Gilbert thought he was used to rough travelling. From choppy waters by ferry in his Redmond years, to driving the buggy on the lumpy, poorly finished roads leading to White Sands (he would drive even in the rain, or on the coldest of winter days), he'd gotten used to going places without comfort being a priority, or even an option.
This, though, was frankly ridiculous.
If only they could see him now, the reputable Dr. Blythe, honors student and top graduate in medical school, recipient of the Cooper prize, illegally hiding behind trunks on the 10:14, without having paid. He should have been sitting at the very least in the second class compartment, but after he'd gotten...somewhat insistent with the incompetent and highly uncooperative ticket vendor, he'd been denied boarding. Garrison, who'd originally only planned to come as for as the train station with him, had ordered him to shut up and dragged him down the far side of the platform. Without so much as a glance left or right, Garrison hoisted himself up in the second to last car, leaving Gilbert to scramble up after him, into...
"...the luggage car?" What kind of trouble was he getting into now? "We're not even ticketed!"
"Yeah, well, you kind of blew your chance of booking a fare the regular way by assaulting that vendor."
"I did no such thing! He had the gall to refuse me access to public transport-"
"They'd already called final boarding," Garrison pointed out needlessly: Gilbert had heard the conductor's shrill whistle. "You threatening him out of a job was bad enough, but when you started gesticulating with your fists, he was well within his rights to deny you access on any public transport."
The car lurched forward, and he did his best to stay on the shifty trunk he was using as a seat. "Yes, well, while you may be used to breaking the law, I actually try to abide by it. Have you given any thought as to what happens when someone finds us here?"
Gilbert ground his teeth when Garrison had the nerve to roll his eyes at him. "Relax, will ya? No one will come in here until the next stop. We will pretend to be looking for our luggage, probably get a slap on the wrist, and get off to purchase tickets for the rest of the way. You can even pay retroactively, if you're worried about your sainthood being revoked."
He ignored the barb and scooted into a less uncomfortable position. His back ached, and his behind longed for something softer on which to sit. He frowned: this was what getting old felt like.
Misinterpreting the tension on his face, Garrison couldn't help but comment: "You take it all so seriously."
Gilbert turned the evilest, murderous look he could muster on him: "If you don't think my wife being on the run, possibly in danger, is serious, then what the devil are you doing here?"
"Oh, get off it. Of course I take that seriously. Anne's welfare is my biggest concern right now. I meant you. You don't exactly suffer from too much humility, do you? Heck, if I wasn't as worried for her as you are right now, I'd say you were pathetic." Gilbert glared at him mutely. "I swear, man, if you don't stop forcing this 'holier than thou' attitude on yourself, you'll lose more than just your wife. Honestly, loosen up. You're liable to blow a gasket."
Gilbert was sent back in time, to his third year at Redmond. It was Friday, 4:27 o'clock, and he was walking across school grounds when grey clouds rolled in over the afternoon sky, and started dissolving into a light April shower. People scattered to find shelter, a few opened their umbrellas and hurried along. He didn't mind:he enjoyed the quality of the air when rain pattered down, the sensation of tiny drops misting his face.
Just as he approached Woodrow Hall, the drops grew heavier and started to come down a bit faster. He hurried into the building, shaking himself quickly before darting into classroom 1.
"Mr. Blythe," intoned Professor Leary with his dry, nasally voice. "I'm glad you were able to join us."
"Professors," he addressed the committee, somewhat winded, with a quick nod. "Sorry I'm late." The old academics peered at him, unamused and unimpressed. Gilbert's good mood dissipated. He brushed some rain off his brow, fidgeting nervously, waiting for their meeting to begin.
After what felt like the longest twenty minutes of his life, he was finally dismissed. He couldn't wait to get out there, but right before he could make a hasty exit, the dean asked if they could have a quick word. "You did well today, Gilbert. You're a smart, hardworking chap - on paper, you're the ideal candidate for the Cooper prize. But son, you know how these things are: one has got to fit the image. There is a certain...decorum...to be observed."
Puzzlement flooded Gilbert's senses, followed by embarrassment when he realized he was being criticized. "Now," the dean droned on, "I know that students are not required to wear jackets at all times. But if it rains on the day of an important meeting, do make sure that you are presentable. Carry an umbrella, at the very least. You will soon find that presentation is one of the keys of success."
Gilbert thanked the dean as politely as he could and left the classroom, seeped of all good humour. To make matters worse, it was raining in earnest now. He braced himself and stepped out under the downpour. Even after nearly three years of life at Redmond, he couldn't get used to how incredibly uptight the people here were. For goodness' sake, it was just rain! Nothing more natural: good for crops, flowers, forests - even for the pitiful scraps of grass and shrubbery the university called gardens. How could there be any life without rain?
Drops started coming down faster: he bent his head and quickened his pace. He didn't get why it was such a big deal. It wasn't as though he'd gone to the meeting completely disheveled or filthy. What did a few drops of water on his shirt matter? This was why the best players on the football team were country boys: everyone else was too worried about getting dirty or ripping their clothes. Back at home, no one ever cowered away from a bit of dirt. Farmers lived, ate and breathed earth, and when it rained, people were glad. He'd even had mud fights with his friends, on occasion.
As the drops stopped simply falling and started pelting him, he felt himself getting angry. Who were they, to feel so superior, anyway? he asked himself as he sloshed through a forming puddle. He understood the merits of scholarship, and the hierarchy of academia, but just because he ranked beneath them at the moment, didn't mean he wasn't as worthy a human being.
This was what his father had warned him about, Gilbert admitted grudgingly, squinting through the raindrops. City folk were sharp and calculating, and they looked down people like them - country men, people of the land. Too much focus on abstract notions of money and power, nothing concrete to hold on to. When Gilbert had pointed out that there was nothing wrong with knowledge, and that without abstract professions, there would be no teachers or doctors, his father had merely shrugged. Every time they'd had this conversation, Gilbert's will had strengthened: he would prove his father wrong, show that he could belong in their world, earn a degree, and still be a good man.
A carriage came barrelling down the street, its huge wheels generating parallel waves of murky rainwater from the pavement up at least five feet high on the way. He went to step out of the way, but was blocked by the fence on his other side, and a wall of water crashed mercilessly over him, drenching him from head to toe. He blinked, stunned, as the carriage passed by without stopping. He swiped rain mixed with grit from his eyes and looked down at his sorry state: his trousers were coated in mud, and his good shirt and vest, once respectively white and blue, were now brown with street water.
Accepting that his clothes may simply be ruined beyond repair, and that he might have to buy new ones, he pushed his sopping wet hair from his face and went on his way. The rain was coming down now in solid sheets, but it hardly mattered: he couldn't possibly get any wetter than he already was. He was extremely cold, though, and was glad to step under the covered porch of Patty's Place. He pressed as much water as he could from his trouser legs, and shook rain from his arms. The door swung open as he ran his fingers through his hair, in a half-hearted attempted to make himself presentable.
"Oh, for crying out loud, you're drenched," scoffed Phil. "You shouldn't have come out in this deluge, you know. We figured you would stay home instead of trying to swim here."
"Now you tell me," he grumbled, swallowing back an even less elegant retort. "Would you mind telling An-"
"Gil! You made it!" Anne shoved her housemate out of the way and invited him in with a smile, and his anger vanished, just like that.
"I better not," he said sheepishly, blinking through raindrops dripping from his hair down his face, though he wanted nothing more. "Don't want to track muddy prints all over the floor."
"It's fine, just take your shoes off first."
At her insistence, he'd given in. After emptying gallons of water from his shoes, he was ushered into the kitchen, wrapped into a blanket and shoved onto a stool by the stove with strict instructions to get warm. Phil excused herself to resume her trigonometry assignment, and he was left alone in the kitchen with Anne. He used the corner of the blanket to dab at his face and hair while she poured the tea.
"Well, aren't you a sight," she teased lightly, pushing a teacup in his hands. He breathed in the steam, relishing the warmth in his shaking hands, and sighed. "Rough day?"
That charm of hers never failed. One bat of her eyelashes, and words would start spewing out of his mouth with no control. He was already at a disadvantage, shoeless in the kitchen, shivering in wet, muddy clothes, feeling deeply humiliated and insulted, and so he spilled his guts. He told her all about the meeting, including the dean's personal notes at the end.
"Oh, Gil," she laughed gently. "You take yourself so seriously. Come on, we've always known snobbery was part of the deal here. All we have to do is pretend to fit the bill until we graduate. You're doing splendidly, you just have to smile through it until graduation which, may I remind you, is not so far away."
"Fake it till we make it, eh?" he raised an eyebrow, already feeling marginally better. He sat back and sighed. "How did you get so good at it? You fit in the social circle here seamlessly, like you've always belonged. How is it so easy for you?"
She snorted and gave him a look, as though the answer were perfectly obvious. "Gil, you goose, I've been faking it for years!" Before he could answer, she'd tousled his damp hair, ducking out of his reach when he tried to retaliate. Soon, both tea and propriety were forgotten as they chased each other around the kitchen table...
Another sharp turn sent him flying forward, effectively propelling him back to the present time, and straight into Garrison's chest.
"Oy!" he shouted, throwing Gilbert on the floor. "When I said loosen up, I didn't mean it that way! I'm not into encounters of that type. And even if I was, your ugly mug wouldn't do it for me."
Gilbert sat up with a spark of mischief in his eye that had been until then long absent, and delivered a swift kick to the suitcase upon which Garrison was currently perching. Jack tumbled backwards, as did the suitcase which fell open, spilling it's contents (mostly clothes, by the look of it) on him. He was about to blast his travel companion for his sore bottom, when the door to the car clicked. He shoved the items in the case as fast as he could, fastening it shut just as the door was flung open.
"Ah, have we reached Montreal yet, then?" Jack asked casually, pretending not to notice the odd stares he was receiving from the two porters in uniform. Blythe cast his gaze to the floor, a blush spreading across his face. Great, now that useless fool is going to get us both in trouble. When the porters did nothing but keep staring from one man to the next, that coward actually started trembling. He made a mental note to ask Anne when they found her (if they ever found her) what she'd ever seen in such a poor excuse of a man.
The mystery was uncovered when the taller of the two porters walked up to him hesitantly, and gingerly pulled a piece of white cloth that had gotten stuck to his belt. It was only when Blythe's tremors turned into a series of snorts, inelegantly masked behind a faked coughing fit, that he recognized the lacy fabric for what it was: a very, VERY large piece of woman's underwear.
a/n: Please do not be alarmed, I don't intend to turn this story into a comedy! I just saw a moment that had the potential to become funny organically. Plus, with the last chapter erring on the heavy side, I chose to have this one be a bit of relief (though there are still some heavier implications here). Next chapter will (probably) be a bit more sober.