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CHAPTER XIII

The Ocean

in which nothing comes close to the way they need each other

Three months later

Oh, lovely month of April. What used to be a thick layer of snow had melted down into fields of flowers that had just started to bloom. The weather had statted to get slithly warmer, which gave the children from Avonlea the opportunity of enjoying the days outside, under the warmth of the sun.

Who would have thought that Anne Shirley-Cuthbert would be the only one to miss that beyond wonderful arrival of spring?

If Matthew Cuthbert had been there, he would have told her to go for infinite, never-ending walks through the filled with flowers fields.

But Matthew Cuthbert was dead.

It had been four long months without him. Anne missed her father more and more each and every day – if that was even possible. She remembered what Marilla told her the day after the funeral. "The pain will eventually go away". But it did not.

The now sixteen-year old Anne Shirley-Cuthbert rested the flower crown she had made that morning against Matthew's grave, creating a contrast of bright colours against the grey, cold stone that seemed almost artistic.

"Hello, Matthew" She wondered how many times over the past three years she had said those two words – always filled with joy. Now she felt heartbroken, and she did not like how her voice sounded when she said his name. She did not sound like her. "I'm sorry I didn't come to visit you earlier" a single tear had started to roll over her freckled face. She took a deep breath. "You must have felt so lonely, please, do forgive me for not being stronger enough to... to come and talk to you" she finally said, playing nervously with her hands. She knew that nobody had come to put flowers to his grave. Probably just Marilla or maybe Jerry. "Anyway, you'd never really enjoyed people's company apart from us, the Cuthberts" she let out a small yet sad chuckle, the memory of his adoptive father and his social awkwardness made her heart soften. "Nothing is the same anymore, Matthew" she sighed. "Marilla is so sad. Jerry barely jokes anymore... he doesn't even tease me about me liking Gil-!" she suddenly stopped at the thought of the boy. "Gilbert left" she said, caressing the cold stone grave after taking a long breath. "I don't even know where he is. Rachel Lynde says he got an job as an auxiliary doctor in some other town. Sounds thrilling." she took a look around the graveyard, making sure that nobody was around, for the words she was about to say were ones that she had been keeping for herself for a long time. "I miss him dearly, Matthew" she admitted. And it felt good, saying it outloud. "I wish I could go back in time and change the way I treated him" she sobbed. "Oh, Matthew! I've always treated him so poorly! I wish I could show him how highly I truly think of him!"

I bet he doesn't want to know about me.

I bet he doesn't even think about me.

She took her favourite novel in the whole world, Jane Eyre, that first edition that Gilbert had given her last summer. She wanted to read some of her favourite passages outloud. Matthew was, apart from Diana and Ruby, the only person who enjoyed Anne's passionate reading.

And Gilbert.

Gilbert had asked her a few times to read outloud for him – he said she had some kind of gift for such things related to literature. She missed him. I wonder where you are, she thought, as she lifted her eyes to the clear blue sky.

She looked back to Matthew's grave as she took a deep breath before starting to read the passage she had chosen.

"I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you - especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous channel, and two hundred miles or so of land some broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you, - you'd forget me"

She was reading the last words when she realided that she was crying. Anne had read Jane Eyre countless times, and that passage – that passage was one of her favourites! She knew it almost by heart. Yet this time something felt different. Something inside her clicked, and that was the moment when she knew.

She needed to find her way back to him.

She could not lose another kindred spirit.

Later that evening, Gilbert Blythe was cleaning some medical supplies in the now closed clinic he had been working at. He was doing this task with no passion at all.

This was part of the boy's daily routine since he moved in three months ago. The town's doctor was a good man, and he had offered Gilbert a nice and warm bed to sleep in the second floor of the building if he helped in the clinic. In the meantime, he would study so that he could get to college as soon as possible, hopefully the following year.

However, despite being grateful for the opportunity, he was not content at all with his job. He hardly ever got the chance to practice actual medical stuff, since most of the time he had to deal with cleaning medical equipment.

He had moved on to the hall aiming to sweep the floor when he was surprised by a sudden knock at the door. It was too late for it to be a patient. With an expression of confusion, he left the broom leaning against a corner and then aimed towards the door, wiping his hands, not knowing whom to expect.

Gilbert Blythe opened the door to reveal a very concerned Diana Barry along with his best friend, Charlie Sloane. "Diana? Charlie?" he said, looking at them with wide and confused eyes. "What are you doing here?" The pair were holding hands, and by the familiary of the touch between the two teenagers, Gilbert could tell that whatever it was between them, had been going on for a while. He couldn't help but smile at the sight of two of his closest friends being happy.

"Good evening, Gilbert" the girl said with the usual polite tone of a well-raised young lady. "May we come in?" Charlie had left all the talking to Diana, as he wasn't very good with words himself.

"Of course" Gilbert invited them inside, still puzzled at the fact that two teenagers had come to Alberta just to see him. "I'm sorry, I have to ask" he said when his friends had entered the building. "How did you even get here? We are like, three hours away from Avonlea"

"We hopped on the train" the girl simply answered, as if it was something as routinary an mundane as having breakfast. "Anne taught me how to"

"Right. Anne" he furrowed his eyebrows at the mention of the redhead, the memory of that summer day – the two of them secretly hopping on the train burnt in his mind. "What brings the two of you here?" he said, tilting his head, putting the cloth he had been using for cleaning on the nearest table. "You need to come back to Avonlea" Diana went straight to the point. Her smile had disappeared and now her face was covered in a serious expression.

"Is everything alright?" He was mad at Anne, yet he was unable to bury his sense of protection towards her; that would not simply go away. "Is Anne okay?"

"What are you even doing here?"

Gilbert had to agree on that one. What am I even doing here?

"Well, I'm learning" he said after hesitating for a few seconds. It seemed a better answer than "I can't bear seeing Anne and not being able to talk to her since she hates me"

Almost as if she had read the boy's mind, Diana talked again. "Gilbert, Anne cares about you" the boy shook his head at Diana's words. "Listen to me!" Diana took Gilbert hand in hers, which took the boy as a surprise. "She does! And she needs you"

"She needs me? I doubt that" he scoffed. "She made it absolutely clear last time I saw her"

"Gilbert" Diana said again, trying to get the boy's attention. "You know Anne" she said, matter-of-factly. "You know her more than she knows herself, and deep inside you know that she's not being herself since... Matthew"

Gilbert did not give her an answer, for he was still lost in his thoughts, replaying his last conversation with the redhead.

Charlie Sloane, who had remained silent yet observant during the entire conversation, added a few words. He did not know back then, but those words were crucial and Gilbert Blythe would be grateful for those words for his entire lifetime.

"Gil, you liked that girl the moment you saw her in the woods" Charlie said, remembering clearly how Gilbert would not stop talking about the new orphan girl that day – he had admired her ever since he first laid eyes on her and Charlie, being the observant young man he was, had noticed. Gilbert had never shown that kind of interest for a girl. "And you fell in love with her the moment she broke that slate over your head" he said calmly, with the usual unpreocuppied tone in his voice. "Are you really going to stay here knowing that she's hurt?"

Gilbert stood there, static, trying to process his best friend's words. "Just think about it, Gilbert" Diana said, trying to hide a desperate tone in her voice.

He looked at the floor and then back at his friends. "Um, we have two rooms for guests upstairs" he said. "You two should stay the night, it's late"

Gilbert Blythe lay in bed that night – eyes wide open staring at the wooden ceiling. He turned on his side and something in the night table caught his eye. It was Anne's present from last Christmas – that skull she had given him. "For medical purposes" she had said. Of course he had taken it with him when he left Avonlea. It was practical.

Anne.

Maybe I should come back. In the end, Mary was about to give birth and he should be there. For Bash. For Mary. For his family.

As he drifted into sleep thinking about family, a certain flame of red hair burnt in his mind – he thought about her, about her hurting words the last time they had seen each other – she had broken his heart into million pieces that he had packed and taken with him to that stupid town. Gilbert knew he was a hopeless fool for her, considering there was no possible universe in which she would like him back.

But Anne was something more than a girl he liked. She was family. She was his family. And even though families argue and make mistakes sometimes...

Family is family.

______

A/N - HI! Hope you enjoyed this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it!

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