Prompt: Charming has the flu and is confined to bed. He's bored as hell so Snow brings him someone he can play with...A little sheep!

He doesn't get sick. It just doesn't happen.

He's got a great immune system. It's a thing.

Maybe he takes pride in it. Maybe he boasts about it, just a little bit, whenever Snow comes down with the flu and insists he not come too close to her, for fear of him getting it too.

Well, anything that keeps him away from his wife is a giant load of crap that he refuses to accept.

"It's fine," he'd insisted the last time, as he wrapped his arms around his weary, sniffling wife. "I never get sick."

"One of these days you will, and you'll regret it," she croaks. "You're tempting fate, right now."

"Hmm," he hums, reaching for her face, pulling it to his. "If that's the case, I'd better make it worth it, don't you think?"

She does her best to argue, but every scolding word she says is against his lips, so he thinks her point is made somewhat ineffective.

—-

He doesn't think much of it when his throat starts hurting. He has to talk a lot. It's a prince thing.

When he gets stuffed up, it's the time of year. It's spring, the leaves are coming out on the trees, and he's pretty sure that if he wasn't sneezing everywhere he'd have problems.

The headaches? He challenges anyone in any kingdom anywhere to deal with the nobles he has to on a daily basis and not get a headache.

But when he wakes up in the middle of one night in a cold sweat… well, that might be a problem.

"You're sick, Charming," Snow mutters sleepily from beside him as he struggles to both kick off all of his covers, and not disturb hers.

"I don't get sick," he insists, finally managing to get every last blanket off him, lying back in satisfaction, then realizing with a dawning horror that he is now suddenly shivering from cold.

His wife deems it necessary to crack open one eye to look at him. "That's interesting, considering that you're sick."

"Not!"

"Mmm," she hums. "We'll see how you feel about that in the morning."

—-

Morning sucks.

Every bone in his body aches, worse than if he'd just finished a joust. He wakes up wondering if moving ever again is really necessary, strictly speaking.

But he's not sick.

He drags himself out of bed with nothing but a stubborn sense of willpower, makes it all the way to the door of the royal suite, taking careful, plodding steps the whole while.

The door opens just as he readies his arm to reach for the latch, his wife walking in, balancing a tray with a bowls of steaming oatmeal, and two mugs.

Snow takes one look at him and laughs.

"Stubborn fool," she chides. "I knew you would try to make it to the meetings. But it's not happening. I've taken care of everything, meetings cancelled, we've got the day off, back to bed with us both."

He stares at her, honestly bewildered. "But you're all better now?"

She hums in agreement. "But you're all sick now, and someone needs to take care of you because you certainly won't."

"Not sick," he insists, even as he takes the offered mug from her, and takes a healthy gulp of tea. He can't taste it, but the feeling alone of drinking something hot is wonderful.

"Uh huh," she says, eyebrow raised.

He doesn't even want to dignify that with a response.

—-

It's actually nice, spending the day with her quietly in bed. Different. Usually every time he gets more than five seconds alone with her, he's jumping her, or she's jumping him, or they're jumping each other for a little variety.

But this, this he likes. Not as much, granted, not nearly as much. But lying back in bed, while she strokes her fingers through his hair, telling him stories of little things about her that he hadn't known before - such as the doll she had when she was young, and the time she asked her parents for a second one so that her first could have a sister - well, all things considered, it's a pretty great way to spend a day.

She knows him, knows him well, so she basically serves as his human thermometer all day, pulling up the covers when she knows he's cold, and throwing them off when she's figured out he's gotten overheated. He doesn't have to put any effort into anything at all, which is what he really needs right now.

You know, not that he's sick or anything. He could do everything himself. But it's nice when someone's offering to do it for him.

"You couldn't cancel the meetings tomorrow?" he asks.

"No," she sighs. "I'll have to attend tomorrow."

"I'll be coming too," he declares, determined.

She laughs at him. "You absolutely will not. You're staying in bed again. I will tie you down if I have to."

He pulls a satisfied smirk out from somewhere, smiling at her as dirty as he knows how. "Well, that was fun the last time."

She rolls her eyes. "How you can still have such perverted thoughts when you're this sick, I'll never know."

She's blushing pink though, so he thinks he's won this one.

—-

He wakes up alone the next morning, weak, and exhausted, as though he hadn't slept at all, when in fact he'd slept for far longer than he should have. Frustrated too, knowing he's running late for the meetings, he heaves himself out of bed with a mighty effort.

He makes it three steps across the room before he falls flat on his ass.

"What the hell," he mutters, then looks down.

The minx had actually tied him by the ankle to the bedpost while he was sleeping.

"You've got to be kidding me," he announces to no one, laughing. "She thinks this will work?"

Still chuckling, he bends down to untie the knot.

Twenty minutes later, he's still swearing at it. He's pretty sure he's actually somehow making it worse, and it's infuriating, knowing that his wife somehow learned how to do super-indelible knots without telling him.

What's worst of all, on top of the wardrobe ten feet away, he can see a knife that he is positive wasn't there the night before. All he needs to get himself loose is right there, but there is no humanly possible way he can reach it.

The little evil genius is taunting him.

She will rue the day. Rue it.

Just as soon as he can get out of bed.

—-

She gets back, many hours later, to find him still sitting on the floor of their room, glaring at the knot that, through his efforts, had swelled to about three sizes bigger than it had been originally.

She tries hard to hold back her laughter, but it escapes her in a snort.

"You couldn't give up and go back to bed?"

"That would be admitting defeat, my dear," he responds with whatever dignity he can muster.

"Yeah, sitting on the floor glaring at it all day instead, that really showed me."

He pulls himself up, finally, throwing his body onto the bed in a huff. Amusement and pride in her, however, are emotions he will never be able to hide, and he lets himself laugh. "Where in the world did you learn to tie a knot like that?"

She smiles at him, too fond. "You learn many things on the run."

"Teach me," he demands, too tired to worry about how much of a whine is audible in it. "I'm bored. There's nothing to do when you're not here."

"Too bad for you, after spending all day sitting on the stone floor instead of in bed like you should have been, you'll have to stay in bed again tomorrow to rest up."

He doesn't even bother hiding his horror. "But, but, but…"

"No buts. You'll have to find some other way to entertain yourself," she declares as she moves to blow out the candle on their bedside table.

"But I'm not sick!"

"Sure you aren't, dear."

—-

He wakes up the next morning, reasonably convinced there is something staring at him. Opening his eyes, he finds that gut instinct is entirely accurate.

There is a tiny, adorable, fluffy, innocent, young, perfect lamb lying in his bed with him.

It's the most absurdly out of place thing he thinks he has ever seen, yet he could not be more delighted. He hasn't been around any sheep, let alone a baby, since he was forced to leave his farm so long ago.

"Hi little one," he murmurs, gentle. "Has she decided you're keeping me company today?"

There is a bow around its neck, with a note tucked in it. Shaking his head in amazement, he reads it out loud. You know, in case the lamb is curious too.

"Stay in bed one more day, and then we'll talk. Hang out with this little girl if you're bored. There's a bottle for her on the end table." He looks - there is. "She takes on the mood of whoever she's hanging out with, so if you're bored, play. If you're tired, sleep. She'll doze off with you. Be warned, she's a cuddler.

She also needs a name, so that's your first order of business.

Everyone needs someone to take care of them when they're sick. Not that you are, or anything."

He finishes the letter, glances over at the lamb, still watching him curiously. "She is something else now, isn't she? Penny. I think your name is Penny."

—-

He feeds her. He plays with her, a game of their own invention where he lets her loose in their bed and he has to try to grab her. She's a fast little thing, and she escapes him more often than not, which seems to amuse her, cheeky little thing.

(He is forcefully reminded of Snow, and that entertains him more than anything else).

When he tires, he lies back, lets the lamb curl up into his side. Petting it, and with nothing else better to do, he begins telling Penny his life story. Beginning, of course, with the time he got knocked out with a rock wielded by the most beautiful woman he'd ever laid eyes on, because as far as he's concerned, that's where his life begins.

He interrupts himself several times though, to explain to Penny that he's not sick. Because he never gets sick. That's an important part of his life's story, he thinks.

And when his throat gets too sore to continue talking, he writes. There's paper and ink close enough to him that he manages to grab it, and so he continues his story in his slightly messy scrawl.

(He continues to intersperse his story with notes reminding Penny that he's not sick. Oddly enough, she keeps eating those ones.)

—-

After a very, hopelessly long day, Snow makes it back to her chambers, and ends up having to freeze at the door, hand to heart, just to take a mental picture of the scene, make sure she never loses it from her memory.

Both husband and lamb are sound asleep, the lamb curled up on Charming's chest.

It's quite possibly, the cutest thing she's ever seen.

Their bed is littered by papers, dozens of them, and out of confusion and curiosity, she picks one up.

Here's the thing, Pen. I'd give it all up. All the riches, all the glory, all the power, all of it. As long as I could keep her. There were so many times, before I finally sent that letter to her, that I was on the edge of the forest with my horse, ready to run away, to run after her. Ready to spend the rest of my days living on the run, living as a bandit, so long as I was with her. If I hadn't been so closely watched all the time, I would have done it. I would have gone after her, would have found her, and we could have spent our entire lives living in a six foot wide cave for all I cared. As long as I was with her. All that mattered then, all that still matters now, is her.

No offense, Pen. You're great too.

By the way, I'm not sick.

She doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.

So she does a little of both.

Lovesick, always, that's the two of them.

But as she sits down next to him to read more of their story from his perspective, she knows more than she's ever known anything else in her life, that it is so completely worth it.