Anne and Gilbert were in the kitchen of their new home and their children were entertaining themselves in the back parlor next door.
Anne was standing over the coal range cooking dinner while Gilbert was relaxing and chatting next to her, leaning his back against the counter and curling his palms and fingers over the edge. Mentally, he marveled over the fact that it felt like it had the potential to truly feel like a home. The fact that he and his family - and most importantly, Anne - could really experience what life was like for those people who lived more than a hundred years ago in those old historic houses in Avonlea. It still felt new, like when you first move in and have put your stuff away after taking it out of boxes but that you haven't been there long enough for it to feel like home yet. This was only their second day - and their first full one - in the 1900 House, but he hoped that it would feel like home by the end of their three-month stay here. He pushed back the nervousness that was bubbling at the back of his brain; he'd start work again in slightly less than a week - this time as a General Practioner, for the duration of their stay in the 1900 House - when he either had been training or had been practicing as a Pediatric Cardiac Surgeon for the past twenty years. At the moment, he just tried to savor the few moments of quiet where he could talk to his wife where he had a one week break from work and there weren't any distractions in the form of being On Call, arguments between the kids, or someone needing homework help. (The kids were also off school for the week for Easter Break and would be starting a new school next week.)
In the midst of their chatting, they were interrupted.
"Daddy!" Rilla yelled as she barged into the kitchen. Was the next word going to be -
"Jem's sick!"
Yep. It was.
"No I'm not!" Jem yelled horsely from the next room followed by a coughing fit. Gil sighed.
"Jem, c'mere please!" he called. Turning to Rilla, who was still standing in the doorway to the kitchen with grin plastered on her face. "Thank you, Rilla. You can go now." As Rilla ran back to the room, Gil could hear Jem heave an angry sigh and march over to the kitchen. Turning to Anne, who was still at the stove, he smirked, "If Jem's not sick then I'm Harry Potter." She smiled and chuckled in response.
Pushing himself off from the counter, he walked over to where Jem was standing peevishly, arms crossed, just inside the doorway.
"I'm not sick," Jem repeated. Gil sighed again smiling inwardly. Jem could be stubborn as Anne sometimes. He realized it was possibly going to get worse over the coming years; Jem was only 14 right now.
"Jem, just let Dad take a look at you and see what's wrong. That's it. I mean it."
Jem sighed in an angry, defeated attitude. "Fine."
"C'mon," he said, placing a hand on his son's shoulder, "let's go over to the window. I'll need the light." They walked over to the window and stopped next to it, and Gilbert tilted Jem's head to the light. "Open up," he said and peered inside. "Yep, it's red," he said, before letting Jem close his mouth. "Does your throat feel sore?" Jem nodded before going into a coughing fit again. Once Jem was finished, Gilbert placed a hand against Jem's forehead. "You don't have a fever so that's good. Why don't you go sit up on the table while Mum and I figure out what we can give you."
"I'll make tea and add honey to it for your sore throat after Dad and I figure out what we can do for your cough," Anne replied as she moved over to the counter Gilbert had been leaning against earlier and taking down the medical volume from Cassell's Book of the Household series that was on the bookshelf above. "Gil," she murmured at the counter, lifting the book in her hand." He walked over to her while she scanned through the index and then rifled to the page that they needed. After he crossed the room to where she was standing and stood next to her, Anne held it in between them. Gilbert, using his left forefinger, read the ingredients from the first one out loud. "Morphine, opium, with a pinch of cocaine." He snorted and shook his head a couple of times in disbelief. What were they thinking then? He looked over at Anne; she couldn't believe it either. Continuing to use his finger, he started reading the second option -
"Dad?"
After stilling his finger to remind himself where he was, he looked up. "What?"
"Can I have opium?," Jem asked innocently.
"No. I'm not going to have you hallucinate."
He went back to reading. The second option was as bad as the first, the third option -
"Dad?"
He stilled his finger yet again. "What, Jem?" he answered, his voice tinged with slight exasperation. He just wanted to figure out what they could give Jem - if they could give him anything - without being interrupted every few seconds.
"Can I have morphine?," Jem asked again innocently.
"No. I'd only give it to cancer patients."
"But -"
"Absolutely not."
"Please?"
Gil sighed, leaned back against the counter, crossed his arms, and looked straight at Jem. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Anne looking up from the book too at this exchange. "On a scale from zero to ten, what's your pain level right now?"
Jem shrugged. "One, I think? Maybe a two?"
Gil sighed again. "Sorry, Jem," he said, giving him a sad smile. "You're not getting morphine."
Jem opened up his mouth but Anne beat him in responding. "Unless the amount of pain you're in has increased dramatically in the last second," she responded, giving Jem her stern teacher-look, "you're not changing the number. If it does get worse," she continued as her gaze softened, "let us know, and Dad or I will act accordingly. But don't change the number unless you need to, understand?" Jem nodded defeated. "And let us know if you have a fever. If you do, you might have the flu. At least right now, all you have is a bad cold."
Anne and Gil went back to the book, the latter once again using his finger to keep track of where he was.
The third one wasn't good, nor was the fourth, nor the fifth.
"How about this one?" Anne whispered pointing to the sixth one on the list.
"Anne, remember, he hates it." he whispered back. They continued to talk in low voices. "What about this one?" pointing to the seventh option.
"Gil, you said that doesn't work!"
He nodded his head once in acknowledgment. "True. But we don't have any other options; it's the last one on the list…. Besides, we all agreed as a family that we would live as if it's 1900. If it's in here and doesn't contain narcotics, I think we should use it. People in 1900 could've used it and we are trying to live a 1900 lifestyle. … And in any case, it does contain lots of Vitamin A and D so it will help his eyesight and bones if nothing else."
Anne sighed and gave a smirk. "Fine, Dr. Blythe. You win this argument. How about I get the tea ready and get a spoon for Jem while you see if we have those two medications?"
"Deal." And then he whispered in her ear, "Get a bowl too. I've heard the second one is disgusting." He gave her a serious look for setting off to look in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom upstairs.
When he came back downstairs, he saw Jem still sitting on the table, legs swaying to and fro, with a spoon and a bowl beside him. Anne was at the stove, still stirring the pot at one burner, with another burner having the tea kettle on it. "Anne, we have both of them."
He walked over to the table and set the bottles down. "Ok Jem, you have two options. You can either take Syrup of Virginian Prunes -
"Daaaaaaad! You know I hate prunes!"
" - or Cod Liver Oil."
"Cod Liver Oil" Jem said firmly and immediately.
"Really?" he smirked as his eyes twinkled.
"Gil…." He could hear Anne's warning tone in her voice. Don't try to dissuade Jem from taking this one either.
"Ok" he said seriously to Jem. He opened up the bottle, poured the yellow liquid onto the spoon, and fed it to him.
As Jem took it, Gilbert saw his son's eyes squeeze shut and his face scrunch up and leaning his head back slightly, it looked like Jem was going to swallow it. And then he pitched his head forward. Gilbert grabbed the bowl and just in the nick of time placed it under Jem's chin. The cod liver oil came spewing out of Jem's mouth. He placed the bowl back on the table, picked up the bottle again, and once again, poured the liquid onto the spoon.
"Daad, that tasted disgusting! You're kidding me. You're giving me another one?!"
"Open up."
"Uh huh," he said crossing his arms. "No way, no how" he sniffed.
"Jem …"
"No."
"Listen to me…. I know you don't like it and I know it tastes awful. However, there isn't much Mum or I can give you besides tea with honey for your sore throat and Syrup of Virginian Prunes." Jem made a face at that last part. "That's what I thought. So this is our only option. This means that if you don't take it right now, we will be forced to be here until you do. Also, the prescription said you'll need to take this four times a day until your cough is gone."
"There aren't even any cough drops?"
"I didn't find any upstairs. Sorry."
"Fine" he heaved a heavy sigh. "But I better get better soon. And fast."
Author's Note: So I guess this is essentially a triple (quadruple?) crossover - Anne of Green Gables series (Anne of Ingleside (because it's 1900)/Rainbow Valley (because of the children's ages)), Green Gables Fables, and a tiny scene from "1900 House." My personal Green Gables Fables headcannon is that Gilbert becomes a Pediatric Cardiac Surgeon. I don't have a headcannon that Jem hates prunes; it just worked for the story. So if you want Jem to hate prunes or to love them, I don't care either way; I'm on either side of it as long as it works for the story.
On a historical note, this story was inspired by the scene from 15:20-17:11 of Episode 2 ("A Rude Awakening") in "1900 House." Just so everyone knows, "1900 House" is a program where the production team took a modern-day (at the time 1999) family and sent them back in time to a middle-class lifestyle of 1900 for three months. Also, fyi, the "1900 House" did not contain narcotics (morphine, opium, etc.) because the production team had to adhere to 1999 standards as best they could while giving as much of an authentic feel of 1900 to the "1900 House." This is also the reason why in the story I said that Gilbert couldn't find cough drops in the medicine cabinet; according to Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things by Charles Panati, around 1900 there were two kinds of cough suppressants - morphine and heroin (pages 258-260, but specifically pg. 258). Therefore, neither of them would have been in the "1900 House."