A/N: It's been a while since I posted one of these, but here I am with another one. Fair warning-this one, unlike the other ones, isn't K; it's got a couple of curses in it. Anyway, this one is a Garan/Adri one-shot-kind of an insight into what their relationship might've been like. Hope you enjoy it!

Shout-out to all the reviewers! You guys seriously, SERIOUSLY make my day. I'd send you all cookies if a), this wasn't the internet, and b), I didn't suck at baking. Instead I'll settle for a smiley face. :)

Enough

I knew I'd catch hell for it later, but I did it anyway.

I never used to use that word. Hell. I never used to swear, either, but like so much else, it was something that the world had taught me, dropped on my doorstep and handed-off by happenstance. New, dirty, tantalizing words were thrown down at my feet like a gauntlet: Shit. Bitch. Fuck. Motherfuck.

They even sounded ugly in my mouth. I could hear the way they resonated, clunky and ugly, turning heads and snatching the air from the room. I didn't use them at first, and I tried not to say the worst of them now, but sometimes the situation called for it. Sometimes there was nothing else to say but a good old-fashioned dammit.

It felt empowering. That was why I gave into the language, in the end. I had so very little power, just crumbs from his table, and any I could scrounge up was cherished.

That was why I used it now.

"You're an ass," I called over my shoulder, hunching down against the cold.

"Adri, wait!" he shouted. I could hear the sound of his shoes pounding on the pavement, echoing down the deserted street. A hover whipped by, tossing up my curls.

I'd spent hours on those curls when I was getting ready. After all, Garan always said that appearances were so important-that it didn't matter how smart a person was; if they didn't look presentable enough to warrant a conversation, their IQ might as well not be larger than their shoe size.

"That's why I married you, dear," he'd said.

"What?"

"Well, I didn't marry you for your brains," Garan had said, as if this were obvious. "I married you for your looks."

Now, I just gritted my teeth, increasing my pace. "Go away, Garan! I don't want to see you right now!"

He had always been a better runner than I was, and he wasn't wearing four-inch heels. His arm closed around my elbow. I tried to wrench it away. "Stop," I said, shoving the hair from my eyes. "Just… stop. I don't want to see you, I don't want to look at you-"

"Stop saying things you don't mean, A."

"I do mean them!"

Garan smiled-a patronizing smile, one that made my hair stand on end and my skin crawl. "No, you don't," he said. "You love me."

I stared. I could've thought so many things in that one moment. There were so many things that I wanted to say, out loud, if I'd only had the guts to do something other than hurl a few paltry curses. But all I thought was, This is all my mother's fault.

She was the one that taught me I wasn't good enough to live on my own. In her defense, it wasn't specific to me; it was generalized to women. "We don't live by ourselves," she'd said, cupping my cheek with a placating smile. I hated it when people were condescending to me. It made me want to stand up and scream. "We marry nice men."

"What if I don't want to marry a man?" I'd said.

"It's just what you do," she said. "And it's not easy, Adri, dear, believe me. As soon as you find a man, whether you like them or not, you say you love them, and you marry them. Understand?"

I jerked back a bit, as if I'd been stung. "But what if you don't love them?"

"You say it anyway," my mother told me, matter-of-factly. At my scandalized expression, she rolled her eyes. "Come now, Adri. You're naive now-you don't understand that romantic love doesn't exist. Love doesn't exist."

I swallowed. "You don't love me?"

"I care for you, certainly," my mother said. "But love you? No. Oh, now, honey, don't cry. I'm only being honest. Really, Adri, don't be so sensitive."

I'd listened to her. The first man I ever dated was Garan-I never met anyone else. I never loved anyone else. I told him I loved him when I was fifteen, when I didn't mean it, and we got married a year later.

Maybe things would've been different if I'd stayed with my gut, not my mother's. If I never told him that I loved him, if I never married him…

But it was pointless to think about that now. It was what it was. Life didn't stop turning for a single eighteen-year-old girl.

I hated how he held it over me. Garan, that was. He held my untrue declaration of love over me as if I were a house cat jumping for a piece of string. I hated that I jumped even more.

Now, something inside of me snapped. "Do I?" I said, coolly. "Do I really love you?"

"Of course," he said. "You married me."

And that was that. I could've pushed it further, I knew, but what could that lead to? Nothing good, that was certain. Just heartbreak and a whole lot of problems with consequences I wasn't ready to accept. I could just picture walking up to my mother, coming crawling back. What would I even say to her? You were wrong? I was right? You were strong enough to endure years of marriage with a man you didn't love? You were weak enough to endure years of marriage with a man you didn't love? I was weak, I was strong?

Stars only knew. Maybe I was just a coward, but I wasn't going to go that far.

I put a hand to my face. Somewhere inside, I knew the argument wasn't over. "You embarrassed me," I said. "In there. At that gala, with all those stupid snotty people."

"Oh, Adri," Garan said. "You're so sensitive."

I smacked his hand away. "You called me stupid!"

"I never said you were stupid, A."

"You might as well have," I spat. "You used me for humor the whole night."

"Stars above, Adri, you're trying my patience. Honestly. You were a scientist's wife that didn't know anything about the advances in bioelectrical surge detectors. You embarrassed me. I had to do something."

" 'At least she's pretty,' " I quoted. (Verbatim.) " 'Can't say I married her for her looks. But she does look charming when she's on my arm, doesn't she, eh?' "

"Oh, for star's sakes," Garan said. "You're making it out to be more than it is."

"You don't respect me, Garan," I whispered, and I was horrified to find tears stinging my eyes. "I'm-I'm nothing to you."

"You're not nothing to me," he said. "You're my wife."

"There that word is again," I cried. "Wife. Do you even know what that means? Do you?"

Garan sighed. "Let's just go home, Adri," he said. "You're obviously overtired." He grabbed my arm, about to take me home. "Don't be childish. I said let's go."

I thought about doing what I wanted to do. I thought about going home. I thought about saying the words that were dying to leave my mouth-fuck you-but I didn't. I was willing to catch some hell, but not that much. Not enough. My mother had trained me too well.

I let him take me home. I lay down beside him in the bed that we shared stiff as a wooden board. I felt mechanical; empty. Not enough.

I thought about leaving him. Maybe I'd go see the world-head to the European Federation, visit Paris and New Rome, Berlin and Brussels. Maybe I'd head south to the African Union, or southeast to Australia. I didn't know. Anything was possible.

Until it wasn't. A few weeks later, I found out that I was going to have a little girl.

I took it with a grain of salt and decided I would name her Pearl.

Years later, when Garan walked in the door with a skinny, awkward-boned girl of about eleven with hideous cyborg limbs and deformations, I just stood there, watching. Staring. Some part of me wasn't even surprised. He didn't respect me enough to warn me, or discuss it with me. I was his wife, bought and purchased to look pretty on his arm. Nothing else.

Oh, I fought it, but I knew that I was never going to win. That was how things worked between us.

Some time later, at his funeral, I did him more justice than he deserved by pretending to cry.

A/N: Sorry it's kind of a downer; I promise the next one-shot will be lighter. Review and let me know what you think!

Any requests for the next one-shot? Ask away!