[A/N: Hey guys, this chapter is a little short, and I'm not gonna lie, it was hard to write and went in a direction I hadn't planned but the characters do what they want, sometimes. I chose not to write out the Easter events in episode 3, or Gilbert's trip to find Elijah as it went exactly as in canon. Saying that I hope you enjoy it doesn't feel right, but I honestly hope I did these characters justice.]
Gilbert's shaking hands and tensed shoulders belied his attempts to calm himself. Indeed, with every breath he took to regain his emotional equilibrium, he only fell further into the abyss of his rioting emotions. Mary wasn't ill; she was dying. Somehow, Gilbert had convinced himself that his new family would remain by his side for the rest of his life, or at least for so much of it that it would feel like an entire lifetime. He had no memory of his mother, still felt the anguish of losing his father, and now would lose the one mother-like figure he'd ever known. Why was fate so cruel? Where was the merciful hand of Providence in this tragedy?
Gilbert knew he was selfish, allowing himself to be consumed by his own approaching loss, but grief is no respecter of persons. It hits as hard as it may, stretching out its razor-edged claws and digging everywhere it finds purchase. He knew that Bash's grief would be an inferno, where his grief was a candle flame. He knew this, but he felt like he was drowning, trying to pull himself out of the darkness to stand on the shores of his rationality once more. How? How was he to exist? And not only exist, how was he to tell this lovely, wonderful woman that she would not live through another month? The abyss yawned inside him, singing its melancholy siren song, begging for him to dive in and never resurface. Despite the temptation, Gilbert knew that to allow himself to do so was impossible. His family needed him. But how to explain what Dr. Ward had discovered? How could he tell her?
These thoughts thundered through Gilbert's psyche like a stampede of wild animals, with no care for the damage left in their wake.
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Anne felt lost, walking back towards the Blythe-LeCroix household behind Gilbert. She wished to comfort but knew not what to say. She desired to remove the burden but had not the tools with which to do so. She felt frozen, immobilized by the reality of a loss not yet realized, but impossible to escape all the same. Anne, while not a stranger to pain and loss, had never really faced death up close before. She knew death was now inevitable, as Gilbert had shared Dr. Ward's prognosis with her. Her friend Mary, her dear, dear friend, would not live long enough to see her child walk. Indeed, she would not live to see even the first day of summer.
Anne's thoughts were interrupted when Gilbert halted a hundred yards outside his home. Before she had a moment to inquire about his pause, he turned to her and spoke.
"I can't do it, Anne," He lamented. "I can't tell her that—that she's going to die." Anne heard the undercurrent of sorrow in his voice and ached to comfort Gilbert but wasn't certain of her welcome. He continued speaking.
"I don't understand it at all. How can a healthy woman just get sick? And there's not a thing anyone can do? I thought that being a doctor meant that I would help people! I thought that when I faced a situation like my father's, or like Mary's—if I was a doctor, I would know the medicines to administer. I would understand the disease, and know how to find a cure! I thought that I could do something! But Dr. Ward didn't do ANYTHING! He just looked at her and decided that there was nothing to be done. Is that what being a doctor means? Hiding behind your diagnoses, and your prognoses, and leaving people to shoulder the burden themselves? How many people will come to me for help and I just stand back with my hands in the air—sorry, nothing to be done—it makes me sick! I don't know that I want to be a doctor anymore, Anne. I don't think I'd make a very good one."
It seemed to Anne that all of the energy left Gilbert's body after his speech. With face downcast and shoulders slumped, Gilbert was a picture of abject misery. Anne knew not what to say, but she knew she must say something, lest Gilbert lose himself entirely to his grief. She crossed in front of him quickly and turned, pulling him into her embrace.
"Listen to me, Gilbert," she declared in a tone that brooked no argument. "You will be a wonderful doctor. Not because of your intellect, or your charisma, but because of this."
Anne leaned away from him enough to press her hand over his heart, ignoring the faint twist of appreciation at the hard muscle beneath her palm.
"You are the one that people will turn to at their very worst. When they are sick and broken, and without hope, they will come to you. And you may not always have the knowledge to help them-you may not have the right words of comfort to give-but you will look at them and you will see who they are. Don't you understand? You are going to be a doctor who cares, who truly cares about the people you help, and that means more than all the rest. You are going to be a wonderful doctor!"
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Anne's words pierced through the darkness of Gilbert's thoughts like the first light of dawn after a moonless night. He knew not what virtuous deed he had done to deserve the blessing that stood before him, but he knew that he would do all in his power to deserve her.
"I love you, Anne." He spoke the words so quietly they were almost a whisper but knew that she'd heard him by the way her breath caught. "I know that this isn't the right time to court you, but if this adversity has taught me anything, it's that we must live every day as though it were our last, and I couldn't bear to end this day without you knowing. I love you, my Anne with an E, and I believe that if you are by my side, I could speak to Mary. If you were beside me, I could conquer anything."
Gilbert didn't expect Anne to say anything. He could tell by the furrow in her brow that she needed time to think about what he had said. And besides, his family needed him now. But he also felt a small sliver of peace in his tormented soul. He had not left the words unsaid. He stepped out of Anne's embrace, though he sought her hand with his own. Together they walked hand-in-hand into the house.
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After a few bittersweet days filled with laughter and tears, Mary died. Her body was laid to rest in the Blythe family plot next to Gilbert's parents. Mary's legacy would live on through those who knew and loved her, the one true immortality.
