Kershoo!

Sniffle.

Kersh-sniff-Kershoo!

Saturdays should not be spent with one's nose the approximate shape and color of a cherry tomato, thought Anne as she blew the nose in question after a particularly violent fit of sneezing. The perils of being a teacher were that illness was easily spread in a classroom, making it very easy for the teacher to catch whatever delightful little virus had piggybacked its way into the school via a child. According to Anne's reckoning, it had been brought in by Alec on Tuesday, who gave it to Alonzo on Wednesday, who passed it on to Anne on Thursday. This had been followed by an abysmal Friday for both Anne and Alonzo (Alec was fine at this point, however, which hopefully meant that Anne would be alright by Monday), and left Anne in her kitchen on Saturday, heating the kettle for a steam bath. This was a trick endorsed by Marilla and Mrs. Lynde whenever any of the Green Gables occupants had a cold-a pot of hot water was poured into a basin, and the hapless sneezer sweated it out over the basin, both of them covered by a thick towel to keep the steam in. In Anne's experience, it did wonders, although it was fairly unpleasant to be trapped under that towel while the steam worked its magic.

Three knocks sounded on the back door while she was buried under the towel, breathing in the scaling vapors. "Come in," she called out, not lifting the towel, thinking the knocks to be Leslie or Miss Cornelia.

"Miss Shirley,"-Wait a minute, that voice was neither Leslie's nor Miss Cornelia's. It was familiar, but Anne was unable to place it. "Miss Shirley-are you alright?"

Anne popped out from under the towel, damp and with ringlets in her hair from the steam, to face Susan Baker. "Oh, Miss Baker," she stood up, stretching out her hand to shake. "How lovely to see you. I do apologize for my appearance-I've got a bit of a cold, and I thought a steam bath might help it."

"Don't worry about it, Miss Shirley," the spiky knob of grey hair bobbed as Susan shook her head. "After all, I've come to pay a call on you unannounced."

"Well, it's lovely of you to come," Anne smiled. "Can I offer you anything? Tea? Scones? A spoonful of cough syrup?"

"Tea, if you feel up to it," Susan said. "But if you aren't feeling up to company, Miss Shirley, I can always come back at a later time."

Anne shook her head. "No, please stay. Company might help me feel better." She sneezed again. "Although you may wish to keep your distance, should you like to avoid catching whatever's been going around the school."

Susan sat in the offered chair. "Yes, Dr. Blythe has been talking about that cold. Joy hasn't gotten it, but Dr. dear's been dispensing cough medicine and poultices in enormous amounts."

"That's right," Anne nodded, wiping her nose again, "You're Dr. Blythe's housekeeper."

"I have indeed, since he came to replace Dr. Dave. He came with Joy-she was a wee thing then, just a few months old-and Dr. Dave suggested that he might need a housekeeper. I've cooked and cleaned for the man ever since."

"He never thought to remarry, then?" Yes, it was fishing, and no, she wasn't ashamed of it. At this point, the cold had addled her brain so much that she didn't care anymore.

Susan snorted. "After that city girl of his? No, good heavens. Once was enough for the poor doctor. But if you ask me," she leaned back in her chair, "he's still pining after someone-and not his wife, if you know what I mean."

Anne pressed her lips into a line. "I'm sure I don't."

Oh, I think you might, dear, Susan thought to herself. Just then, Anne gave a giant sneeze, practically rattling the windows. "Are you quite certain you're alright, Miss Shirley?"

"I think so…" Anne's hand stole up to feel her forehead. It didn't feel too warm-she didn't have a fever, then.

Across the table, Susan was having different ideas. Anne was practically glowing-and not in a good way. "I think I'll leave you now, Miss Shirley, and let you get some rest. Thank you for the tea-I'll call again when you're well."

Anne tried to stand, feeling a bit dizzy as she did. "Thank you for coming," she mustered up a smile as a wave of nausea rolled over her.

The moment the door slammed shut, she collapsed into her chair, grateful for its support. Maybe it would take a bit longer than two days for her to get well…


Outside, Susan was having very much the same thought. Miss Shirley didn't look well at all-what she needed was a good doctor...if she wasn't too stubborn to call him herself.

Well, fortunately, Susan Baker knew just where to find one.


"Dr. dear," Susan called as she stepped into the Blythe house, "I went and visited Miss Shirley this afternoon."

Gilbert's head poked out of his office. "How did it go?" He looked a mite too interested, if you know what Susan meant.

"Fine," she said, biding her time. "It would have gone better if she hadn't been burning up with a fever, and coughing and sneezing like an old locomotive to boot."

The look of alarm that crossed Gilbert's face would have been comical under any other set of circumstances. "Coughing? How?"

"It's not consumption, if that's what's worrying you, Dr. dear. But I think you should go pay a housecall nonetheless," this recommendation was unnecessary, seeing as Gilbert was already packing his bag and pulling his coat off the hook.

"Could be pneumonia, though," he looked around, checking if he had forgotten anything, "Don't wait up, Susan," he left through the front door," I could be gone a while."


Back at the white cottage, Anne was once again huddled in her steam bath, sneezing intermittently. She had been sitting in this steam for over an hour now, and it was doing very little to help. She took another breath-shallow to keep from falling into another coughing fit. Nonetheless, she found herself nearly doubled over in coughing.

A hand came down onto her shoulder and she reared up. How had someone entered her kitchen without her noticing it? She tried to extricate herself from the towel when she heard the voice.

"Anne-are you alright?"

She froze. What in the name of all that was holy was Gilbert Blythe doing in her kitchen? Yanking the towel off her head, she faced him, the room spinning only slightly. "What are you…"

"I am here," he informed her, "because Susan, God bless her meddlesome soul, told me you were ill."

"I am quite well, Dr. Blythe," she said as haughtily as she could, the effect marred only by the sneezing fit that followed it.

"Really…" he drawled. He would have taken more time to admire the figure hunched over the kitchen table, but she was glowing-and not in a good way. "Well," he switched from concerned friend to doctor, "you're already doing a steam bath, which is good. I have a packet of herbs here," he unceremoniously dumped a the contents of said packet into the basin, letting the mixture of spruce, lavender, and lemon balm waft up. Testing her forehead, he felt it to be startlingly warm.

"All, right, to bed with you," he ordered. "Change into your warmest nightgown, and I'll bring up some tea that might help your fever. By the way, where do you keep your hot water bottle?" He remembered that Anne had always kept one at Redmond.

"Linen closet," Anne tried to stand, but her head spun and her knees buckled. How interesting, she noted through the haze clouding her vision, the floor looked so much closer now. And why was Gilbert standing over her?

Gilbert looked down at Anne's form crumpled on the floor, worry signals exploding in his mind. Oh, this was not in any way good. He knelt down next to her, scooping up her limp form. "On second thought, you may need a little help getting upstairs." Staggering only a little-she was a good deal heavier than Joy, after all-he carried her up the stairs, pausing on the landing. "Which room?" he asked, looking around. There were four doors here, and he had no idea which one concealed her room.

No response from Anne. She was limp in his arms, dead to the world. He shuffled his way around the landing, elbowing open doors, trying to figure out which one said 'Anne'. The first room looked as though it had been unlived in for years. The second had the appearance of an old sewing room. The third-the second door on the left-led him into a room that faced East-the light burned low in its sconce, illuminating a freshly made bed with a bouquet of fiery leaves in a pitcher on the nightstand next to it. The last embers of a fire glowed in the fireplace across from the bed, giving a reddish glow to everything near them. There was also a nightgown slung over the armchair by the window, with a cushion he recognized as being one of Miss Ada's. Yes, he thought, this was Anne's room.

He had never been in her room before-not at Green Gables, nor Patty's Place. Strange to think that here he was, all these years later, finally entering the room he most wanted to enter in his younger days.

Gilbert lowered Anne onto the bed as gently as he could. "Anne." No response. "Anne?"

"Hmmmph."

"Can you change into your nightgown on your own?" Please be able to.

One green-grey eye cracked open and glared at him. "I most certainly can!" she mumbled as indignantly as she could, trying to sit up.

He pushed her back down. "Then I'm going to go downstairs again to make tea and fill up a hot water bottle for you." He passed her the flannel nightgown, leaving the room to give her some privacy. And also to collect his thoughts. He was in Anne Shirley's house, and she hadn't thrown him out yet-probably because she was too weak to. And that was another thing-the fact that she was too weak to get her dander up worried him. The Anne Shirley he knew never backed away from an argument.

In the kitchen, he set the kettle on the stove, and waited for it to boil while he went through the contents of his bag. His basic kit was always there, but he had thrown in what he thought would help on this visit. It was a bad idea to prescribe without having examined the patient, but he really hadn't had a choice in this case. Pulling out a vial, he looked through the pantry, reemerging with some willow bark and ginger root. He added both to the boiling water left over after filling the hot water bottler, then poured the tea into a cup, adding a few drops of liquid from the vial. Carefully balancing the teacup on a saucer, he carried both the cup and water bottle to Anne's room, where he found his unwilling patient, buttoned up to the neck in her nightgown, huddled under one of Mrs. Lynde's quilts, shivering.

He placed the teacup on the nightstand, and then reached under the covers-Anne was too exhausted to feel scandalized-and placed the water bottler under her feet. He helped her sit up, handing her the tea before going to the fireplace to add a few more logs to the coals.

"There…" he turned back to find her eyes trained on him intently. The teacup was back on the nightstand, half-empty now. She wasn't glaring at him; he had been on the receiving end of enough of her glares to know what they looked like. She had a look on her face that could only be described as intent, as if she were waiting-expecting-for something to happen.

"Do you need anything else?" he asked, half expecting her to send him out of her room.

Instead, a small smile hoisted up the corners of her mouth. It was barely noticeable if you weren't looking for it-but Gilbert Blythe was looking. "I know I've been rather horrible to you these past weeks," she said scratchily, her voice roughly making it past her throat, "but would you mind keeping me company?" she asked quietly. "There are no slates within arm's reach, if that's what's worrying you," she noted his hesitation.

"Well, then I'll join you," he pulled the armchair up to her bed, "Carrots."

A spark he hadn't seen in a long time lit in her eye. "Careful, it took me five years to talk to you last time."

"Lucky me," he chuckled, "it only took two months this time."

A soft look came over her then. "I don't want to hate you, Gil. It's just that-" a coughing fit took over whatever the end of her sentence would have been.

When she was done he looked at her handkerchief. "Well, there isn't any blood-so no consumption or pneumonia. It's probably just a nasty version of the cold that all the children have."

"I could have told you that," she raised an eyebrow, "and I'm not even an M.D."

"A mere B.A.," he teased her. She looked so young now, as if they were still in their Redmond days.

She snorted. "I bow the superiority of the Cooper Prize winner." She turned onto her side to look at him better, the action setting off another round of coughing. "Tell me, Gil," she wheezed, trying to get her breath back, "what happened to you after Convocation? I wanted to congratulate you-the Cooper's no small prize, after all-but you had disappeared." A small wrinkle appeared between her eyebrows as she remembered that day. She had carried his flowers-his lilies-of-the-valley-and worn the heart necklace. Only to learn later that his engagement to Christine would be announced that evening.

Gilbert took his time, pulling a thermometer out of his breast pocket, shaking down the mercury, and then popping it into her mouth- "So that you don't interrupt me." The he settled back in the armchair, putting his feet up on the bed frame, and cast his mind back.

"After Convocation, there wasn't any reason for me to stay-my bags were packed, I had my job with the railroad, and acceptance to the University of Toronto Medical School in the fall. There wasn't anything-or anyone-left for me in Kingsport."

"Ish-ine?" Anne mumbled around the thermometer.

Gilbert gave her a pointed look and tapped the thermometer, sending the mercury back down a degree, making her spend more time with it in her mouth. "Was engaged to someone else all along." Anne's eyebrows raised. "I knew it and she knew I knew it. When her brother graduated he told me his sister was coming to Kingsport the next winter to take music, and asked me if I would look after her a bit, as she knew no one and would be very lonely. So I did. And then I liked Christine for her own sake. She is one of the nicest girls I've ever known. I knew college gossip credited us with being in love with each other. I didn't care. Nothing mattered much to me for a time there, after you told me…" *he trailed off, lest he steer their conversation into rough waters.

"Uh-oo-ah-eed-er."

Even Gilbert, who as a doctor was well-versed in the language that is thermometer-mumbling, had some trouble deciphering this. "Yes, I did marry her. I met her again in Toronto, halfway through my first year of medical school. She told me that she'd broken off her previous engagement, and we suddenly kept bumping into each other all over-entirely by coincidence."

Anne finally spat out her thermometer. "Gilbert, I'm no psychologist, but are you entirely certain it was always by coincidence?"

Gilbert thought back to the many, many times he and Christine had run into each other. Come to think of it...they had happened in some parts of town where Christine would never have set foot under normal circumstances. "But anyways, we struck up our old friendship, and with time, I was laughing again, something I hadn't done since...well, Christine wasn't who I'd envisioned myself marrying, but we were happy for a while." He looked at the thermometer now. "Well, your temperature's still high. Lower than it was, I think, but still unpleasantly high." He stood, picking up the teacup. "I'll go make a fresh cup of tea." Then he disappeared out the bedroom door. Anne heard him go down the stairs, then the rattling of the kettle as he entered the kitchen.

Alone now, she had time to think over what Gilbert had told her. Phil had been wrong then-although not entirely, as Gilbert had married Christine, albeit a few years later. And they had had Joy. Sweet little Joy, who had absolutely no idea-but at the same time far too much of an idea-of their history together. Hopefully, thought Anne, she would never learn that her father had once asked her teacher to marry him!

The pins in her hair were poking into her head from when she had left them in. She sat up gingerly-her head still felt rather like a balloon-to remove them. Slowly, her hair tumbled about her shoulders, free from the twist she kept it in. After giving it a quick combing with her fingers, she tamed it into a coppery braid that hung to her waist, securing it with the rag she kept on her nightstand.

Gilbert came back then, with the refilled teacup and a book in his hand. "I added a bit of laudanum to help you sleep," he handed her the tea before sitting down in the chair again, "and I took the liberty of going through your bookshelf downstairs-and I found this," he held up a worn copy of Tennyson's poems. Opening it, he cleared his throat, much as he did before reading a bedtime story to Joy, but Anne's white hand came to rest on his, stilling him. Shocked, he looked up to find her eyes, more grey than green now, fastened on him once more.

"Gil, I just want to thank you for everything you've done," she said softly. "I'd like to start over, if you don't mind-I can't erase the past two months, but I'd like to move on from them," her eyes shimmered with unshed tears. She sniffed-"I never did hold my laudanum well." She held out her hand to shake. "Friends?"

He took her hand in his. It wasn't perfect, but it was a start. "Friends." Then he turned down the lamp, leaving enough for him to read by."

On either side the river lie

Long fields of barley and of rye,

That clothe the wold and meet the sky;

And thro' the field the road runs by

To many-tower'd Camelot;

The yellow-leaved waterlily

The green-sheathed daffodilly

Tremble in the water chilly

Round about Shalott. **

Anne smiled sleepily, recognizing the poem that had resulted in one of her more memorable scrapes-clutching the bridge pile, watching the funeral barge of a flat sink beneath the Lake of Shining Waters, praying for help. And help had come, just not in the form she had expected...or desired. A chuckled bubbled up from inside her, interrupting Gilbert.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing," she opened her eyes to look at him. "I was just thinking about the Lily Maid and her unfortunate escapade. Please," she waved a hand, " do go on."

He grinned, knowing what she was talking about, and continued reading.

Willows whiten, aspens shiver.

The sunbeam showers break and quiver

In the stream that runneth ever

By the island in the river

Flowing down to Camelot.

Four gray walls, and four gray towers

Overlook a space of flowers,

And the silent isle imbowers

The Lady of Shalott.

Underneath the bearded barley,

The reaper, reaping late and early,

Hears her ever chanting cheerly,

Like an angel, singing clearly,

O'er the stream of Camelot.

Piling the sheaves in furrows airy,

Beneath the moon, the reaper weary

Listening whispers, ' 'Tis the fairy,

Lady of Shalott.'

He noticed her breathing slow by the time he reached-

And the red cloaks of market girls

Pass onward from Shalott.

And by the time he had come to-

'The curse is come upon me,' cried

The Lady of Shalott.

He knew Anne was fast asleep. He finished the last part of the poem silently, reading to himself. Then he placed the book on the nightstand, and turned the lamp to its lowest, so that the flame filled the room with the barest amount of light, letting the moon do most of the work. Pulling his watch out and casting a glimpse at it, he saw how late it was. He pulled a pen and a pad of prescriptions out of his bag, scribbling a note to leave on her nightstand.

Anne-

Susan will come by to see you in the morning. Stay in bed-doctor's orders. I'll be by after surgery closes.

Gil

Doing his best to descend the stairs as quietly as he could, he gathered his things in the kitchen, leaving as he had come, through the back door. He walked home with the moon for company, his breath hovering behind him in small clouds. When he looked back, he could just barely see the light from her window flickering through the trees.

Gilbert Blythe gave a laugh of pure joy. He was the happiest boy in the world. Anne had forgiven him.***


*Anne of the Island

**The Lady of Shalott: Alfred, Lord Tennyson

***Anne's House of Dreams

And so ends another chapter! I decided not to get Gilbert sick-I would have had no idea what to do with Joy then. But Anne, on the other hand...besides, I spent a lot of this week experiencing the same symptoms she did in this chapter. And I can vouch for the efficacy of steam baths :)

The time has come once again for me to issue a few thank-yous and replys:

AngieAnne-I sort of reversed your idea...I think Gilbert's more qualified to do the nursing ;)

AussieFicReader-Watch out for Susan and Miss Cornelia as matchmakers...

Kim Blythe-Well, "a good laugh and sleep are the best cures in the doctor's book" I think Anne's done being mad for keeps, now.

kslchen-Does making Anne get sick qualify as cheating? By the way, I am sooo tempted to go review every chapter of "Through the Dark Clouds Shining" separately now :)

elizasky-Gilbert was lucky she didn't throw the book at him!

OriginalMcFishie-Glad you're enjoying the story!

Love to you all,

Anne