For Teobi, who came up with this idea – and the title. We weren't sure how to execute this at first, but this came to me today while I was lying around sick. (Consequently, I'm not sure how much sense it makes, but here it is!) You're the best, T, and I have to give credit where credit is due because we converse so much when we write and this is your idea nugget. Love you and I hope you like what I've come up with!
Takes place during "The Matchmaker" before the tag scene of Mary Ann and Gilligan's walk. Unrelated to my other "Matchmaker" story "What Do You Do With a Drunken Sailor?"
Gilligan: "Tell you what, Mary Ann – if I was gonna spend all morning picking flowers for somebody, I'd certainly pick those flowers for someone as sweet and nice as you are."
- Season 1, The Matchmaker
You Don't Bring Me Flowers
Oh, boy. What a jerk.
Gilligan stomps through the underbrush, whacking away palm leaves with a stick. He uses it to part the foliage, looking for pops of color amongst the different shades of green. But there's just green, green as far as the eye can see.
He spies something purple up ahead and rushes toward it. He leaps over a fallen log and crouches before the plant. It's a little scrawny, but at least it's bright. He tries to neatly break the stem, but the entire root system rips easily from the loose soil. It hangs in his hand like a dirty octopus, dropping great clods of dirt onto his pants.
Gilligan sighs and adds it to the collection of sorry looking specimens he's got gripped in his fist.
Why did I have to do such a good job yesterday for Mrs. Howell? There's nothing left.
He stands and brushes off his jeans and resumes his search. He's been out here all morning, effectively avoiding everyone and feeling like the biggest heel ever.
Gilligan had thought he'd done a decent job covering for the flower scandal last night. Of course, that was after he opened his big fat mouth and told Mary Ann he didn't give her those flowers in the first place.
He wasn't very bright, but he wasn't so dumb not to see the reaction it caused. He was just telling the truth. He hadn't realized at the time that they had been set up.
Framed. Hoodwinked. Bamboozled. All those big words Mr. Howell likes to use.
He was a little indignant for a split second, but then he caught the look on his friend's face and he had never felt so bad about anything in his whole entire life.
What a jerk.
Mary Ann had hardly moved, but the light in her eyes went out just as quickly as Mrs. Howell had blown out the candles before she left the hut. Her smile slid off her face. She stared blankly out in front of her as she questioned him and at first he was too stupid to shut up. She looked down at her lap, fingers twisting in the fabric of her skirt, and then back up at the wall. Face the world. Be strong. She took a deep breath and tried to shrug nonchalantly and Gilligan suddenly realized what was happening.
He hadn't realized how happy she looked until she wasn't any more. Gilligan's eyes widened and his fingers gripped his hat. He felt his heart drop into his stomach. The walls were closing in on him and he grabbed at his collar, fighting to undo the top button so he could breathe again.
She wanted him to have given her those flowers.
Then Ginger was –
The guys were right.
The guys were – ?
THE GUYS WERE RIGHT.
Oh, boy.
He thought he had covered pretty well. Tell her you'd pick her flowers. Because it's true, he would. If he was going to pick flowers for somebody, it'd be her. It'd probably be for her birthday or something, but he most definitely would. He'd had fun yesterday picking the other flowers. He knew which ones were her favorites, which colors she liked and now there were none left on their side of the island.
His comment had the desired effect and she brightened instantly. She blushed and smiled and lit the hut as if Mrs. Howell had returned and relit the candles and Gilligan squirmed uncomfortably in his chair.
He panicked, finally getting the top button of his shirt undone and inhaling a giant breath, and immediately began babbling. Did he just tell her she was sweet? Did she just tell him he was sweet? Did she just touch his arm?
Gilligan lifts the stick from the grass and looks down at his forearm. He can still feel her touch lingering on his skin. Where she squeezed his arm affectionately. Where her fingers brushed over the fine hairs growing there.
Ginger wasn't talking about herself.
The guys were right.
He'd never tell the guys that they were right. They knew they were right, of course, but they didn't need to know that he knew that they were right. They'd never let him hear the end of it. They'd want to know what he planned to do about it. Mr. Howell would sigh with relief and sit back and let his wife prematurely plan the wedding. The Professor would laugh and slap him on the back. The Skipper would wink and try to have The Talk with him.
She likes me.
Everyone knows that she likes me.
I know that she likes me.
She knows that I know that she likes me.
Gilligan doesn't know what he's going to do about it. He can just pretend that nothing happened and carry on gliding through life blissfully unaware of everything having to do with girls and the fact that the number of times they pass you things at breakfast meaning something.
Except now the guys had gotten it into his head that it did mean something. And that Ginger wasn't talking about herself. And Mary Ann probably expects him to do something about it.
What if he does something about it? What if something goes horribly wrong and they're still trapped on the island together except then they're not even friends?
That would be unbearable.
Does that mean I like her, too? Not necessarily. Well, no, of course I like her. But do I like like her?
But what if he doesn't do anything about it? What if she gets discouraged and starts acting weird? Glaring at him and taking sides with the others against him and putting her hands on her hips and sighing at him all the time. He doesn't like it when she does that. What if she starts doing it more? What if she gives up on him?
That would be unbearable, too.
Gilligan sighs. Oh, boy.
He stops next to a white plant and eyes it critically. He thinks it's actually a weed, but at this point it's nicer than anything else he's collected, so he adds it to the mix.
If he wants to avoid awkwardness and funny feelings in his stomach and amused glances from the Skipper, the last thing he should be doing is roaming around on the other side of the island on this particular errand.
He'll just be nice to her. Nice, like he always is. She knows he's shy and awkward and usually has no idea what's going on. He should play that angle and wait and see what happens naturally.
But he can't get Mary Ann's face out of his mind.
The disappointed, heartbroken face. He had cheered her up with the flower comment and that whole sweet conversation that he didn't really want to remember now. And while she seemed to forgive him and graced him with a brilliant smile just a moment later, he still couldn't forget it. What kind of guy almost makes a perfectly sweet and nice girl cry?
Gilligan swings the stick through the tall grass on the edge of a meadow. The bugs are more aggressive on this side of the island, the heat more intense. He's already sweated through both of his shirts and he's covered with bug bites and dirt.
After he and Mary Ann had gone through the entire bottle of champagne attempting to reunite the Howells last night, the couple had retreated to their opposite corners and the two youngest castaways felt acutely unwelcome. They staggered to their feet and made it out into the clearing and Gilligan knew he needed to be a gentleman and walk her home, especially since all that champagne was starting to take its toll. She held onto his arm for balance and hugged him when they finally reached her door, nearly falling asleep against his chest, and Gilligan didn't know what to do, so he didn't do anything. He needed time to process what had happened, what he had learned, so he stood there with his arms hanging dumbly in the air until she let go and entered the hut without looking at him.
He's only slightly hung over this morning, but it makes him squint against the sunlight and slightly more irritable as he stomps through the grass. Although he knows the real reason why he's annoyed and it's not at the sunlight or the bugs or the heat.
Gilligan tosses the stick down in the grass in frustration and turns to head back to camp, but he screeches to a halt after only a few steps.
"Ginger said you left them."
He glances around, but of course the voice is in his head. It's seared into his memory, dripping with sadness.
"Oh, I guess I just –. Well, I thought maybe –."
Gilligan sighs and turns around. He retrieves the stick from the grass and continues his search.
Oh, boy. What a jerk.
# # # #
Gilligan walks with his hands clasped behind his back, staring straight ahead at the path. Next to him, Mary Ann sighs and picks at her manicure.
Upon returning from the other side of the island that morning, Gilligan crept up on the girls' hut and peered through the window. Relieved to not see Mary Ann around, he entered without knocking. Ginger watched him from the vanity just as she had the day before. Next to her makeup brushes and lotion bottles, a clay pot stuffed with flowers brightened the entire hut. It was gorgeous. Gilligan frowned. He did too good of a job the day before.
Ginger didn't say anything, just watched him in the mirror. She smirked and pretended that she didn't notice what he was doing, concentrating on applying her eyeliner in a neat straight line. Gilligan stepped up next to her and rummaged around amongst the products on the vanity. He smelled like dirt and sweat and general wilderness.
He picked up a pink satin hair ribbon, yanking it free from the makeup and other girl stuff sitting on top of it, sending one of Ginger's lipsticks rolling across the tabletop and into her lap. He tied the ribbon in as neat of a bow as he could and laid his peace offering down on Mary Ann's cot just as he had done the day before. Then he left, sneaking out into the clearing without a word.
Mary Ann glances up at him as they walk along the path back towards the huts. Gilligan is looking around with great interest at the nearby trees. "Gilligan?"
"Yeah?" He doesn't look at her. He can't.
"Where have you been all day? I wanted you to help me get some coconuts before lunch. I was going to make a pie."
His head whips around at the mention of pie. "You were? Oh. I had an errand to run."
When they enter the clearing, the Howells are standing beside their hut. Mr. Howell spots them and his eyes widen, but his wife is gazing wistfully into the distance, hands clasped below her chin.
"Oh, no," Mr. Howell mutters. "No, no. Not again."
"Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Howell!"
"Hi!"
"Lovely day, isn't it?" Mrs. Howell asks distractedly as they pass. Gilligan nods and misses the smile Mary Ann gives him.
They enter the trees again and they hear Mr. Howell exhale gustily with relief behind them. "Your errand took you all morning?" Mary Ann asks. She's giving him that look of wide-eyed wonder, almost as if she doesn't believe him, but hoping he'll have a fantastic story to tell her.
Gilligan looks down at his sneakers scuffing through the dirt. "You haven't been back to your hut since this morning, have you?"
Mary Ann cocks her head to the side in confusion. "No. Why?"
Gilligan clears his throat. He kicks a stone down the path. He shrugs broadly. Then he says as casually as he can, "I spent all morning picking flowers for somebody."
In the silence that follows, he knows that she's managed to widen her eyes even more and is staring at him with more adoration on her face than should be possible. He can't risk a look down at her. That face always kills him. It makes him feel stupid.
Mary Ann resists the urge to squeal outright and tell him how wonderful he is – something that she'd begun doing routinely without even realizing it. She knows how uncomfortable last night was for him and she's thrilled that he hasn't run off to his cave. Of course he's being nice to her. Nice, like he always is. She knows he's shy and awkward, but now he knows what's going on and she's content to wait and see what happens naturally. So she bites her tongue and says nothing, but steps a little closer to him, slipping her hand gently around his elbow as they stroll further into the jungle.
Ok, so the end's a little sad because we know how it ends up in the series, but there we have it. The poor girl is so hopeful. :(