Typhoid & Gossip Ch 15: Gilbert - Sunday Night, an anne of green gables series fanfic

Author's Note:

Guest - Thanks for the encouragement and reading! Enjoy this next chapter.

oz diva - So I figure with 3 sets of Hammond twins Anne handles poo better than intimacy and real romance. I also think she's trying to focus on practicalities because the emotional side its just too overwhelming. Let's just say Anne will continue to be more of an idiot.

YodaChick - Thanks for the review

— Gilbert —

Sunday June 20th, 4:00pm

Boarding House, Brookfield, Nova Scotia

I dreamed of different things. Mostly Anne. Not much change there. I dreamed about the day I rescued her in Barry's Pond, or the Lake of Shining Waters as she'd gotten all of us to call it over the years. Of a picnic with the twins. Studying. Competing. All sorts of memories. But then she came. The Ghost Anne that would mock me.

She'd held me later, helping me to drink some and wiping my brow and upper chest only to then sit up and in her fanciest dress stand beside Roy Gardiner and mock me. Little Anne joined them… and they left me. I was all alone. I wanted to scream. Instead I just sank into the blackness I'd lived in for the past two years.

A memory came back of two Christmases before. The first without hope of Anne. Dad had found me splitting wood in the early morning. "Heard you in the night. Dreaming about Anne. Seems you've made her an idol."

I hadn't. No. But she was my Anne, my Carrots. My Anne-Girl. Perhaps sinking into this oblivion was best, to die. Where I wouldn't face a world without her anymore.

I woke briefly again seeing her asleep in her green dress, it was dark, nighttime no doubt. She slept in the chair in an awkward angle only to start and notice me awake. She'd helped me to drink, and then helped me back down.

"Gil… what's my name?"

"Anne Shirley…"

"Good." She sighed. "You seem to be confused at times about my name." She stretched her right arm up then grimaced, trying discretely to rub the right side of her chest. She seemed to be sitting on her left hand.

"Did you hurt yourself?" I asked, scared my dreams might have, what was real and what wasn't was hard to cling to… A memory of clinging to her there, in the midst of… Please no… Her begging me to stop, yet I'd taken my pleasure. Angry at how I'd lost her. Angry at the ghost was all I had left.

She flushed to match her hair. "I… Sometimes a lady just gets sore Gilbert Blythe and I've been sitting up playing nurse. Have you the energy to sit up?"

I nodded and she adjusted the pillows so I could sit again.

"Gil… promise me you won't tell anyone we were alone in this room here…"

My eyes went wide. Then the memory, writing in the registry. "Promise. Did I check us in as Mr & Mrs Gilbert Blythe?"

"Yes, It could hurt us." She spoke quickly. "Summerside High has a moral and ethics policy, and I'm sure the medical school does. We had one as underclassmen. Lying, loose morals... And they don't allow married women to teach."

"There is... Had to sign it at graduation. Also for the Cooper... But no one will know. We're…where are we?"

"Brookefield. Half way to the ferry. There was an accident on the track and we had to walk to the next train and missed it." She sighed. "I don't think anyone will know who we are here at least. Might have in Hopetown or Pictou, and certainly in Charlotte or Kingsport. I guess there's one saving grace in this scrape."

I'd been falling back to sleep slightly, when I glanced at her. What I could see was exhaustion, nearly what I felt. "Anne, I won't bite but if you lie down a bit. Remember that time we fell asleep watching the constellations?"

"Your mother found us asleep with three cats as chaperones! She scolded the cats." Anne laughed, but wouldn't look at me. "I'm fine here."

"Anne…" I laughed, though it took a lot of energy. "Please? Tomorrow will be the hardest day for both of us. I… Maybe you're right and I should go back to Kingsport and the hospital. But I just think of my parents in fear when they hear and not to able to be there with us. Little Anne… she died all alone. I was all that was there for her. I saw other patients… their families only could be there during visiting hours, and they'd die alone. I… I'm scared. Please, I won't bite."

She flushed. Then I could see her swallow. She turned to me a steely look in her eyes. "What I'm about to tell you goes to the grave Gilbert Blythe!"

I nodded slowly.

"You bit me last night and so I rather don't trust your word that you don't bite."

"Anne…" My eyes went wide. Had… oh had that not been a dream… I'd… I gulped… I'd forced myself on her. "I… Where, did I break the skin? Anne, It's the excrement that it spreads through, but still I don't want you getting Typhoid too…" I grabbed her left hand, the one she'd sat on examining it. Praying that had been all, that she'd kept her hand hidden to hide the bite marks. That in some nightmare I'd fought her and bit her hand.

"Not there." I've never seen her so red.

"My ring…"

"I... I found it, and it. I was looking through all our bags, for any more change. Gil, we should try to send your parents a telegram with a little warning! We'll have nothing left and I felt something stiff in your billfold. I'm sorry I thought it was some extra coins. I... You engraved it for me, I... Couldn't resist trying it on. Pearls are for tears, but... Matthew gave me the pearl necklace and I... But it wouldn't come off. I tried. Oh it's a terrible scrape. And I tried everything I could think of but it wouldn't budge!"

I ran my fingers over the pearls on her hand. "Leave it. It's your ring. Think of it as a peace offering to our old friendship back. Like Matthew's pearls. You can always wear it on a smaller finger... When you..." I didn't deserve her, she turned then and the mark I'd thought from the burn she'd told me about I realized to be a bite mark just behind her ear.

She laughed. "I shall! I will sew a peace offering of my own back into your billfold then. I'll surprise you no doubt. And you'll burn with curiosity. Just what I put inside it, but I won't until the Doctor gives you your bill of heath so you'll have to recover, and quickly!"

"Anne... I'll get better quickly with you and Avonlea. But you need strength tomorrow for getting us home. I... put the pillows or bags between us."

She nodded, and setting a line of pillows and bags dividing the mattress, she laid down on her side facing me, nearly falling off the mattress behind her if she moved. Her left hand near the pillows, the right keeping herself from falling off. And so, I reached up, and grasped her hand, smiling as I fell back into dream land, slipping her hand with mine under the pillow.

I fell asleep dreaming about our marriage. My hand wrapped around hers, her ring on. She woke me a few times in the night, with water, broth and once to change my diaper. My Anne-girl. She took such good care of me and little Anne. Changing our diapers. And packing onions onto my chest.

I came back from dream world though in the morning light with Anne brushing her hair, dressed in her traveling suit, a little worse for wear, I imagined a future of this. She'd done up her hair, and then came to assist me with my morning toilet. She'd even offered to shave me, but warned me she'd never once shaved a person before. Matthew always had a beard, and well, I was perhaps better off with the beard for the future for the time being.

She'd checked my fever with her hand. The underside of her ring cool to my forehead. Then like a babe, began to change me. She'd helped me onto the chamber pot, and I'd managed to relieve myself there and keep the diaper clean. She'd then helped me back into it, and into my suit. My mind began to wander and I realized it was the first time since we'd married that she'd done that. How long had we been married? I'd forgotten. It must be the first though for she'd blushed as as her hair where ever I could see skin.

She'd packed our bags, and left me shortly to fetch things from the general store. She returned, sliced an onion and packed my socks with the thin slices, squeezing more into the bags, barely able to close them. Then with her valise and my carpet bag in one arm, she put the other arm around my waist.

We'd then walked down the stairs to the lobby. She'd paused though blushing. "Gil... I..."

My Anne-girl, I felt duel memories. Anne Shirley and Anne Blythe… then Ghost Anne coming to mock. I held on though pushing away the other Annes and focusing on the real one. "Take the bags to the station. I'll settle our bill." I Kissed the top of her hair, to which she nodded, handing me back my billfold with our money. I walked, slightly dazed. And nodded to the man there, though I barely registered anything about him more then that he was a man.

"Well, Gilbert Blythe. Prissy told me you and Anne Shirley had eloped."

"Eloped?" I shook my head, finally grasping that it was Mr. Philips, he wore a brass tag with his name, Mr. Theodore Philips. "I don't remember." I was doing my best to stay with the present. I was going home. Typhoid. I had Anne. And she was wearing my ring. "How much?"

"Three dollars and ten cents." He looked down at me. "You really don't look well. I don't approve of this eloping, and what Prissy said... Well, I would have asked you to leave as I don't approve of such loose morals, only marrying because of a babe. But clearly you're rather ill. At least, you did the right thing in the end. And sorry for disturbing you yesterday when I brought the soup and coals."

I nodded, not following. But then it was a rather odd dream. A dream I kept falling back into. And Mr. Philips to be the inn keeper. But at least this was a good dream. Where Anne had married me instead of that Roy Gardiner, or would because I couldn't remember a dream. "She's marrying me and not that boneless man soon as I'm a Doctor." I grinned realizing, I couldn't remember so maybe we were engaged? I'd think I'd remember the day I married Anne Shirley.

"You're not married..." Mr. Philips glared, just like he'd done when interrupted from courting Prissy back during that year he'd taught us.

"I... I don't remember. I... I don't think so... I don't remember… She didn't want anyone to know something... but she's wearing my ring." I grinned. "And it's not coming off." I nodded my head to him, turned and put all my strength into walking across the lobby, the street and up the steps of the station, found Anne and wrapped my arms around her as we waited for the train to arrive, the train we could already hear approaching. I was ready to rest again.

—*—*—*—*—*—

Author's Note: I did some more research and for my story I'm making Prissy Jane's older sister, while in the books it's implied they're cousins not sisters. So I'd put her as a year older then Billy. And poor Anne... I think emotionally the past few days put her through the ringer. And yes... what she's trying to scrape under the rug won't stay... and it begs that question. What's more important the truth or saving face? Because you know the Philips will be returning to Avonlea for Jane Andrew's wedding…. LOL… I'm currently writing where the gossip is about to spew over. If you have any thoughts on who should spill it to Anne & Gilbert post in the reviews as I'm outlining that section now. Lets just say the gossip will get really out of hand because of assumptions that will be made. Hope everyone enjoys and the next chapter will be up on Sunday!