Forever Red - an Anne and Gilbert Story

4. Unimaginable

Chapter song: O by Coldplay

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She wasn't breathing. She couldn't be. 

The strange squeeze in her chest also indicated that breathing wasn't quite working as it should.

Gilbert was looking at her strangely and he'd just called her beautiful.  The squeeze intensified.

That moment was suspended in front of her like a frozen dream; his face drawn in an anxious scowl, his thick dark eyelashes almost touching his eyebrows now, his lips parted ready to say something else but remaining silent. There was a shadow across his face from the tree to his right leaving half his face in light and the other slightly darker, and it made him look so much older for some reason she couldn't fathom. His eyes held concern, a touch of fear and they were swirling like the most delicious liquid chocolat that she could imagine.

This must be what Diana had felt like when the blackcurrant wine had addled her brain, because there was no way she could form any coherent response in that moment whilst he looked at her like that. 

"Anne?"  His voice holding a note of concern. 

Nothing.

"Anne please, say something- are you ill?" more concern.

She moved her head ever so slightly from side to side to indicate that she wasn't.

He breathed out an audible sigh of relief, and moved towards her.

"Please Anne, I haven't offended you have I?" the swirling chocolate had darkened Anne noticed. "I hope not, that is the last thing in the world I want to do." 

"No" she whispered, still unable to move.

 No one had ever called her beautiful before, and the last person on earth she expected to call her that would have been Gilbert Blythe. She wonder if she'd imagined it? That somehow this was one of her romantical tales that had got out of hand in her head, and any moment now he would vanish into thin air, just like the apparition of her mind that he truly was.  

He took hold of her hand and the warmth that spread into her arm indicated that he was infact not an apparition and this was completely and utterly real. 

"Gilbert?" she breathed realising he was truly there. She looked down at her left hand, moving for the first time, and he very slowly lifted it to his lips and planted the softest kiss on her knuckle. She really for the life of her couldn't believe this wasn't a dream.

"My dearest Anne" he smiled, lowering her hand again but not releasing it, "are you quite well?

"I think so..." she began, "It's just.... no one has ever said that to me before."

"Said what?" the scowl returned.

"That I'm.... that I'm beautiful." He'd also never called her my dearest Anne before but she couldn't voice that too.

She blushed and Gilbert thought her even more beautiful in that moment; with the last light dying behind her, casting shadows and rays through the trees, and yet allowing him to see the faint flush of her cheeks, and the gold strands picked out in the red of her hair. 

"Well that's a real shame Anne, but I must admit to being glad that the first place you heard that is from me." His smile was back and the dimple in his cheek was there, it made her heart flip a little, but she didn't know how to reply now. 

Suddenly the stretching silence was a touch awkward, and he released her hand.

"It's starting to get dark, we really should head home you know" he observed. 

"Yes, I wouldn't want Marilla and Matthew to worry" she admitted, finally able to shake loose some of the wool that had obviously entered her head. 

"May I?" he held out his arm for her and waited for her to respond. She paused just a moment to look at him before nodding. As she took it his face split into the sunniest smile she'd ever seen, and she couldn't help but smile back. 

They walked up the hill slowly, arm in arm, and thankfully Gilbert started up a conversation about school so that there could be something normal to speak about. 

"Are you looking forward to Monday then Anne?"

"Yes, I am most excited, although I fear after so many weeks of summer my brain may be a little slow to restart" she confessed.

"Never! Your brain is the least slow I have ever encountered, I regularly have trouble keeping up with it"  and then he actually laughed.

She could feel the vibration of his laughter up through their linked arms and down into her toes. 

"Are you laughing at me Gilbert Blythe?" she questioned, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks indignantly.

"Certainly not!" he countered. "You really are the cleverest person I've met, and I am beyond frustrated at how bright you are on occasion, particularly when you beat me!" 

Anne noted with interest that he'd said cleverest person, not just cleverest girl, but cleverest person, which indicated he viewed her as some kind of an equal. The thought warmed her almost as much as the kiss on her knuckles had. 

"Well you always beat me at arithmetic" she conceded. "No amount of reading it seems to make it go in and stick properly."

"Maybe I can help you?" he suggested.

She stopped walking and stared at him. 

"You want to help me with my arithmetic?"

"Yes. Maybe you could help me with my English in return?" 

"Gilbert, there is absolutely nothing wrong with your English "she retorted flatly.

"My poetry is abysmal and I really don't find the dramatics come all that naturally to me, but you- you have a flair for them. I'm sure you could help make it easier on me."

She pondered this as she stepped forward and allowed them to resume their walk. They had always been so competitive, one always trying to best the other. If they were friends that was one thing, but if they were tutoring each other that was quite another. 

"Wouldn't this mean that we wouldn't be quite as..."

"Competitive?" he finished, reading her mind. "Well maybe not so much in some respects, but it could be rather fun to see who of the two of us is the better teacher!" he smiled at her again, one eyebrow raised in a comical question.

"Hmmm, so really then, the competition is simply transferred. Whoever is able to improve the others' grade most would, in earnest be the better?" 

"Exactly!"

"I quite like that idea, and teaching is such a noble profession" she mused aloud. 

Just then, they rounded the corner and Green Gables' was in sight, the porch light already lit, indicating that she was late home for her chores. She couldn't bring herself to panic though, it had been such an unexpected afternoon. 

As they arrived at the gate Gilbert slowly withdrew his arm. She felt oddly cold without it.

"Thank you so much for seeing me home," she smiled, not quite sure how they should part. 

"It was my pleasure" he smiled back at her, dimple and all. 

For a moment Anne thought he was going to reach out to her once more and kiss her hand, but instead he simply raised his in a wave and said "Goodnight then" before turning homeward and starting to whistle quite cheerily as he walked. 

Just as she was getting to the porch she turned to spot him and in the same instant saw him also turn towards her. Over the sound of the wind in her beloved snow queen, and the gentle clucking of the hens she heard his voice carry to her. 

"I'm so glad we're friends now Anne!" and then he turned and was gone.