Author's Note

Thank you to everyone for their kind words with regard to my just finished story Let Love clasp Grief and their embracing of this new story – I am very grateful and heartened. Most especially as I hoped this here would indeed hit its mark as something combining a little silliness and still more than a little heart. I hope if you needed cheering it has cheered you, as your lovely responses have for me after being away from this terrific community for too long.

As I have mentioned many a time, the tragic passing of Jonathan Crombie five years ago led me to fanfic, and as so many of you will know he would have been 54 years old today, October 12th (though its already tomorrow here). It would be redundant of me to dedicate this chapter alone to his memory, when I write every chapter with Jonathan as Gilbert in my mind's eye. I am afraid in terms of literary heroes my daughter prefers Little Women's Laurie over Gilbert, though as I love him too this seems a minor quibble.

With love,

MrsVonTrapp x

Chapter Two

Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves

"Gilbert, your jacket!" Phil indicated as she and Pris took Anne in their arms, sitting either side of her on the bench, Stella hovering in sympathy. "Anne, it's alright, honey, you've just had a bit of a shock."

"He hates me…" Anne muttered plaintively, in a way that made Gilbert's throat throb.

"Oh, he doesn't, not really," Pris soothed, rubbing Anne's bare forearm comfortingly. "He's just disappointed."

"They all hate me, afterwards… Charlie did for an age, too. Why does their love so quickly turn to such antipathy?"

She looked up at Gilbert accusingly with flooded grey eyes at this, as he crouched down before her, settling his old jacket about her narrow shoulders.

"I never hated you," he answered in an aching whisper, hopefully only caught by her ears alone.

Her cheeks burned further at this, and Anne avoided his gaze thereafter, allowing the girls to fuss comfortingly over her whilst he stood about awkwardly as the dusk tipped its hat to twilight. He could feel the sea breezes stiffening his hair into startling new styles.

"You must have all hated Roy as well, to come to try to stop us…" Anne was now trying to puzzle out events, looking to her friends for answers.

"No, we really didn't," explained Phil helplessly.

"We've liked him well enough, recent behaviour notwithstanding," added Pris.

"Then… why?"

All the girls turned back to Gilbert, who took a step backwards, raising his hands in surrender.

"Yes, why, Gilbert?" Stella challenged leadingly, her black brow raised.

"Why do you even care, now?" Anne found her voice again, and this time the bleakness in it struck him to the core. Her betrayed look to him was a dagger to his heart. "You're going to marry Christine Stuart!"

In his discomfort he laughed too heartily at this presumption. "Marry Christine? Of course I'm not!"

Pris and Stella looked on in puzzlement, and Phil was frowning indignantly. Anne widened those doe eyes in clear incredulity.

"Don't be disingenuous, Gilbert!" Phil argued. "It's been all over Redmond for months! Anne and I were discussing that very thing last night, on our way to the Convocation Ball!"

"Last night? You and Anne?" hazel eyes swung from brown and locked with grey, narrowing accusingly. "Is that why you refused to dance with me?"

The girls turned their attention back to Anne; agog spectators to an ancient battle.

"My… my dance card was full!" she spluttered, convincing no one.

Gilbert felt certain events begin to fall into place, and it made him bite down on his indignation.

"I can hardly plan my engagement to Christine when she's engaged already," he explained with what he considered to be supreme patience.

"What do you mean engaged already?" Phil shrilled. "To whom? And how long?"

Gilbert swallowed with difficulty. The circumstances of himself and Christine long rehearsed in his head, previously making so much steady sense, already feeling trite and hollow.

"She's been engaged ever since I've known her…" he added carefully. "I was friendly with her brother Ronald, and as she would be on her own in Kingsport he asked if I might look out for her, escort her round a few places… Well, it got to be a habit after a time… I enjoyed her company, certainly, but there were never any stronger feelings than friendship. If local gossip had it otherwise, I'm afraid that's not my doing."

The assorted women hardly looked impressed by this information, and Anne resolutely, disturbingly, stared back at the ground, her lips tight and her arms locked about herself defensively.

"Why on earth did you allow everyone to believe it then, Gilbert?" Phil was a dog with a bone, not yet ready to relinquish it. "I heard these rumours from reliable sources and even passed them on myself! You've made everyone around you seem like idiots, hugging this stupid secret to yourself and having a laugh at our expense!"

"Phil…" his hazel eyes were blown wide at this interpretation, and he approached them all with his tall frame slumped in contrition. "I'm so sorry if you feel that way. If any of you feel that way. That was never my intention. There was no laughing about it behind your backs, let me tell you. I hated going out anywhere this past year or so… and facing… well… circumstances…" his handsome face contorted in his struggle. "Christine… she was…. well... it was convenient, to have her there. She was… a buffer, I guess..."

He trailed off, turning away from them, hands fisted into his pockets in his frustration, not wanting to say any more and fearing he'd said too much already. A buffer against what? was of course the question still hanging in the air, easily answered in his flickering, guilty glance back to Anne, who had raised her head at his halting explanation, auburn brow furrowed.

"We should be getting back…" Stella announced after a time. "Aunt Jimsie will be getting worried."

"I'm expecting Jo soon, too," Phil confirmed, bobbing up from her seat.

Anne made a slow, weary motion to rise herself, but Pris's hand came to rest on her shoulder.

"Stay," she murmured, looking across to Gilbert meaningfully.

"Gilbert has a few things he probably needs to talk to you about," Stella added, nodding to them both encouragingly.

"Play nicely, you two," Phil pleaded. "You'll see Anne home?"

"Of course." His pulse thrummed at the prospect.

Phil gave him her crooked smile as she passed, squeezing his arm for good measure. "I'm still cross at you, but I was glad to be wrong just now, Gil." She looked back and blew Anne a kiss. "I don't know if you weren't involved with Christine why you waited so long to act, Roy or no Roy. But don't waste this second chance," she continued to him, low voiced. "Sort things out. Try again." *

Gilbert could only gulp his thanks, and that in itself was entirely inadequate for the friendship and faith every one of these young ladies had shown him, in flinging themselves out the door and chasing after him on what could well have been a fool's errand. Now the only fool was him, finally alone with an unattached Anne and having the weight of countless unsaid declarations pressing in on him, and the dread, despairing memory of the one time he had spoken, and shouldn't have.

Anne had dried her tears, at least – something to be thankful for – and was looking at her hands in her lap, and steadfastly not at him. He realised the girls had been a buffer, too, of a different kind, though his visits to Patty's Place had become more infrequent until they had tapered off completely, too painful - and after the advent of Roy, too hopeless – to continue. Gilbert searched his mind for the last time he had been alone with Anne - properly alone – and could, sadly, only conjure the image of an orchard and talk of violets, and a small white hand grasped much too tightly.

Gilbert approached carefully, the adrenaline of the last few hours dissipating along with his confidence.

"Is this seat taken?" he asked, and she smiled wanly at the poor joke. Beside her, now, so close, her old perfume invaded his senses like a magical aroma, and he had to stop himself from inhaling deep bucketfuls of air, stirred by the old sentiments the scent of lilies conjured.

"Are you feeling better?" he queried, thinking something innocuous was the safest conversational opening.

She gave an exasperated huff.

"Define better, Gilbert Blythe! I've hurt a good man and embarrassed him and his family; I've thrown his future and mine into sudden chaos; I've turned my back on a two year courtship which will likely make me the laughing stock of Redmond; I've no doubt perplexed my friends and Marilla and Rachel, not to mention half of Avonlea; and I've been featured in the same unfavourable mention as Hamlet's mother. Apart from all that, I'm feeling on top of the world, thank you for asking!"

Gilbert couldn't muzzle his smile in the face of some of her old spark. "Well, at least you have your health."

Anne snorted a surprised laugh, and then clapped her hand over her mouth, as if she had spent all her time with Roy in refined ladylike behaviour, with never a guffaw or grunt escaping. Then she sighed deeply, looking out to the park turning to darkening shadows in the dimming light.

"Roy never could see a joke," she announced sadly.

"Well, that might have been a future problem, right there."

"Perhaps…" she conceded, almost wistfully. Her gaze swept down and caught on something peculiar.

"Gilbert…?"

"Mmm?"

"Do you realise you're not wearing any socks?"

Now he was the one giving a soft chuckle, and Anne turned towards it as if hearing some long-ago music, a small, lovely smile lighting her face.

"Well, unfortunately, no…" he crossed his arms and stretched his long, lean legs out in front of him. "It wasn't so much an oversight as an issue of time. I was in a bit of a hurry."

"A hurry?" She regarded him searchingly. "To get over here?"

He shrugged his broad shoulders sheepishly.

"Why?" she insisted, her eyes burning his with the force of her enquiry.

"Why?" he shifted in his seat, annoyed to be uncomfortable with the question, when its answer could probably be found in his very presence now beside her. "Why do I do anything, Anne, when it comes to you?"

"Answering a question with another question is no answer at all, Gilbert!"

"Well then, let me ask you a few things, Miss Shirley! Why did you refuse Roy?"

Her shell-pink lips opened in her surprise, and the color again flooded her cheeks.

"Why did you want me to believe you were with Christine?" she countered.

"Why did you wear my lilies?"

"Why did you send them?"

Anne leapt to her feet in her agitation, his jacket falling off her as if the cloak of the past discarded, and began to pace up and down the pavilion in unconscious echo of his own earlier actions.

"You know, Gilbert, you're just as infuriating as ever!" the pink tinge to her cheeks made the sudden green in her eyes flare alluringly.

"And you, Carrots, are still just as stubborn."

She stopped and turned, all the fight in her deflating in the one long, sorrowful breath as she contemplated him.

"It's been years since you called me that," she acknowledged after a pause, almost mournfully.

The stone in his throat refused to budge.

"It's been years since I've been able to," his voice reached out softer than a caress; all the sadness and loneliness and frustration and even fear, of all the days and nights without her, informing every syllable.

The darkness was closing in on them, now, but he knew her well enough to know the warning in how she held herself so stiffly, before she suddenly doubled over, warding off a sob.

"Anne!" he was on his feet and over to her side in a heartbeat.

"No!" she held out her arm warningly, bracing herself against the comfort he was so desperate to offer, and connected with his chest instead, her small palm resting on his shirtfront. Momentarily shocked, her pale fingers reflexively smoothed over his shirt in wondering passage, feeling his heat and his shuddering breath, and the muscles of his taut torso spasm beneath her touch. She looked up to him, eyes troubled and mouth agape, as if in possession of a new, startling knowledge she was surprised to receive and uncertain how to process. Shakily, she dropped her hand and backed away.

"I'm sorry, Gilbert, I can't do this now…"

She staggered blindly down the steps, whilst he grabbed at his fallen jacket before stumbling after her, calling her name even as she started down the path out of the park.

"I sent the lilies because I wanted you to remember me!" he shouted, stilling her progress immediately.

She whirled about, passing an agitated hand through the stray curling wisps of her updo.

"How could I not remember you, Gilbert?"

"I wanted you to remember all that it took us to get here, Anne! All the scrimping and saving and the study. All the dreaming and the determination. And that in every step, every moment, it had been me beside you, not him!" He beat his chest with his fist for emphasis, breathless, now, to have the declaration out in the open, lying between them like a raw, opened wound.

"Of course I knew that, Gil! And of course I remembered! That's why I wore them!" she answered brokenly, dashing at a stray tear.

"Well, then…" he approached her slowly, carefully, as one might a startled fawn in the woods, "I came here before… sockless, senseless…" he allowed a small, wry smile, "because I knew that I needed to tell you that Roy wouldn't have made you happy. That I don't believe for an instant you were really happy with him the entire time. And even if… well, if I could never have made you so…" he swallowed the bitter memory, "I needed you to know that one thing."

Her eyes, her beautiful, evocative eyes, tried to read his face, puzzling out what they saw. Then her little pointed chin came up, in defiance of his decree, even if her own words and actions had proven the truth of it.

"And who makes you the arbiter of happiness, Gilbert?" she countered defensively. "Were you happy all this time, killing yourself for the Cooper, shutting yourself away, only emerging with the buffer of Christine on your arm?"

"No," he sighed now himself, passing a weary hand through his curls.

Anne seemed to swallow tremulously.

"Well, I realised it myself, you know..." she admitted slowly. "About Roy."

He nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, I guess you did."

"So you needn't think my refusal was down to your unscheduled presence!" she gave him a haughty look as of old.

"I wouldn't dream of it," he gave her a slow, unrepentant Blythe grin.

The night air was cooler, here at the edge of the park overlooking the shore, and they watched a white mist creeping subtly and remorselessly landward up the harbor. ** Anne looked back to the pavilion, momentarily lost in thoughts of what had transpired there, a little shiver reminding Gilbert of his jacket, having her place her arms through so she could wrap herself within it.

"I remember this…" she changed tack mercurially, rubbing her cheek against the brown collar, softened by wear and time. "This was one of your favourites when we were teaching…"

"Perhaps that's why I didn't throw it out years ago," he offered sadly. "Too many memories."

He swallowed hard, fighting the urge, now, to say more… that he would don it every Friday morning whilst at White Sands, knowing that by the evening he would be rubbing shoulders with her over their studies in Avonlea… that she had once said it was the same handsome hue as his hair… that occasionally she would fall asleep on the sofa parlour of Green Gables, and he would cover her with it rather than a blanket, just so that it would smell like her all the next day…

"Shall we go, Anne?" he prompted gently, too tempted to linger with her and spill all his remaining secrets.

They resumed walking side by side, more companionably now, Anne gratefully taking his arm when the path became uneven in the near dark.

"I realised…" she began again, haltingly, almost to herself. "I realised… even as he – Roy - was proposing, and outlining this lovely kind of life for us, that I couldn't actually see myself in it… I knew, then, that I didn't really belong in his world, in his life… and he didn't belong in mine."

Gilbert nodded understandingly, attempting not to look too heartened, allowing this discovery to sit with her awhile.

They made their quiet, contemplative journey back to Patty's Place, Gilbert relishing the new communion between them, though for every agonised declaration tonight there were still a thousand unspoken thoughts and questions tasted on his tongue.

The charming, characterful house on the best street was ablaze with light as they arrived, with manifold shadows passing before the closed curtains denoting a surprising amount of movement for the hour. There were the quieter rhythms of the girls and Jo Blake, they imagined, though also an unfamiliar male voice that was clearly agitated and so aggravatingly loud it could be heard from the doorstep.

"What on earth?" Anne looked to Gilbert in astonishment.

He shrugged, equally stupefied, for certainly there WAS a most extraordinary noise going on within. ***

"I'll just see you inside, Anne, and make sure all is well."

She nodded eagerly, and his heart gladdened to know that she was accepting even this simple service from him.

It had been a long time since Gilbert had been inside Patty's Place before today, and the house was stuffed with more people than cushions, if that were possible. The three girls – Phil, Pris and Stella; the newly Reverend Jo; a well dressed woman whom he couldn't place but who looked vaguely familiar; and several other figures who seemed to be milling about the kitchen. Moody had also been right about the packing, which in his panic and haste he had not noticed a few hours ago – there were trunks everywhere, unsteady piles of books, and a heap of other assorted oddments ranging from knick knacks to needlework, awaiting the return journey with their owners within the week.

"Anne! Gilbert! Thank goodness!" Phil leaped towards them, from where she had been stationed by the window, as if a sentinel on duty awaiting their reappearance.

"Er, hello, Phil, everyone. Hello, Jo."

"Gilbert…" Jo's eyes were fixed on him, even as he still managed to dart a wary glance towards the kitchen. "I may have to ask you to meet me outside. There is a gentleman here who wishes to see you quite urgently and…"

"Dorothy?" Anne interrupted breathlessly, wide eyes identifying the woman he himself hadn't been able to.

"Oh, Anne…" Dorothy Gardner stood, wringing her hands.

"Blythe?" boomed a voice from the kitchen, and a tall, fair, reasonably handsome man came charging out, trailed by a perturbed, flustered-looking Aunt Jimsie.

"Yes…?" Gilbert answered, perplexed. "I'm Gilbert Blythe, though I haven't had the pleasure – "

"No, but I will!" barked the stranger, and before anyone could react one way or the other he had launched himself across the room, fair face turning florid and a large fist aiming squarely for Gilbert's nose.

Chapter Notes

Our chapter quote comes from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland courtesy of the formidable Duchess in Chapter 9 'The Mock Turtle's Story'.

*Luckily, Phil doesn't even need to write a letter this time.

**Anne of the Island Chapter 38 'False Dawn'.

***Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Chapter 6 'Pig and Pepper'.