Baker - G. BLYTHE

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-ˋˏ *.·:·. [THE FOLLOWING MORNING] .·:·.* ˎˊ-

CHARLOTTE AWOKE FEELING SLIGHTLY DISORIENTED. It took her groggy, half-asleep self a few minutes to realise that she hadn't slept walked, that she had slept over at the Cuthbert's last night. Charlotte rose before Anne, so she slid out of her bed and chose to read amongst the pillows that were still piled up in the corner from last night's fort building. Charlotte read a book on Anne's nightstand for a while, it was a rather interesting book about a young girl and her family which had her hooked from the first few paragraphs, as all the best books did.

But as time passed and the sun grew higher in the sky, Charlotte found her perfectionism getting the best of her. She and Anne had drafted the letter to Gilbert a few times last night and had eventually written up a final copy, one which currently sat folded on top of her school readers. But she didn't think it was good enough if she was going to send a letter it had to be completely perfect in every way.

With a slight slam, which thankfully didn't wake anyone in the household, Charlotte closed the book and arose from her comfy makeshift seat and began to take out Anne's paper and ink once more. She took the letter written the night previous and began to make crossings-out all over the page, clearly she had been too tired last night to even string together a sentence. The paper was ninety-nine percent ink once she was happy with the letter's contents. The final piece of paper in Anne's possession was smoothed on the floorboards and Charlotte began to write.

"Good morning Char, did you sleep well?" Anne asked still slightly groggy from her slumber, so groggy that she didn't notice that Charlotte was writing, she thought she was simply just laying on the floor.

"I did, perfectly actually," Charlotte smiled while she wrote, she extended the same question to Anne and was happy to hear that she too had slept well. Anne swung her feet around to get out of bed, knocking the bottle of ink over the papers currently spread on the floor. The letters were all ruined and Anne no longer had any paper.

"Anne!" Charlotte whisper shouted, being cautious that there were other people in the house that could still be asleep.

"Oh! I'm so sorry!" Anne exclaimed looking at the splatters of ink all over the pages. As bad as it was to think, Anne was glad that none of it had gotten on the floorboards, Marilla would have had her head if she stained those. The realization that she no longer had any paper had Anne rooting through drawers to see non existent paper. She gasped then turned on her feet, "I have an idea!" 

The situation was rectified when Anne borrowed some particular posh looking paper from her boarders trunk after reassuring Charlotte that he wouldn't miss it. The letter was finally written to completion, with a pen this time, and she felt confident in it's contents. Anne was to deliver the letter when she went on a trip to Carmody with the Barry family since Charlotte wasn't due to go for a few more weeks. Charlotte waved both Anne and Diana off after breakfast and after saying goodbye and expressing her thanks to Marilla, she began to walk home.

As she walked down the dirt path, the sound of distant sobs bought her from a delightful daydream about a particular Blythe boy. She grew concerned and headed towards the sobs, finding herself walking towards the barn. "Jerry?" she spoke softly as the boy sat against the barn came into view, his head popped up and she could clearly tell that he was the one who had been crying. "Hey, what's wrong?"

"The boarders," Jerry sniffled as Charlotte sat down on the straw next to him. The girl looked at him with eyes filled with concern and he felt comfortable enough to continue, letting some of his feelings out. "One is very bad," he continued using the sleeve of his coat to wipe away some of the tears.

"Bad?" Charlotte asked, she took a lace, embroidered handkerchief from her pocket and offered it to him (she always came prepared just in case.) He smiled slightly and gratefully took it, using it to gently wipe his face of tear stains.

"The Cuthbert's wouldn't have had to take them if I hadn't lost their money,"  he murmured trying to blink back the tears that were threatening to fall even harder than before. Jerry had been through alot since Christmas and he felt guilty, guilty that he had caused the Cuthberts a hardship, guilty that he had lost their money for the horse and mostly guilty that they had to take on the borders. The Boarders who really did not sit right with him, seeing one of them in particular caused the flight or fight instinct to boil up in his stomach, though he could never figure out why. "I could have run away from them, I should've stopped them," he added with such anger in his voice that Charlotte forgot that he had been crying only moments ago, momentarily forgot.

"Jerry, what happened is not your fault. They were grown men and they wanted the money you had, even a policeman couldn't have stopped them," she replied before shuffling slightly to sit cross legged in front of the boy, they hugged tightly and he cried once more into her shoulder feeling the overwhelming guilt take over entirely. She made soft circles on his back and whispered comforting things which eventually caused the tears to stop. The guilt still wracked him but it wasn't so overwhelming now, after having let some of it spill onto the hay covered barn floor. Charlotte spent the rest of the morning with Jerry, helping with his jobs around the farm and during breaks she helped to teach him correct spellings. The two had smiles etched on their faces the entire time, just the others company was something both appreciated and currently desperately needed.

-ˋˏ *.·:·. [FIVE DAYS LATER] .·:·.* ˎˊ-

A TYPICAL DAY IN THE BAKERY TURNED TO A DAY WHICH AVONLEA WOULD REMEMBER FOREVER. A day which multiple people would remisnese about in stories to their children, stories that would remind their children not to trust everybody. That not everything is as it seems, that some people just simply could not be trusted and everyone would have to learn to figure out who to trust on their own. Avonlea made a mistake in trusting the scientist.

Charlotte was in the middle of restocking a particular delicious pastry when the conversation her Mother and a customer were having caught her ears, a heavy discussion about the thieves. The two boarders had scammed Avonlea using fool's gold and ran off when they began to believe that Anne was on their trail. When she heard that Anne and Marilla had been tied up in their pantry, the plate which she was holding quickly dropped onto the counter and Charlotte ran to Green Gables feeling the need to check that her friend was okay.

"Anne!" she called from the gates into Green Gables having seen two red plaits in front of the house, she heard and quickly turned around. Her face contorted to something of confusion when she noticed Charlotte running towards her, apron still tied around her waist and her hair tied up with what looked to be a brown shoelace. "I just heard what happened," she panted due to shortness of breath,  stopping her run just in front of where Anne currently stood. The two quickly wrapped each other in a hug. "Are you alright? And Marilla?" she asked once they parted giving Anne a once over with her eyes to check for any visible injuries, which she didn't have.

"I'm fine, Marilla's fine too," Anne replied with a small smile growing on her face, she had never seen Charlotte so relieved. After checking on Herry, who had sustained a few injuries when he attempted to stop the bad man, Charlotte headed back home not looking forward to cleaning up the shards of broken plate that were definitely still crumpled on the floor and counter.

Little did she know that the Blythe boy she had been daydreaming about more often than not, had received her letter. The letter told him there was gold in Avonlea. A letter which Sebastian teased Gilbert about, saying that it was a 'fancy love letter.'