they helped him stand back up.
And then it came the time for the knight to prove his worth in his story.
He met a princess; the fairest princess he could meet. And the princess was the kind of ninja assassin princess that could have him on the ground in two seconds flat and wore pants, but that isn't relevant to the knight's adventures.
The knight's vision, from then on, tunneled on her. She was his goal; he was her hope. You see, the princess was sad inside. She had suffered through years of imprisonment by an evil beast that molded her to his will. And this princess, she was tired of that, but she would not admit it, because she did not show weakness like other princesses.
And so the knight was her tentative plan to wash the sadness away. Because the knight was so happy, so full of life and joy and laughter, that he could do that. And the knight was so captured and enamored by her that he was eager to do just that.
But the knight soon found that it was hard. He kept taking the sadness away into himself, but more just kept appearing, and instead of making her happy, she was making him sad.
And so, the knight and the princess clashed with all the tension that they had been building up for a long time, and the princess left, because she knew no other way to deal with her problem.
But, because the princess no longer had the knight to protect her, she was captured by another evil beast. A different one, friends with more evil beasts that were friends with the evil beast she had escaped from all those years back. And the princess was held captive in a horrible environment, and no one could help her because the only people that knew where she was didn't care enough.
But the princess underestimated the knight. The knight, who had been sadder than ever since she had left, was smart and was soulful. He felt that the princess was in trouble, and he wanted to help, no matter how many people told him that it was too late. And the knight took his friends and he went and fought and won over the evil beast that was hurting the princess, and he brought the princess home.
And if we stopped the story right here, we'd have half a happy ending.
But the story does not stop here, because the knight still hadn't taken all the sadness away, and he was beginning to worry that he wasn't enough.
And, if the knight were the only one thinking that, the fate of him and the princess might have been different.
But he wasn't. The princess was tired. Tired of evil beasts and tired of seeing them hurt people. Tired of fighting them, day after day, only to end up with more wounds on herself. So the princess made a decision. She would leave. She would leave and let others have their happy ending, without her marring it.
And now it was the knight's turn to be sad. He didn't want the princess to leave. But the knight was understanding and caring, and that gave him the selflessness he needed to let her go. She needed herself, and not the knight, because, while the knight could fight evil beasts very well, he couldn't fight evil sadness properly.
It was like a fairytale.
But this one was pending for completion.