"If you want to change your mind, you have about five minutes before I convince you otherwise."

She looked up to see Marcus standing by the door, leaning against the frame. As always, his presence took many things from her. All the empty space in the room for instance. The air from her lungs for another.

"And it starts now," he added.

She scowled. "You're not supposed to see the bride before the ceremony."

"Oh well," he said, taking slow, lazy steps towards her. "Seeing how you're about to chicken out of this public proclamation of love in front of 200 people who are here to judge your shoes and wish we'd be divorced in six months, there wouldn't be a ceremony if I'm not here right now, would there? What's the matter, Adira?"

"I'm just nervous."

"About what?"

"I don't know. What if it doesn't work? What if we're ruining everything by doing this? What happens when you're bored of me? When we're bored with each other? What—"

"What if we die tomorrow?" He said, cutting her short. "Nothing is ever certain in life or in love, Adira. I can't answer that question any more than you can tell me you wouldn't be bored with me, ten, twenty years from now. I can promise anything you want to hear, but then life would be boring, and whatever happiness I bring you from now on would be expected, when it should be a gift you get to open every day."

A gift she gets to open every day.

Perhaps it's true. Perhaps that's why marriages fail, why couples grow apart. Love is less when it's expected, taken for granted, held together by vows.

"Why then?" She asked. "Why are we getting married?"

"Because I want to tell the world that I choose you. Because I want to call you my wife whenever someone asks. Because I want to live this chapter of our lives, to see you on that altar when you're looking so splendid in white. To have tears in my eyes when I kiss you." He paused at a thought. "Unless, of course, if you really want to try running from a wedding, I'm up for that too. That sounds like fun."

"It's all about fun to you, isn't it?"

He smiled. "You asked me that question when we met, and you know my answer."

'It's about trying to live every minute of my life doing what I love,' he'd said.

'And what do you love?' She'd asked.

'Being here,' he'd replied, 'now, with you.'

Here and now might not be much of a promise, but one would have to be a fool to live for happy endings. Happiness is found in the journey, not the end. You take what you can today, and keep it for tomorrow.

"Well then," she said, holding out her hand. "Shall we?"

"Are we eloping or marrying?" He asked.

"Marrying," she told him. "I want to see you cry at the altar."

***

A/N: For those who have read my Cruel Intentions trilogy, this is me plagiarizing my own fanfic, more specifically, my all-time favorite pinnacle of a man aka Mikhail Vladimirovich Arbatov, in case you're wondering why this sounds familiar. It's one of the many dialogues I love of Mikhail, and I just can't help but share this outside of the CI universe. It's been altered to fit the context, of course. The original is a lot better when I had more than 500 words LOL