Chapter Text
Britta has more experience than Annie in this arena, technically. In being engaged. Even if said engagements between herself and Jeff lasted for roughly three hours total.
She and Annie have discussed it in some detail, over a handful of dinners and late nights, since she moved to D.C. a bit over a year and a half ago. The idea of getting married.
Still. Taking this next step will give her desire a shape, a permanence, that she almost can't believe she wants, considering her history.
"Well," Britta reasons with herself, "your history didn't have an Annie in it until Greendale."
She's kinda stunned at how thinking about her long-time girlfriend makes this easier, rather than terrifying.
"No time like the present."
She launches a Hail Mary text to Troy and Abed while she's starting dinner, like it's nothing: I need your potential help on a sensitive matter. AKA Annie can't know I asked you this.
Troy: What's up? And we can't know what Annie can't know until you tell us what she can't know.
Abed: Is this a test of our loyalty? Should we be worried?
Britta: No to both of your questions, Abed. And Troy, I doubt you'll have this info, but I figured I'd take a shot anyway.
Her phone's cursor blinks insistently. She takes a breath and types her message, reviews it for a second, then hits send.
Do either of you, on the slightest off-chance, know Annie's ring size?
She spazzes at the incoming call and nearly fumbles her phone into the pot of water she'd just put on for mac and cheese.
"Abed?"
"Hey, Britta. Oh, right, random phone calls instead of texts were your thing back in the day. My bad."
Troy chimes in, "Anyway, about the intel you requested." He hesitates for a second, conversing with Abed, then hops back on the line. "We're guessing Annie's still at work?"
"On her way home," Britta responds. "But she's still about fifteen minutes out, at least."
"Alright, that's good," Troy replies. "Since she shouldn't be around for this discussion."
Abed follows up, with stunning nonchalance, "And we do have her ring size. Or at least, what it was as of roughly a month ago, from the one campaign she dropped in on as a visiting mage."
"Oh, yeah, we needed the ring to access the hidden temple's inner sanctum for the secret spell books and you wanted to get Annie's size for accuracy," Troy remembers.
Britta freezes for a second, then answers slowly, to confirm, "So you're saying you have my girlfriend's ring size thanks to a DnD conquest?"
"Yep!" Troy responds-she can nearly see the pleased grin on his face-and Abed adds, "I think I wrote it down in our game notes and told Annie to include it in her character sheet, too. I'll double-check later on and text you."
Britta shakes her head in disbelief. "Have I ever mentioned how much I love you guys? Because it's a lot."
"We know," they chorus, and she laughs at the sound of them completing their signature handshake on the other end of the line.
"So it's fair to assume you're gonna ask for Annie's hand in marriage sometime, then?" Abed wonders.
"That sounds like a super 1950s way of saying it, but...yeah." Britta's cheeks flush pink at the admission as she retrieves a box of elbow noodles from the pantry, and both the boys cheer, "Congratulations!"
"Thanks, you guys! And I just realized, isn't it, like, a bit after 2 in LA?" Britta frowns. "How are you both home, or wherever you are, together?"
"We decided to have a long weekend for a little stay-cation," Abed notes. "There are no federal holidays in June, so we took off today to celebrate…" he pauses. "What did we pick, Troy?"
"Robert La Follette Sr. Day, buddy. He's some famous, dead politician from Wisconsin. Seemed like as good a holiday as any."
Britta rolls her eyes with genuine fondness. "You can take the nerds out of Greendale, but you can't take Greendale out of the nerds."
She calls to them, as she starts shredding a block of cheddar cheese, "Could you please text me the ring size details if you find them, Abed? And I owe ya one."
"We're holding you to that, and sure. Feel free to keep us abreast of the whole engagement situation when you can."
She hears what sounds like a hasty, fake cough. "Was Troy laughing at your use of abreast, Abed?"
"No!" Troy protests while Abed answers, "Yes, of course he was."
"Never change, you two. Never change," Britta sighs happily. "Thanks again."
She takes a second to sit-a watched pot never boils, after all-and consider the enormity of what she's planning.
"No big deal, prepping to ask your girlfriend to marry you sometime in the semi-near future," she thinks wryly.
They've discussed the topic here and there, of course, and neither of them had any doubts or reservations about their future together, but with Britta only moving to D.C. about a year ago and both of them focusing on climbing their respective career ladders, they'd put the wedding talk on pause, mostly.
"And here you are, planning to buy a ring. And you're not freaking out?" another part of her asks.
"Why would I be? Well, besides sticker shock on the price, maybe. But, money aside, I wanna intertwine our lives that closely. And I'm pretty positive Annie feels the same way."
Britta knows her younger self would be rebelling against such talk, against the idea of "compromising her independence" or something. But her younger self, her pre-Greendale and even early Greendale self, had never been with someone like Annie before. Someone who makes the idea of forever both colorful and comforting, rather than boring and routine. Someone who makes her wanna strive for better things in all aspects of her life. Though she can only sometimes get behind the idea of exercising on early weekday mornings, and she can't take salad to work more than three out of five days a week without it turning into a meal of shredded cheese and croutons.
Annie's arrival home and the subsequent opening of their apartment door snaps her out of her reflections, even as she'd started cooking up their faux buffalo chicken mac and cheese.
"Hey, babe." She's pleased to see Annie didn't have a stack of case files under her arm as she shut the door behind her; working overtime is occasionally a fact of life for both of them.
"Hey, you." Annie presses a quick kiss to Britta's lips and gives a pleased hum at the ingredients laid out on their kitchen island. "Thanks for getting dinner going, I'm starving. Did you have a good day?"
"Pretty decent, for a Monday. Troy and Abed say hi."
"Did they text you? I didn't see anything in our group chat."
"They called me," Britta answers, then wonders why she's blabbing about this considering she very much has to keep the contents of their discussion a secret. "They, um, took the day off since there aren't any federal holidays in June and gave me a call earlier since they knew you were still at work. They're celebrating Robert La Follette Sr. Day as an excuse for a staycation."
"And Robert what's-his-face is…?"
"Some famous, deceased politician in Wisconsin," she shrugs.
"Who else besides Troy and Abed would just pick a random holiday like that to celebrate a day off?" Annie laughs. "You can take the nerds out of Greendale, but you can't take Greendale out of the nerds."
"It's nice, being so in sync with your significant other," Britta thinks fondly as she comments, "That's what I said earlier."
"We really should look into having them come visit for a little vacation sometime, maybe a long weekend or something," Annie muses as she drains the pasta. "I know we're all busy, but Abed moving up to an assistant director role gives him a little more flexibility now, and Troy can do a lot of work with his foundation remotely."
"Yeah, that would be fun." Britta pulls the breaded faux chicken strips out of the oven, slices them up, and tosses them into the sauce Annie had just finished whipping up.
"Hey, Britta?" Annie asks as they're cleaning after dinner.
"Yeah?"
"Why'd Abed text you a picture of a DnD character sheet? I just saw it pop up on your phone since it's over here charging." She points at the counter that she's wiping down with a rag and their kitchen spray cleaner.
"Oh," shit, shit, shit, come up with something, "he mentioned that I could join a campaign as, like, a part-time side character if I wanted while we were talking earlier. He put together that sheet as a potential option for me."
Annie frowns. "I didn't think you were that into DnD."
"It's a game with some people who are new to it who might be, um, less serious players. That's why he'd asked me. I doubt I'll do it, though."
"Ah." Annie nods. "Got it."
Thankfully, she drops the discussion after that, and Britta pockets her phone once she texts Abed back: You're a lifesaver! Wasn't sure how I'd get this otherwise. Thanks again!
"One step down. However many more to go," she thinks.
**
Britta realizes pretty quickly that knowing her girlfriend's ring size doesn't mean squat when she doesn't know what kind of ring she'd want. She has a general idea, of course; Annie's never been into crazy fancy jewelry and usually prefers more minimalist accent pieces, as far as bracelets, necklaces, and earrings go. But Britta's usually gotten either direct hints or at least guideposts when buying those types of gifts before. Flying blind for an engagement ring strikes her as a singularly terrible idea.
She's not sure why she calls Jeff of all people to talk about this on a Saturday night on her way home from happy hour drinks with her co-workers, since she's about ninety-five percent sure he hadn't bought an engagement ring at any point for either of their two attempts at moving toward matrimony. But they usually catch up over the phone at least once a month, anyway, and she hasn't talked to him yet. With Annie passing on this particular evening out, Britta figures it's not a bad time to reach out, so she calls him through her car's Bluetooth-the perks of finally leasing a sedan from this decade.
Jeff and Frankie had been busy dissuading Craig from making any outlandish additions to the latest draft of Greendale's budget for the upcoming academic year, per his increasingly distressed texts from late May and early June. But from when she'd last spoken to Jeff, at least, he'd sounded mildly optimistic that they'd wrangled their dear Dean in for once.
Jeff answers on the third ring. "Hey, Britta! Just a sec…"
She hears a "thanks, man," in the background from Jeff and the shutting of a door, followed by what sounds like excited clapping.
"What's going on over there?"
"I'm hosting a little end of the semester party to celebrate another year of surviving Greendale and making it marginally better," he answers. She's glad to catch a great more warmth than bitterness in his jovial voice. "Got Frankie, Craig, and Chang here, plus a build your own taco bar and a yumbo-sized pitcher of margaritas."
There are various yells of "Hi, Britta!" in the background, and she asks, bemused, "Did you all start emptying that pitcher already?"
"A little. None of us are getting too wild, although Chang's making noises about going somewhere to do karaoke later," he laughs. "So, what's up with you?"
Her voice sticks for a second before she can speak. "Kinda a lot, actually. I'm-"
She swallows. It's a bit harder to articulate this than to just answer a prompt like she had with Abed, but she wants to. She really wants to. So she does.
"I'm, uh, in the beginning stages of figuring out how to pop the question to Annie."
There's dead silence on the other end for a few seconds, and she wonders if one of their lines dropped before Jeff answers, "Wow! That's-that's something. Congrats, Britta!"
"Thanks! I'm still pretty fucking terrified, honestly," she confesses, "but...I mean, I think she's gonna say yes."
Jeff snorts. "Duh-doy. She's been crazy for you for how long now?"
Someone pipes up in the background, "Who's crazy for what?"
Jeff's tone gives away the half-grin, half-smirk he's undoubtedly wearing. "Wanna share with the class, or no?"
She nods. "Sure, why not. They'll all eventually find out, anyway."
Jeff calls to the group, and his herding of the cats-or, rather, the cats plus Frankie, who's practically never in need of shepherding-reminds Britta of how many times he'd done that for them.
"If I could get everyone's attention for a moment," he calls. "Britta's got an announcement. Or a life update. Or...whatever," he snorts, "you all get the point, I'm done being articulate and law teacher-y for now, it's the first week of summer break. You've got the floor, friend."
She suddenly feels a bit on the spot, and tells Jeff, "You remember I got, like, a B minus in public speaking, right?"
"As if you have to impress anyone here. Plus, they're all gonna be thrilled."
That helps, truly, and she takes a deep breath to settle her nerves before she tells all of them, "I'm gonna ask Annie to marry me!"
And amidst the cheers from her wonderful friends, Britta wonders when sharing that news will be common enough that it won't give her goosebumps.
She's still concerned about one rather significant aspect of this whole process, though, and once the celebration's died down a bit, she voices her worry.
"How do I know what kind of ring to buy, though? I don't think I can just outright ask that question without more or less giving my intention away."
There's a pause for a minute on the other end before Frankie's voice comes through. "Britta? Have you and Annie discussed getting married in any significant detail?"
"Yeah."
"How long ago did you start talking about it?"
She chews on her lower lip for a second, casting her thoughts back a bit. "Maybe six or seven months ago?"
"Okay, then. Knowing Annie, and knowing that this is clearly something you both want to happen, she's probably started considering that detail, if not some of the other ones, too."
She considers Frankie's reply as she pulls into their apartment's parking lot. "You're probably right. But where am I gonna find those?"
"Pinterest."
She's stunned to hear Jeff and Chang's voices overlap.
"And how do you two know that?"
"Because a Pinterest page can be like a massive online binder," Chang answers. "It's my go-to for new dinner recipes."
"And Jeffery's on Pinterest now as one of his updated, new age flirting techniques because he's started online dating," Craig chimes in before Jeff very clearly pushes him aside. Not quickly enough, though, and Britta's cracking up.
"And," Frankie pipes up again after she's finished laughing, too, "with the fact that you're not on social media, maybe Annie's left her account open for viewing. If not, you could just...ask her to show you what she wants?"
"But then it wouldn't be-"
She's about to say "a surprise" when Jeff fills in the rest of her sentence, off speaker phone. "It'd still be a surprise since she wouldn't know when you bought it or when exactly you'd be asking. Plus, Frankie's idea sounds nice."
"It-it does," Britta admits before she teases, "Are you going soft in your old age, Winger?"
"If I'm old, you're getting the senior discount right along with me, Perry."
She laughs at his jab as she gets out of her car. "Listen, I've gotta go-just got home-but it was nice to catch up. Glad to hear you're doing well, along with everyone else."
"Yeah. Thanks for the call. And congrats again, Britta. I'm really happy for you and Annie. Lemme know if you need any help. Or sarcastic comments. I can offer those, too."
She knows the booze is making Jeff's voice a tiny bit extra warm, but it's mostly affection, and she's glad for that.
"Thanks, will do. Have fun with the rest of the gang. If you all go out for karaoke, take a video and send it to the group chat, okay?"
Jeff laughs. "Definitely. Talk to you later."
"Yep. Bye."
She wonders if Annie can tell what she's thinking about by how she pours herself into her kiss when she gets up to their apartment.
She wonders what it'd be like to have her say yes.
Britta would much rather ignore the other option, so she cedes control of her mind to her girlfriend. Cedes control of her body, too, until she can't do much more than gasp out Annie's name because she's ripped three orgasms out of her in a shade under twenty minutes.
"I was gonna say welcome home when you first got back, but that feels redundant now," Annie murmurs.
"You can say it anyway. I always wanna hear it. Always wanna be home with you."
"You always will be, Britts."
Annie's answer comes with a yawn, but the certainty in her voice helps Britta decide, "I should look up jewelers in the area sometime tomorrow."
**
It takes her a couple of weeks and another couple of discussions about their long-term future to work up the nerve to ask Annie about visiting Garland Jewelry and Diamonds.
The shop is about twenty-five minutes away via subway and a short walk. Not a big deal.
"I'm just telling my girlfriend that I wanna be with her for the rest of our lives, ideally," Britta thinks wryly over a weekend breakfast of biscuits, orange slices, and cereal. "That's chill. One hundred percent chill."
She mentions, after she's had enough coffee to wake up and formulate her thoughts, "I was thinking we could take a little trip sometime soon. Around here, I mean."
"Where to?" Annie asks as she finishes her last bite of biscuit.
"To Garland Jewelry and Diamonds. Or another, similar type of store, if you'd be interested."
"For what, exactly?"
The sleepiness has vanished from Annie's voice, and there's a slight tremor to it that both excites and scares Britta.
She forges on, though she's not quite ready to say what she's thinking out loud. "Something for you."
"Something for me," Annie repeats. "And would this...something be a bit of jewelry you'd eventually want, too?"
"Should've known she would figure it out immediately," Britta thinks before she answers, "Yes. It would be."
"Okay. Okay, then. That's, um-I'm gonna go shower and-and think about that."
Annie deposits her cereal bowl and her plate into the dishwasher with a bit of a clatter, her movements gaining the tightness that comes with her anxiety striking, so Britta catches her before she dashes off to the bathroom.
"Babe. We don't have to-"
She pauses, reconsiders saying "We don't have to commit to anything," because that sentence could be taken horribly, and finds another way forward.
"We'd just be browsing," Britta reassures her. "Whenever we go. No pressure, no timeline. We can figure it out together."
Annie draws in a deep breath, relaxes into her arms. "Yeah. That would help me a lot. I can show you some rings I've looked at online later, after I shower, if you'd want."
"Okay. Sure." She suddenly realizes what she just agreed to. "Shit. We're really doing this, aren't we?"
"Trending in that direction, at the very least," Annie agrees. "And I'm trying not to freak out too much. Or get too scared."
"That makes two of us."
"Is it weird that I'm glad we're both nervous?"
"Nah. I'd be more worried if we weren't a little terrified, honestly."
Annie seems to release a bit more of her worry on her next exhale, and Britta's glad to see her shoulders drop and relax as she grabs her towel off the back of their bedroom door and walks to the bathroom.
Normally, Britta's not one to struggle with relaxing, especially on weekend mornings, but a rather troubling thought occurs to her, one she voices aloud:
"How much is buying an engagement ring gonna run me, and how fucked is my wallet gonna be afterwards?"
Her phone dings with a text...from Annie.
Don't worry, babe, I'm not trying to send you to the poorhouse.
She snorts out a laugh at that, shouts, "Thanks, love!" back, and the knot of concern in her stomach loosens at the sound of Annie's laughter just before she gets in the shower.
Their Google searching together helps untie it further, and they could almost be back at Greendale, with Annie taking the lead on their research.
"So, I'm going for understated, quiet elegance, I think? Something crazy gaudy wouldn't be my style," she explains as she clicks the first couple of links from her Pinterest page.
"No, I'd figured that much out, at least," Britta notes.
"'Course you did, you know what I like," Annie murmurs affectionately. "And I definitely want moissanite because it's actually brighter and more reflective than diamond-it offers a better shine under lights. Plus it's lab-made, so no worries about wearing a blood diamond."
"Ooh, okay. I can appreciate that."
Britta points at the three links that are loading.
"Any one of these catch your fancy more than the others?"
Annie clicks on one of the tabs. "This one. The one where you can get tiny gemstones set to either side of the moissanite itself. I was thinking I could get topaz and citrine. November birthstones," she adds after Britta stares at her blankly for a second. "For our anniversary."
"That sounds amazing."
"Here, lemme see if I can-"
Annie pulls up a couple of drop-down menu options, inputs the gem types for the ones on the sides, and refreshes the page.
She positively glows as it pops up, but Britta can't restrain the fearful squeak that slips past her lips as she sees the price.
Annie winces a little. "Is that, like, a bit too much, or way too much?"
"It's…"
Britta considers the number again.
Is the idea of spending about $1,350 in one go somewhat horrifying, and enough to get her to reaffirm that Big Wedding, as an overall industry, is a scam?
Yes.
"On the other hand...I can honestly afford that. Which is pretty badass, considering how long I used to live paycheck to paycheck. Or no paycheck to no paycheck. And if anyone in my life is worth that kind of money, it's Annie."
So Britta shakes her head after a beat. "It's not."
Annie frowns. "It's not what?"
"It's not too much. Not for you, Annie. I'm not making you settle."
"Britta…" Annie breathes. "You'd do that? For me?"
She can't get the words out, so she just nods, and she's pretty damn sure from how Annie's kissing her that they won't need to look for any other rings for her.
They go to Garland's together two weeks later to browse.
Britta goes back by herself a month after that to buy.
**
She blows up her own plan, the one she'd talked through with Shirley, about popping the question after dinner, around 7:30 A.M. on a surprisingly mild mid-October day.
"I'll be a mess if I wait around to do this, and anyway, the whole proposal over dessert thing feels a bit too traditional for us."
Inspiration hits her between the eyes when her brain won't shut up.
She quietly, stealthily opens her bedside dresser drawer, retrieves the ring box from it, gets out of bed, and creeps out to their front closet to put it in her front coat pocket.
Britta mutters, "Don't fuckin' forget it's there, now," as a reminder to herself before she manages to snag another half-hour of fitful sleep.
**
"Do you remember when you, Troy, and Abed held that sort of intervention to keep me away from Blade? And you mentioned that we're not defined by our limitations, but by our potentials?" Britta asks Annie as they slowly meander through Meridian Hill Park on a post-brunch walk.
"Yeah, sure."
"Well, I thought of something that has the potential," she lingers on the word, "to make our lives better."
"Ooh, what is it?" Annie's face lights up as she starts guessing. "A new steam mop for cleaning our kitchen?" she ponders hopefully. "I know we talked about maybe getting one last weekend. Did you look up some prices, hon?"
Britta laughs. "No, it's something a little bigger than that." She strides a few steps ahead of Annie before whirling around to offer her a quick kiss.
"What's that for?"
"Because I love you, Annie," she replies softly, sliding a stray hair back from her girlfriend's face.
The realization registers in the back of her mind.
"That could be the last time I ever call Annie my girlfriend. Or, it will be, if everything turns out the way I want it to."
She goes on, trying to keep her voice steady, "I love you today, and I'll love you tomorrow."
Annie's wearing her soft, warm, affectionate smile-one of Britta's favorites-but she doesn't quite seem to get where this is headed.
"I love you too. And what about the day after tomorrow?" Annie asks, laughing, a bit of a teasing lilt to her voice.
"And the day after tomorrow," Britta confirms. She lets Annie lean against her, presses a kiss to her temple, and murmurs, "I'll love you forever if you gimme the chance."
Annie's coy smile will forever be her undoing. "Sounds great to me."
"Mm-mm." Britta shakes her head a tiny bit. "I'm looking for a specific answer to the question."
"Well, then...my answer is yes. I'll let you love me forever, Britta. Definitely."
She nods a couple of times, partially to Annie, but mostly to herself. She's been rocking on the edge of the diving board for a few minutes now. She's gotta jump.
She takes a deep breath. "Thanks, babe. Knowing that will make the next part way easier for me."
"Next part…?"
Annie's face transitions into a confused half-frown, but her eyes pop wide like a teardrop of ink from a ballpoint pen hitting crisp, white paper as Britta sinks to one knee and retrieves the ring box from her coat pocket with considerably more grace than she'd expected to display.
"This is the next part," she whispers theatrically-fucking Captain Obvious-before she remembers to smile, trying to keep it together.
Annie claps her hands to her mouth, her eyes blown wide in disbelief.
"Oh-oh my God-you're-"
Britta pries the box open so the ring is facing Annie properly (thanks for that tip, anonymous jewelers of the Internet), offers it up toward her with shaking hands, manages the tiniest breath of a laugh at her stammering.
"Yeah. I am. So, Annie...will you marry me?"
She's dead silent for a second and Britta's brain bolts back to Greendale's auditorium and "Jeff Winger, I love you," and Jeff running away and-
"Yes."
Britta forgets how to breathe for a second. Or two. Or three.
"Yes, of course I'll marry you, Britta, a thousand times, yes," Annie adds in a fierce whisper, and Britta's not sure what happens next-it's a blur-if she's crying happy tears or if that's her favorite girl or both of them as Annie sinks to one knee herself and steals the air out of her lungs, first with a rib-crushing hug and then a blood-red kiss.
Britta fumbles a bit while sliding the ring onto her finger.
"If it's not exactly what you want-"
Annie cuts her off with a shake of her head and a fervently murmured, "Same as what I told you when we first looked at it online and when we went to Garland's, it's perfect," just before she presses her hands to either side of Britta's face to kiss her with a loud, echoing smak.
All the world's ambient sound comes rushing back-some of the other park-goers are applauding them-and the enormity of what they've just done hits Britta so suddenly, with such force, that she actually bursts out laughing for a second.
"What is it, love?" Annie asks, her gaze flickering back and forth from the gemstones circling the ring on her finger to Britta's eyes. This experience has created a whole new smile on her face and Britta wants to commit it to memory as soon as she can.
"It's just...holy shit," she whispers as they lean against each other, almost kissing again. "We're engaged, Annie."
"Yeah, Britta." Now she's laughing hysterically too, like she can't quite believe it, either, and repeats Britta's line, murmuring it against her lips. "We're engaged."
Britta giggles into their next kiss and she doesn't know when she'll stop feeling like she just guzzled a bottle of Fizzy Lifting Drink. She will at some point. Just not right now.
Which is why, after she and Annie end their latest kiss and get up from the ground, she raises both arms triumphantly and shouts to the rest of the park, "We're fuckin' engaged!"
Annie cracks up at that and doubles over, and most people in the park laugh and whoop at Britta's declaration. Except for a soccer mom who's clearly peeved by her language, judging by the nasty expression on her face.
"We should apologize," Annie mutters under her breath.
"Oh, c'mon, it doesn't even look like she has any kids around right now."
Nonetheless, Annie offers a conciliatory wave to the woman and a comment of, "Sorry, sorry, it's just…" she pauses for a second and then unexpectedly shouts, almost matching Britta's volume, "My fiancee and I are fucking thrilled about this development in our lives!"
It's Britta's turn to laugh until her midsection hurts as Annie turns on her heel and they head out of the park.
"I still…" Annie shakes her head in amazement and regards the ring in near-equal shock. "We're-we're gonna be married."
"That is typically why people get engaged, Annie."
"Oh, shut up," she responds playfully as she climbs in the passenger seat, then rescinds her words. "Actually, don't. I wanna hear everything about this because I was honestly surprised. Like, I didn't see this coming."
"Do you mean getting engaged this specific way, getting engaged today, or both?"
"Both."
"Alright. So, there was a plan. But I sort of deviated from it because I think I would've gotten even more nervous if I had to wait all day to ask you to marry me after dinner," Britta confesses. "And I felt like asking you now will let the rest of our day be a celebration."
"Absolutely."
"Plus, I'd already been waiting for a while, I bought the ring about a month ago. And you mean so much to me, babe," Britta goes on. "In case you couldn't tell from the rock that's now on your finger."
"How'd you get my ring size? Was that from the jeweler?"
"Let's just say I got a little help from our friends. Abed, more specifically, since I asked him and Troy a while ago and-"
Annie gasps. "They wanted that info for their campaign I joined part-way through!"
"Bingo. I was so worried you were gonna look at my phone when he sent your character sheet from that game over."
Annie gives a precious "aww" before she comments, "You were thinking about doing this way back then?"
"Well, we had talked about it a bit already. So I figured," she shrugs, "why not?"
"And here we are."
"Here we are," Britta agrees. "Was it…" Britta feels her face flush as she asks the question. "Was it everything you wanted?"
"Duh doy, babe," Annie answers, leaning in to press a kiss to her lips. "Of course it was. Because you're everything I want. This is an incredible day, but also, it's just one day. Knowing I get you forever makes it all the better." She continues, "Because if you don't have an almost stupid amount of love for the person asking you to get engaged, like we do, then what's the point of agreeing to marry them?"
"Aww, Annie." Britta's blushing even more furiously now, but she doesn't care one bit, especially not when she thinks of the best possible follow-up note.
"I think I wanna have amazing celebration sex with my fine-as-hell fiancee when we get home."
Annie's grin back at her is downright wolfish. "I think we can make that happen."