AN: Written for the prompt: Any, M/F, making your own happy ending . Not all that happy after all. ^^;;; Spoilers for the end of Tutu I guess?

For a world built off stories and fairy tales that have had their happy ends torn out, perhaps it was a surprise that things had turned out as positively as they had. Now, Ahiru reflected, the stories could go where they wanted much like real life. It meant that for some there wouldn't be a happy ending like Fakir had written for Mythos and Rue. But wasn't it better that way? She hadn't thought about it back before she became Princess Tutu, but what happened after the Happily Ever After? What happened for all the minor characters in the tale, the helpers and the hinderers and the villagers under the happy Prince and Princess? Were they happy? Maybe they had always had to figure out their own happy ending.

At her lake edge, Fakir sat writing something again. He was always writing. Sometimes he would tell her what he was working on, sometimes he didn't. Mostly he wrote happy ends for the unfinished stories. Whether or not they came true anymore, or if his writing had been a onetime miracle, Ahiru didn't know. She was a duck again, after all. A duck didn't go into town and a duck shouldn't remember going to school or how having human hands felt or know how to do a perfect arabesque.

"Ahiru," Fakir called.

Ahiru looked up from where she paddled in the middle of the lake. "Qua?"

"Do you think Neko-sensei would be happy if he had a family?"

She worked her way to the edge Fakir sat and flapped a few feet to land beside him. The notebook on his knee had Fakir's elegant cursive. She remembered enough about reading to pick out that it was a love story for Neko-sensei. She ruffled her feathers. There was probably nothing that would make Neko-sensei happier than having a 'bride.' "Qua!"

Fakir nodded. "I thought so. There's so many threads to follow to their end though. Neko-sensei is a regular cat now, like you're a duck. I wonder how many of our classmates are human and which turned out to be animals after all?"

Ahiru didn't say anything. She settled down into the grass at Fakir's side. He was warm against her side after the cool water. The grass prickled pleasantly against her feathers.

"I'm considering switching from the dance school to the writing school. I keep putting it off though. I'd miss dance."

Ahiru missed dance. She had never been particularly good at it unless she was Tutu, but it had been something to work toward.

"If I could write you a happy end, what would it be?"

Fakir brushed the feathers along her back and Ahiru fluffed them in pleasure. He looked wistful, and she knew the feeling well. If she were a girl, she would want to dance with him, a perfect pas de deux that an observer would call beautiful even with Ahiru's clumsy dancing because it would show what had grown between them.

If Ahiru couldn't get her dance, then this was good too. Days of swimming, eating treats Fakir had brought, and listening to him talk. She wished Fakir would try to reach his own happy end too though.

"What do you think I should do, Ahiru?"

Not for the first time she wished she could talk. As it was, they had worked out an understanding even without words. Ahiru wiggled up and onto his lap, nudging the notebook out of the way. Fakir had done enough worrying about other people's happiness for one day. She pushed her head under his arm and squirmed until she had a half hug around him, one wing extending along his side as his arm looped around her. Little by little she felt him relax.

"You think I'm getting too worried again, don't you?"

"Quack."

"I want you to be happy." His hand smoothed feathers, almost like he was preening her.

I want you to be happy too, Ahiru thought. They weren't the princess and the prince, so they couldn't expect that fairytale ending and all the supposed bliss that followed. But maybe, one day at a time, they could give each other little moments of happiness. So long as Fakir kept coming and he kept smiling like his day got better to see her, she would be happy enough. From the gentle way Fakir kept smoothing her feathers, perhaps he understood that as well.