Those Little Things

1.) She loved fairy–tales. When she was a little girl, she would spend hours and hours reading story books and playing Princess and Knights with Vida and Chip. She knew all of the classics by heart: Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty…

Her very favorite fantasy story was always "The Little Mermaid" though. She liked how two people could overcome all obstacles to be together, just because they loved each other so much.

2.) Sometimes, she wished she was brave like her sister. She always had Vida to defend her, and as she grew up, Chip and Xander were there as well. But it would have been nice to feel like she could take care of herself.

If Vida could do it, then why couldn't she?

3.) She got into filmmaking when she was thirteen. She had gone to a local film festival and it was amazing to her what even amateurs could do with the right equipment and a vision.

And she'd always been an observer. She was known as "the quiet one" of the group, and she could always spot when someone was having a difficult day. She was intuitive like that. She could make documentaries.

So she researched different kinds of video cameras, and she spent months saving up for a top of the line recorder. It was special becase she'd earned it herself, and she guarded the camera with her life.

4.) She loved her friends. They were her family, and she wouldn't have wanted it any other way. Even as Chip tried to shove his dorky hobbies in their faces and Xander lolled around and Vida turned up the music to drown out all the noise, Maddie would just smile to herself, thankful that she had them.

5.) For reasons she couldn't explain, she felt drawn to Nick that first day. He just seemed so alone, and her heart went out to him She couldn't help but feel she would be like him if it weren't for Vida, Chip and Xander.

She really, really wanted him to stay. He needed some sense of family, so why couldn't he be part of theirs?

6.) When Nick almost quit during the final battle, something in her errupted. She couldn't believe he would even think about abandoning their team, their family.

And she remembered how she had always wanted to be more like Vida. This was her shot to really speak her mind, so she gladly took it. She had to make him stay.

It worked, thankfully. She felt a kind of confidence that she had rarely, if ever, experienced before.

7.) Nick was gone for exactly three months. She missed him a lot, but he did call her to let her know how things were going. It was nice to just talk about normal things with him for once.

But he did come home, and it was just like it used to be, bar the monster atacks of course. He came back to work at Rock Porium, and it was like their family had never been broken apart.

Sometimes, he would smile at her, and her heart did a weird fluttery thing. She would blush and turn away, wondering if he felt the same things she did.

8.) When she went away to film school, Nick told her it was his turn to wait for her. He said he would be patient, that she should take all the time she needed to chase her dreams.

As he told her this, she realized that Nick did feel the same way about her as she did about him. It felt like her heart did tha weird fluttery thing about a hundred times faster than it ever had before.

And she kissed him. He kissed back.

9.) The piece she was proudest of directing was something she had done for her final project for school. The assignment was to make a short film about something from her own life. Hers was about her and Nick, about wanting to be with someone who was busy with their own life.

It was shown at the little awards ceremony that celebrated all the graduates' hard work. To her surprise, her movie won first place in the autobiography category. But that wasn't why she liked it so much.

Nick was there in the audience, along with her family and friends. When they were all done congratulating her, Nick took her aside. He told her the film had made him realize he was tired of being away from her. He realized they were young, but he was ready to settle down.

He asked her to marry him, and she said yes.

10.) She got her happily ever after. She got her prince, and her castle. She got two lovely children, a boy named Tyler and a girl called Julia, and she adored them. She got the career she always wanted.

Some parts of fairy tales had to be true.