Disclaimer: I don't own anything from A Great and Terrible Beauty or Rebel Angels.
Author's Note: Long time, no update! Here's another episode from Ann's life, taking place after Rebel Angels. Concrit is greatly appreciated! Also, this one is shorter, just because… Um. Okay, I don't have a real reason why it is shorter, it just is.
I look up at Gemma in wonder, thinking about how beautiful she looks today. I am standing with the rest of the crowd, watching her walk slowly down the isle to return to her husband-to-be.
She spies me among the crowd – I am sitting very close to the front – and gives me a small smile. I smile back gently, though I wish it could be me in the white dress and veil. Her dress is beautiful; it must have been expensive. The ivory gown is richly embroidered with designs of flowers and the train in the back sweeps along behind her, marking her last steps as an unmarried woman.
Gemma reaches the priest and they begin the marriage rites. I must admit that my attention wanders at this point, though it is the most important. I wish it were me up there, standing next to Tom. I expect that he has forgotten about me now, the girl that lied to him and to everyone just to make it seem like she had money. I wish I could be that girl, except without the lies. I wonder if Tom is here today – I haven't noticed him among the crowd. I look about, trying to spy the back of a head that looks like the back of his head. At the moment I do not see him, but I do see Felicity.
I am rather surprised that she is here today. She and Gemma had a sort of a falling out right as we left Spence. They never really were friends, I suppose. I don't even know why Felicity became friends with her in the first place, they never told me. There must have something, though. They couldn't have just been friends because Fee felt like it. She used to be at my level – that is, the lowest level in Spence.
"I do." I hear Gemma's voice say this and I look up again, pretending that I have been listening the whole time. I close my eyes for a moment, picturing that Indian boy with her – Kartik; I think his name was – instead of the groom that is really with her. But that dream is dead. It died when he did.
Gemma and her new husband walk back down the isle. I can see that her smile isn't as bright as it was when she was walking to him. At that point she could have still backed out. Now there is no going back. She is married, and soon she will have children, maybe even a daughter, to carry on in the realms.
I realize that not once have I looked at the groom in all this. He looks the same as he did before, except maybe a little happier. He should be happy, finally having Gemma as a wife. I wonder if Gemma really does have that brooch now; she does own the things that he does now.
I sigh, tears filling my eyes. I whisper Gemma's new name once, feeling it roll in my mouth. It feels so different. She's not Gemma Doyle anymore. She's Gemma Middleton.