Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Anne’s arms fell, mimicked by the rifle barrel. The man with the axe stayed where he was but looked over at his companion as a grin erupted over Gilbert Blythe’s face.

Her wide eyes betrayed her shock as she stared, barely realizing that she was forgetting to breath.

Without thinking, she responded to his question with a shake of her head and the truth: “I wouldn’t waste the bullets.”

“What were you going to do, then?” Gilbert asked, eyes never leaving her even though the woman inside said something else, possibly directed at him.

Automatically, Anne’s gun was holstered on her belt and her knife was in her hand in a flash, slipped from the sheath twisted into her hair. 

Gilbert looked positively delighted.

Before Anne could blink, Gilbert’s gun was gone and he was in front of her, her knife tumbling to the floor, lifting her into his arms and spinning her once around the porch.

“I knew you could do it,” she heard him whisper into her hair.

“What?” Anne breathed, hands gripping his shirt and dizzily noting how much taller he had gotten.

Setting her back on her feet, Gilbert pulled back just enough so he could see her, eyes shining and looking as if he was memorizing her freckled face and the way she had her hair up. 

“Survive,” Gilbert said simply and Anne felt herself drawn to the feeling of his heart through his chest as if that could confirm that this was real. She wondered if her face hurt because she was smiling or if it was still blank with shock as she stared up at him, almost afraid to look away.

A throat was cleared behind them and Gilbert didn’t move far. He shifted to her side to look to his companion and the woman that had exited the house. Anne could see she was very pregnant. But Anne still felt hesitant. It had been a long time since she had even entertained the idea of meeting new people.

Anne suddenly felt her hand being taken and had to look down to see that it was Gilbert. Her gaze traveled up as he took a step forward towards the others, keeping attached to Anne. The other man raised an eyebrow and his face looked miles different from the hard expression he had worn when he first burst out of the house.

“Blythe,” the man said, revealing himself to be the one with the accent. He kept himself partially in front of the woman and Anne assumed they were together. She couldn’t fathom such a thing in their current circumstances, but her past self would have fawned over a tragical romance like that.

“Bash—”

Bash’s other eyebrow went up and Anne guessed it was in response to the look of recognition that must have crossed her face as she suddenly knew who this man was, based on Gilbert’s letters.

“This is Anne,” Gilbert blurted, seemingly unable to help himself, unable to give a proper introduction.

Anne felt her cheeks flush, so unused to being acknowledged, to being seen and known in such a way. Especially as her name caused Bash’s jaw to drop and he laughed, a sound as foreign as his accent.

“I should’ve known,” Bash said, shaking his head as even the woman beside him looked at Anne in appreciation. He stepped forward, beginning to outstretch his hand, but Anne flinched, so he stopped.

Gilbert cleared his throat, tearing his eyes away from Anne. 

“Anne, this is Bash. I wrote about him,” he explained, as if she would have forgotten. “This is his wife. Mary.”

“It’s wonderful to meet you, Anne,” Mary said, her warm smiling surprising Anne. 

Feeling a little ashamed, and reminding herself that it hadn’t been so long that she had truly forgotten har manners, Anne closed the distance between her and Gilbert’s friends (but only after she returned her knife to her hair). 

“Welcome to Avonlea,” Anne said, trying to sound like she meant it because she did, as she shook their hands.

She stepped back and ran into Gilbert, not realizing he had stayed so close, his hand going to her waist to keep her upright. She turned her head and had to tilt it up more than she expected to be able to see his face. She had only looked away from him for a few moments but looking at him look at her threw her off again. It had been so long since she had seen him, with him having spent longer away from Avonlea than he had been in it once she was here, but it felt different than she had expected. He was grown now, they both were, but their exchanged words were still part of their history. Years of letters crossing the globe, when letters still could, had created a bridge between them both despite the distance. And Anne could feel that bridge, with such little space between them now. If she concentrated, she could remember how it felt whenever she received a new letter from him, the mailman even pleased to hand it over whenever she was waiting. Each new letter was a bright spot in her week, in between her chores and homework and growing friendships and new teachers and becoming used to having a family. All of that was gone, but Gilbert no longer was. 

A clattering sound broke Anne and Gilbert away from each other. They looked to Bash and Mary to find them staring out into the yard. It looked like Mary had knocked the axe out of Bash’s hand.

Anne turned and then sighed. She marched past the other adults and held out her hand for Pennie who stood out in the open, staring back at the people on the porch.

“I told you to stay until I came and got you,” Anne chastised as Pennie took her hand, frowning. 

She glanced at Anne and shrugged. Anne crouched down in front of her, squeezing her hand so she’d meet her eye.

“It was safe this time, but when I tell you to do something, you need to do it. Do you understand?” Anne slowly but firmly. Yelling and making a child feel bad never did anyone any good, but Anne needed to make sure she was heard. Who knows what would’ve happened if these had been actual intruders.

Pennie seemed to study Anne but eventually nodded. Anne returned it and stood, keeping a hold of her. She turned back to the porch to meet the others’ stares. Gilbert looked taken aback, his brow furrowed deeply.

Anne tugged Pennie back to the porch, her large eyes taking in the strangers before stopping on Mary’s stomach.

“This is Pennie,” Anne introduced. “Pennie, this is my friend Gilbert. This is his home. He owns those apples, like I told you. These are his friends, Bash and Mary.”

Anne looked from Pennie back up to the others, stopping at Gilbert. He looked confused but must have seen something in her face because he didn’t ask any questions just then.

“Lovely to meet you, Pennie,” Gilbert said, holding out his hand but pulling it back when Pennie just stumbled behind Anne. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and exchanged a glance with his friends. He then said, “I would invite you two inside, but it’s not very hospitable in there…”

Anne leaned over to look inside the still-open front door. She then turned to Pennie.

“Will you be alright with guests, at home?” Anne whispered to her, fully prepared to accept a negative answer. But Pennie nodded and Anne squeezed her hand. She looked back to Gilbert, Bash, and Mary. “I’ve been hiding some tea away, would anyone like some?”

So Anne led the small group through the silent trees and to Green Gables. She walked in front, Pennie at her side, but ended up having to give Gilbert an incredulous look when he tried to join her before he took his spot in the back so Mary, with Bash at her side, could be in the middle.

Once they made it past the traps Jerry had set along the perimeter of the farm and through the gate in the fence, Gilbert spoke up as they passed the small garden.

“Just as I remembered,” he said, his voice reaching Anne.

Anne shook her head as Pennie let go of her hand and scurried up the stairs and into the house, leaving the door wide open for everyone else. Once inside, Anne pushed the dresser back in front of the door and set about lighting the candles and lanterns around the room to make up for the lack of windows.

“Pennie, please put some water in the kettle,” she instructed before looking to her guests, giving a strained smile at so many people suddenly in the space. “Please, sit.”

“This is a lovely home, Anne,” Mary said politely as Bash helped her take her seat.

Anne’s smile turned pained before she turned to fiddle with the tea she had stolen back when she felt it was too warm to drink.

“Anne,” Gilbert started and Anne tensed, holding her breath as she waited for him to start asking questions. She felt a pain in her stomach and wondered if she was going to be sick.

“We haven’t had tea in a while,” Bash said suddenly and Anne turned just in time to see him giving Gilbert a look. Mary smiled at Anne when she saw her facing them again.

“I thought it would be nice, for when autumn arrives,” Anne said, taking the out and bringing the hot water to the table to sit beside her stolen tea. She glanced over as Pennie scuttled into the room with Anne’s old schoolbook and slate.

Gilbert huffed out a laugh at the sight of the slate and Anne was rolling her eyes before she even realized it. 

“Just ask for help when you need it,” Anne said to Pennie, feeling such a weird disconnect between her little world with her and Pennie, and this piece of her past that hit her like a freight train with its sudden appearance. Pennie nodded and opened the book dutifully.

“Were you studying to be a teacher?” Mary asked.

“I wanted to be,” Anne said as she sat down beside Pennie at the table. It was a thought that hadn’t crossed her mind in a while. Her dreams of Queens seemed like they were someone else’s. She looked over at Gilbert who was looking at her. Thoughts of Queens reminded her of him sharing his dreams with her in his letters. Despite her reluctance to be asked any questions, Anne couldn’t help but blurt out: “How are you back?”

“Bribery and begging,” Bash mumbled.

“Many, many boat rides,” Gilbert said as he poured everyone tea since Anne was just staring at him.

“But boats—”

“The boats helped it spread through the ports, but it was easy to get rid of them on the boats themselves, if you caught them before docking,” Bash explained, making Anne lean forward in interest. 

“We were overseas when it started. We thought we could keep going, but it was like it followed us,” Gilbert continued. “But then it was just a matter of slowly making it back here.”

“He convinced us it would be safest,” Bash said dubiously.

“Is it?” Mary asked Anne, her eyes wide and full of emotion. She looked exhausted, from travel and from fear. Anne knew this place was their last hope, especially after how hard they had obviously worked to get here.

“Mostly,” Anne said honestly, looking just to Mary and giving her the truth. “There are not many people in Avonlea, that I know of. Many left… or succumbed. There are not many new cases, so any unliving that are left are getting slower by the day. They are not difficult to stop. I trade with the Baynards, and know of a Mi’kmaq tribe that survived, but you are the first people I have seen since I took in Pennie. I have yet to have any unliving this far from town, but I do my best to keep Pennie and myself safe while we are inside.”

“It looks like you’re doing well,” Bash complimented, making Anne shrug modestly.

“How far along are you?” Anne asked, looking back at Mary.

“Over halfway, I think,” Mary said, smiling weakly.

“Then you’ll stay here,” Anne said impulsively despite the idea festering on their walk from the orchard. “I don’t know how much work it would take to restore your home, Gilbert, but we have room here. And there is safety in numbers, after all. Especially during this time, for you, Mary…”

Mary put her teacup back down on the table in surprise, looking at Bash just as he looked at her.

“Are you sure?” Gilbert asked, glancing at Pennie before seemingly just now noticing the empty walls around them.

“We have a few empty rooms upstairs,” Anne said, standing suddenly, with conviction. The thought of having other people around like this felt both uncomfortable and settling. But she had the room, and was correct about having more people being safer, and had no real reason not to do this for these people. So she started up the stairs, expecting her new guests to follow. The only sound coming from the kitchen was the thumping of Pennie’s heals hitting her chair as she swung her legs while she read.

She reached the second floor just as she heard footsteps beginning the ascent. She stopped at one of the guest rooms and opened the door. It was dusty but was in better condition than Gilbert’s kitchen had boasted.

“You two can have this one,” Anne directed to Bash and Mary. She flitted past them to lead Gilbert to Marilla’s old room. Her things were all downstairs but Anne found she didn’t like the idea of a stranger sleeping in here so it had to go to Gilbert. She turned to point him towards the room and found him standing much closer than she anticipated.

“Anne,” Gilbert said softly as Bash and Mary went into the other bedroom. He glanced inside the room Anne was alotting him and then back to her. She felt his fingertips brush her arm and managed not to flinch.

“Did you bring all the weapons you have?” Anne blurted out, still unable to look away from him.

“We did,” Gilbert said, the volume of his voice staying low, his tone contradicting the subject.

“There are some tools, in the barn…”

“Okay.”

“Let me know if you need anything else. I guess…”

“I don’t know how to thank you, Anne,” Gilbert whispered.

Anne shook her head, feeling like Pennie as she suddenly had no words. She then stepped back, clearing her throat. “I’ll… I’ll get Mary an extra blanket,” she mumbled, slipping around Gilbert and walking to her room at the end of the hall. When she pulled a quilt out of her closet and spun around, she jumped because Gilbert was at her door.

“Sorry,” he said, the corner of his mouth twitching as he looked into her room. “I couldn’t help it. I’ve always wondered what your room looked like.”

Anne huffed, holding the quilt to her chest as she shifted her weight on her feet in her boys’ boots. 

Gilbert’s eyes fell to the far corner and he frowned. “Does Pennie sleep in here?” he asked. His eyes softened at her affirming nod. “It was good of you to take her in, Anne.”

Anne shook her head. “Anyone would have—”

“No, they wouldn’t,” Gilbert interrupted, gaze so heavy she could feel it through the quilt. “And you know that.”

“I’m only here because of the kindness of others. How could I not return the gesture?” Anne said softly.

“Very easily,” Gilbert said, putting his hands in his pockets as he looked at her. “And I believe you’re here because you’re strong, not just because of other people.”

“I’m not the one that traversed the world to get back home,” Anne huffed and Gilbert smiled sadly at her.

“I think you probably did, in your own way,” he said, making Anne look away.

“I’ll just…” Anne gestured to the blanket and Gilbert moved aside to let her pass so she could knock on the other bedroom door and give Mary the blanket and insist that either one of them ask her for anything they need. Leaving them to wash up, Anne turned back to her room, sighing when Gilbert was now fully inside.

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly as she walked back in to find him holding the stack of letters that had been atop the vanity. 

“Nosey,” Anne muttered, her cheeks heating up.

“It’s not like I don’t know what’s in them,” Gilbert said with a smirk.

“Well that’s still my name on the front,” Anne argued, causing Gilbert’s smirk to grow.

“We can trade back, if you want,” he teased.

Anne looked surprised. “Trade? Do you still have mine?” she asked.

“Of course,” Gilbert chuckled. “Why wouldn’t I have kept the bit of home you kept sending me?”

“I didn’t always tell you about Avonlea,” Anne hedged.

“I didn’t care about what you said,” Gilbert said honestly before making a face. “I mean, it didn’t matter what you wrote. It was from you, so it was about home, and I kept them all.”

“Even my ramblings and nonsensical short stories?” Anne asked self-deprecatingly. 

“Especially those,” Gilbert grinned before setting down his old letters and stepping away from her vanity. “But honestly, Anne. Thank you for allowing us into your home. I… I’m just sorry it took me so long to get back.”

“To your home? It will need work, but it can’t be impossible…”

“To you,” Gilbert said, making Anne’s breath halt in her lungs.

Soft footsteps tapped up the stairs, down the hall, and then halted in front of her door. Anne turned to find Pennie standing there, book in hand.

“Do you need help?” Anne asked, her voice just a touch higher than normal. When Pennie nodded, Anne didn’t look back as she followed the girl back down to the kitchen, blaming her warm cheeks on the lingering summer air.

A knock at the door made everyone in the kitchen freeze, but Anne’s shoulders relaxed when the knock continued in a specific pattern.

Gilbert and Bash stood from the table while Anne stayed seated, waiting for the patter of feet that came down the stairs a moment later. 

Pennie skidded around the table and to the front door. She leaned towards the part of the door she could reach around the furniture pushed against it and knocked back, looking to Anne when she received another pattern in return.

Anne stood and motioned for her to get out of the way as she pushed the dresser far enough across the floor so she could partially open the door.

“You’re early,” she said through the space.

“If I promise not to sing, will you let me in,” Jerry said from the other side, snorting at whatever look she gave him.

“Anne,” Gilbert said from behind her, sounding worried as she used her hip to move the dresser a bit further so Jerry could slip inside.

“ Bonjour, Mademoiselle ,” Jerry said to Pennie as he squeezed past, enjoying that the girl seemed to enjoy when he called her that. He then tensed at the sight of more people than he expected in the Green Gables kitchen, his hand automatically going to what Anne knew was a knife attached to his side which made Bash jerk up from his seat to stand in front of Mary.

“Stand down,” Anne muttered to him, pushing him aside so she could shut the door.

“Oh. It is you,” Jerry said derisively as he suddenly recognized Gilbert at the other end of the table. His comment caused Gilbert’s brow to furrow in confusion but Bash let out a bark of laughter that made Anne flinch, which she hid by pushing on the dresser before turning back to the room.

“Jerry, you remember Gilbert,” Anne said, pushing Jerry towards an empty seat and sitting herself after Pennie plopped down in the open spot beside Jerry. “These are his friends, Sebastian and Mary Lacroix.”

“Jerry Baynard,” Jerry introduced, giving polite nods to Bash and Mary before looking Gilbert up and down in judgment. “I thought you left.”

“They made it back. Obviously,” Anne said dryly.

Gilbert still looked confused by Jerry’s attitude but tried to politely ask, “Anne said she was trading with you?”

“ Oui ,” Jerry said flatly before turning to Anne. “I will still bring les lapins next week, but there is a problem… at the Barry’s.”

“What?” Anne tensed, her stomach clenching.

“There are more. Of les monstres . A bigger… grouping than normal. Too much for the traps,” Jerry explained with a frown. “Do you want to see?”

Anne took a deep breath and nodded. “Give me a minute,” she said, ignoring Gilbert’s concerned look as she went upstairs to change.

When she returned, Jerry was showing Pennie some of his sibling’s old clothes that he brought her and she looked pleased. Pennie turned to Mary to show her and Anne liked that Mary expressed the appropriate amount of appreciation despite Pennie’s silence.

“Let’s go,” Anne said, having changed into her better scavenging outfit. It had thicker but looser pants with a long-sleeved shirt.

“I’m going with you,” Gilbert said suddenly, rifle in hand.

“Are you sure,” Bash asked but held up his hands in surrender at Gilbert’s glare.

“We won’t stay long if it’s too bad,” Anne said as she swiftly pulled her knife from her hair to check its sharpness before doing the same for the one strapped over her pant leg against her shin.

“I’m going,” Gilbert said firmly and Anne shrugged, ignoring Jerry’s eye roll.

“ Allons-y,” Jerry muttered.

After checking the bullets in her gun, Anne squatted in front of Pennie.

“Will you be okay staying with Mary and Bash?” Anne asked, taking one of her hands with hers.

Anne always wondered how much Pennie saw with her large eyes. To spend no time talking, she had to just take in so much more. Anne knew she would have to worry about her at some point, but, for now, she was alive, and that was more than could be said for most of the island.

When Pennie finally nodded, Anne stood, kissed the top of Pennie’s head, and turned to Bash. He must have known what she was going to say because he just gave her a firm nod, which she returned. 

“Let’s go,” Anne said, letting Jerry move the furniture so they could leave the house. 

Jerry led them past the Green Gables fences and away, Anne behind him, and Gilbert bringing up the rear. No one spoke as they walked, eyes and ears open as they took a path Anne could have walked with her eyes shut. She tried to keep her head in the moment, not letting any memories take over. 

When they reached the edge of the property, Jerry directed them towards some trees near the pond, from which they could see the hoard taking over the front lawn. 

Anne could see prone bodies on the ground, arrows protruding from their necks, and Jerry pointed at the opposite end of the Barry land where two of his brothers were.

“It is not them,” Jerry muttered to Anne, eyes on the decaying faces of the unliving, and she let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. 

“They’re slow,” Anne noted from where she crouched half behind a tree, a man on either side of her. “So they’re not new. I can’t tell why they’re all here, all of a sudden.”

Jerry muttered something in French and stood, moving to Gilbert’s other side and said, “We need to end them, the reason does not matter. My brothers will not hit you. You go right, I go left?”

Anne nodded but Gilbert made a noise in indignation.

“What?!”

Anne gave him an incredulous look, surprised by the surprise on his face.

“What did you think we came here for?” she asked, an expert now at ignoring the face Jerry made at Gilbert behind his back.

“Not to get in the middle of that!”

Anne tilted her head, her knife suddenly in her hand and pointing at Gilbert thoughtfully.

“Have you killed one before, Gilbert?” she asked thoughtfully and Jerry snorted.

Gilbert’s ears turned red but he shrugged. “They were taken care of on the boats we were on,” he muttered. “And I shot any we saw in Charlottetown. I haven’t killed one up close.”

“They’re not dragons,” Anne said sardonically, the corner of her mouth twitching as she turned back to look out past the trees they were in. She pointed. “They don’t move quickly anymore. A shot in the head or neck will do. You stay here, watch our backs, okay?”

Jerry mumbled something but thankfully Gilbert agreed. She wondered if he didn’t have any better ideas or actually just acknowledged her experience and chose to defer to her judgment. 

Her and Jerry split off and Anne made her way out into the clearing. She was right, they weren’t fast-movers, and she just did as she had practiced many times since this began. Her knife slid through skin and nerves with ease, the puffed sleeved-bodies barely having time to hit the ground with muffled thumps before she was onto the next one. She trusted the Baynards and they didn’t prove her wrong, expertly shooting their bows around her and Jerry. A few gunshots rang out, drawing the attention of anything left, but they were killed all the more easily for their distraction.

When Anne made it back to the trees, she found Gilbert watching her with a deep look on his face.

“What?” she asked, kneeling down to wipe her knives off in the grass before returning one to her hair and the other to her leg.

Gilbert just shook his head but didn’t look away from her.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Anne said as Jerry walked up. “That was the problem, at first. They moved so quickly, nothing like how these were. You can’t tell, at first, and then it just spread so fast and everyone tried to outrun it.”

“But couldn’t,” Gilbert guessed gruffly and Anne shrugged. She started to make her way back through the trees but Gilbert didn’t follow for a moment. He glanced at Jerry. “Is that what they did? Her and the Cuthberts?”

Jerry looked at Gilbert, eyes hard. He nodded.

“And she came back alone,” Jerry said, voice barely loud enough to make it past the breeze that started up.

Gilbert didn’t respond but his eyes found Anne instantly, looking so different walking through the trees, on alert, never giving a passing glance or greeting to any of the trees or flowers clinging onto the last dregs of summer. 

That night, after Jerry left with promises to bring more than one rabbit on his next visit (and instructions for Gilbert to help Anne with the farming if he was going to stay there, which he demanded out of Anne’s earshot), Gilbert found Anne outside on the porch after he finished cleaning up after dinner.

“Is it safe, in the dark?” Gilbert asked, sitting on the porch steps beside her.

Anne shrugged. “It’ll be too cold to sit out here soon,” she said, eyes on the skyline in front of them. 

“Bash won’t know what to do with himself once winter hits,” Gilbert said with a chuckle, making Anne almost smile.

“I’m glad you found someone. To travel with,” Anne said softly.

“He’s like a brother. Annoyances and all.”

This did make Anne smile, just barely.

“I’m glad you have Jerry nearby,” Gilbert added, finding it difficult to imagine how quiet this house must have gotten when she was in it, all alone. “I hope we can all work together here. This has to be better. With a… T-E-A-M.”

Gilbert’s half smile grew as Anne turned to him, biting her lip through a smile of her own.

“It was difficult to clean up the island on my own,” Anne said, moving her arms behind her so she could lean back on her hands. 

“Is that what you’re doing? Cleaning?” Gilbert asked, not looking away from her. 

“I’m trying,” she whispered.

“If anyone can do it, it’s you, Anne,” Gilbert said, genuinely. 

“How bad is it? Everywhere else?” Anne asked, almost afraid of the answer.

“It arrived on boats, but spread inland quickly,” Gilbert said, eyes glazing over as he thought of his travels. “Some ports looked better than others. We didn’t stop. I thought about going back west, but there’s no way of knowing how bad it was. Especially after so much time had passed. I convinced Bash that if we were going to risk it, we should risk it here.”

“Do you regret it?”

“Coming back?”

Anne nodded.

“No,” Gilbert said without needing to think about it.

“Me neither,” Anne whispered. “My regrets are in leaving in the first place…”

“It’s hard to truly appreciate home until you’ve left.”

“No. It’s easy, when you’ve never had one before,” Anne murmured, looking back out beyond the porch. “Very easy…”

“Would they be in here?”

Anne spun around and saw Bash at the bedroom door right off the kitchen.

“No,” she yelled, making him stop. “Not… not that room. The extra towels might be in the upstairs closet. You can look there.”

Bash stepped away from the door, giving her an understanding look, and Anne took a deep breath before turning back to the stove, trying to hide the way her hands shook by poking at the stew with a spoon. 

When Bash returned, he sat at the table. “You know,” he started, absently beginning to sharpen the knives Anne had set out to do later. “I never thought I’d meet the famous Anne.”

Anne frowned, glancing at him over her shoulder. “Is that a joke?” she asked.

“Not at all,” Bash said, smiling through his beard. 

“Well, I’m not famous,” Anne argued, turning from the stove and taking one of the knives from him and thumbing at the edge before wiping it against her pant leg.

“Most of the crew of the Primrose would disagree,” Bash said before his smile faltered. “If they could.”

Anne shook her head in confusion and Bash’s smile returned. 

“That boy never shut up about you. I’d swear it was Christmas every time he got one of your letters. I’d accept latrine duty just to get away from that dopey look on his face,” Bash said, shaking his head in mock seriousness.

Anne wrinkled her nose. “Now I know you’re joking,” she said.

“Not in the slightest,” Bash grinned and she had to turn away for fear of blushing.

Pennie scuttled into the room and Anne used her as a distraction.

“Go watch Bash,” Anne instructed, pushing the girl over to the table so she could learn something and also make Bash stop saying whatever he was saying. She was pretty obvious if his smirk was anything to go by.

As the weather got colder, Anne had to sneak back into a few homes she had already scavenged through to find warmer clothes for her new guests. Gilbert had protested but Anne insisted that it was no trouble. She even found baby clothes that she snatched up too, trying not to think too hard on where they came from and to whom they used to belong. 

She knocked on the bedroom door upstairs and opened it when she was bid inside.

“I hope I didn’t wake you,” Anne frowned as Mary sat up in the bed.

“No, I needed to get up anyway,” Mary brushed off, moving her curls out of her face. “I’m not sure if it’s the baby or just being able to sleep without keeping one eye open… but I have never taken this many naps in my life.”

“Well, you deserve them. At least according to Bash,” Anne said with a small smile.

“Come sit,” Mary beckoned, patting the bed beside her. “Having another woman to talk to is about as revolutionary as nap-taking.”

“I’ve almost gotten used to no one talking back to me,” Anne admitted, wiping her palms against her pants as she sat on the edge of the bed somewhat hesitantly. She then remembered what she had in her hand and held out her bundle to Mary. “Here. I… got this. For you.”

Mary picked up the frock on top of the pile and let out a deep breath when she realized what it was. 

“Thank you, Anne,” she said, eyes on the pale cloth. “I suppose I will be needing this soon.”

“Are you scared?” Anne whispered, the words coming out of her mouth unbidden.

Mary absently and expertly folded the frock and set it down in her lap, eyes following.

“Terrified,” Mary said after a moment, shaking her head. 

“I can’t imagine…”

“How do you do it?” Mary asked suddenly. “With Pennie?”

Anne opened her mouth, then closed it. She wanted to say that that wasn’t the same, not at all. But… it was more similar than she wanted to believe.

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Surviving isn’t thriving, but all I can focus on is keeping her alive.”

“She’s lucky to have found you,” Mary said honestly, her hand gentle on Anne’s knee. 

“None of this feels lucky,” Anne murmured.

“I feel lucky to have found you,” Mary informed her, her hand moving to squeeze Anne’s.

“I’m not—”

“There isn’t much that you aren’t,” Mary said positively, which somehow made sense, and Anne huffed in disbelief.

“Do you want a boy or a girl?” Anne asked to divert the subject from her.

“I have a son, so a little girl would be nice.” A sad smile settled on her face as she put her hand on her stomach.

“Oh,” Anne breathed, not wanting to pry further into that kind of territory.

“He’s resourceful. I’m sure he’s alright out there,” Mary said, sounding as if she had repeated those words to herself many times before. 

“I’m sure,” Anne agreed resolutely.

Anne woke suddenly and with a jerk, holding in a gasp as she listened for whatever had pulled her from sleep. Having three additional people in the house made her anxious since they sounded no different from an actual unwelcome visitor, but it also made her feel better since she would have back-up now if something were to happen. But sudden noises in the middle of the night had a whole new meaning in this new world they were in now, and she held her breath until she heard it again.

Anne sat up and looked to the pile of blankets on top of the mattress in the corner. The muffled noise came from beneath the blankets, but they shifted when Anne’s bed creaked and two wide eyes peeked out from the edge.

When Anne made eye contact, she saw further tears welling in those brown eyes.

“Are you okay?” Anne asked.

Pennie didn’t respond.

Anne then lifted the edge of her blanket and Pennie was there, slipping in beside her. Anne leaned back against her headboard and Pennie curled up at her side, head on Anne’s shoulder. 

“Nightmare?”

Pennie shook her head.

“Real life?”

Pennie nodded.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Pennie shook her head.

“Do you want me to keep talking?”

Pennie nodded.

“Have I told you about when I first met Gilbert?”

Pennie shrugged against her side and Anne wrapped her arm around her.

“I may or may not have hit him over the head with my slate,” Anne started and was rewarded with a meek sound that may have been a laugh. “How about I tell you the story and you can write it out tomorrow to tell Bash, I’m sure he’d enjoy it.”

“Bash, boil some water,” Gilbert and Anne said at the same time.

Bash raised an eyebrow but went down to the kitchen, Pennie following to collect towels from around the house as Anne had requested of her.

“Have you done this before?” Anne asked as they stood in the hallway outside Bash and Mary’s room.

“Yes. Without the luxury of being able to prepare, though. What about you?” Gilbert asked.

Anne shrugged. “A few sets of twins here, a few sets of twins there,” she said, looking away from Gilbert’s impressed look. “I think it’s just one this time, thankfully.”

“Minor miracles,” Gilbert muttered. “I guess Mary’s in good hands then.”

“Well, considering the Carmondy doctor made it too close to the Baynard grounds,” Anne mumbled before tilting her head in the direction of her room. “I’ll just change.”

“Me too,” Gilbert said, both making no move to separate until they heard Mary groan from the other room and things were set into motion. 

They changed their clothes and helped gather everything they needed to bring the newest member of their group into the world. Anne found the risk and the excitement actually helped her think better and couldn’t remember if she was always like that or if that was what the last few years had done to her. Either way, she did whatever she could to help Mary get through this.

A few hours into labor, night was falling, and Anne started down the stairs to retrieve a wet, now frozen, towel that she had put outside. Gilbert suddenly walked out of the bedroom and stopped her with a hand on her arm, gripping just a touch too tight.

“Will her screaming attract anything,” Gilbert whispered harshly into her ear, as if the idea just occurred to him as Mary let out a cry before trying to muffle it and Bash murmured in response.

“I don’t know,” Anne said truthfully, looking up at Gilbert from her spot a step below him. She saw fear in his eyes. “They don’t often come this far, but if they do, Jerry has set enough traps, and we’ve reinforced the fences enough, they shouldn’t make it close. And only the fresh ones stand any kind of chance against the barriers. We’ll be fine, Gilbert.”

Gilbert let go of her arm and rubbed his eyes. 

“She’ll be fine. We’ll make sure of that,” Anne said firmly before continuing downstairs. She was surprised to find Pennie at the bottom landing, a book in her lap and a lantern at her side. 

She looked up as Anne stopped beside her. 

“Does it sound scary?” Anne asked and Pennie nodded. “I know. It’ll be over soon, okay? Then everyone can get some sleep. Why don’t you go read in bed, hm?”

Pennie nodded and carefully took hold of the lamp and made her way upstairs, scurrying past the room everyone was in to curl up on Anne’s bed. Anne got what she needed and went back to the task at hand.

Before Anne knew it, the house was silent. She stood in the middle of the bedroom, clutching a towel, and staring at the family on the bed.

Mary looked exhausted but she still had a smile on her face as she peered down at the bundle in her arms. Bash had his arms around her and looked like he couldn’t believe his eyes. 

Gilbert stood at the end of the bed, wiping his hands, and looked delighted at the scene before him. 

“She might be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Bash said, making Gilbert chuckle.

Anne could only stare. She doubted she had ever seen a family look so pleased to have a new baby. She knew they had both been worried, for a multitude of reasons, but right at this moment, they looked like they didn’t have a care in the world. She felt almost uncomfortable, like she was trespassing on this moment that was too intimate for outsiders.

“You’re becoming an expert at this, Blythe,” Bash said, giving Gilbert a grin. “You’ll be a doctor before you know it.”

“Don’t remind me that he isn’t one,” Mary said and Gilbert huffed out a laugh, stepping closer. 

“Well, in my professional opinion, she’s perfect,” Gilbert said.

“You’ll need to take a closer look to be sure,” Mary teased, gesturing Gilbert closer so she could slip the baby into his arms once he sat beside her on the bed. 

“How much do you want to wager that ‘Uncle Gilby’ are her first words?” Bash smirked, but Gilbert only grinned down at the sleeping newborn in response.

Gilbert then looked up and seemed surprised that Anne was just standing there.

“Come on, both doctors get to hold her first,” Gilbert smiled, standing slowly.

Anne’s eyes fell to Mary who just smiled in return, showing no qualms about Gilbert’s decision. Before she could say anything, Gilbert was suddenly right in front of her and handing her the bundle of blankets, her arms lifting in the right position automatically.

She had no words for the tiny face that turned towards her, eyes still closed and nose scrunched up in displeasure. Anne couldn’t blame her, she was sure her old home was much more pleasant. But her little nose was so small, and her tiny ears, and the fluff of curls atop her head… She had been wiped clean by Gilbert, and still probably needed more, but Anne suddenly felt so dirty, too dirty, her hands completely unfit to hold such a precious thing, so small and new and innocent. Anne sucked in a breath but felt like it couldn’t even enter her lungs. Her head snapped up and her wide eyes found Gilbert, his smile only just beginning to slip at the panic on her face.

“T-take her,” Anne gasped, almost jerking forward as Gilbert moved automatically to do as she said. Anne then stumbled back, holding her shaking hands out as if they were contaminated. “I— I can’t— I n-need—”

Anne thought she heard someone say her name but her ears were ringing and all she could do was stumble out the door and down the stairs. She may have knocked over a chair in her haste to get to the sink but paid it no mind, all her focus on trying to pump water into the basin and using the scrub brush on her palms.

Someone was abruptly reaching for her hands, knocking the brush out of her grasp, and she jerked.

“No,” Anne choked out, grabbing the brush back and continuing to rub her skin raw.

“ Anne! You’re hurting yourself, stop it!”

“Th-they’re not— not clean,” she wheezed, breaking the skin across her knuckles and prompting Gilbert to grab her hands in his and pull her away from the sink.

“You’re bleeding—”

“They’re not clean!” Anne cried, trying to tug away from him.

“They were, Anne. Your hands were fine,” Gilbert pleaded as he kept her close, ducking his head to look her in the face, his just visible beyond the blurred edges of her vision.

“They’re— They’re covered—”

“You made them bleed, let me— Please let me bandage them—”

“Not mine! It’s not mine! I can’t— I can’t touch her, she… she’s never…”

“Of course you can touch her, Anne,” Gilbert said earnestly.

Anne shook her head frantically, distantly realizing she wasn’t getting much air through her gasps, her cheeks wet for some reason.

“ I can’t! N-not with… It’s not my blood, I can’t get it off! ” Anne screamed into the dark, trying to pull away from him.

“Anne—”

“ It won’t come off, it won’t! They— ”

“Matthew? Marilla?” Gilbert guessed and couldn’t catch her as his words caused Anne to slump onto the floor.

She started to cry, to truly sob, for the first time since she arrived back to her home. By herself. 

She curled over her bleeding hands, shoulders shaking as she gasped, “Th-they begged me to. I— I c-couldn’t… They begged …”

She felt light as a feather, watching herself from a separate location, as she felt Gilbert pull her into his lap as he sat against the cabinets below the sink. He held her tightly as she cried, breaking down and saying words she couldn’t comprehend, words she thought she’d never be able to say aloud. A sharpness pushed through the dizziness but Gilbert just grabbed her hands and held them to his chest so her nails couldn’t puncture her palms any further.

Distantly, there was crying coming from upstairs, but Anne couldn’t remember where they came from. Her hands tingled as she gasped for air. Gilbert’s hand rested on the back of her head, knocking out her knife and making her waves tumble down around her face, just barely muffling the sobs she pressed against his chest, a sharp pain digging into hers, piercing her heart. She looked small, more like the lost child he had first met in the woods, at this moment, than the strong woman that had survived this long.

Gilbert had nothing to say to her, nothing that could possibly help, as he had no idea what she had been through. So he simply held her as she cried. Not leaving.

Anne could breathe again when she heard someone slowly walking down the stairs. 

She felt Gilbert brush the hair out of her face and she looked over to find Bash standing at the bottom of the steps, Pennie held to his side with her head on his shoulder.

“We can’t go to sleep without you,” Bash whispered carefully, speaking for Pennie.

Pennie’s wide eyes were on Anne and Anne looked back, her own eyes swollen and gritty.

Anne was too exhausted, emotionally and physically, to manage any thoughts or words. She simply stood, her bones creaking, and waiting for a moment until her head stopped swimming. She felt Gilbert’s hands on her, keeping contact for as long as possible. 

Pennie slipped down from Bash’s arms and silently stepped over to Anne. Anne held out her hand and Pennie took it. The two silently walked back upstairs, leaving Bash standing and Gilbert sitting on the kitchen floor, watching them until they were out of view.

“Is Mary asleep?” Gilbert asked, not looking at Bash.

“They both are.”

“Good,” Gilbert breathed, his head hitting the cabinet behind him and his eyes sliding closed.

“Is she alright?” Bash asked and Gilbert shook his head.

Anne was gone the next morning.

When Gilbert asked Pennie if she’d see if Anne was hungry for breakfast, the girl just pointed him to a note he had missed in his busy morning checking on Mary and the baby and then attempting breakfast. 

His heart stopped when he saw it, but it just said she had gone to look for more baby supplies. It made Gilbert anxious, the thought of her out there alone, but he reminded himself that she had more experience being on her own than he did. 

She returned that afternoon, using her own special knock to signal to Pennie that it was okay to let her in. Her bag was full and she had a basket of eggs from the coop just to the side of the house. She had nothing to say to Gilbert, the only one besides Pennie in the kitchen at that time, but did hand him her haul to take upstairs. 

Gilbert almost looked like he wanted to say something, presumably to tell her she could take the things to Mary herself, but seemingly chose not to try. Yet. 

As he walked upstairs, Anne murmured to Pennie but it was too quiet for him to hear.

“Is she back?” was the first thing Mary asked when he walked into the room, refraining from blushing at the sight of her nursing because of the way she had snapped at him for it earlier that day.

“Yeah,” Gilbert sighed, setting down the pile of things by the door so it could be sorted through later.

“You going to talk to her, then?” Bash asked, folding the clothes that had been abandoned the day before when Mary’s contractions had begun.

Gilbert sighed again. “I know she’s not the same person as when I left,” he said. “But that Anne ran if pushed… I don’t want to push her into a corner, not when there really isn’t anywhere to run to anymore.”

“I guess it’s easier to spill your heart out in a letter when the recipient is on the other side of the world,” Bash muttered, making Gilbert stand straighter.

“Yeah…” he said, turning without another word and locking himself in his room.

“We’ve found ourselves an interesting bunch,” Bash said dryly.

“I don’t think our Delphine will be bored,” Mary said, making Bash laugh.

That night, after Anne spent the rest of the evening making excuses to stay downstairs, she went to bed early and Pennie obviously followed.

Anne had decided to start reading to Pennie before they went to sleep and the girl seemed to enjoy it. Anne often caught her rereading the previous night’s chapter the next day and figured the familiarity helped her get through any difficult parts on her own.

When they neared the end of that night’s passage, Anne heard a small noise and her head snapped to the door. 

On the floor was a folded piece of paper that had not been there a second before. 

Pennie rolled off the bed and snatched the paper up. She then handed it to Anne since she accurately read Anne’s name written across the front. 

Anne immediately recognized Gilbert’s handwriting and her stomach tumbled over. She set it on her night table without opening it, clearing her throat and gesturing for Pennie to return so they could finish reading. 

Once Pennie was asleep in her own bed, Anne slipped to the floor and brought the candle with her, positioning herself so the light was blocked from Pennie’s bed by her own. She reached up to pluck the note off her table and carefully unfolded it.

It wasn’t long, but Gilbert didn’t beat around the bush. He reminded her that he was her friend and that he would listen to whatever she had to say, no matter the topic or the manner in which she said it. He also reminded her that they had spent years corresponding by mail, and while he was no longer across continents and oceans, they could continue if she found it easier than trying to look him in the eye and tell him her fears. 

He ended his letter, the first she had received from him since Avonlea fell apart, by confiding in her some of his own worries. He told her there wasn’t much about his life that she didn’t know, barring a few embarrassing stories from his travels that Bash was sure to divulge at some point, but he did choose to tell her about how scared he had been when choosing to leave Avonlea, even though it had been the right choice, but also how scared he had been when not being able to come back was almost a reality. He crammed his words onto the small piece of paper, going until the very edge. When he ran out of room, the note was over, and Anne found herself wanting more. It felt better to read about the thoughts in someone else’s head instead of trying to make sense of what was going on in hers. But she also found it easier to slip a piece of paper out of the pile in her desk she hadn’t touched in so long and just… write back. Words had always been her escape and it felt like home to return to that, even though the world around her was anything but comforting and normal. 

She was only going to write a short message, just to continue the exchange. But her candle was almost at its end when she looked up again, a few pages later. She didn’t reread what she had written. She knew what was now permanently etched in ink. She had now told Gilbert what happened, but treated it as a story. It probably did not help her to disconnect from reality like that, but it was the only way she could look back on it: from above, like it was written by another hand, produced from a different mind.

Without thinking about it, Anne stood, quietly slipping out the door, and silently made her way down the hall to what was now Gilbert’s room. She slid her papers under his door, turned around, and went back to her bed, inaudible like a ghost in her nightgown.

The next morning, Gilbert came downstairs a touch later than usual, but said nothing more than a morning greeting to Anne and everyone else. Breakfast went long as they were all distracted by Delphine, Pennie especially. Anne didn’t stay away, but also didn’t reach for the baby like Gilbert kept doing (out of genuine desire, to tease Bash, and to point things out he had read in his medical books to an attentive Pennie). Anne stood, once finished, and started to go towards the sink to attend to the dishes, but Bash beat her to it. She then turned to do something about the laundry she had started the day before, but Gilbert was suddenly going outside with it. When Pennie slipped away to grab their book from upstairs, she was left at the table with Mary.

“Will you help me with her, Anne?” Mary asked before standing and making her way upstairs, expecting Anne to follow.

“I’m sorry,” Anne blurted out as soon as she walked into the bedroom.

“Don’t be,” Mary said, shaking her head. She sat in the rocking chair in the corner, leaving Anne to do with herself what she wished. “You helped bring this beautiful little girl into this world, safely and with more kindness than any real doctor has ever shown me. There is nothing for you to apologize for. You don’t know me well enough to know what I have seen in my life. But I also have no idea what you’ve gone through, Anne. I could never fault you for how you feel. I just hope you know that I wish to be nothing but your friend, to return to you the kindness you have given me since we’ve met.”

Anne pressed her lips together, her eyes feeling hot.

She glanced away from Mary and just sat down on the corner of the bed as if her legs could no longer support her weight. Her eyes fell to her lap and she almost didn’t recognize the way her lower half looked in her pants. Having Gilbert in her home was messing with the dichotomy she had created in her head, of the “before” and the “after.” She felt so sure of her body and what it could do now to get rid of surrounding threats and to survive. It was her mind that she couldn’t trust, especially when it was the threats that haunted her with memories she tried to repress.

“She’s just too innocent for all this,” Anne blurted out.

“But we aren’t,” Mary countered. “None of us are. And that’s a good thing, Anne. We need to know what’s out there so we can protect her from it.”

Anne bit the inside of her cheek, almost making herself smaller as she wrapped her arms around herself. 

“Can I try again?” she whispered.

Mary said nothing as she stood and came over to sit beside Anne on the bed. Anne looked nervous as Mary transferred Delphine into her arms, but as soon as she was settled, Anne just let out a breath. 

“I always forget how small they are at first,” Anne whispered, studying the tiny face before her.

“I forgot how it feels for them to come out,” Mary muttered and Anne sent her a slightly scandalized expression that made her laugh. “Don’t give me that look. If anything, it’s not spoken about enough! I urge you to think twice before you do anything that might get you into trouble, that pain is nothing to laugh at.”

Anne blushed and suddenly felt like she was back in her room, talking to Diana about things they shouldn’t know about yet. But there were plenty of things Anne had done, just within the last week, that a girl like her wasn’t supposed to know about.

So she dug up the courage to slowly ask, “And… what kinds of things… would get me into trouble…?”

Mary looked a little surprised. She then stood and closed the bedroom door, returning to sit beside Anne. “How old are you, Anne?”

“Nineteen. Once spring arrives,” she said, long since abandoning the thought of months and calendars beyond the seasons. 

“How old were you… when this started?” Mary asked, giving in to the motherly urge to tuck a few errant pieces of hair behind Anne’s ear, her fingers brushing the knife that held it up.

“Sixteen,” Anne answered, looking back down at the baby in her arms.

Mary hummed. “Older than I was when I had Elijah,” she admitted, shrugging at Anne’s surprised look. “It may not have mattered, me learning of those things back then, in that regard. But I do think it’s important. How can you make the decisions necessary to plan for your future if you don’t have all the information?”

“I’m not sure what kind of future exists, anymore,” Anne confessed.

“Maybe all the more reason to be informed. You can’t be limited by something that no longer exists, and I can’t help but notice that there isn’t a society out there telling you what you can and cannot do. You’ve done an admiral job at surviving, Anne. But maybe you can choose to live, and make choices from the pieces that are left.”

Anne looked at Mary and was overcome with appreciation. She hadn’t even known how much she would need a mother figure during her time growing up without one. It seemed, now that she was grown, she would need help with more than just scrubbing the blood out of her nightgown.

“Are you and Bash actually married?” Anne blurted out.

Mary smiled sadly. “No. But I like to think God would make exceptions in times like this.”

Anne looked away at the mention of God and her gaze fell back to Delphine. She hadn’t considered something like this, a bright spot in these dark days, when questioning that to which she was taught to pray. She hadn’t considered people entering her life at all when she was so caught up in those that had left. 

Her mind shifted back to the topic at hand. She had forgotten all about the questions that went unanswered that bothered her and the girls. She had also forgotten about her worries that her emotions would make her infertile. She didn’t think she wanted to bring a child into this, but she wanted those options and choices that Mary talked about. But she wondered if Charlie had been wrong. If someone like Mary could have a baby amidst all of… this , then that had to prove that theory incorrect. But this brought to mind things she hadn’t thought of in a very long time. Awkward barn dances and broken off weddings seemed to be from another lifetime. But was Mary right? Could some of those kinds of things still be a possibility, even if the social conventions she had been taught were now for naught as there was no longer anyone to uphold them? She had once told the girls that she would only be a bride if it was a bride of adventure. But she had gone on adventures now and they were not what she had believed them to be based on all her books and the creations of her mind. She had also believed for so long that marriage would never be for her, that no one would take her hand and ask her to court, not when she longed for an equal to see her and truly wish to look at her and never look away.

“Is that love, then? Making the choice to be with them against… against all the odds and the… the world?”

“Mmm. I think love is going against the world, together. Making your home with each other and facing the world, no matter what happens,” Mary said as she moved up the bed to lean against the headboard with a pillow supporting her back and gesturing for Anne to join her. 

“That sounds nice,” Anne admitted, taking the tiny hand that sprang from the blankets in her arms and studying the tiny fingers. 

“It is when it is,” Mary said. “It is when it’s right.”

“If it’s right, then do you make those… choices ? Despite… or because of… the risks?” Anne asked, seeing that Mary understood her allusions.

“Sometimes despite,” Mary said with a light laugh. “But those choices should always be just that, your choice. I’m not nineteen anymore, but maybe everything has been put into perspective for you. You don’t have to live by anyone else’s expectations any longer, but you also know what life, what living, means to you now. So risks can be taken but only because you want to.”

Anne huffed. “Do I need to steal Gilbert’s medical books?” she asked dryly, making Mary laugh.

“They might help, honestly,” Mary said, taking Delphine back to feed her once she started to whimper. “But why don’t I start with the basics and we can work our way from there.”

Anne left Mary’s room later that day, permitting Bash access once more and feeling like she had truly gained a friend and quite a lot of knowledge. A lot of things that she had tittered over in the back of her old schoolhouse now made sense, in addition to the things she shouldn’t have been exposed to way before that. She also left with a fair bit of anger over the fact that she was going to be let out into the world way back when, off to Queens and into society, with so little information about things that would just be expected of her. Like Mary had emphasized, how was she to make choices regarding things about which she knew nothing? Anne had managed to teach herself how to kill a person but had been walking around in the world not actually knowing where babies came from.  

She felt a little embarrassed by all this new information, but then felt embarrassed by her embarrassment. This world she had created for herself, out of literally nothing but the echoes of her past and an empty house, was a world of knowledge, by her declaration, as of… now . She wanted to know and know she did. Anne had always believed knowledge to be the light in the darkness and she wouldn’t shed herself of that belief, even if there was more darkness in her life than before. And like Mary said, she was going to make her own choices and take charge of whatever lightness she could get her hands on. She hoarded candles from each house she broke into and she’d expand that as a metaphor for this life.

So that night, when she knew most of the house’s occupants were asleep, Anne slipped out of her room again. 

Still just as silent and pale as a specter, Anne walked to the other end of the hall and slipped a note into the crack of light leaking from under the door. 

The door then opened, quicker than she expected, and Gilbert stood in his trousers and undershirt, his hair a mess from where he had to have been running his fingers through it. Behind him she could see an open book beside the candle on the desk. In his hand was her  note.

“Did I mean what?” he asked, voice quietly gruff in the dark as he repeated what she had written.

“What you said when you first got here. You… you said that you came back. To me,” Anne whispered, feeling his gaze even if he was in shadow.

“Yes,” he answered. 

“Not to your home?”

“I did come home,” Gilbert said evenly and without hesitation. “To you.”

And Anne made the choice to step forward, forcing Gilbert to step back. The note slipped from his fingers and the push of air from the closing door blew out the candle, plunging them into darkness.

Anne’s eyes adjusted in time to see Gilbert’s hand reach up to barely touch the braid she had put her hair into for the first time in years. 

“To what do I owe this visit?” Gilbert asked, voice low in the dark stillness of his room.

“Living,” Anne said and she felt his chuckle more than she heard it.

“Is that what this is?”

“It should be.”

“And why is that, Carrots?”

Anne shook her head at him and could just make out his smile. 

“If it’s not, if I don’t… then it was all for nothing,” Anne whispered, leaning into the hand that slid up to cup her cheek.

“We can’t have that, can we,” Gilbert breathed before his other hand grasped hers and tugged her to him, his mouth pressing to hers so he could swallow her gasp. He almost had to pull away because of the smile threatening to take over, but any trace of humor immediately fled when he felt her arms slide around his neck and keep him from daring to go anywhere but closer to her warm body beneath her thin gown.

Gilbert sucked in a breath through his nose as Anne’s fingers slid into the curls at his neck, tugging slightly when his arm wrapped around her waist. Anne felt dizzy and stumbled back into the door.

“I don’t want a baby,” she blurted, burning cheeks hidden by the darkness.

Gilbert made a choking sound and had to clear his throat. “Me neither,” he managed.

“But I want to… do the other things. With you. If you want.”

“Yes,” he croaked and then cleared his throat again. He reached back out and took Anne’s hand so he could bring it up to press a kiss to the back of it, almost like he would have before if he were courting her. 

Anne slowly let out a breath and used her hand in his to tug him to where she was, so he was leaning over her. 

“I want to live, Gil,” Anne whispered, her eyes closing as his lips pressed to her temple and made their way down.

“You will,” Gilbert whispered in her ear, making her shiver. “You are.”

The feeling of him so close and his mouth along her jaw made a giggle rise in her throat that felt so foreign. She felt dizzy but so alert. She felt like she did when out in a field, her heart racing in anticipation for the next slash. But she also felt warm. From Gilbert’s touch but also from the fact that she was safe in her home. Her only worry was getting caught, but even then, were they really doing anything wrong? Or, at the least, was there anyone to view it as wrong? Because the way Anne felt at that moment couldn’t feel further from wrong if she tried.

Gilbert hummed from his chest, one hand propping him up against the door while the other tugged at the end of the tie at the bottom of her braid, letting it unravel as he kissed down her neck.

“You shouldn’t have let the candle go out,” Gilbert said accusingly, his voice just a murmur against her skin. 

“Why?” she asked.

“Because now I can’t see your freckles,” Gilbert said, his teeth grazing her neck and he smiled when it made her gasp.

“That’s a good thing,” Anne managed to say.

Gilbert pulled back, the sudden cold air between them giving her goosebumps, and she could just barely make out the way his brow furrowed into a frown.

“Do you really think that?” he asked.

“Think what?” Anne frowned, looking up at his shape still looming over her.

“That I shouldn’t see your freckles.”

“Well—”

“It’s not living without your freckles, Anne,” Gilbert said, succeeding in making her laugh even just a little, having missed the sound.

Anne pressed her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. “Gil—”

“No. I think you still have some things to learn, Miss Shirley-Cuthbert. You may have been at the top of your class—”

“You got that letter?”

“But there’s one thing you seemed to have missed.”

“And what is that?” Anne asked into her hand, trying to physically hide her smile at his almost playful tone that made butterflies appear in her stomach.

Gilbert paused a moment before suddenly lifting Anne up as if she weighed nothing, chuckling at the squeal of surprise she had to muffle. He turned and put his knee on his bed, setting her down but making her have to lay back as he followed, now leaning over her in a horizontal imitation of their positions against the door just moments before.

Anne bit her lip as she looked up at Gilbert, his face just close enough to see in the darkness. Her hands gripped his shoulders as she shifted on his bed to get comfortable, her hair fanned above her, his body just close enough to feel the heat. 

“What you don’t know,” Gilbert continued, leaning down and continuing his exploration of her neck, now on the other side, “is how often I have dreamed of these freckles.”

“You have not,” Anne couldn’t help but scoff.

“Are you calling me a liar, Anne?” Gilbert gasped mockingly. “Can your vast imagination not cope with such a thought?”

“I can’t imagine the impossible,” Anne muttered, her voice losing its conviction as Gilbert suddenly reached her collarbone. 

“Hmm,” Gilbert hummed. “I guess I’ll just have to show you, then.”

Anne couldn’t even begin to fathom how much time had passed until she realized it was sunlight peeking through the cracks in the wood over the windows. She hadn’t fallen asleep, even though she was sure Gilbert had, but time had just flown by so smoothly that it slipped through her fingers like sand. Some of her body ached a little from her lack of sleep, which made her blush, but she knew she had to move, even if she very much did not want to. It helped that she didn’t have to go far, and that she would see Gilbert at breakfast, but when she turned in his arms to face him, pulling away felt impossible.

He must have woken at her movements, or sensed she was now looking at him, because his eyes blinked open.

“Don’t go,” he mumbled, his eyes closing again.

“I have to,” Anne sighed.

“Why? We’re in your house,” Gilbert argued, eyes still closed.

“I have to be back before Pennie wakes up.”

“Why?” Gilbert asked petulantly, now squinting at her.

“She’ll get scared if I’m not there,” Anne said and she watched as Gilbert’s face softened.

“You’re good with her,” Gilbert murmured, leaning forward and pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“It’s the least I can do,” Anne argued.

“More than most,” Gilbert countered before he rolled over and reached down to the floor, moving his hand wildly until it came back up, now holding her nightgown. He handed it back to her and she held it to her chest, turning away from him as she sat up and pulled it on. Gilbert didn’t say anything more.

“I’ll see you in a little bit,” Anne murmured, looking at him over her shoulder, her hair cascading down her back. She couldn’t help herself as her eyes slowly took in the way he looked, laying in his bed amongst his rumpled sheets.

“You will,” Gilbert said, sounding like he was making a promise, his fingertips just barely grazing the back of her arm where they could reach.

Anne stood and walked around the bed and to the door. Once there, her hand on the doorknob, she stopped.

“Gil?”

“Mmm?”

“Am I really famous?”

“What?” he asked.

“Bash said I was famous,” Anne said, looking back at him over her shoulder again. “He said, the other day, that I became a siren story, passed around from ship to ship. Was he making fun of me?”

“No,” Gilbert said honestly, his arms crossing behind his head. “I couldn’t keep the sun to myself below deck.”

Anne shook her head, turning back to the door to hide her smile. “You’re too much, Gilbert Blythe.”

“I’ve been told that’s living, Anne-with-an-E,” Gilbert said, his grin audible in his tone.

And Anne had to slip out the door and scurry back to her room before she made the choice to never leave at all. Pennie was thankfully still asleep when she opened her door and Anne was able to get into her bed, eyelids heavy, and hope she could get at least a nap before she had to face the day after being up all night.

When Anne walked down the stairs just a few hours later, attempting to stifle a yawn, only one person seemed to take notice. Gilbert kept his head down, Pennie was focused on her breakfast and the book in her lap, and Mary just had a small smirk on her face as she kept her attention on feeding Delphine. Bash, however, looked up from the stove and frowned.

“Are you feeling alright, Anne?” he asked and Gilbert dropped his fork.

“Yes,” Anne said quickly, almost missing the last step. She cleared her throat and sat at the table so her back was to Bash. “Just— couldn’t sleep.”

“Mhm,” he hummed but Anne didn’t need to see his voice to tell he was unconvinced.

“I had an idea,” Anne said, mumbling a thanks to the plate that was deposited in front of her.

“For what?” Mary asked, handing the baby off to Bash so she could button her dress then get some food of her own.

“For more things for Delphine,” Anne continued.

“We can manage—”

Anne shook her head. “It’s… it’s just a few houses nearby I haven’t tried yet. It can’t hurt just to look,” she defended.

“Maybe we should wait until you’re feeling better,” Gilbert started, meeting her eye for the first time since she arrived downstairs.

Anne just stared back at him until his ears turned red. She turned back to her breakfast and added, “Pennie needs more books anyway.”

And so, after breakfast and the farm chores were finished, Anne got dressed to go out into Avonlea. She had her gun at her hip, just in case, and her knives. She grabbed the bag she often used when she was planning to scavenge, which she kept near the front door, and went back to the only viable exit in the house. She found Gilbert waiting there and frowned up at him.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m coming with you.”

“That’s not necessary, Gil,” Anne sighed, trying not to be distracted by the way the nickname made the corner of his mouth uptick.

“Four hands are better than two,” Gilbert said nonchalantly and Anne just sighed again.

“Grab the axe, then. Your rifle won’t be of much use in a house,” Anne instructed as she waved him out of the way so she could move the dresser.

“Aye, aye, captain,” Gilbert muttered and did as she said.

Once outside, they stayed silent as they made their way through the chilly woods on what looked to be a foggy winter day. Their footsteps made less noise on the dead, damp leaves, and Anne tried to keep her mind on the moment and not where they were going.

“Oh,” Gilbert breathed once they stopped before the newest looking home in town.

“She always talked about planning for her future,” Anne whispered, unable to bring her voice louder as she stared up at the house. “But I suppose no one could plan for this…”

“Is…”

“I don’t know,” Anne murmured. “Not everyone left at the same time. If they left at all.”

They stood there for longer than they should have, silent and staring. Anne almost couldn’t bring herself to go inside.

“You haven’t run into any more burning buildings while I was gone, have you?” Gilbert suddenly asked and the slight humor to his tone made her stomach untwist, barely.

“I just break into buildings to steal stuff and kill monsters these days,” Anne said dryly.

Gilbert sighed. “You do, don’t you,” he mumbled, shaking his head.

“Let’s go.”

Anne started forward, Gilbert followed, and she broke into the Gillis house like she once did under the cover of night and the light of fire.

Inside, the place seemed quiet, but it was a deceiving silence due to the multiple rooms and levels. Anne nodded her head to the right to indicate where she was going and Gilbert used his axe to gesture to the left. Once apart, Anne gripped her knife and walked through what looked to be the formal living room. Anything useful for them wouldn’t be just sitting out in the open, so she kept her eyes out for both the dangerous and the functional.

Anne found nothing downstairs but was on high alert based on what it sounded like Gilbert found on the other side of the house. She crept up the stairs, made easier by her pants, and carefully began nudging open what turned out to be the bedroom doors. She made note of which ones she should come back to, as the large closets held promise, and continued on to make sure she was safe. 

One room she walked into looked vaguely familiar and Anne forced herself to look closer, to study the objects around her objectively for her own family’s use, not for their possible memories.

She just touched the closet door, latch just barely holding on, when she heard a clatter downstairs. Turning, Anne stepped to the door and leaned out, listening for any indication that something was wrong since she felt ill at ease about making any noise loud enough to call down to Gilbert. 

Anne’s heart then stopped and she froze just as she heard the faint creak of rusty hinges coming from the room behind her. 

Anne spun around, knife aloft, and couldn’t hold in the cry that left her throat at what she saw dragging itself from the closet. The face was horrifically unrecognizable but the familiar pink fabric made her almost be sick.

Before she could even think, Anne stumbled back, almost tripping herself in her hurry to get out of the bedroom. She slammed the door, the sound echoing through the house, and her knife fell from her hand in her hurry to slap a hand over her mouth.

“Anne?” Gilbert called from downstairs, the sound going through the house like another gunshot. 

Anne squeezed her eyes closed so hard it hurt, but the action just made the sight she just saw so much worse. She heaved in a breath, trying to will her heart rate to slow enough so it would stop pounding in her ears. She just barely heard footsteps that had to be Gilbert walking across the hardwood downstairs. But then, her heart skipped a beat when she heard a dragging sound that she doubted any living creature could make. 

She turned just in time to gasp and duck away from the man—what used to be a man—angling towards her. It fell into the door she had been leaning against but moved to try again. Anne tried to focus, to get her mind out of the past, but she could only fumble in her attempts to get her second knife out of where it was strapped to her leg. 

She shot up right as it came for her, the smell that filled her nostrils one that she didn’t think anyone could ever get used to. Her left hand, knife in her fist, clumsily shoved up to reach the throat of the creature that towered over her. The blade made contact but slipped, the flesh weaker than Anne had experienced yet. Her momentum carried the knife up, but just to the perfect angle so her fingers slid into the awaiting mouth aiming for her.

Anne felt her blood pump harder, faster in her veins just as she pushed forward and drove the knife into the rotting forehead of the beast crumbling to pieces. She stumbled back, hitting Ruby’s bedroom door again, and slid down onto the floor as the other one fell down the staircase.

Anne had no time to think, everything rushed out of her mind at the sight of the marks on the last two fingers of her hand. She couldn’t hear her heart beating, she couldn’t hear her labored breathing. The house faded around her and she could almost feel the smoke filling her lungs as it had years ago. Her body moved of its own volition. Her right hand scrambled for the knife she had dropped, freshly sharpened just an hour earlier. She was suddenly reminded of the beatings she used to endure and the few scars she still had. She had dealt with too much at such a young age, enduring the worst for the worst. But this. Right now. Her vision tunneling and her mind made up. This would be the worst pain, but for the best reasons.

Anne lifted her right arm and brought the knife down directly onto the fingers of her other hand and she doubled over, screaming into the blood-covered rug.

Gilbert banged on the kitchen door with his fist, not letting up until he heard a gun cock from the other side.

“ Bash! Open the door! ”

Anne heard Bash curse and the bottom of the dresser scratch against the floor. She felt herself sway and Gilbert gripped her arm painfully. Her eyes were shut as she tried to breathe through the pain-induced nausea as she held her injured hand to her chest, Gilbert’s formerly white shirt wrapped tightly around it.

She heard the door open and Gilbert pushed her through, Bash and Mary’s exclamations barely registering. What did make it through her brain was the fact that Gilbert stopped her stumbling much too soon and her eyes shot up just as he shoved open the bedroom door just off the kitchen.

“No,” she gasped but couldn’t physically fight the tight grip Gilbert had on her. 

Gilbert was yelling at Bash for supplies but he slammed the door shut once he and Anne were on the other side.

“N-not here,” Anne begged, trying to use her feet against the floor to push back as her chest started to heave.

“You can’t go upstairs,” Gilbert gritted out, his hands tightening on her arms enough to leave bruises. He barely noticed all the things that had been stuffed in the room, but he had to have expected it. He gave up trying to deal with her struggling form and simply lifted her up, moving too quickly to be gentle about it as he set her on the bed. When she tried to sit up, he shoved her down by her shoulders. “Anne! You have to stay here! You can’t leave! ”

Anne balked at his harsh tone, never having heard him yell before and definitely not at her. She stopped struggling long enough to see the pain on his face as he used sewing scissors that were on the floor to rip up the curtains he tore away from the boarded window. Her eyes widened once she saw his tears and the way his hands shook as he refused to meet her gaze, just as he took her right hand and started to wrap the strips of fabric around her wrist.

“Gil…” she breathed and he shook his head at her, incapable of even looking at her.

“Do you know if that will work?” Gilbert asked, his voice low as he roughly tied the other end of the fabric to the headboard.

Anne looked down at her left hand.

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

“Would Jerry know?” Gilbert asked, pulling on the knot so harshly the bedframe shook.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. Gilbert just nodded. 

“Then we have to wait,” Gilbert said, moving to the other side to tie her other hand, being more careful that time.

“Then leave. You can’t be in here, either, then,” Anne gasped, jerking forward a little when Gilbert didn’t stop what he was doing. “Gilbert! Y-you can’t!”

“You’re either dying from the bite or an infection. I can do something about one of those,” Gilbert said flatly, still not looking at her. There was a knock on the door and he stood, opening it just enough to take what he was handed before telling whoever was there to barricade the door from that side.

Anne realized her own tears were falling down her cheeks as she watched Gilbert clench his shaking hands and return to her side, kneeling by the bed so he could unwrap her injured hand. It throbbed with the movement and the pain was indescribable, but the thought of what could happen to her served as enough of a distraction as Gilbert started to clean what was left of the last two fingers of her hand. 

“Promise me,” she begged, the words leaving her mouth without her permission.

“I can’t do that,” Gilbert said, his voice hoarse. 

“ I did. You have to, too,” Anne whispered, her gaze boring into the top of his head as he bent over her hand after holding the needle over the candle he just lit.

“Then you know what it did to you,” Gilbert answered, beginning to stitch with no warning.

Anne hissed, curling over her lap and tugging at the linen that bound her right hand.

“But you can’t let me hurt you. Or anyone else. Don’t let Pennie see me like that, Gilbert,” Anne gasped, her forehead pressing against her knee. 

Gilbert didn’t answer but she knew the boy could argue and took the lack of it as his acceptance. 

The room was silent as Gilbert finished, applying honey of all things to her wounds before wrapping it up in proper bandages. But her wrists stayed tied. 

She could move, and lay down, but she wouldn’t make it far off the bed if she tried.

Her eyes followed Gilbert as he shuffled around the room in his bloodied undershirt, seemingly doing anything to avoid her.

Anne shifted so she could lay on her side, left arm curled against her chest. She felt empty, and scared, but the waiting she knew she would have to do felt like an endless horizon, the edge dark and unknown.

What she did know, what she knew best of what was left in the world, was stuck in this room with her, so words tumbled out of her mouth to try to fill the void.

“It was her,” Anne whispered, her voice harsh against her throat.

Gilbert froze but finally turned to look at her, eyes red and cheeks tear-stained.

“What?”

“In her room. Upstairs. I shut her in,” Anne said, voice wobbling.

She watched as Gilbert realized what she was saying and it looked like another heavy stone fell onto his shoulders. She then watched as he placed the object in his hands on the table by the bed and it registered that it was the picture of young Michael, Marilla, and Matthew that used to hang along the stairs. She tore her eyes from it to see Gilbert sitting on the edge of the bed, body turned towards her. 

“We shouldn’t have gone in there,” he said.

“Maybe not,” Anne acquiesced, her eyes falling to the quilt she was laying on. She just barely held back a flinch when she felt Gilbert reach for her hair, slipping the sheath out of it and then tucking any loose hairs behind her ear, her hair spilling behind her in a poor imitation of the blood that had spilled at the Gillis’. 

When he didn’t stop, his fingers carding through her hair in a soothing motion, her eyes fell shut. She didn’t think she’d actually fall asleep, despite her exhaustion, because of the throbbing pain in her hand and the anxiety pumping through her veins, but she let his touch distract her just a little, reminding her of last night even though it felt like forever ago now.

“Where was your favorite? Of all the places you visited?” Anne whispered. She kept her eyes closed as she let Gilbert’s words wash over her, the images of places she’d never see settling on her skin like a blanket.

As the day faded into night, Anne and Gilbert could make out the movements of the other occupants of the house. Someone left them dinner outside the door before escaping back upstairs, and Gilbert made Anne eat a quarter of it before letting her push it away. It wasn’t until Gilbert was helping Anne remove her pants so she’d be more comfortable during the night that any sound louder than distant echoes reached them down where they were holed up.

“NO!” a voice screamed and Anne jerked up against the ties, forgetting for just a moment that she couldn’t let herself be pulled to the door.

“Gil,” Anne breathed, her wide eyes staring up at the ceiling as if she could see where the scream had come from. Her skin itched with how unsettling the sound had been.

Anne felt a hand on her shoulder, gently pushing her to rest back on the pillows. Gilbert stood and walked to the door, pressing his ear to it and waiting. 

He must have heard something because he then called out, “Bash?”

After a moment he got an answer.

“We’re handling it,” Bash said, voice muffled through the door.

“Who was that?” Gilbert asked, frowning.

Bash paused, then said, “Pennie didn’t want to sleep without Anne. And we wouldn’t let her sleep down here.”

Anne heard a choked off noise that she realized came from her.

If she thought she felt sick to her stomach from the pain, it was nothing to the way she felt at the realization that the first word she had heard Pennie speak was one of distress, because of a situation Anne had put her in.

“Where is she?” Gilbert asked, eyes on Anne as she bit her lip hard enough to draw blood.

“We’re keeping her in our room. We’re handling it, alright? You focus on her, alright ?”

“Yeah,” Gilbert said to Bash before he heard a light tap on the door and then footsteps walking away.

Anne realized she was crying as Gilbert blurred before her. She closed her eyes and her chin ducked against her chest, so she jerked a bit in surprise when she felt hands on her wrists.

“What are you doing?” Anne choked out, her head snapping up to see Gilbert untying her. “ Wait —”

“It would’ve happened by now, right? I’m not making you go to sleep like this. And you need to. We can stay in here, just to be sure, if you want,” Gilbert said, reaching over her to untie her other wrist before unwrapping her injured hand to check on it before wrapping it back again. “Lay down, please.”

“She—”

“All you can do for her right now is heal, Anne. You want to keep her safe, so you need to be safe,” Gilbert stressed, tugging the dusty blankets down so he could pull them over Anne’s bare legs. “Please, Anne.”

At his pleading, Anne wilted.

Gilbert laid down over the covers, to better react to an emergency, but let Anne curl up against his side as best she could.

She didn’t think she’d be able to sleep, not even when her heart finally slowed down, but her senses were suddenly filled with the smell of pipe smoke that she half-feared she was just imagining.

“What would Matthew think of this?” Anne found herself asking into the dark room, saying the name in this house for the first time since she had left it.

“I think he’d kill me,” Gilbert said immediately, holding her closer.

“He wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Anne argued.

“He would if that fly hurt you,” Gilbert said evenly, making Anne almost deflate as she let out all the air in her lungs.

Anne didn’t continue as she listened to Gilbert’s heart beat beneath her head.

“It would be Marilla I’d be worried about disappointing,” Gilbert dared to say, voice barely above a whisper. 

Anne hummed, eyes closing. She wondered if talking of such things was meant to hurt more, or if it just couldn’t compare to the real injury she had given herself. Or if she just wanted to say their names so badly, surrounded by their things.

“I think she’d be proud,” Anne whispered, “of me… for daring to act on love, unlike her. They were the ones to teach me what it really was, after all. I don’t think they’d want me to waste it.”

“You won’t.” Gilbert shifted atop the blankets, rolling onto his side so he could wrap both arms around her, holding her as close as he dared with her injured hand between them. 

Anne buried her face against his chest and let herself curl into him, imagining herself in the dark, tight corners she used to squeeze into in order to escape the world, just her and her books. The world was oppressive and inescapable now, but she could pretend, just for a moment, in Gilbert’s embrace.

Anne allowed her anxiety to take over and dictate her movements. So she refused to leave Matthew’s room for a few more days, just to be safe. When it was clear that no abnormal changes were happening, and her wound looked far less angry than before, she finally let Gilbert shuffle her out into the rest of the house (and towards the screened off corner where a bath was waiting for her to finally rid herself of any remaining dried blood). Before she made it all the way into the kitchen, though, she was almost bowled over by the force running into her lower half.

Without thought, Anne fell to her knees (against Gilbert’s choked out protests) and wrapped Pennie in a hug, her heart aching at the sniffles muffled into her neck.

“I’m sorry for scaring you, sweetheart,” Anne murmured, just catching the movement of Mary and Bash out of the corner of her eye.

“Don’t go,” Pennie whispered in her ear and Anne lost it. Her hand throbbed with the fist with which she gripped the little girl to her, right hand cupping the back of her head to hold her as close as possible as Anne started to cry.

“I won’t,” Anne gasped, making a promise she had no way of keeping. She felt something touch her injured hand and reflexively loosened her grip, her eyes blinking open and seeing Gilbert looking down at her with his heavy gaze that said so much with no words.

Pennie shifted in her arms and Anne let her go just enough for her to pull back so Anne could brush the hair out of her face and give her a watery smile. 

“Did Bash and Mary take good care of you?” Anne asked, her smile lifting at Pennie’s nod. “Good. Do you want to sit with me while I take my bath? I can tell you a story, if you want.”

Anne blinked in response to the quiet “no” she received. Anne then followed Pennie’s gaze toward Mary who smiled kindly over at them.

“Pennie wanted to learn how to give Dellie a bath,” Mary explained.

“That sounds like a wonderful idea,” Anne said so Pennie’s frown would disappear. She didn’t know how she felt about the change that had occurred while she had been quarantining herself, but she knew she couldn’t fault this little girl for having more people in her life. Anne herself had always wondered what it would be like to have siblings, and she couldn’t help but think that maybe Delphine could fill that role for Pennie, even if Anne didn’t know exactly what she was to either child. 

Anne watched Pennie scurry over to Mary to join her at the basin they had set up in the sink, blindly standing up with Gilbert’s help. She allowed him to direct her to her own bath, the tiny sound of Pennie’s giggle following her behind the screen.

“Don’t get your bandages wet,” Gilbert instructed, her responding scoff of indignation making him grin despite himself. 

A few days later, Jerry came knocking again. The horrified look on his face at the sight of Anne’s wound when she opened the door almost made her laugh despite the seriousness of it, but she knew better. She stepped back to let him inside but Jerry shook his head. 

“I need help,” Jerry said to Anne but he then looked straight at Gilbert over her head, pointedly.

Anne shuffled out of the way as Gilbert joined Jerry outside for whatever reason. Leaving them to it, Anne went back to the table where she and Pennie had been looking over a map of Canada before Pennie had run upstairs. When the boys came back inside, Jerry didn’t have more on him than he usually did, but Gilbert did have a split lip that he didn’t just a few minutes before.

“Jerry!” Anne berated as Bash started laughing which made him choke on his water.

Jerry looked entirely unperturbed but Gilbert just shrugged.

“It’s fine,” Gilbert said, wetting a rag and holding it to his lip.

“I knew I’d see you get punched sooner or later,” Bash chuckled as Mary walked back in the room, barely batting an eye at whatever she walked in on.

“Shut up,” Gilbert mumbled behind the rag. “I won the last fight I was in.”

“And when was that?” Anne scoffed.

“Billy Andrews,” Gilbert answered nonchalantly.

“You did not!” Anne gasped.

“Someone had to,” Gilbert muttered.

“Who’s Billy Andrews?” Mary asked, setting Delphine into the basket they were using as a makeshift crib.

Anne sighed. “Just a boy in our class,” she said despite spending longer in school without Gilbert than with him. It felt odd talking about Billy. She didn’t know what happened to any of the Andrews family, but cared less about the fate of such a horrid person than his sisters whom she called friends, even if she sometimes felt a little guilt at her lack of sentiment. She wouldn’t say she wished a bite on anyone, but also wasn’t going to shed a tear for Billy Andrews, no matter what happened.

“Who never learned to keep his opinions to himself,” Gilbert added as he sat at the table.

“Is that why you fought him?” Mary asked.

Gilbert hummed, eyes cutting to Jerry. “We have that in common, I guess,” he said as an aside, making Jerry mumble something in French.

“What does that mean?” Anne asked, frowning on confusion.

“Was this Billy a fan of yours, Anne?” Bash smirked.

“No,” she scoffed.

“I see,” Bash said knowingly, sitting back in his seat with a grin that made Gilbert roll his eyes.

Anne opened her mouth to continue pestering until she got an answer, but Pennie instead came bounding back into the room.

“ Bonjour !” she said to Jerry whose mouth dropped.

Anne smiled as Pennie took her seat in front of the map again, this time with Anne’s old Canadian history book.

“We’ve been practising,” Anne informed Jerry.

“Maybe I can teach you more words. She,” Jerry pointed at Anne, “is good at teaching English but is bad at learning French.”

“Hey!”

“Your English is very good, though,” Gilbert teased, helplessly grinning at Anne and making his lip start bleeding again (and making Bash and Mary exchange amused looks).

Anne rolled her eyes but couldn’t help the blush that spread over her cheeks. She stood and started to gather the dirty dishes but Gilbert stood up so fast he almost knocked over his chair. 

“Let me do that,” Gilbert said, taking the plates from her.

“I’m perfectly capable—”

“Not with that hand, you’re not. You won’t be getting an infection under my watch,” he said, making her roll her eyes again.

“Let him do it,” Mary chided gently, causing Anne to sit back down with a huff.

“Were you a stubborn child?” Bash asked innocently and Jerry started to laugh.

“Shut up, Jerry,” Anne mumbled.

“What was it you called her, Blythe? Fiery?” Bash asked with a grin.

“Don’t laugh,” Anne huffed. 

“Well it’s true. I don’t think he stopped talking about you for days after you sent him that first letter.”

“About the gold,” Anne said.

“He wasn’t talking about any gold,” Bash chuckled.

“But he was making fun of my hair?” Anne frowned.

“Oh no, he definitely wasn’t making fun,” Bash assured her. “Tell her, Blythe.”

“I said it matches your personality,” Gilbert said from the sink.

“That’s cute,” Mary said, but had to hide a smile at Anne’s continued frown.

“No, it’s not. It’s making fun,” Anne said, looking displeased.

Jerry was glaring daggers into Gilbert’s back and Bash looked like he was enjoying himself immensely while lifting Delphine into his arms. 

Anne felt a little hurt, and a bit silly because of that. She had many thoughts about how she looked, even though she had started to care less while living in a world where she wasn’t often looked at, but had almost believed some of the nice things Gilbert had said to her the other night when she had gone to his room. They hadn’t really talked about it, their minds on other things when they were closed up in Matthew’s old room, but some of Anne’s insecurities flared up a bit at this unsavory topic of conversation.

Gilbert turned around at the sink, looking a bit surprised at the frown on Anne’s face.

“It’s not if it’s one of my favorite things about you,” he said honestly, with a touch of incredulity. When she just scrunched her nose up in confusion, Gilbert strode forward, dishes abandoned, until he was standing in front of her.

Anne looked up at him, eyes wide. He reached for her, gently tilting her chin up so he could lean down and kiss her softly with his sore lip, just as a small promise that he would work on changing her mind and making her believe him later. Gilbert then pulled away and went straight back to the sink, leaving her to turn her eyes away from his back to the people at the table now staring at her. 

She was then reminded that they hadn’t exactly spelled out their recent… understanding with each other. Anne wasn’t sure what they would call whatever they were doing, but she liked to think that, whatever it was, they were doing it together . But that hadn’t exactly been expressed to the rest of the household, especially since they weren’t privy to whatever her and Gilbert did behind closed doors. So she was left facing them, cheeks aflame.

Bash looked like Christmas had come early, or at all, and was only refraining from physically expressing his jubilation because of the restraining hand Mary had on his arm (although she did give Anne a silent wink).

“ Choquant ,” Jerry mumbled.

“What does that mean?” Pennie whispered to Jerry.

“Disgusting,” he answered, making a face that made her giggle.

“No one asked you,” Anne muttered, sticking her tongue out at him and making Pennie laugh again.

“Yeah, Jerry, no one asked you,” Gilbert mumbled to the dishes before getting a balled up piece of paper to the head.

“Don’t waste that!” Anne chastised, leaning over the table to pinch Jerry’s arm.

“This is nice,” Mary said to Bash.

“What, a bunch of ridiculous kids?” he asked sarcastically.

“A bunch of kids remembering to be kids,” Mary corrected, her eyes falling to Pennie who was giggling into her hands at the others’ antics.

A now-familiar knock sounded through the door and Anne all but threw herself at the dresser to push it out of the way before yanking the door open to the warm spring air. She then definitely threw herself into Gilbert’s arms, feeling the tension she had held over the last few days bleed away at the sound of him sighing in her ear.

“You’re never doing that again,” Anne mumbled into Gilbert’s shoulder as he dropped his bag and wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off the floor.

“It went fine, Anne,” Gilbert said but made no move to let her go as he kissed her hair.

They just held each other for a few more moments in the doorway, taking advantage of the quiet house (with the rest of the occupants having made the trip to the orchard) to just appreciate Gilbert’s safe return from Charlottetown.

Anne then heard a noise that made her freeze. She slowly pulled back, Gilbert letting her feet touch the floor again. She blinked up at him before looking around him to see a horse tied to the hitching post.

“Gilbert.”

“Yes?”

“Where did you get a horse?” Anne asked incredulously, looking back at him to see him trying to hide a smile.

“I have a few surprises actually…”

“Did you find something good at the doctor’s office, then?” Anne asked, perking up. She grabbed his bag, heavier than it had been when he left, and led him into the kitchen after he shut the door. “You might have to hide any books not suitable for children before Pennie gets back from the orchard.”

“I did. Not much medicine was left but, yes, plenty of useful books,” Gilbert said, looking briefly distracted by one of the textbooks he pulled out of his bag, before turning back to Anne and adopting a serious look on his face.

“What? Was the rest of the town as bad as I remember? What about the house I asked you to look at?” Anne asked, frowning.

“Charlottetown wasn’t… great. I didn’t see much, living or unliving, but it looked like more people had been through and picked it over,” Gilbert began. 

“Well, that was expected,” Anne sighed. They had gone to Charlottetown, in the beginning, but the disease moved so quickly back then, they had been forced to keep going. She didn’t know if seeing it now would be worse than seeing it then, especially with the way it tarnished her fond memories of the place. And how it made her planned-for future all the more impossible. She hadn’t even been able to ask Gilbert about what was left of Queens as she thought it best to just not know. She hadn’t been able to resist asking for one favor, however…

“And that house you wanted me to walk by… I didn’t realize it would be so big…”

Anne gave him a pained smile. “If only you could have seen the inside. More beautiful than you could imagine… especially when all dressed up for a party more magnificent than you could ever dream of,” she sighed, images flitting through her mind that she hadn’t thought of in a long time.

Gilbert didn’t return her smile. He just pulled something out of his pocket but held it so she couldn’t see. 

“I did go in,” Gilbert said. 

“What?! Why would you do that, Gil? I thought you said no unnecessary risks?” Anne crossed her arms, upset at the idea of Gilbert being hurt but also at what state the manor must have been in.

“The only risk was almost being shot by that Rollings guy. But I almost shot him back, so we’re even,” Gilbert said slowly, watching her face.

Anne’s brow furrowed but her arms fell back to her sides limply. 

“... What?” she breathed, looking like she didn’t want to think about what that could mean.

Gilbert glanced down at what was in his hand before extending them to her.

Anne, frozen, let her eyes fall to what looked like letters in his hand. She then wrapped her arms around herself again and shook her head. Gilbert set the three envelopes onto the table beside her and said nothing.

Anne stared at her feet before slowly looking at the table. She just made out the words “Anne-girl” written on the envelope on the top and sucked in a breath.

“Where did you find that?” Anne choked out, her still-bandaged hand moving to her mouth.

“I didn’t,” Gilbert said carefully, his eyes never leaving her face. “They were given to me.”

Anne started to shake her head again, but couldn’t look away as Gilbert reached over to push the envelopes apart. “Anne-girl” slid across one that had words and what looked like a small drawing which was moved to reveal the one at the bottom. Anne made a noise, muffled by her hand, and couldn’t tell whether she felt like she might throw up or faint. 

“They’re all at Josephine Barry’s,” Gilbert softly said, pushing an envelope forward that was addressed to ‘My Dearest Kindred Spirit’. 

“Alive?” Anne heaved, tearing her eyes away from the letters to look at Gilbert as she gasped for air, trying to see if he was telling the truth.

“And very happy to hear you are as well,” Gilbert said, reaching out to take her shaking right hand, and then pulling her to his chest when she started to truly cry for the second time since he returned.

“Sh-she’s…” Anne sobbed, unable to wrap her head around what Gilbert had just gifted her.

“They stopped at the house in Charlottetown. Mrs. Barry insisted and Mr. Barry actually listened,” Gilbert said, holding her and rubbing her back soothingly. “Diana is perfectly fine.”

At the sound of her name, Anne continued to cry into Gilbert’s chest, a weight off her shoulders she hadn’t even realized she’d been carrying. It was nothing short of a miracle, with all those she knew had succumbed, and she had simply clung to the bleak bliss of ignorance as far as Diana Barry was concerned. But to just know… even if actually seeing her was not as simple as sneaking around behind Mrs. Barry’s back as they once did… Anne wondered if her unsaid prayers had been answered, for the first time.

“They’re proud of you,” Gilbert whispered in her ear once she calmed down a little, but didn’t pull out of his embrace.

“For what?” Anne sniffed, sounding disbelieving.

Gilbert huffed out a laugh before kissing her temple. “For everything, Anne,” he scoffed. “For all of it. All of this .”

“I just—”

“ Just nothing,” Gilbert said, pulling back just enough to tilt Anne’s chin up so she would look at him, the blue in her eyes bright against her tears. “ Anne . This family wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.”

Anne bit the inside of her cheek to stop more tears from falling. “Do you all think that? Think of us as a family?”

Gilbert gave her a look, mostly eyebrows and quirked smiles, not unlike the ones he used to give her whenever she’d run away from him when she was thirteen. Just like it did then, this look made her blush. But she wasn’t running away anymore.

“Of course,” Gilbert said simply, taking her hand and lifting it so he could kiss her palm beneath her bandage. “And nothing less, Anne Shirley-Cuthbert.”

Anne started to shake her head. She had already had and lost family more times that she could count, it felt like. If asked, she would say the same about these people she shared her home with, but she also realized that the very idea was hard to grasp. Almost as if putting a name to it, really saying it out loud and meaning it, would have it all pulled out from under her. 

Gilbert brought her hand to his chest, right above where she could feel his heart. 

“She asked for you. Miss Barry— Aunt Jo? She asked if I would come back. Bring you. For you to stay,” Gilbert said carefully, eyes searching her face.

Anne put her other hand on his chest, honing in on the feeling of the proof of his blood pumping, flowing through his body.

“Did you say you would?” she asked slowly.

“No.”

Anne looked up at him.

“I said I would tell you. That I would ask. But that I thought you wouldn’t leave Green Gables,” Gilbert said, resting one hand over hers and using his other to trace the cluster of freckles along her cheekbone.

Anne hummed, her eyes falling to look around the kitchen in which they stood. 

“I think you thought right,” Anne murmured.

“It happens sometimes,” Gilbert said, making her smile, which was always his goal every morning, whether or not she was beside him when he opened his eyes.

“I can’t believe it, though,” Anne sighed, her forehead falling against Gilbert’s chest, and she felt him kiss the top of her head.

“I had to show them the letter you left in my bag because they didn’t believe me for some reason,” Gilbert chuckled. 

“... They didn’t read all of it, did they?” she asked slowly, making Gilbert laugh again.

“No. That last bit was only appreciated by me,” Gilbert said, his arms winding around her waist and pulling her closer, making her stifle a giggle wetly into his shirt.

“When should I expect an answer in return, then?” Anne asked, tilting her head up so he could see the twinkle in her eye. She then suddenly found herself lifted up and set on the table, causing her to squeak in surprise. 

Gilbert smirked down at her and tugged at the top button of her men’s shirt, his fingers just grazing her necklace and making it jingle against her skin. 

“Do you want it in writing or do you just want a demonstration?” Gilbert asked with a raised eyebrow, to which Anne could only bite her lip against the threatening smile. Not finding that answer acceptable, Gilbert reached up to lightly thumb her lip away from her teeth so he could replace it with his own. 

Anne couldn’t help the slight thrill that shivered through her as she sat on her kitchen table, being thoroughly kissed by, and kissing thoroughly in return, Gilbert Blythe as he stood between her pants-clad legs. It wasn’t the most unexpected thing to happen to her, with the last few years being as unexpected as they come, but she figured it wasn’t the strangest, having this boy from her childhood looking at her like he did, holding her like he couldn’t fathom ever letting go. Afterall, it seemed anything was possible these days, for better or for worse. And she dared to cling to the better amidst all the worse. 

So cling she did. Anne grabbed hold of Gilbert’s suspenders and tugged him even closer before winding her arms around his neck, almost laughing against his mouth as he knocked over the chair beside him in his haste to comply with her unspoken demands. Just as his hands started making their journey downward, a specific knock sounded from the front door.

Both of them jumped slightly and Anne’s mouth twisted into a smile as Gilbert cursed under his breath, looking not too pleased with the interruption.

Anne pushed him back so she could slip off the table and right the chair, and her clothes, before going to answer the door despite them not having gotten around to barricading it again just yet. 

When she opened it (after almost forgetting to wipe her eyes in case it still looked like she had been crying), and Pennie slipped inside before the Lacroixs followed, she perked up at the sight of Jerry standing behind them whom they had obviously met on their walk back to the farmhouse.

“Jerry!” Anne gasped, running into him and then bodily forcing him inside in her excitement. “Guess what!”

“No,” Jerry said, looking down at her in confusion. It was not as common as it used to be to see her as overcome with herself like this.

Anne scoffed, lightly punching him in the arm as she rolled her eyes. “ Jerry ,” she whined. 

Gilbert cleared his throat behind Anne, rumpled hair forgotten, after Bash, Mary, and Pennie had finished welcoming him back from his trip and he promised he’d tell them about it over dinner. When Anne glanced over at him, her eyes fell on another envelope he produced from his pocket. He gave her a meaningful look as he handed it to her before making himself scarce as Mary handed the baby to him and then started delegating tasks for getting dinner started.

Anne felt a lump in her throat as she turned back to Jerry who was giving her a weird look.

“Jerry.”

“Anne,” he said impatiently.

Anne gripped the paper in her hand and realized she couldn’t hold back the tears that were so close to the edge. She pressed her hand over her mouth to muffle the aborted sob that escaped, the fact that Jerry now looked worried not helping her compose herself. She heard Gilbert behind her mutter something to the others, telling them to give them a moment, and she had to just shove the letter into Jerry’s chest.

“What—”

“Diana,” Anne blurted out, watching Jerry’s eyes widen. “She’s alive. She’s with Aunt Jo and Cole, in Charlottetown. Gilbert saw them.”

Jerry looked at something over her shoulder before looking down at the envelope in his hand. He appeared dumbfounded as he blinked down at his name written in Diana’s perfect handwriting.

“She is… okay?”

“Yes,” Gilbert said from the table. “I told her that you and your family were still here.”

“Good,” Jerry said before clearing his throat. He set down the bag he had brought in with him and couldn’t stop glancing down at his name in ink.

Anne stepped forward, her hand resting on his arm right above the letter. “Let me know if you need help,” she whispered to him, squeezing his wrist and then stepping back.

Jerry just nodded, looking her in the eye, and then left the house. Once the door was shut behind him, Anne felt a hand on her back.

“I’m assuming I missed something while I was gone,” Gilbert muttered over her shoulder.

“Avonlea did not cease to exist without you,” Anne said, wiping her eyes. She turned around and said to the others, “Have I told the story about being tied up in the pantry by con-men?”

Anne’s hand was healing, the weather was getting warmer by the day, and with so many people in the house now as spring turned to summer, it almost felt… better. Nothing would be normal ever again, or, in reality, this was the new normal. But nothing would feel the same and that broke her heart, and always would, but standing outside Green Gables with her hair and freckles soaking up the sun, something she hadn’t let herself do in a long time, felt good. It felt right. It felt like something she could maybe let herself have, which was the same feeling she felt whenever she snuck out of her room and into Gilbert’s. It was something she knew she could never have had, before, but she was starting to convince herself that it was okay anyway.

Anne opened Gilbert’s door and slipped inside, as was becoming routine, and she made a mental note to do her best to discuss this with Pennie. The little girl shouldn’t be kept in the dark just because she was young, but she also needed to know that Anne wasn’t abandoning her by leaving their room most nights. 

As her eyes adjusted, she could just barely see that Gilbert was still asleep and she assumed he was used to this now so he didn’t wake up every time his door opened. Practically, Anne thought that was a bit of a safety hazard, but she’d forgive it this once. 

Sliding under the covers, Anne squirmed into a comfortable position as Gilbert rolled over and he tried to open his eyes.

“Go back to sleep,” she whispered. She felt her cheeks heat up in the dark at the idea of just sleeping with him, and doing nothing else, which seemed almost more intimate. But, as his breathing evened out again, Anne found she couldn’t close her eyes.

Suddenly, Anne felt like she would burst if she didn’t speak her mind, a marked contrast from how long she went without speaking at all, and whispered, “Gilbert,” almost afraid to wake him up even though that was exactly what she was trying to do. 

Gilbert jerked as he half sat up, his eyelids struggling to open. “Anne?” he mumbled.

“Sorry,” Anne whispered as he fell back down beside her, eyes blinking open this time with his curls smooshed against the pillow. “Sorry, this is stupid. Go back to sleep.”

Gilbert grunted but didn’t close his eyes again. 

“What is it?” he asked, closing the small space between them to take her hand in his.

Anne sighed, glad the darkness was hiding her raging blush. “It’s stupid.”

“Tell me anyway,” Gilbert mumbled.

“Would we be doing this, if things were… normal?” Anne asked in a rush, helplessly watching as Gilbert’s brow visibly furrowed.

“Matthew would shoot me—”

“I mean, in general. If all this didn’t happen,” Anne sighed.

Gilbert brought her hand up so he could kiss it in the dark. “Yes,” he said simply.

Anne frowned. “That’s not true,” she blurted out.

“Then why did you ask?” Gilbert asked, his look of bemusement, usually reserved for Anne, taking over whether or not she could see it.

“Well. I…”

“It’s true for me. Is it not true for you?” Gilbert asked, voice growing a bit stronger as he fought the sleep trying to drag him back under.

“Of course it’s true for me,” Anne huffed.

“Then why do you not think it’s true for me?”

“Because! Of course it wouldn’t be,” Anne whispered harshly in the otherwise quiet house. “You— You were the brightest student in class and then you got to travel the world and you could have anyone you want, Gilbert Blythe—”

“Well, I want you,” he said as if it was the easiest thing in the world.

“And that just doesn’t make any sense,” Anne huffed.

“To you, maybe. Which is surprising because you were the brightest student in class,” Gilbert said, almost sounding amused. 

Anne huffed again and pulled the quilt up so it hid most of her face even though Gilbert couldn’t see much anyway. She wasn’t sure she believed him, but she kind of wanted to.

Gilbert let go of her hand so he could drag his fingers through the parts of her hair he could reach.

“Is there anything I can do to convince you?” Gilbert whispered, the humor from his voice gone. 

And as Anne let his words settle over her, the only way she could think to respond was to slowly slide closer and settle in his arms that wrapped around her without hesitation, as if they had been waiting for her all along. Anne rested her head on his chest and Gilbert rested his head atop hers and she listened to his heartbeat and wondered if it truly beat for her.

She must have slipped under without realizing, for, sometime later, she was forcibly jerked out of her slumber by a loud cracking sound. She sat up, instantly awake, and barely gave herself a split second to process what she heard before she was out of the bed and hurtling out of the room. Anne didn’t notice Mary and Bash’s bedroom door opening as she ran past in her nightgown, all but crashing into her own bedroom door and stumbling by an already awake Pennie.

Ignoring someone asking something from behind her, Anne started to pull at the boards over her window and didn’t even realize that someone had come to help her. With two boards gone within moments, Anne wrenched open the window and stuck her head out. And her heart stopped when she saw the source of the sound that woke her, flailing horribly in the moonlight.

“Oh my goodness,” Mary gasped from behind her just as Delphine began to cry from their bedroom.

“I didn’t think they… did this,” Bash said lowly, disbelief coloring his tone.

“It was like this at the Barry’s, when you first arrived,” Anne said grimly. “But… this is worse.”

“Jerry’s brothers took out half last time,” Gilbert reminded them darkly as he took in what they were all staring at. 

“We have traps. Just not enough,” Anne said, her gaze never leaving the part of the Green Gables boundary she could see from her window. Her eyes stayed on the mass of the unliving crowded around the front gate, some rendered imobile by the Baynard traps, but most writhing against each other and against the fence that bordered her land. They were old and slow, but had amassed together in numbers she hadn’t seen before. “Get dressed.”

Silently, Mary and Bash went back to their room to attend to Delphine and to get out of their night clothes. Pennie just turned her back and replaced her nightgown with one of Anne’s old dresses. Anne stayed at the window but glanced to her left when she felt Gilbert beside her.

“Any way I can convince you not to do this?” he asked.

Anne blinked and then slowly turned to face Gilbert without a word. 

He sighed. “Yeah, nevermind,” Gilbert said. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”

Minutes later, Anne entered the candlelit kitchen with Pennie at her heels where Mary, Gilbert, and Bash were sitting at the table. In the distance, a few more traps went off, making Anne grit her teeth harder.

“They’re slow ones,” Anne started, crossing her arms. “But there are a lot of them out there.”

“Dozens,” Mary sighed, holding herself tightly.

“And we’re on our own,” Gilbert said, frowning.

“Are there any more weapons?” Bash asked, his hands gripping the back of Mary’s chair.

“In the barn. We can bring some back when we lock up the horse. But there are too many for just knives and axes,” Anne frowned, beginning to pace across the kitchen and back. “We’ll have to count our bullets. But I don’t think we have enough for all of them.”

“We can at least thin them out,” Gilbert said, anxiously rubbing against the stubble along his jaw.

“Mary can stay with the kids,” Anne said decisively, spinning on her heel to look at the table. “And be our eyes up top. We’ll do what we can from the house, then go down to get rid of the rest.” She then went into the other room and came back with a bag that she dumped on the table, revealing multiple pairs of heavy duty workman's gloves.

“Where did you get these?” Gilbert asked, reaching out to inspect one.

“Anne asked me to find what I could,” Bash said. “I knew where to look in those rich white people’s houses.”

“I don’t recommend we put them to the test,” Anne said dryly before looking down at what remained of her left hand. “But maybe it’ll help.”

“Let’s wait until the sun is up. See if more come until then,” Gilbert said, taking a fortifying breath and not looking pleased about this at all.

Anne sat down heavily at the table and Pennie immediately took her hand. Anne smiled at her weakly, squeezing her hand back. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll do our best, yeah? Do you remember what I told you? Where do we have to hit them to make it count?”

Pennie pointed at her neck and then her forehead. 

“Good,” Anne said with a nod.

“Should—"

Anne spun around to look at Gilbert in disbelief. “Should what?” she asked flatly.

“Should she be worrying about that yet?” Gilbert frowned.

“If she wants to survive, yes,” Anne snapped. “Maybe more people would be around if someone taught little girls something other than needlepoint. Maybe Ruby would be alive if she wasn’t taught that all she had to worry about in life was marriage. Maybe—” Anne stopped when she felt a hand on her shoulder and her head jerked over to see Mary beside her.

“We’re all just worried, Anne,” Mary said softly, feeling Anne’s shoulders slump beneath her hand.

Anne’s eyes went from Mary to Bash, who was almost compulsively counting their bullets, to Gilbert, who was just looking at her with sad eyes. She looked away.

When the sun came up, Anne, Gilbert, Mary, and Bash were standing on the porch. Pennie was with Delphine upstairs.

The mass of decay before them, down the way and on the other side of the fence, had grown. Not by much, but by enough. Bash had checked the perimeters, and it seemed the hoard was sticking together, to one spot. They were easier to see in the light, and more had gotten themselves stuck in the traps, but they were there. And they weren’t going anywhere, not until something was done about it.

“We have enough bullets to put a dent in them, at least,” Anne muttered, all eyes on the task at hand.

“But we need to get as many by hand as we can,” Bash sighed, shaking his head. 

“Might as well get to it,” Gilbert said flatly, eyebrows pinched together. 

Anne nodded and turned back inside the house. She strapped a knife to her leg, her hips, and slipped her first in her hair. She handed the axes to Gilbert and Bash, who had stacked a pile of farming tools on the porch as backups. Anne picked up the rifle and handed it to Mary, who looked grim. She then picked up the two handguns they had and turned to the others.

“Who has the best shot?” she asked.

Bash and Gilbert glanced at each other before Gilbert pointed to Bash. He was handed the second handgun.

Anne watched as Bash walked up to Mary before Anne turned away to get them privacy. She went back to the porch, gun in hand, and counted the number of heads that would match the number of bullets she had. She jumped when a hand grabbed hers and before she realized, she was being pulled into Gilbert’s arms and he was kissing her hard. 

Anne gripped the front of his shirt as he suddenly pulled away, staring down at her with nothing but intent. 

“Be careful,” Gilbert breathed, gripping her hip hard enough to hurt, but it didn’t feel close enough.

“You too,” Anne whispered, trying to keep her mind focused without getting lost in his gaze.

They pulled apart, slowly, when Bash walked back out, the door closing behind him. He pulled Gilbert into a hug before surprising Anne by doing the same with her. Without saying anything, he nodded at them both. They nodded back and turned to face out and away from their home. 

“Make it count,” Anne said grimly before raising Matthew’s gun and aiming.

If she had a thought to spare, Anne would recognize how clear her head felt, just in this moment. Driving sharp objects into the decaying flesh of her former neighbors and townspeople was something to which she was now accustomed. Even good at, despite how horribly wrong it went the last time she did it. But she was defending her home, and her family, and she would do what needed to be done.

A body, if it could be called that anymore, fell at her feet. She was breathing hard and her lungs expanded and deflated in time with her eyes moving, searching the immediate vicinity. She knew this place like the back of her hand, but it looked almost unrecognizable with death strewn everywhere. Ruby red across the emerald grass with accents of black rot.

Anne heard a grunt behind her and spun around, knife raised. What she saw was Bash, kicking one of the unliving off his axe and narrowly avoiding what came up behind him. And all she heard was buzzing.

Lost in her head, she was focused. But looking around her, she suddenly couldn’t breathe.

This was her family now. If one of them was bitten, she wouldn’t be able to handle it. She’d have to do what needed to be done. But it would destroy her. She did it before, and she’d do it again, but the damage would be irreparable. 

The feeling in her left hand went first as Anne struggled, her chest tightening and her vision blurry. The monstres barely looked like people anymore, but her mind slipped, and all she could see was Matthew and Marilla, broken and decomposing in the dirt. 

Her head spun, but so did her body when someone yelled her name.

“ Anne! ”

Her knife sunk deep into the neck of the station master, blood seeping into her gloves and splattering over her front as she wrenched the knife back so what used to be a body could slump at her feet. A few shots rang out from the house

The world became a haze of too-bright colors and stomach-rolling smells. But she stayed on her feet, determined to keep anything and everything from crossing onto her land. For it was hers now and she was meant to protect it. Like it protected her.

As the sun rose higher, Anne lifted her head in imitation. She stopped and let her arm and knife fall to her side. No birds sang or chirped in this part of the island, not anymore, so all she could hear was her own breathing. And those of her companions. 

Anne turned, eyes wide as they met those of Gilbert and Bash. Both looked just like her, dirty and tired. But alive.

When Bash clapped his hand on Gilbert’s shoulder and they exchanged exhausted grins, Anne found herself suddenly sitting on the ground, letting her head hand between her knees. The stretch in her muscles reminded her that there was life inside her, for true pain was only for the living.

“Anne?”

Anne slowly lifted her head and blinked up at the two men looking down at her. Smiling down at her as only the living could.

“Are we done?” she asked.

“For now,” Bash said.

Anne nodded as her heart finally slowed. She then looked up at Gilbert who was still looking at her. 

“Are you alright?” Anne asked when he didn’t move.

“Yes,” Gilbert said. And then, “I’m in love with you.”

Anne’s face began burning immediately as she gaped up at him and Bash unsuccessfully turned his laugh into a cough.

“What—”

“Is that the first time you’ve told her?!”

“— I am covered in blood , Gil!”

“Yeah,” Gilbert said, ignoring Bash which was answer enough for him. “And?”

“It’s not my blood!”

“Even better.”

“Next thing I know, this idiot is going to propose,” Bash muttered.

Gilbert started to grin and Anne was pointing her knife straight at him as she snapped, “Don’t even think about it, Gilbert Blythe. Not— not now !”

“Okay,” Gilbert said, his grin going nowhere. “Not now.”

“Let’s get back inside,” Bash interjected, stepping to Anne and holding his hand out to help her up. “I think someone needs a talk.”

Anne shook her head in disbelief, heart thundering again, as Bash put one arm around Gilbert and the other around Anne and began leading them back through the gate and up to the house.

The kitchen door opened as soon as they stepped foot on the porch and Mary was in Bash’s arms before everyone could fully step inside.

Anne couldn’t hold back a smile as she watched them together, the very opposite from all the couples she had had the misfortune of living with when she was younger. Anne then turned when she heard the familiar footsteps of Pennie rushing towards her.

“Wait,” Anne said, holding her hand out just as Pennie reached her. “I don’t want to get you filthy.”

Pennie looked at Bash and Mary and then back at Anne, giving her an unimpressed look.

Anne sighed. “Fine,” she said and Pennie wrapped her arms around Anne as tightly as she could and Anne returned the hug. She kissed the top of Pennie’s head and let it sink in that they were all okay.

Anne looked over as Gilbert lifted a squealing Delphine from her basket and kissed both her pudgy cheeks. Mary broke away from Bash so he could steal his daughter from Gilbert and Mary could hug Gilbert then tug Anne and Pennie both into the most motherly hug Anne had ever felt in a long time. Then Gilbert had Pennie attached to his side before Bash lifted her up into a hug that made her laugh. And Anne could only smile as Green Gables was filled with life once more.