AN: Thank you Lady Krystalyn for the wonderful review! This is my first fic ever so the support is great. To my lovely Beta, I am forever in your debt. (Even though I can spell on my own, thanks ;) As well, I wrote the story to the songs of Ludovico Einaudi. (Song names: Oltremare, Fly, and Nuvole Bianche)

"Hey, Ugly."

Gilbert opened his eyes slowly, feeling terrible pain flair behind his eyes. He blinked hard and rolled over, feeling as if bees had stung him all over his body.

"How do you feel?" James asked, watching his friend with distant interest.

"Like Hell."

"I guess that's not that bad," James replied. It was only then that Gil noticed the dark rings under his eyes and the two day stubble on his chin.

"How long have you been here?" Gil asked, gingerly feeling a heavy gauze cast on his arm and the sharp pull of stitches somewhere below his armpit.

"A few days," James responded, non committal. "You missed the exam on fractures and sprains, though I do believe that you have become an expert on the matter on your own. Your mother chewed me out for letting you alone, you know," James looked tired and rubbed his chin.

"My mother was here?" Gil asked, rising slightly, but falling back with a sharp cry.

"Yah," James sounded agitated, "and some girl who wouldn't stop moaning about your accident being all her fault and other such nonsense. Really, Gil, you sure know how to pick them. How is it possible that women can hit the exact pitch when they cry that makes you wish to poke out your eardrums with a pair of rusty pliers?" Gilbert ignored him.

"Where is she?" he asked, breathing shallowly in an attempt to ease the pull of the stitches.

"She's out retrieving some lunch, but Gil, I'm not sure you'll want to see her; her incessant wailing might put you in a coma."

"Not her," Gilbert said impatiently, "My mother."

"Oh." James looked taken aback. "She is in the hall talking to the doctor. Should I fetch her for you?"

"Please," Gilbert said in a half-groan, all too aware of another kind of pain welling in his chest. "Oh, James, if you see that girl, for God's sake, do not let her in."

James rose to his feet, and a second later, was replaced by a puffy-eyed Mrs. Blythe. She hovered over his bed for a second, not sure what to do, then decided and took a hold of his uninjured hand.

Uninjured, that was, for the most part. Small cuts covered his exposed arm, and he saw vivid blue and black bruises dotting its length.

"Gil, son, how are you feeling?" His mother sounded much softer than normal; in the normal world she would have been crisp and admonished him for his folly.

"I do not know; will they have to saw an arm off?" Gilbert joked, smiling slightly. Mrs. Blythe looked stricken, and he desisted.

"Don't you joke about such things," she said, some of her old crispness returning, "After almost losing you, I—," she gasped for air like a goldfish, but regained her composure with a calming breath. "Anne came to see you when you came out of surgery," his mother said, as if this was a comforting fact to him.

"Please, don't talk to me about her," he groaned, "I don't want to think about her."

"But darling," she insisted, "she saw you when you fell, and she is the one who got help for you. Do you not want to thank her?" She saved me, he thought bitterly, but if it hadn't been for the starry-eyed Angel of Avonlea, he would not have gotten so drunk as to slip when he was seeking fresh air on the nonexistent 'terrace' of his third floor rooming house.

"No."

His mother did not question him again, but soon after they heard a commotion in the hallway. A female voice, painfully similar to Anne's demanded in a shrill voice to see him, but James, it seems was holding her off.

After a brief struggle, audible through the wall, Anne burst into the room, face red, her auburn hair in disarray. She was beautiful, so horribly beautiful, but Gilbert found that he did not care.

At her entrance, Mrs. Blythe took a covert glance at Anne and stood up, leaving the room despite her son's cold glare. Anne could see it to, and she shrunk slightly where she stood.

Not sure what to do, she perched herself on the edge of the seat recently vacated by Gilbert's mother, and looked at him tentatively under hooded eyelids. She too looked tired, but somewhere inside him, Gilbert was glad. He wasn't naturally malicious, but his sense of hurt over her rejection was far from faded.

"Gil," Anne said in a pleading voice,

"No, please Anne, leave me alone. Your presence is not exactly something I would recommend for the sickly. I'm living proof. Although that was rather hit and miss, wouldn't you agree?" She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off with a quite question. "Why are you here, Shirley?"

"Gil please," she said, tears rising to her eyes, "I love you; I know I haven't shown it, but I do. I was too scared to tell you earlier but now—,"

"Now things are different?" Gilbert asked coldly, eyes hard, "Now that your lapdog almost died you realize that he was nice to keep around?" His callousness surprised even him, but he felt barely a quiver of emotion at the sight of her, tears cascading down her face, her hair mussed and frizzy.

There had been a time where he desired to hold her when she cried so, or to even elicit her tears to show that she had loved him, but at the moment, he could care less about her tears. Anne would get over him, he was sure of that. He had heard stories about some rich dandy who was sweet on her. That was why he came to propose to her; he had wanted one last shot to make her his 'Anne with an E." But of course, like most foolhardy endeavors, it failed.

"Anne," he said in a hoarse whisper, "leave me. I never wish to see your face again."

Anne looked shocked and the tears flowed freer before she got up and fled from the room, not bothering to look back and see the horrified expression on the man who had rejected her.

Eventually scars heal, and Gilbert found himself intertwined very thoroughly with a Miss Christine Stuart, the lush and beautiful brunette of every shade and attitude.

"Oh, Gil," she cried as they kissed against the campus wall. They were intertwined in a very compromising position, and Gilbert's hands were halfway up her thigh, hitching up her skirt.

Their kiss deepened, and they broke apart for a moment.

"Come back to my place," Christine cooed in his ear, trailing hot kisses down his neck, "We're all adults here. Plus, old Hatty's gone. We have the whole house to ourselves." The sultry way she said 'all to ourselves' broke Gilbert's resistance. He had been waiting, with the hope that one day when he married Anne, they would share the moment, but since he had not so much as spoken to her in the last four months he figured it didn't matter.

It hadn't stopped him from dreaming of her after kissing Christine, or imaging her doing those things Christine did, but she was not there, and so his beau seemed a perfect companion.

Without waiting for his reply, Christine bounded away from him, tugging playfully at his tie. He smiled and followed her like a love-sick puppy, catching up with her every now and again to capture her lips in his and kiss her like the world was falling out beneath their feet.

For him, it was. It was also crumbling beneath the feet of a sorry bystander who, for reasons she could not quite place, had decided to go for a walk along the shady elms to clear her mind.

AN: So? How is it so far? I didn't want to make this story have any very explicit scenes in it, and I am not (as far as I know) very good at writing them, but I thought the story needed to move along, so there you go! Christine is added in