The Doctor

39

Anna looked at Stella in shocked and narrowed her eyes. "What?"

"Marry me!" Stella said again, meaning it.

"But... you know I don't do marriage."

"It won't kill you!" Stella said and rolled her eyes. "And besides, if you get sick of me or me of you, we can get a divorce."

Anna stared at Stella in disbelief at her cheek. "Nothing lasts forever, and besides, marriage is against all your feminist morals and views, are you sure you want to do that to yourself?"

"I'm sure, Anna," Stella said, not laughing at Anna's joke. She got down on her knee and looked up into Anna's face.

"You don't have to do that," Anna said quickly. 

"I do."

"Stella, your knee will get all wet."

"I don't care. Will you marry me?"

"Stella," Anna hissed, people were stopping nearby and taking out their phones to record them.

"Anna, please marry me."

Just as Anna was going to say no, she thought about Stella as she looked down into her pleading face. She loved her with all her heart, she really did. She wanted to live with her forever and maybe one day have a kid with her and maybe if she believed in marriage, she would want to marry her, but she didn't. Anna looked around at anything that would distract her from the question in front of her, Stella realised what she was doing and cleared her throat. 

"Anna? My knee is getting quite sore."

Anna looked back down at her and smiled. "Yes."

Stella cried out in delight and stood up, stooping down to wrap her arms around Anna's neck and kiss her cheek. People in the background cheered and whooped, children from the playground were also cheering and Anna knew she made the right decision, even if she did believe nothing is forever.  

The engagement party was held in the UK in the big hall in Trish's village. It was old and nice looking, but freezing especially since winter was nearing and the night of the party was the first snowfall of the year. Hope's husband helped the girls set up the heaters for the hall, making sure they were going an hour before the guests arrived so that the building would be nice and warm. Anna's parents had flown over from Australia, they were awoken at 3 am in the morning minutes after Stella proposed and Alex couldn't get back to sleep in the excitement of it all. Anna and Stella had invited a fair amount of people, and by that, there were 200-300 people expected to show up, some flying all the way from Australia. Trish nearly fell out of her stool when Stella and Anna came home from their walk that night not only with fresh bread but news of marriage, she started crying and blubbering, excusing herself to make a glass of gin. Molly flipped her lid when she found out, she couldn't stop smiling the whole car ride and when Stella asked her to play a part in the wedding she nearly exploded with joy. Stella's sisters were really happy too, Anna's friends at the town hall were happy too, even if some of them were a bit conservative. The DJ was booked, catering arrived and Stella, Anna and their families waited nervously for the guests to arrive, and by 7 they all had. 

Stella was mingling in the corner of the room with some old school friends, eyes catching on her fiancee on the other side of the room talking to an old lady from her work. Anna held out her hand and showed off the impressive ring on her finger, it glinted in the light and Anna's eyes sparkled in it. She looked up and saw Stella watching her, she blushed, still feeling the good nervous whenever she saw someone that stunning and hers looking at her like that. Stella grinned to herself as Anna looked down at her feet, she looked so good. She was wearing a light, flowy dress that when just above her knees, her hair was out and even in the cold, she had a tan. Stella had tried to get her to wear something warm, but she protested too much and in the end, she gave up and let her wear whatever she wanted. She was wearing black and white pinstripe pants with a navy, woollen turtleneck, her hair was up and her dainty finger was clutching onto a champagne glass that she hadn't drunk from out of respect for Anna. Trish wandered up to out of the crowd.

"Speech." She said rather than asked.

Stella nodded, apologised to her friend and went over and grabbed Anna by the elbow.

"We're doing the speechs now," she told her. 

Anna groaned as they headed toward the microphone hand in hand. "You know I don't want to do this."

Stella laughed. "Too bad, you're going to." She grabbed the mic and tapped it, people all around the room turned and everyone was quiet. "Um... Hello." She started nervously. "Thank you all for coming, some have travelled all the way from Australia and some," she looked at Trish and smiled, "have walked down the road and arrived." The crowd laughed. "I'm so happy that you're all here to see a part Anna and I's life together before everything goes wrong and we're unhappy unless that is just straight people." More laughter again. "But in all seriousness, I'm going to keep this short and say that I'm glad Anna agreed to marry me because I think we make a cute couple and I love her." The crowd clapped as Stella handed the mic to Anna.

"Thanks to everyone who travelled, again, it's a big flight and trust me I know, but I'll leave you some money in my will because of it, not much but some." The crowd chuckled and Stella squeezed her hand. "I think Stella came into my life at the right moment, I don't want to give too much away because of our wedding vows or whatever, but Stella's helped me out of a few tough spots. I love her and I'm glad that I'm here tonight with her by my side, not some man. I'm also glad that she forced me into this." The crowd laughed again. "Thank you all for being her with us," she held up the hand that held  Stella's like a winner boxer and said into the mic with a funny expression, "we're getting married!"