She doesn't bleed. Still, each day passing sends her further back into her mind. She had no courage to tell her mother, not have the courage to face the problem but it was hard to hide the nausea that made up her day now and her parents seemed to lose every ounce of hope they had when she ran from the smell of tea that day, and the next.

Her Mother tries to explain but cannot get the words out, and Father can only talk in medical knowledge that goes over her head. In the end, he gives her a book and that if she has questions he will do his best to answer them.

Shirley seems to hover around her with biscuits, urging her to eat something.

The twins don't know what to say or do, they just watch from shadowed corners, sobering when they see her. Occasionally one of them comes when the nausea takes hold of her, pulling her limp hair as she vomits into the toilet. A cool face cloth, a drink of water…but they never speak to her. Not really, anyway?

Her Father mutters to himself, a late-cycle can mean nothing but a late cycle given her age, but the presence of nausea? It weighs on his conscience, that he cannot deny it.

She hears her parents argue in his office, when did they argue? Truly argue enough for her mother to raise her voice to him?

"Rilla?" She hears Kenneth's voice, she turns her ruddy red hair. Tears streaked down her face, still dressed in one of her white dresses. She curls up on her designated spot in the living room, the chaise. Her stockinged feet pulled up under skirts. Monday is at her feet, he looks at Ken before laying his head back down, which tells her he trusts Ken.

What would she do? She was fifteen and her entire world was upside down and inside out.

"You aren't here alone are you?" He asks suddenly worried about making her uncomfortable.

"Susan is here somewhere?" She says shaking her head. The ribbons of her headband slip lightly as she does. "Mother and Father are at the Manse? Trying to figure out what should done about me?"

"Glen hasn't been ungracious towards you?" He asks carefully sitting across from her.

"It's all very gracious, too gracious but graciousness still doesn't mean my life isn't ruined or changed? I mean who will ever want to marry me now one day, I'll just be some sad old maid living with her parents, or in a cottage day trying to make ends meet. Isn't that how it goes for girls like me? Ruined?" Rilla says bitterly, not realizing she had said that all out loud to him. He doesn't care about details. She was just a kid, a spider that had misfortune befall her.

"I would marry you," Ken says quietly looking at her. "Because you are far from ruined Rilla."

Rilla looks at him with wide eyes, he spent half of the summer calling her Spider. He couldn't….this had to be some sort of cruel joke. Hades taunting her once more?

"It's not nice to joke about things like that, I'm just a spider remember?" she tells him eyes narrowing. Why must he tease her so? It wasn't fair or nice of him!

"You are more than just a spider," Ken tells her. "You were so pretty that night, and I let you go when the news broke out. If I had just held onto your arm longer…maybe I wouldn't have been distracted and let you go off without me when we came back from supper."

"So you feel guilty?" Rilla spits at him angrily, because she doesn't know what else to feel or say. This was not how proposals were supposed to happen!

"I guess so?" He admits, his grey eyes filled with regret. "I just want to make sure that you have everything you could have had. You can stay here, I have school to finish and then….when my ankle heals—if this war is still going on."

War….he would go off to war, like Jem and Jerry.

"If I don't come back you'll be able to marry again if you find someone worthy of you," Ken tells her. "I only want to help you," he says crouching down in front of her. "Let me help you, please? I ask for nothing but companionship unless you want more one day."

Rilla looks at him, confused as ever because everything is confusing.

"Why are you doing this?" She asks him, arms wrapping around her middle.

"Because I have this undying hope that if my sister ever was in such a situation. That one of my friends would do the same thing." Ken tells her. "I wouldn't say your brothers of course as I know that Jem is head over heels with Faith, and Shirley is too young still. So that leaves Walter and we know how he and Persis get along." Ken tries to make her laugh and when she does laugh lightly he grins at her.

"They would spend every evening fighting because she hates poetry and that is all he does," Rilla says quietly shaking her head. The corners of her mouth upturned slightly.

"But me and you, we would get along? We would make it work, Toronto doesn't have to know anything, heck we don't even have to go to Toronto. We can stay here, I can find work, we can figure it out together one day?"

"But marriage…the ba—by…it's too much?" Rilla says quietly, her arms wrapping around her stomach even tighter. "It's a lot to take on when one does not ask for it."

"Well, I am asking for it," Ken says after a moment. "I'm not doing this blindly, I just wanted to ask you before I offer my offer to your father, given we will need his permission."

"I can't, I can't let you raise a child when I don't even know if I can love it," she tells him, her breathing shallow as tears trickle down her face.

"I can't imagine what you are going through, but I do believe that if we try we can at least give a child a good life. They never have to know of their origins, we can just raise it and love it." Ken says after a short moment.

"You are too good for someone like me," Rilla tells him. Not wanting to admit she doesn't think she could ever love this child. Her mind whirls with the information, it makes her feel even more dirty and impure.

"You are too good," Ken says shaking his head. "If I had never left you alone if I hadn't gotten caught up in the talk. We would have danced all night until your brothers took you home. Instead, I let you go and watched you dance with others before disappearing." Ken says shaking his head.

"I'll marry you," she says quietly, letting out a shaky breath. "At least at the very least, I will be respectable again?"

"You will always be respectable Rilla, and who knows if this war goes on, if I miraculously survive it. We can move somewhere that has no idea and we can just start fresh," Ken reminds her.

"I'm not here, you heard the girls who used to be my friends. I am some sort of outcast, that should't be talked to!" Rilla reminds him.

"Their mothers are just afraid," Ken tries to offer some sort of answer. Still crouched in front of her. She had dreamed of proposals, she had dreamed of Kenneth Ford and herself when she was older. Kissing, the mysteries of honeymoons.

This wasn't what life was supposed to be.

Hades shouldn't have never taken so much from her.

"I'll talk to your father when he gets back," Ken says, finally straightening up. "Do you want to walk around the garden?"

Rilla only shakes her head but looks longingly out of the window.

"Come, some fresh air will do you good," Ken says urging her, holding out a hand to help her stand.

She just stares at it.

She stares at him.

August is leaving them soon, and September is around the corner. The school would be in, her siblings would leave for college. She would just be here… for what she thought would be a year filled with fun and laughter.

She takes the hand gingerly, allowing his help but takes it back as soon as she is on her feet. She slips on her tennis shoes that she had left underneath the chair. Monday looks at her, gets up stretching and takes his place at her ankles as goes for her hat from the bench at the door.

"He's taking to his duties," Ken says watching Monday follow her.

"That he is, and for a change, Susan is not chasing him from the spare room for sleeping on the bed in there," Rilla tells him quietly.

Susan is out in the garden and double-takes when she sees Kenneth Ford with her charge. For a moment she sees Owen Ford in him, younger of course, but the same man who had fallen in love with Leslie Moore, before they had found out that Dick Moore, hadn't been Dick Moore.

He can't be harmful if he is getting the tortured soul of Ingleside to be out in the sunlight and not holed up in the house. A look on his face as he speaks to the young girl who can't even look at him. Her arms still wrapped around her waist as if she were uncomfortable, but she looked up at him for a short moment and smiled briefly.

She wasn't afraid of him, she wasn't…uncomfortable with him. There is an acceptable distance between them.

Ken leaves her, promising to stop by the next day, giving her time to process or if she wants to change her mind.

He calls ahead of time, making sure the doctor is in before he comes over.

"May I talk to you both, privately?" Kenneth says to her parents when he arrives back at Ingleside. Father looks at her long enough that her cheeks flush. Susan must have mentioned that Kenneth had been over the day before. He directs his gaze to Kenneth before nodding his head.

"My office?" His father says and Anne nods her head. Kenneth looks to Rilla and holds out his hand to Rilla which makes her parents look at each other.

He lets Rilla sit down, before leaning against the bookcase. The doctor behind his desk, Mrs. Blythe in the other chair next to her daughter.

She nods her head after a moment.

"I talked to Rilla yesterday, and my parents not long ago," he begins. "I want to help Rilla after all it's partly my fault. I mean if I stayed with her, if I didn't get dragged into talk of war. This may have never happened, but I can make things right for her and give her some security."

"You want to marry her?" Her mother says for him and Kenneth nods his head.

"Isn't that the best solution to this whole thing?" Ken asks.

"That is a noble thing to offer Kenneth but she is far too young to even consider marriage, plus you have school to finish, you're twenty-one years old," Her father says, squaring his shoulders as he looks over to her and she shrinks in her seat.

"I can finish school, and she can stay here with you, that way when I enlist once my ankle is healed, she'll be safe and provided for. She will get a portion of my pay, and should anything happen. Also, men my age get married all the time."

"Yes, but ladies her age do not," Gilbert reminds him.

"What you offering will change your life forever Kenneth," Mother speaks up, her voice a touch higher than what it usually is. "Marriage is a very big thing to do, and yes people marry at your age, but not so much at Rilla's Kenneth. This isn't the game of life, it is your life."

"I know, but I want to," Kenneth says to everyone in the room. "It will give her respectability, there is little predictability of War, and the way it sounds.—Well, if I die she can remarry one day without questions. This is a perfect solution."

"And if you live?" Gilbert asks him with a look.

"Then at least you know she will be looked after, want for nothing and I will always respect her," Ken says standing straighter. As if he didn't think her parents would oppose his offer as they seem to be.

"Can we think about it?" Her mother says for her Father.

"Of course, and you can call my parents as well," Ken tells them looking at Rilla.

"Ultimately it will be your decision Rilla," her father speaks up making her look up. "Blessings aside of everything?"

'Will I be less of a disgrace?" Rilla hears her voice speak.

"You never will be a disgrace," Her father says gruffly. "But your life will be considerably easier, but it is not a choice you should make lightly."

Rilla can only nod her head and looks at Ken sorrowfully.

"I will sleep on it," she tells them all, knowing she knows her answer already.

Still, in the long list of trunk calls placed, another goes out to Toronto, though this time it is mother to mother.

"Leslie?"

"I'm here Anne," The voice says through the phone. "My son has told you of his plan then?"

"He has, and while I am honoured by the sacrifices he is willing to make, they are both young. Is this even a good idea? Does he know what he is signing up for?" Anne finds herself asking. She never even encouraged such a thought since this all came to be. Marriage while and options, had not been an option they had even willingly considered.

"He thinks he does Anne? One can never be sure, but he's adamant that he can do this. He's very much like Owen like that. He would never hurt her though, he is a kind soul underneath his lady-killer reputation that he had at school. I made sure to raise him that violence against women and children is abhorrent, and Owen taught him the same. He kept reminding me that if it was Persis, we would all be grateful if any one of his friends decided to save her reputation."

"You are understanding of it then?" Anne says quietly.

"He's more prepared for it than Owen was of my history when he tried to court me. I kept expecting the worst, for him to change overnight until he set me down and asked me what was wrong?" Leslie tells her. "

"Owen approves of his decision then?' Anne asks.

"He warned Kenneth that being a knight in shining armour can be dangerous for both parties, but if he felt like it was his duty he would agree to the match?" Leslie says so carefully over the line.

Anne hums. "Rilla trusts him, which I think is the most crucial thing. Her trust in the world has diminished greatly. She barely leaves the house, afraid to be alone, but she trusts him."

"Then maybe this will be the thing to join our families?" Leslie says.

"Do you want us to wait so you can come out?" Anne asks next. "We have a few days?"

"I'll talk to Owen," Leslie says, knowing the sooner the better. "Ken has school and whatnot, not that we wouldn't want to be there, but I understand if it's easier to not make a fuss and to have it settled quickly?"

I hope whoever is reading this is enjoying it, i cant see stats or anything right now, so if you are enjoying it, please considering letting me know that you are enjoying it We have actually gotten to what I consider the story that i always wanted to write its still a-bit of a wild ride and have some more twists and turns up my sleeve which i hope will keep you all entertained

Tina