AN (disclaimer): I don't own any of the characters or the story (well except for James and his lovely personality) and this story is just my little shpiel on what I wanted to write about Gilbert/Anne
Gilbert trudged back to his Kingsport dormitory, hands shoved deeply inside his coat pockets. He slowly strangled a handkerchief within, and felt for his key.
When he arrived, his roommate, the ever-sarcastic James Derwent glanced over at him from his place on the sofa and called,
"I must say, you do look like hell."
Gilbert didn't reply, but merely took the scotch from James's hand and downed it in one go. He was sick of her; he was sick of Anne.
"Hey!" James said, recalling Gilbert back to the present, "you didn't have to steal my scotch, you could've gotten some on your own!"
"Shut it, Derwent," Gil said, eyes closed, still holding the empty glass.
"You're in a right cheery mood today, aren't you?" James said angrily, "what's got you so twisted up?" Gilbert refused to answer; if he did his voice would come out in a strangled cry. His breath caught in his throat, and he felt like smashing something.
It was his second time asking her; he had been so naive to think she had changed, and might see him differently. He passed his exams because of her; she was his guiding thought behind achieving because, stupidly, he had thought that if he did, and she said yes, he would have a career to take care of them.
He was only vaguely aware of James leaving, and his muttering about going to get thoroughly drunk at the campus pub. The world spun, and he reached desperately for the bottle of scotch, still uncorked on the table.
Without thinking, he drank with abandon, scarcely letting the burning liquid slide down his throat before taking another hearty swig. Make her go away, make her disappear.
She did not go away; she became clearer and clearer in his mind until he could bear it no more. He tried blinking her away; anything that would make the sight of her more bearable. He took another long drink, and found his legs to be made of rubber.
He fell to the floor, and his vision slurred. The room spun, and he caught his wrist on the edge of the fireplace. He saw, rather than felt, the blood seeping from his wrist onto the floor, but was beyond caring.
He continued to drink until the bottle was empty, and with a cry of frustration, threw it against the wall. His ring was still in his pocket and, with a desperate motion, pulled it out and hurled it across the room. The window was open, and it let the warm summer air in through the fluttering curtains.
He dragged himself to the window, dizzy from the alcohol and the smell of blood.
He could jump; it was nearly a three story drop to the bottom. Anne's voice sounded, as if in a whisper, in the back of his mind.
"Gil, please," he heard her say, "Please no, Gil." He shook off her voice, and stepped, drunkenly, onto the ledge. He could hear, beside Anne's voice, laughter and voices coming from the campus, and imagined one of the laughing voices to be Anne's.
He heard a scream and recalled the feeling of falling, but then the world went mercifully black. There was no Anne to torment him anymore
The scream was Anne's. She saw him fall from the window, and heard him; the dull thud against the paving stones. Her scream had brought people about, and soon they crowded around Gil's unresponsive body while she stood back, sick and shocked, watching them.
She had come back to see him and make sure he was alright. After seeing his eyes when she refused him, she had been scared. No man, not even Gilbert, had looked at her like that; with the expression of a man drowning, already half-dead.
Tears came, and when they started, she could not stop them. She sobbed and screamed, and screamed until someone caught her quivering form and placed a blanket over her shoulders, drawing her so close she could not draw breath to cry out.
She heard Patty calling her name, but was led, slowly, as if underwater, towards her house.
Anne took the medicine that was offered to her, and soon she was asleep, but woke, crying and gasping, in the night.
She called to him; she had told him not to jump, but he had anyway. She saw his body arch as he fell, and saw him on the ground, but she had not gone to him. He was now certainly gone from her; he would never speak his kind words to her again. She staggered and was sick into her washbasin beside her bed.
"Please," she whispered, "Please Gil, no."
AN: what do you think? Should Gilbert be dead or should he live? If no one suggests either way I will kill him off almost certainly :)