Updating a bit early to make up for skipping last week; I was moving back to school, with all that entails. 5give me!

Guest: I'm glad you liked it! :) I don't have much to add to your comments - they made me really happy, as it seems most of the things I'm trying to get across are coming through well to you. Especially having them argue/debate a bit, and make up somewhat playfully - both their characters are very reserved and serious in the books, but a lack of humor would make for a very boring relationship - so I'm glad that felt right to you, even though it's not a side of them we see in canon. Everything else...you'll seeeeee~*~*~*~

Zuzi: Thank you! :) Again, you pointed out a lot of things I was hoping people would notice, so - yay for that! Iiii don't want to talk too much about where/when/how the story ends - not because it's massively shocking (I kill both Walter and Una at the end! Mwahahaha), I just am super finicky and might change it, plus I don't want you guys to be able to expect everything that will happen. :P But I did hammer the story out to 22 chapters (I think...I'm really bad at math), so we are nearing the end. Sad times! :(

Tiny Teddy: Thanks! I hope chapter 18 doesn't disappoint either :)

Title from "Landsailor" by Vienna Teng.


shield these eyes no more

Monday dawns a bright gray, the sky almost white. Nan and Di go with him to the train station, and when they part, they cling to him for an extra few moments.

"Thank you for talking to me," Di whispers.

"Thank you for listening," Walter says back, his voice thick.

Nan nearly crushes him in her embrace, her eyes bright with tears. "Please feel better, Walter." It is, he knows, her way of being kind. And oddly, he finds that it doesn't sting.

"I do," he says. "A bit."

When the train pulls away, he twists to watch the tall buildings of Kingsport shrink in the distance. He'd like to return, he thinks. It will be different, and it will be strange, but - he will be all right. He can feel it.

Still, it will be good to return to Ingleside, let himself rest in the familiar surroundings and people. He will tell Rilla and Mother and Dad - and yes, even Susan. They deserve to know who he is, now.

Una will be proud, he thinks, smiling a little at the thought. It will be - good, too, that she will not have bear the weight of his confessions alone. It will be good to see her again. Redmond seems almost like another world, one of ambitions and competition, everyone in constant movement. He can't quite picture Una there, and the thought causes an odd pang. It will never be easy, he thinks, to leave people behind. He has learned that, too.


No one is there to meet him at the train station, and he finds that he prefers it that way. It feels normal, the way things used to be. He is glad that his family is beginning to let him alone - glad that he is no longer causing them so much worry. Perhaps it was best that he had gone for a few days, let them slip back into their old routines for a bit.

The road into town is quite crowded, children out of school and running amok, people working their farms and gardens. To Walter's surprise, most of them are women - then he feels ridiculous for being surprised. Of course they are women. Most of the men are gone. Some of them wave - Elder Clow, riding past in his buggy (no newfangled automobiles for him, no thank you) offers to bring him to Ingleside. Walter declines; he'd rather walk. The distance will be hard on his leg, but - that is the price he has paid, and he doesn't wish to shirk it.

He sees Mother first, kneeling in her garden, face hidden by her old, wide-brimmed hat - a hat Rilla abhorred, and had been trying to make Mother throw out for years. The memory brings a smile to his face.

"You're back!"

Rilla appears in the doorway, beaming madly. She must have been watching from the window, he realizes. Mother's head snaps up and then she stands to greet him.

"We thought you weren't coming back before evening," she says, holding him then pulling back and searching his eyes, as though he might have some horrible reason for returning early.

"Nan and Di are busy," he explains. "There was an early train, so - here I am."

"Here you are," Mother repeats, holding his face between her hands. Then she lets him go and smiles. "Well! How was your trip? And how are Nan and Di? They don't write or call nearly as often as I'd like."

"They're well," he says. "Busy."

"I was worried," Mother says softly. "You and Di didn't quite seem like the chums you used to be, when she visited."

Walter grasps his mother's hands for a moment, not sure what to tell her. It is never easy for parents to learn that their children are changed. "We've grown up, Mother."

"I know," she says, then sighs. "I suppose I'm being silly. Go in, then. Susan's made lunch."

Rilla grabs him as soon as he makes it to the doorway, looping her arm through his and leading him to the kitchen. "I'm so glad you're back," she chirps. "It was too strange with you gone. Like - before." For a moment, her face falls and Walter can see what his brief absence has meant to her.

"Hello, Susan," Walter says, feeling awkward. Will he and Susan ever be able to talk the way they used to? Would she ever sit and listen, as Di and Nan had? Perhaps not. Perhaps he must accept that there are some things she cannot ever fully come to terms with. Perhaps he must forgive her that.

"I'll set lunch out," Susan says in response, and Walter can tell by the briskness of her voice that she has missed him, too. "Better girls I have never seen nor ever will see - besides you, Rilla - but Nan and Di have never mastered the stove, and I trust you'd like to eat. Here, I kept your mail for you," Susan adds, placing a thick stack of envelopes on the table and bustling out with the plates. Most of them are circulars, Walter finds, picking them up and flipping through them. Alice had told him a little bit about "The Piper"'s spread - how the entire university had thrilled over one of their own reaching such prominence, how it was read at all the recruitment and Red Cross meetings, how Nan, Di, Faith, and Alice had briefly become the most popular girls on campus for knowing the author. Too strange.

There is one piece of mail in particular that he is looking for - and there it is, tucked between a letter from Ken and a check from some American magazine. He pulls it out, feeling a flutter of nerves in his stomach - the feeling so strong that it startles him - as he undoes the envelope, fingers shaking.

Rilla must see some sort of shift on his face, for she comes over and props her chin on his shoulder. "What's that?" she asks.

"I sent a poem to the Nation a few weeks ago," Walter says slowly, still staring at the paper. For the first time he realizes the enormity of the decision. Everyone will know what he has done, what their sons and fathers and brothers are doing. "They accepted it."

"That's good," Rilla says carefully, peering at him. "Isn't it?"

"Yes," he says. "I think." He pauses. "I'd like you to read it. You, and Mother, and Susan - and Dad, when he gets back. If you'd like."

"Of course," Rilla says, looking slightly confused. Walter passes her the envelope, wherein the original copy of "The Aftermath" has been returned to him. Rilla takes it, eyes scanning the page. Then she pauses, eyes flicking back to the top, and she rereads. Slower. The little, unconscious smile on her face falls away.

"Oh, Walter," she says quietly.

"It's not - all my own," he tries to explain. "I never bayoneted - anyone - "

"But you saw," Rilla says. "Enough to write this. Oh, Walter," she repeats, and wraps her arms around him. Walter leans against her shoulder, surprised not to feel the wetness of tears on his shirt, or the sound of sobs, surprised that he has no urge to cry or run either.

They remain that way for a while, dry-eyed in their sorrow and sympathy.


He feels a little guilty, when he does show it to them - the next day, when he has worked up enough nerve. Mother and Susan both cry - Susan doesn't even bother calling it "poetry nonsense," which startles him more than anything - and hold him. Gertrude Oliver, who has come up from Lowbridge to discuss the newspaper, tells him that, for all its subject matter, it is the finest thing he has written. Dad goes white to his lips but then says, stiffly, that he's proud.

They have never really understood each other, Gilbert and himself, Walter thinks. Jem has always been closer to Dad, similar in their practical and curious ways, - even Shirley, having received Grandfather Blythe's temperament, does not find their father distant and confusing. Walter is - is too dreamy, too prone to thought instead of action, speaking in poetry instead of prose. The mixture of pride and knowing sorrow on Gilbert's face cracks something open in Walter's heart that he hadn't known was sealed.

"At least it is nothing that Shirley will have to face, the blessed boy," Susan says, as they are gathered round in the parlor. "I've always held that flying - for all its ridiculousness - was the lesser of two evils."

Walter has heard of pilots shot down mere days into their service, mere moments after rising into the air from the battlefield - but he holds his tongue.

"Norman Douglas won't be pleased to read it," Dad says, with a little smile. "But then, he hasn't any boys at the front."

"If he had gone himself, the war would've been over by Christmas like they'd said," Ms. Oliver says with a laugh.

Walter clears his throat. "Could we - perhaps - talk of something else?" The words come out more easily than he had expected them to.

They all seem to shift uncomfortably, then acquiesce. The topic turns to town gossip, and - alarmingly - Una Meredith.

"Where is Una?" Walter asks. "I haven't heard from her." This bothers him, somehow - he would have liked to see her, he supposes.

"Busy," Mother says, more gently than the news seems to warrant. "Half the girls in the Glen are taking music lessons, and Rosemary has passed the responsibility to her."

"She's awful thin," Susan clucks. "I don't like the looks of her. We did think John Meredith woke up a bit after marrying Rosemary, but - "

"Oh, Susan," Mother interrupts, darting a glance at Walter and Rilla. "Una is their friend. She's always been a little thing."

"I'm sure she'll be by soon," Rilla says, not looking up from her stitching. "I asked her up yesterday, but she has lessons all week, she said."

"I do hope she isn't working herself too hard," Mother murmurs. "Isn't she still in your little Red Cross?"

"Ye-e-es," Rilla says, a bit peevishly - Walter knows she still detests being called little. "But I'm sure she'll make time to come up."

"Rilla," Mother warns.

"Oh, let her go, Anne-girl," Dad says. "If she ends up gossiping as much as Cornelia Elliot, it'll be her own fault."

"Gossiping?" Walter asks, not quite following this conversation.

"Half the town expects you and Una Meredith to make a match of it," Susan says in a matter-of-fact tone, as though she too is expecting it, or at least is not surprised by the idea in the least. "As well they might - you two have been seeing each other rather often, I think. Although - " she adds contemplatively, "is it quite well for so many pairs of siblings to be married, Dr. dear?"

"I daresay it's safe enough, although the family reunions would become rather monotonous," Dad says, his voice teasing. "But leave the poor boy alone - I don't think there's anything to it."

Rilla doesn't say anything, her eyes darting between the grown-ups and Walter, watching for some sort of reaction.

Walter doesn't quite know what to say - he feels strangely indignant - so he merely turns back to his book, not quite seeing the words on the page in front of him.


The week slips away, and Walter feels oddly - normal. Things are easier, his family gentler. And he has letters from Jem, Ken, Shirley, Jerry, Carl - even Bertie Shakespeare Drew, of all people. They are all safe. None of them have "gone west" (unless something has happened, between now and when they wrote those letters - but no, he won't let himself think of that).

It will go away, soon, he knows. Nothing lasts. Another dispatch from a photographer in the Toronto papers that will eventually make its way to the Glen, another outburst from Norman Douglas in church - somewhere beyond his peace, he feels a tension, a certainty that he must brace himself for whatever comes next.

But for now, it is all right.

He finds himself on the veranda, like always. It is easier out here, in the quiet of the countryside - the clean air, the only sounds being of birds and people on the road. The bustle of the house, the clanging of pots and pans in the kitchen, the stream of visitors for Mother and Susan and Rilla - it is too much at times.

"Walter."

He blinks, eyes opening to the blue sky. For a moment, it seems too bright - blinding in the face of his reverie - but then he blinks again and adjusts.

Una Meredith is standing across from him, and he feels his mouth lift into a smile. It is good to see her - he feels something warm inside himself.

"Una," he says, and he wants to say something else - hello, how are you, perhaps - but the words die in his throat. They seem so little, somehow, for the contentedness he suddenly feels. Instead, he lifts himself to his feet and joins her at the edge of the porch. It feels right to be at her side, to walk with her to Rainbow Valley. Susan's words from the other night suddenly come to mind, and he banishes them quickly.

They walk farther into the valley, till the road is hidden by trees and the only sound is the whisper of the brook and the chirping of birds, the hitch of Una's breath when her dress catches on an unexpected root. This would be a wonderful poem, he thinks.

It is not, he realizes, a thought that would have crossed his mind, years ago. How lofty, how ridiculous, his own standards used to be: poems written to golden ideals, infatuations that he had been content to pine for. Una, he knows, hardly fits into that category, plain as Miss Cornelia is wont to describe her - but then, neither does he nowadays, bent and broken and healed by turns at his odd angles. Another folly of youth.

"You seem - well," she offers, as they come to the White Lady, tall and still despite the masses of leaves on the fine bones of her branches. Like Una, Walter thinks - pale and thin, but upright and unbending.

"I am…at the moment," he says. It is true, or true enough. He doesn't wish to tell her about the fragile peace in the house - afraid of putting a jinx on it, perhaps. "I don't wish to ruin it. I think perhaps it will carry me through the week, and then - well."

"Or perhaps it will remain," Una says, turning to look at him. Her eyes are gentle - it is not a correction or a scolding, and for that Walter does not argue.

She asks about his trip, and he finds the words come easily. "Good. I patched things up - a bit - with Di and Nan. It's strange - a new sort of understanding, I suppose. We're adults now, and we can't always be - as we were, when we were children." He knows Una understands his meaning. He and Di had always gone off with each other in the Rainbow Valley days, their partnership as expected as Jerry and Jem, Nan and Faith - and Una somewhere in the background (perhaps with Shirley, some part of his consciousness reminds him, and the thought feels a bit sour).

"'More grown up, more lonely' - my father had a book that said that, once," she says, her face turning a bit pink when he looks at her. "It's a translation," she adds, although Walter has to admit to himself that he had found nothing wrong with the syntax - a year and a half in the trenches with men who had never completed even the First Reader will do that, he supposes.

"Do you think that's true?" he asks, wondering. Una, with her quiet hurts, revealed to him only after so many years of knowing her - the words likely rang true for her far earlier than they have for him.

Before she can respond, she trips slightly, and unthinkingly, he reaches out to steady her. For a moment he is too close to her, close enough to feel the warmth of her skin. He has touched her before, held her hand and felt the softness over the bones of her wrist, but for the first time it sends something nervous and excited through him. He pulls away.

"In a way," she says, in answer to his question. "I suppose I never thought we'd all end up so far from each other."

"I didn't, either," Walter admits.

"I suppose you wouldn't," Una says, an uncharacteristic sarcasm in her voice. Walter suddenly sees the family resemblance between her and Jerry.

It is true, though, he knows. He never quite understood how everyone else missed the look in Una's eyes when she used to come to Ingleside to spend the night with Nan and Di. It had been too quiet and accepting to truly be jealous or hateful, but he had seen her longing all the same, when Susan gave Jem his special napkin ring or acquiesced to Rilla's insistence that she not eat from the chipped plate. It had made him vaguely uncomfortable when they were younger - Faith and Jerry and Carl had never made him feel quite so conscious of all he had - but he understands, now.

"No," he says. "We always seemed quite - untouchable. You knew better, I think."

Una shakes her head, blushing again. "Perhaps. But - it couldn't be helped."

"It was - good, though," he continues, sensing her discomfort. "They don't - quite understand. Not like you. But it's a start. It feels better, for now."

"I'm glad, then," she says, giving him a small smile, and that does something strange to his nerves, too.

"I saw Arthur Baker," he says - more to distract himself; he doesn't expect her to know who he is.

"Is he related to Susan?" she asks, and that makes him laugh, for he has never considered a relation between the two before. He somehow can't picture Susan wanting to be related to anyone like Arthur, but the thought amuses more than it hurts.

"Not at all," he tells her. Then he sighs, reality returning to him. "I shouldn't be laughing. He was one of my fellow slackers, at school."

"Oh?"

"He didn't go," Walter says, feeling the weight of his doubts beginning to press on him again. "It seems that he is braver than I." Coward, shirker - and what have you to show for it?

"No," Una says, and Walter is surprised by the conviction in her voice. "That - that isn't the case at all, Walter."

"He stood firm in his convictions," Walter argues. "I can't say the same. I was afraid of being called a coward, so I went. Perhaps that was the true cowardice."

"You went because you wanted to protect us," Una says, speaking faster than he's ever heard her talk. "Because - because you decided that was more important than your fear. Walter, there's nothing cowardly about that."

"I wasn't brave enough to stand by what I believed," he says, wishing he could make her see - the hurt he has inflicted upon himself - the sting of knowing that he made his choice, and he will never be sure if it is the right one. Of being a fool.

"Do you think it's cowardice every time someone changes their mind, then?" Una asks so fiercely that Walter is taken aback. She seems surprised at herself, and presses a hand to her face for a moment. "Are - are we arguing?" she asks, her eyes crinkling at the corners.

The tension is broken, and Walter almost laughs, for it does seem fairly ridiculous. He rarely argues, and he has never known Una to do so. And certainly he never imagined that they would have such a spirited conversation with each other. "I believe it could be called debating," he says.

Una becomes serious, asking gently, "What really happened?"

He sighs. Where to begin? Arthur's naïveté, his own foolishness, the chasm between those who went and those who did not - he is not sure he can explain it even to himself. Still, he tries. "I let people hurt him. I didn't offer him help or comfort. I was - I resented him, I suppose." Perhaps I even felt he deserved it. "I was angry that he had the courage to be unswayed by letters and white feathers while I didn't. And I was angry that he's so safe, still. He will never know what so many of us live with. If we do live." If we don't end up lining the trenches in lieu of sandbags, or thrown in wagons but slipping off into the mud. So many things Arthur Baker has escaped - what, then, are harsh words or white feathers in comparison?

But what does that make him, that he can hold such a conviction?

He is shaken out of his thoughts by Una's hand slipping into his, pressing their palms together. "I'm sorry," she says, simply.

Words stick in his throat, so he nods and they climb the incline that leads to the manse. He doesn't know what he wants to say, and small talk has never been his way nor hers. So they walk in silence. He cannot help but look at her every now and then. In the absence of conversation, Susan's words have come back to rattle around in his head. Half the town expects you and Una Meredith to make a match of it.

A year ago, he would have called that one of the most ridiculous things he'd ever heard. Una, his childhood playmate, who had grown up so plain and shy, fading into the background of his life as he went on to Queen's and Lowbridge and Redmond and she had remained behind in the Glen. She had been surprising in her sweetness, at times, in her delicacy that always reminded him of the tea roses that bloomed in Mother's garden; they always needed especial care not to be choked by the other flowers. But that is all.

Now - now, he does not know what to call it. 'Ridiculous' would be an insult, he thinks, to Una - Una, who knows him better than anyone now, who has trusted him with her own hidden stories in return for helping bear his weight. Una, with her sweet smile and quiet voice, the little wrinkles around her eyes that appear during her rare moments of laughter. He is surprised at himself for remembering these things about her.

Are they seeing something he is not? Sometimes, when he turns to look at her, she is already looking back. She had written to him first, he remembers, when he was at Redmond.

Walter shakes his head, but the thoughts will not go away. It's all too - confusing, and the questions press against him almost physically - he swears he can feel them against his skin, close to bursting.

"Rilla says people have been talking," he says, trying to keep his voice light, carefree. They have come to the gate of the manse and stop, lingering.

Una takes a step back from him, late afternoon shadow shifting across her face, obscuring her expression for a moment. "Yes," she mumbles, not meeting his eyes. "It's - ridiculous."

Walter feels oddly stung by this. "Yes. Well. I only meant to say that - I'm sorry if my visits have been making things awkward for you."

"No," Una says quickly, and Walter feels that strange warmth again. "People always talk - and I'm quite used to it, you know." Her lips quirk and Walter finds that his do too, in memory of the Meredith's children unsupervised upbringing.

They lapse into silence again, turning to watching the sun go down, turning the trees to silhouettes, the crosses of the Methodist headstones thrown into stark relief. The strange light of sunset catches at the hairs that have escaped from Una's braid, turning the black to red and gold.

"I used to want to be buried here," Una says, so softly that he's not sure he was meant to hear it. She is not looking at him, her eyes instead drifting over a hollow covered by a weeping birch's curtain.

Walter is not quite sure what overcomes him, in this moment. Perhaps it is the seriousness of her face and voice, that she is sharing this with him. He says her name and she turns, eyes wide, blue almost black in the fading light.

His hand comes up to touch her face, and she does not move away. He does not know what he is searching for, in her face - in her sad, wistful eyes, under the straight, dark brows that make her look so serious, in the flat line between her pale lips. He could kiss her, he thinks - and then is surprised at the thought; it makes him feel so awkward that he thinks he must do something, break the stillness.

He finds a strand of hair curling about her shoulder and tucks it behind her ear, stepping back as politely as the situation can allow.

"Goodnight, Una."

He is not sure how he makes it back to Ingleside so quickly with his leg, but he returns in time for Susan's ration biscuits, letting Rilla's chatter and Jims's short, immaturely formed sentences flow over his thoughts and drown them.

They resurface, though, as he washes his face and prepares for sleep. Walter does not rest well that night, but for once it is not for nightmares.