Fic: Once upon a time. FRC
TITLE: Once upon a time.
AUTHOR: Pythia
RATING: FRC
PAIRING: B/G
FEEDBACK: Will be appreciated
E-MAIL: pythia@tiscali.co.uk
SUMMARY: Once upon a time there lived a little girl called Joyce Alice Mary …
DISCLAIMER: They belong to Joss and all those other people, not to me.
NOTES: This is another brief vignette set in the ‘Practically Perfect’ world of ‘Special Delivery’ and ‘Winter Gifts’
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Once upon a time there lived a little girl called Joyce Alice Mary, who had bright copper hair and big green eyes, and who knew that she was the luckiest little girl in the whole wide world. She lived in a little town in Southern California, called Sunnydale, which wasn’t the centre of the world, or a place where kings and princes lived, but it was home, and she loved it.
She loved her big sprawly house, with all its little nooks and crannies which were perfect for playing hide and seek in. She loved her room, which was up in the attic and made her feel as if she were climbing all the way up to the stars every time her Mommy put her to bed at night. She loved her uncle Xander, even if he called her Jamjar and made fun of her hair, and she loved her aunts Dawn and Willow and Tara and Anya - because at least two of them were real life witches, and they all spoiled her rotten, as her uncle Spike was fond of saying. She loved her uncle Spike too, although he said that she shouldn’t. Her uncle Spike said a lot of things like that, but since her Daddy said she should never believe anything or do anything her uncle Spike told her, she happily went on loving him just the same.
She had lots of other things to love - her new kitten, the one she’d called Minty, and whose mother was Miss Kitty Fantastico. Her bicycle, which Granddad Percy had bought her last time he came to visit. Grandad Percy, of course, and his white hair, which he solemnly swore had once been as bright a ginger as hers was. And there was her baby brother, who was small and red-faced and never stopped crying, but Joyce Alice Mary loved him anyway.
But best of all, Joyce Alice Mary loved her Mommy and her Daddy, who loved her back as strongly and as fiercely as any Mommy and Daddy could do. Her Mommy was a beautiful lady who worked very hard during the day taking care of Joyce Alice Mary and her baby brother - and who worked just as hard at night, taking care of everybody else. And her Daddy …
Her Daddy was special. Extra, extra special, like a sundae with whipped cream and sugary sprinkles on the top. Not that her Daddy had sugary sprinkles on him - other than when she forgot to wipe her hands, that is - but he was the bestest, cleverest, most magical Daddy a little girl could ever want.
He was the only Daddy in the whole wide world who not only talked to the monster under the bed, but had persuaded it to come out and be her friend instead of trying to frighten her. The monster under the bed was only a ‘maginary monster, of course, but having him as a ‘maginary friend was a lot more fun than having him growl and snuffle and threaten to eat her in the middle of the night. Her uncle Spike threatened to do that too, but Joyce Alice Mary didn’t believe him. She knew that there were real monsters, out in the dark, but she also knew that her Mommy took care of those, just as her Daddy took care of the spiders that crawled into the bathtub, and the big wriggly worms that they sometimes dug up in the garden.
Joyce Alice Mary had always known that her Daddy was special, but she hadn’t known how special until she’d gone to school and discovered that other Daddies took their little girls to the dull ordinary places like the Zoo, or the Fair, or the park at the weekend. She liked going to the park, but her Daddy took her to the really, really special places - like the stables, where he rode a big black horse and she got to ride her own little pony. Or the Library, where she got to read all the big picture books and have tea with the Cat in the Hat, or play hide and seek with the Wild Things. And the Museum, with the big, silly statues that told her stories about the olden days, and the baby dinosaurs that played fetch with her and ‘maginary when no-one was looking. No-one but her Daddy, of course. He was looking all the time. ‘Watching,’ her Mommy called it, and he was very, very good at it, because he saw all sorts of things that no-one else ever did.
Except for Joyce Alice Mary, that is, because she was her Daddy’s daughter, and he was teaching her how to look, and how to see, and how to think, and how to read all the strange squiggles in his big heavy books. She could already read bits of Latin and Greek and she could even work a little magic all by herself if she tried really, really hard.
Joyce Alice Mary knew that when she grew up she was going to be as brave as her Mommy and help stop the nasty monsters from eating people. And she was going to be as kind as her aunt Tara, and as funny as her uncle Xander, and as rich as her aunt Anya, and as clever as her aunt Willow, who was very, very clever indeed. But most of all she was going to be as magical as her Daddy, because then she could spend all day reading books, and telling stories - and she could ride a big black horse, and fight pirates, and hunt for treasure, and rescue cute animals from trees. ‘Maginary would stay with her forever and ever and not fade away like everybody else’s ‘maginary friends did - and she’d marry her uncle Spike and they would all live happily ever after.
Because that’s what people who live in fairy tales do.