...Okay. So, for N to be born, he had to have a mom. And it's kinda late. And I don't even know.

But I depressed myself.

Oh, if you want a prologue, leave a comment. There are two endings-depressing and somewhat hopeful (the last one to life my mood xDD).

i.
She could remember meeting him.

He had fumbled about, blushing, and flailing about as the pokeball in his hand tumbled to the ground.

She had laughed, wondering why this clumsy boy had challenged her to a battle, and picked it up for him, handing it back over.

The Deino he sent out chomped down on his hand.

She remembered gasping and doing her best to help the poor soul get free.

That had been her first mistake.

ii.
When he finally got the guts to ask her out, it was because he had matured as a person—he'd grown up. She was proud of him for his confidence, despite his occasional failures.

She hated when others laughed at him though.

He was so strong now, stronger than her. His Deino had grown up, evolved, and listened to him.

In her eyes, he might as well be her hero.

He just kept going, even when everything else seemed lost. Even when others laughed at him for going up against the League over and over again, knowing it was hopeless.

He never gave up.

She should've known how this could go wrong.

iii.
When he proposed, he had stepped back to train. He was even more confident now and she was so very happy for him—he was finally starting to understand others.

He poured over the psychology books, he asked her so many lovely questions.

She really, really should've known.

iv.
Time passed—and she became an experiment. He tested her loyalty, her flexibility, her sanity.

It started out small, so small. Then it began to get worse.

Soon, there was so much shouting in their house, it felt like her ears were going to burst. All the lies built up, she wasn't used to carrying pain.

She should've left him then. But they were still young and she loved him.

She still loved him.

She loved him so much.

v.
The first time she locked him out of the house, she had almost had a meltdown.

She could remember hating herself.

She could remember his voice, so smooth now, so different than it used to be, convincing her how she was wrong to keep him out, that he was sorry, that he would quit.

She remembered letting him back in.

She couldn't remember what happened, though, the two days after… Just waking up cold and in pain and wondering what it was she had done.

vi.
She had wanted to hold onto him so badly—her baby boy. Her precious little mop of green.

Nate, she'd coo to him.

And for a while, for a whole fleeting year, Ghetsis had loved him and cooed to him, too. He had stopped hurting her, he had held her, he had even blushed when she pecked his cheek. Tentatively, she readjusted. She reached out to him and he reached back, he apologized every night.

He was who she had remembered.

And he was there, he was hers, she clung to that.

He'd never hit her again, she promised herself. He'd never hurt her or their child and it was over and he was done and he was fine now. He was fine.

Oh, how she wished he had been fine.

vii.
One day, a man appeared. She remembered him from when Ghetsis had been… not himself.

She hadn't let him in the house.

But he got in anyway.

Things slid downhill from there.

And she lost everything she had so carefully built back up.

viii.
Her baby was gone, her husband was… was… not him. Not the man she'd married.

So many odd people came in her house.

She was hurt so often, used as an example so often.

But she was tired of being docile.

And her and Ghetsis began to fight. And fight and fight and he'd slam her in to the wall and she'd smash her fist into his face and then she'd collapse onto him and he'd whisper to her, his voice thick, "Say you love me."

It became a mantra of his when they fought.

But she wouldn't.

He had taken her baby, her precious, precious baby.

Instead, she'd spit in his face.

And he'd shout it as he beat her into the black calm of unconsciousness.

ix.
Years passed and she couldn't leave the house.

He stopped letting his followers come.

And she began to warp.

He'd listen to her cry and she'd wonder if he regretted it. He'd watch as she broke down, just watch, and she'd be unable to look up, imagining he was sorry.

And then she began to think he really was. Or maybe not.

All she knew was that she loved him, she needed him, anytime he left, she was afraid he wouldn't come back.

She supposed that made her a masochist.

But he was all she had left.

x.
"Say you love me."

It had been a while since he'd said that, he'd quit sometime in the years. Her baby would be an adult now.

She looked up and met his eyes.

Cold, testing, red.

But this time, she opened her mouth and croaked, "I love you."

And then she broke down again, reaching out, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face in his chest.

"I love you," she repeated, "I love you, I can't leave, I… I want you to lie to me. I deserve to be beaten. I'm sick, sick, sick." Her grip tightened and the words poured out, "I just want you to say you love me, too. Please. Just once. E-even if you're lying, please Ghetsis, just give me that. I just nee-need to hear it once more."

Before he could reply, though, she muttered, defeated.

"You've already broken me."

By now… by now she wondered if it had been on purpose. If he had known, when they met, she'd always been one for the underdog. That she'd be just so easy to trick, to change, to corrupt. She wondered if he had known, when they met, just how easily it would be to snatch her up.

But then his arms were around and his lips were soft and he was being so gentle as he rocked her back and forth, speaking to her softly.

She clung to him because if she didn't, she'd fall.

Because if she didn't have him, she had nothing.

But she didn't want to hear what he was saying. Not yet. She just wanted to pretend what he was saying was sweet and odd and like they had once been.

When she listened, though, he was murmuring too quietly to hear it.

She shut her eyes, tears begging to let them fall. She'd admitted to being broken, why couldn't she cry?

And then he whispered, "I love you."

And they poured down her cheeks like the day her baby had been ripped out of her arms.