Home is something to be found (and sometimes it's found twice)

Jerry would be the first to say he had learned a great deal since he first came to Green Gables - how to work a farm, how to bake, how to read… but the greatest lesson of all was that Anne always had the most to say when he was supposed to be working.

Today's topic seemed to be something to do with family, as she mentioned Mr. and Ms. Cuthbert quite a lot - and something to do with trees and souls? Jerry honestly couldn't follow all the turns Anne's speech took. Then again, he wasn't paying attention, because if he did he wouldn't finish grooming Belle until the sun was down.

Mon dieu, did Anne ever run out of words?

Jerry kept cleaning Belle's hooves - full of clay and dirt after pulling the plough - trying to hum a response in the right places. Well, at least he tried, but eventually Anne cut herself off with a frustrated, "Jerry, are you even listening to me?"

He grinned. "No."

His maman always told him to be honest, after all.

"Your manners are as appalling as your sense of humor," Anne sniffed, crossing her arms for effect. It was dampened however by the way she wavered on the section of fence she was perched on, nearly falling backwards onto the middle pathway of the barn. She had already done that once, two weeks ago, but it seemed her bruised elbows and Ms. Cuthbert's scolding didn't stop her from tempting fate again.

Jerry frowned. "Appalling?"

"A-P-P-A-L-L-I-N-G. Terrible. Disappointing. Ungentlemanly. Take your choosing."

"Oh." Jerry let Belle's hoof go, moving to her right front leg. She huffed, but let him lift it. "Then you always choose appalling times to talk to me. Can't you talk to Ms. Cuthbert instead?"

"But this is important!" With a leap she landed in the horse stall and stalked over to them, hands fondling Belle's muzzle but eyes focused on him. "Don't you see how positively lucky you are?"

"What do you mean?"

"Honestly, Jerry Baynard. If you had listened the first time I needn't repeat myself." She paused, which by now he knew meant she was gearing up for one of her… what did she call them? Proclamations? Like the word in French, but said differently.

"Most children are fortunate to have one home," Anne was saying, "myself included now - something I will cherish 'til my last dying breath. But to have two homes, two places where one's soul is allowed to dwell and blossom unconditionally, well, that is something truly lucky, don't you think?"

"I don't know." Which was true - Jerry had no idea what point Anne was trying to make, but he was sure she would tell him.

He examined Belle's hoof, running his fingers over the groove. There was something caught - a rock perhaps - on the side of the horseshoe, but if he tried reaching underneath it with the hoof pick while he pushed it at an angle…?

"You have two homes, Jerry. Two when some could only dream of one."

He huffed a laugh. "My parents aren't rich, remember? And since I left them this morning, I'm pretty sure they haven't magically bought a second house."

"Oh, for heaven's sake," Anne said, sounding so much like Ms. Cuthbert it was ridiculous. "First of all, a house and a home are not the same thing. A home is usually a house but not all houses are homes. Secondly, I'm not referring to your parents. You have one home with them, yes, but you have another here. At Green Gables."

A quiet thud sounded as the rock came loose, but Jerry paid it no mind. "That… doesn't make any sense."

"How does it not make sense?"

"I don't live here like you - I work, and then I leave. And how can you have two homes anyway?"

Anne huffed, leaving Belle with a last stroke to come up beside him. "That's a moot point and you know it. M-O-O-T. Not valid," she added at his look. "How often have you not stayed for dinner? How often have you not stayed the night, sleeping in my bed like you do with your siblings?

"As for two homes," she flicked one of her braids over her shoulder, "if a tree can have several roots, why can't a human? A home is not about a place, it's about the people who make you feel like you are home. Unless…" Her voice turned strangely quiet. "Unless you mean you don't feel Green Gables is your home?"

Jerry looked over the smooth inside of Belle's hoof again, if only to not have to look at Anne.

In truth, he did feel something for the farm and the people on it. A quiet sense of something each time the houses first came into view over the hills in the morning. Something else each night he closed the gates behind him again.

Feelings he had only associated with one other place before.

But the facts were: he was paid to be here. He did his hours. He looked after the farm (and Mr. Cuthbert) as well as he could. And even if he did stay sometimes, like Anne had said, most days he left.

He was not stupid enough to believe he would not be welcome at Green Gables had he not been a hired hand, but home? There was weight to the word. A knowing you belonged. A… une certitude.

And that he wasn't sure he was allowed to have for Green Gables.

Some of those feelings must have shown on Jerry's face, as Anne clutched his sleeve. "Have we not expressed your welcome here clear enough? Because if so, I shall shower you with welcomings and reassurances until there is no doubt you belong and your soul finds comfort to dwell among ours."

Anne sounded so overly serious Jerry couldn't help but laugh, even as a part of him squirmed at being at the receiving end of one of her passionate speeches.

"You're being dramatic," he told her, gently letting Belle's leg go and moving to her other side (and out of Anne's grasp). "And it's not up to you. Mr. and Ms. Cuthbert own the farm, non?"

Another sigh, and Anne was back to her usual attitude. "You're awfully presumptuous to think my opinion holds no sway in who gets to be part of our home, but fine."

Jerry opened his mouth to tell her to stop using big words, but also to tell him what 'presump'-something meant, but got no chance as Anne continued, "You have two homes, Jerry Baynard, and I shall prove it to you."

And with that, she climbed over the fence and stomped out of the barn.

Shaking his head, Jerry reached for Belle again, ready to let the whole matter go until the next time Anne barged in - or forgot all about it, as she sometimes did when something else caught her 'scope of imagination'.

Then he heard her distant shout and froze.

"Matthew!"

Pour l'amour de dieu.

When Jerry dashed out of the barn Anne was already halfway across the freshly ploughed field, red braids flying around her and arms waving at a visibly confused Mr. Cuthbert. Jerry ran faster, hoping for once Mr. Cuthbert would ignore his daughter and keep working.

Of course he didn't. Of course he immediately rested the sack of potatoes to be planted against his leg and gave her his full attention. And of course Anne had a long enough head start she had already started talking by the time Jerry skidded to a halt next to them.

"Wouldn't you say this is my home, even though I am not your and Marilla's kin?"

Mr. Cuthbert's gaze softened. "Indeed."

"Anne," Jerry bit out, heart pounding from his dash across the property. At least that was what it had to be from, right?

"Then you agree a home is something you can choose, just as the seeds of a tree choose where to fly and settle their roots?"

"I… suppose so?"

Anne turned back to Jerry with a pointed gesture towards Mr. Cuthbert. "See?"

"See what?" Jerry said, voice edged with annoyance. "And tree seeds don't choose where to go. They follow the wind."

"It's a simile-"

"Could, uh, one of you tell me what we're talking about?" Mr. Cuthbert interrupted in the quiet way of his that made everyone listen anyway. Well, except Mrs. Lynde, but that was often because she was a loud talker and didn't hear him in the first place.

"I've been trying to explain to Jerry," this time her dramatic gestures were towards him instead, "he has two homes to call his own, but he insists that is for you and Marilla to decide. So. Do tell him."

A quiet moment passed where Mr. Cuthbert only glanced between the two of them, forehead wrinkled. Then the understanding dawned and Jerry quite wished to join the potatoes underground or, even better, that he hadn't followed Anne outside at all.

Mr. Cuthbert cleared his throat. "Well, I-"

"What is the meaning of this? Anne, I thought I told you to come inside a half-hour ago."

Ms. Cuthbert didn't look half as cross as she sounded, skirts hitched high as she made her way across the uneven field.

"I'm sorry, Marilla," Anne said, "but I had a matter of utmost importance to deal with. Still have, in fact."

"No, you don't," Jerry said at the same time as Ms. Cuthbert asked, "What is possibly more important than tea?"

And so Jerry had no choice but to bear through Anne's explanation for a third time, trying and failing to keep the uncomfortable grimace off his face - because leaving would mean he did care what Mr. and Ms. Cuthbert had to say about it all, and Anne would never let it go after that and-

"For once," Ms. Cuthbert said, "that is a reasonable conclusion."

Jerry blinked, all thoughts grinding to a halt. "It is?"

Ms. Cuthbert only smiled - smiled - and patted his shoulder.

"Come along now," she said to Anne, all business once more, "tea doesn't make itself."

As Anne followed Ms. Cuthbert towards the house she sent him a look over her shoulder, smug as if she had won one of her spelling bees, but Jerry barely paid it any mind. Because Ms. Cuthbert, the most practical, level-headed person he'd ever met, just… just…

The feel of Mr. Cuthbert's watching him shook him out of his daze - Mr. Cuthbert, who had been in the middle of sowing potatoes while Jerry was supposed to take care of Belle.

Jerry cleared his throat, gaze dropping to his shoes without quite knowing why. "I'll be in the barn."

He was already moving when he got Mr. Cuthbert's hum of a reply.

:::

"Jerry?"

Jerry paused, the outer gate part-way open. In the growing dusk, Green Gables was only a shadow behind Mr. Cuthbert, but the lantern hanging on the fence post lit up his face. Clearly enough he knew Mr. Cuthbert had something important he wanted to say.

"I wouldn't mind either, you know."

He frowned. "Mind what?"

"If you considered Green Gables a second home." His eyes softened. "I wouldn't mind at all."

The words trickled through his insides and his heart, spreading a warmth like coffee on a cold morning and bringing a smile with it.

"Thank you, Mr. Cuthbert."

A pause, where Mr. Cuthbert seemed to think something over. Then the smile was returned, small but sincere. "Just Matthew is fine."

Matthew. Like Ms. Cuthbert called him. Like Anne called him.

As Jerry closed the gate behind him he couldn't contain the grin on his face. And as he made his way along the familiar forest trails and later curled up in the blankets and sheets surrounded by his parents and siblings, the warm feeling stayed with him too.

So this started as a fic with an aimless argument about homes between Anne and Jerry because I find their dynamic immensely entertaining, and suddenly it became a whole family affair with both Matthew and Marilla involved. But now afterwards I think it came out better for it :)