Author's Note: This part is all about married Annie and Laurie. It was such a cute piece to write and I hope you all love it!
They're barely moved into their first home together when Laurie proposes. In fact, a handful of unpacked boxes stare at her as she starts preparing. As soon as the front door shuts behind her on the big day, she lights candles, makes dinner, and slips the ring box into the back pocket of her jeans, her hands shaking as she does so.
Taking this next step isn't exactly a big surprise; she and Annie have long since come to the conclusion that they're it for each other. They casually discuss future children and marriage plans ("Do we hyphenate our names? Is that how gay marriage works?"), but that doesn't stop Laurie's heart from feeling like it's about to fly out of her chest at the sound of Annie's car pulling into the driveway.
"I know we're still so young, but god, baby. With everything we've gone through and—and all the people we've lost, I just want this sooner rather than later, because we might not get a later. You're the person I've always wanted to spend the rest of my life with, even if it gets cut short. You're the person." Laurie nervously rambles on, before finally asking the question she thinks she might've been born to ask. "Will you marry me?"
"Of course I will," Annie tries to sound exasperated, but she's crying and her hands are on her face and it's just not happening.
"You don't mind the size of the ring, do you?" Laurie interlaces their fingers, her thumb lightly grazing the diamond in question.
"It's perfect, but I'm totally asking my dad for help with paying for your ring so it's bigger than mine."
"Annie! Not everything is a competition!"
"But if it is, I'm winning." Annie flirts in response, leaning up to kiss her almost-wife.
They get married in October. It's a Thursday and the air feels crisp and cool, exactly like it did on the first Halloween that almost took them away.
As they sign the dotted line that will link them together forever (as if they weren't already), they finally feel like they can breathe in this weather again.
"I think 'just married' sex is the best sex we've ever had."
"Better than damaged comfort sex?"
"Knocks it out of the park."
"What the hell is that?"
Laurie freezes, her arm clasped tightly in Annie's grip.
"Oh! Oh, this?" Stuttering, Laurie tries to come up with an eloquent explanation. But what comes out is far from it. "I drank a lot. It's for you?"
Annie stares hard at the simple, black initials on the blonde's wrist: A.B.
"Wha—baby?" Laurie freezes, staring down the space between their two bodies, her hand in the beginning stages of sliding a pair of pajama shorts down and off of Annie.
The small, cursive L in the space between the edge of the brunette's hip and bikini line stares up at her.
"Oh, this?" Annie smirks, lightly pushing her hips up until they touch Laurie's. She tilts her face, waiting until her mouth is level with her wife's ear. "It's for you."
The day of their fifth wedding anniversary is hell.
Laurie sleeps through her alarm, only realizing it when a drowsy Annie rolls over after her own alarm, murmuring "babe, don't you have work?"
She's running out the door so quickly she forgets to grab a coffee, which is enough to ruin even a day that's had a good start. The town's flower delivery service got the dates mixed up, and so there weren't any flowers waiting on Annie's desk when she got to work. All of Laurie's usually-smooth-running appointments are completely overbooked, leading to a line outside her office of annoyed officers. One of her officer friends makes a joke about her and Annie celebrating their anniversary, unaware that Sheriff Brackett is turning the corner. And, finally, as she goes to leave, her car won't start.
After all of this is over with, an officer from work drives her home in the pouring rain. She spends the drive sitting in silence, thinking that this may be one of the worst days of her life, excluding two Halloweens in particular. When she walks through the front door of their house, however, and sees the woman who slipped a ring on her finger exactly five years ago, doing something so stupidly cute Laurie thinks she might actually burst from the sudden rush of emotion, things are suddenly okay.
Annie and Laurie spend almost the entirety of their twenties as solely Mrs. & Mrs. Brackett (well, Strode-Brackett for Laurie). Just the two of them, learning to be a unit before bringing anybody else into the mix. Laurie's pretty sure she's fallen in love with Annie a hundred times in all those years, while Annie will one-up her and say she's fallen a hundred and one.
When they're thirty, though, their little duo becomes a group of three. Looking at Lyn, with her tufts of brown hair covered by a crooked little hat, makes parts of them wish they had rushed into things just to meet her sooner.