Chapter 19

"Jo!" Anne exclaimed happily upon spotting Jonas and Gilbert. "Come meet Diana," she said pulling him into the room.

"Anne," Jonas said hugging her. "I hear you've made yourself a new friend, Gilbert here."

"Yes," Anne said rolling her eyes. "He was quite determined that we should be friends. He definitely improved upon acquaintance."

"Not just friends, Anne," Gilbert said looking at her intently.

Before Anne could respond though, Jonas said gently, "Anne there is something you need to know. I don't know how best to tell you this, but, well, I'll just come out and say it. Peter Blwette was outside."

"No, he's in jail," Anne whispered fearfully her face confused as she unthinkingly reached for Gilbert's hand for comfort. Gilbert intertwined her fingers with his and gently pulled her too him. "He can't, he's not supposed too-" Anne stuttered.

"We'll get in contact with the prosecutor's office," Jonas sais soothingly. "If he is out on probation, you and the Cuthberts should have been notified. In the mean time we will all keep our eyes out for him. You aren't alone."

"Anne," Gilbert said hugging her to him. "I hope you don't mind, but I will be walking you to all your classes. That creep-" Gilbeet said before Anne cut him off.

"I guess, I guess I owe you some sort of explanation, " Anne said haltingly to Gilbert.

"You don't owe me anything. I just want to make sure you are safe. If anything, I owe you one."

"You owe me one?" Anne asked confused.

"Yea. It was me," Gilbert confessed nervously raising a hand to brush Anne's hair behind her ear. Jonas was right he had relaized. The two did need to talk and he needed to confess that the carrots incident in their history class wasn't when he first saw her. That he'd seen her and fallen for her years ago, and that if Jonas was right, she had fallen for him then too.

Taking a deep breath Gilbert said,"At the hospital in Charlotte. It was me. I listened to you sing and tried to talk to you. I used to sit and listen to you talk to the nurses and others at the hospital when my dad was first admitted. That's how I knew it was you the first day of school. I recognized your laugh. Your laugh, the memory of you, it meant everything to me. I wanted to meet you for so long, to find you again. I didn't want to say anything because well, I thought you would think I was crazy, or crazier than you already did, but umm-"

"It was you?" Anne asked her eyes widening, Peter Blwette momentarily forgotten.

"I believe you two need to talk privately," Jonas said glancing at the two and then toward Diana.

"You two stay here," Diana said rising. "Jo and I will go and, well we will go," she said unable to come up with an excuse.

"Excellent," Jonas said dryly.

"Actually , if it's okay with Anne, maybe we can talk in my room," Gilbert said. "I'm sure Phil, Stella and well everyone else will be here soon enough. My room is a bit more private," Gilbert added with a shrug.

….

"Well it explains why you were so resistant to me. I was competing against me, and I'm pretty much awesome," Gilbert said grinning as he leaned back against the wall sitting on his bed.

"Awesome are you?" Anne asked raising her eyebrows taking a seat as well.

"Oh yea, the awesomest," Gilbert said with a wink and then interlacing his fingers with hers he said, "So I believe that day you had been about to tell me how you were in a car accident of sorts."

"It wasn't your usual run of the mill accident," Anne said wryly. "Matthew hit me when I ran in front of his truck."

"Matthew, your Matthew, ran into you?" Gilbert asked in disbelief.

"I had been fleeing the Blwette's place and ran into the road. He luckily hadn't been going very fast or it would have been much worse."

"This was-" Gilbert started to ask softly but Anne nodded and cut him off.

"They said I was really lucky to only break an arm and have some bruises. Of course they were bruises on top of bruises in vary states of healing and ones courtesy of my fight with the Blwette's son. If Matthew hadn't have hit me with his truck, I think Peter would have caught up to me and killed me. As it was when Peter showed up right after it happened, Matthew chased him off with a shotgun he had in his truck and called 911. Marilla had insisted he carry about a cell phone for emergencies since he had been getting older, thank God," Anne said quickly, wanting to get it out.

Gilbert had pulled Anne into his arms when she began speaking and his arms tightened around her, not wanting to think about what could have happened to her, just wanting to hold her and thank God, and Matthew, that she was saved.

"In my terror I had hysterically poured out what happened to Matthew while we waited for the ambulance, his shot gun across his lap. And Matthew stayed with me through it all. The tests, the interviews, all of it. He introduced me to his sister Marilla and they told me about their home, Green Gables and asked if I would like to come live with them, not as a foster family but that they would formally adopt me. I was so relieved and excited. To have a real home, with good people. No more foster families. My case worker Mrs. Thomas had been fired for her negligence in not realizing the Blwette's had been abusing me long before their son showed back up at home. She had claimed it had been my responsibility to tell her and report the abuse and that she assumed I wore long sleeves in the summer because I didn't want a sunburn. When I lived with the Hammond's I had tried to tell her that they were using me as free labor to care for their own children and their home but she had insisted it was normal that I have chores. I had more then chores, but she would tell me that placements in foster families were hard to come by for a girl my age and to be grateful I wasn't in a halfway house or living on the streets. She was constantly warning me it could be much worse. And the Blwette's were worse than the Hammonds. Which meant to me that removal from the Blwettes could mean an even worse family, so I didn't say anything to anyone and kept to myself at school. I wore baggy clothing and long sleeves. I had good grades and when teachers asked how I was I would lie and make sure they never guessed the truth. They thought I was just a quiet, nerdy, socially awkward girl. I was determined to be invisible, believing things could always be worse. And then Peter came home, strung out and things did get worse until Matthew hit me with ole' blue."

"Anne," Gilbert said softly, horrified about what had happened to her.

"The Cuthberts adopted me, Stella and Priscilla befriended me and then James wanted me to learn some self defense moves, just to feel safer. But Peter Blwette wasn't supposed to get out. He wasn't supposed to get out. He was strung out when he entered my room that night. He tried to, he grabbed me. He tried to hold me down, pawed at my clothing. I made it to the living room, screaming for help, but the Blewetts didn't hear me or ignored me. He caught me and I grabbed the closest thing I could to defend myself. It was a fireplace poker. I waved it at him. Slashed his face. The drugs he was on, they made him inhuman. He was so so so angry. He grabbed me and threw me through the window. If it hadn't been the first floor," She said trailing off before moving on in her story, wanting to get it all out. "I barely made it to my feet before he was charging me with the fireplace poker, screaming he would kill me. Had he not have tripped coming out the window, I would have never made it to the street. The Blewetts didn't have any close neighbors. There was no one to save me. Then Matthew was there. He fired his gun to scare him off. He ran away into the woods, muttering and blood streaming down his face. The Blwettes tried to press assault charges against me for disfiguring their precious son with the fireplace poker," Anne said with a shudder.

"God, Anne," Gilbert said helplessly.

"I was scared. So scared. I couldn't even bring myself to talk to Jonas. Sweet, gentle kind Jo. Then you talked to me. I wanted to meet you. I just knew when I first heard your voice, but I was so scared. And then the Cuthbert's were there and we were leaving. I didn't want you to think I was some scared pathetic little rabbit, so I made myself talk to Jonas when he stopped to wish me well. I thought if I could just get over my fear, in front of someone who I didn't need to impress," Anne said shaking her head. "I looked like such an idiot. Standing there opening my mouth, but nothing coming out. Trembling and shaking, while Jo just looked at me and started to back away slowly. I finally squeezed my eyes shut and blurted out some unintelligible string of words and promptly hypervenilated," she said wryly. "Jo though, he was willing to work with me. To try to make it easier for me he suggested I speak to him over the phone first. Then across the room until finally I was comfortable enough to hold a conversation with him face to face."

"I wish I could have been there for you," Gilbert said softly.

"I wouldn't have wanted you to see me like that. I was a mess," Anne said softly.

"I wouldn't have cared. I was already half in love with you before I ever laid eyes on you," Gilbert said swallowing. "And then when I saw you, in the hospital, you were so pretty. Maybe if I would have met you then I wouldn't have made such a hash of our meeting. You went from a pretty girl to a stunning beauty in just a few years and I was a complete idiot."

"Who knows you might have called me carrots and pulled my hair in the hospital and I would have thrown a bed pan at you," Anne said a smile crossing her features.

At this Gilbert laughed and said, "And I would have fallen even more in love with you if you did. Though I would have shamelessly played up my pain in hopes of gaining your sympathy and the chance to see you again. I tried to find you, you know," he told her.

"You did?" Anne asked softly.

"Drug poor Jonas to any and every teenage hangout in Charlotte and harassed the hospital staff," Gilbert said sheepishly. "Though I never told Jo who I was looking for or thought to ask him about my red headed songstress. Which was a complete oversight on my part seeing as how he spent his time there. I guess I just didn't want to think of you touched by the level of grief that would have ment he knew you."

"I told Jo about you, but never ask him about you specifically. I knew your father was in the hospital but it didn't occur to me Jo might know him, or you," Anne said with a shrug.

"Well Miss Anne Shirley," Gilbert said tenderly. "May I finally have the privilege of taking you on a date?"

"Yes," Anne said smiling happily at him.

"Thank God," Gilbert exclaimed, crushing her to him in a hug. After a few moments he said, "I know my reputation is still what it is, but I promise you, I am not that guy. We can take this as slow as you want us too. I intend to woo you Miss Anne Shirley. I hope you aren't to disappointed it was me. I know you told Phil you wouldn't waste your time with, what was it- a flirty Don Juan that pulled your hair-"

"Don't remind me," Anne said with a groan. "I couldn't believe that I was actually attracted to you, or how much I found myself enjoying your company. I felt so disloyal to, well, you as it turns out."

"I am insanely jelaous of myself right now," Gilbert said laughing. "I have kept my ownself from getting to do this for far too long," he said as he cuddled her closer to him. "And from being able to walk you to class, carry your books and have you look at me like that," he finished softly meeting her eyes. Leaning in he said tentativly, his lips almost touching hers, "Is this okay?"

Rather than answer with words, Anne answered by leaning closer and closing the distance between them. Gilbert kissed her softly, gradually deepening the kiss but mindful that it was Anne, his Anne, and that he needed to ensure he didn't take things to far. That he had promised to go slow, a promise he intended to keep, after all he was planning on having his whole life to kiss Anne.

Epilogue

When the prosecutor's office heard Blwette had been spotted at Redmond, it was confirmed that he had in fact broken his probation. He had been released to a mental facility on a day pass from the prison, but had somehow disappeared from the facility in question, which was now under investigation. He was quickly apprehended and put back behind bars. As soon as the good news reached Anne and Gilbert, the two went on their much anticipated first date without the spector of Peter Blwette's whereabouts maring it. It was the first of many dates and before graduation no one was terribly surprised when Gilbert proposed and Anne said yes. The only surprising thing about it their friends joked, was that Gilbert managed to wait that long before asking Anne to marry him. But true to his word he had insisted on taking things slow, much to Anne's objections at times, and wooing her.