The Time Traveler's Wife - The Other Side

The Proposals

April 2017

A few months had passed since Carmilla started acting weird. She'd told Laura that she'd simply traveled back to some mundane moment in her teenage years, but Laura wasn't buying it.

And once Carmilla's birthday had come and went without another traveling incident, her suspicions were confirmed-- Carmilla had traveled back to November 2001, when Past Laura gave Carmilla a letter from Future Carmilla telling her to propose. Of course, at the time, little Laura hadn't known that the letter was about her.

So why had Carmilla lied about when she had gone? And why had she waited and waited to propose?

It occurred to Laura that maybe Carmilla didn't want to propose. Or maybe she thought Laura would say 'no.'

Maybe Carmilla really was fed up with feeling like the Universe never gave her a chance to make her own decisions.

Well, Laura Hollis wasn't about to have that.

She'd give Carmilla the choice. She'd propose to Carmilla and give her the opportunity to make the choice on her own.

Even if Carmilla's answer was going to be 'no.'

So she set a plan in motion, and then went to visit Carmilla at work the day of its execution. Carmilla had just traveled the night before and was acting even more odd when she came back this morning.

Laura walks in to find Mattie throwing a book from her office to where Carmilla is sitting at the circulation desk, and laughs to find them squabbling.

"Budget cuts got you sweeping the floor with books, huh?"

Carmilla is picking up the book and sits up, narrowing her eyes playfully at Laura. "At this point they should just fire the branch manager to save money."

"You're lucky I don't have another book in here to throw at you," Mattie growls from inside her office.

"Probably better coz you might hit me instead," Laura points out.

Mattie cackles. "You say that like it's a bad thing."

Carmilla shoots Laura a wink. "I'd dive in front of a thrown book for you any day."

"My hero," Laura says, leaning in for a kiss.

Mattie finally pokes her head out of the door. "No, no, no-no, no," she snaps. "Not while Carm is still working."

Laura and Carmilla both roll their eyes, and Laura sneaks a quick peck before giggling at Mattie's scathing look as she sits down at a patron table.

After about an hour, Carmilla is putting on her coat as Laura wraps up work on her latest article.

"So, I know you said you wanted to visit the book store from our first date," Laura says after a couple blocks of walking in comfortable silence, "but LaF was wondering if they could draw some blood from you for testing for a thing they're working on for grad school."

This seems to annoy Carmilla. "Can't we do this tomorrow?"

"They only have the lab booked for another hour this week."

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" Carmilla says through gritted teeth.

Laura frowns. "I just got the text as we were walking."

"It's a no," Carmilla replies, not realizing she's gripping Laura's hand tighter.

"Oh--"

"I said, 'it's a no!'" Carmilla shouts, making Laura jump.