Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Was it entirely possible that a piece of paper could taunt you— that an inanimate object could deride you into a fit of rage? 

Anne thinks it's possible, as she glares down the piece of paper in front of her, which hangs faux-innocently on the bulletin board outside the Psychology hall’s bathrooms. Surely, some sick and twisted part of the universe handed her a seemingly fortuitous source of short-term income, just as she had been complaining only last night to Diana about her financial ruin (Diana had said she might have been exaggerating the tiniest bit, but Anne thought she was being perfectly frank), right before the fine print could come crashing down on her:  

‘$280 For Participating in Psychology Study!

Researchers in Redmond’s psychology department are currently recruiting for a paid study on close relationships. 

Requirements: 

You MUST be in a committed romantic relationship of at least six months. $140 will be rewarded to each person.’

Ah, that’s the catch. 

Anne had always been financially independent since she was a child. Growing up filtering through foster home after foster home had taught her how to earn her own money, and how to keep it. Once she had been adopted by the Cuthbert’s, their frugalness and general attitude of take-no-handouts only exasperated that. Matthew and Marilla had cultivated Anne’s natural desire for education, and strongly encouraged her to apply to Redmond, so when that long-sought out acceptance letter came in the mail, they had been so proud that they nearly forgot the dreadful fact that university was quite expensive.

The farm wasn’t bringing in as much income as they’d like, and the scholarship she had been offered was slim so Anne brought it upon herself to take up various jobs; a café, babysitting, tutoring— whatever it took to lessen the burden on her parents. 

Now a sophomore, Anne pays for her textbooks, and room and board through her job at the school’s library— barely. 

And so, Anne finds herself a frequent flyer in the psychology department’s study lab after she had a painful awakening that selling her platelets was absolutely not the move, and perhaps, she was more afraid of needles than she’d like to let on. 

The studies pay fairly well considering how low maintenance they are, and she did gain a feeling of self-importance at the small contribution to science. Unfortunately, you could only apply to each study once, and she already bulldozed through all of them quickly. There had been a dry spell of new study announcements on the bulletin board, until today, which is what brought Anne to near war with a flimsy piece of paper. 

She wasn’t in a relationship (and she was perfectly happy with that thank you very much!), and certainly not one that spanned over a year. 

Her bitter thoughts must have been fueling her raging aura because the innocent students crossing the hall seemed to purposefully steer clear from her. About to cut her losses, Anne backs slowly away, when a familiar voice pulls her from her murderous thoughts. 

“I’m not sure if you’ve developed the ability to set things on fire with your mind, Anne," Gilbert Blythe, her very best enemy—sometimes reluctant friend— was behind her with that stupid, teasing grin of his, and suddenly her murderous thoughts return. “At least not yet anyway.” 

She stares him down for a brief moment, before rolling her eyes with exaggeration and stomping down the hall towards her next lecture— which he, unfortunately, happened to be in. He took her flippant disregard as an invitation to follow her, as he tended to do, and she didn’t have the energy to walk any faster to evade him. 

Gilbert Blythe had been a constant, albeit annoying, fixture in Anne’s life ever since she was adopted by the Cuthbert’s; When they first met in their homeroom class, he had delightfully compared her hair to the color of carrots, so she hit him over the head with her textbook. He was a year older, but because of her affinity for advanced coursework (curse her overachieving self!), they found themselves debating with one another in at least one class every semester after that, which much to her disdain continued even into college once she joined him at Redmond. 

Anne had vowed to dislike him for all of eternity, but, since her friends were his friends, she sometimes put her hatred on hold for a brief moment of civility between them— and not because, as her friends might claim, ‘she was totally into him.’ 

The offending flier was suddenly in her face again, waving about in the even more offending hands of Gilbert.

“So, what’s this all about?” He asks, and Anne snatches the paper away from him and crumples it up, throwing it behind her and pretends not to notice the way he quickly catches it and opens it back up. 

“Doesn't $280 seem a bit much for answering some questions for a few weeks,” he comments, stepping out in front of her to hold the door open, entirely too chivalrous, and then trails her to their usual front row seats.

“Astute observation, Sherlock,” she mocks, keeping her eyes at the door in wait for Professor Stacey. “If you continue your sleuthing to the bottom of the page, you’ll see I can’t actually participate as I’m not in a long-term relationship.” 

“Oh, I don’t know about that, Charlie seems to think you two have been practically engaged for years.” 

“Ugh, don't remind me,” she groans, shoving her head into her hands, “and he’s told that to everyone but me.” 

Gilbert laughs and then shifts his attention back to the flier. How he could still read it all in its crumpled glory was beyond her, but with his eyes squinted and locked in focus, she had to aggressively shove down the thought that he may actually be attractive into her deep subconscious. 

“Anne?” He asks, eyebrows raising quizzically at the way her head shoots back up in a suspicious manner at the sound of her name— he looks so, extremely smack-able like this. 

She shakes her head and clears her throat, “I’m sorry, I was just thinking about how you almost failed the last quiz miserably; what did you say?” 

His deadpan expression and small snort indicate he took her bait, “I’m not sure if you can count a 90 as failing, but whatever helps you cope with that 93.” In high school, that would have elicited a violent reaction from her, but fortunately for him, her temper has mellowed out— slightly. 

“I asked if you do these studies often?” 

As much as she wishes she can keep her financial situation a secret from Gilbert; he was from home, and he knew the same struggles just as intimately as she did— he had to take care of his father once he fell ill, dealing with their finances at such a young age and once his father died, he lived with a family friend, Bash, who wasn’t any more well off— he understands that aspect of her life more so than even Diana can. 

“Who would have thought a desk job at the library would pay so little?” She explains sarcastically, “I’m paying for my rent, plus, literally everything else, and it gets a little tight sometimes, so, yeah, the studies give me some extra padding.” 

He nods with understanding, gives an empathetic smile, and the topic is dropped as Professor Stacey enters the classroom, and immediately begins lecturing with her usual verve. She’s mid-explanation of mere exposure theory when Anne feels Gilbert’s eyes practically burning a hole into the side of her face, so she turns sharply and glares to try to scare him off. 

That manages to stop him for a minute until his rapid pencil tapping and knee-shaking became a new annoyance. Gilbert was rarely like this. He was usually so fixated on the board she couldn’t get his attention even if she wanted to–– this was uncharacteristic. 

Once again, she turns towards him, this time whispering harshly, “what is wrong with you? I’m trying to listen.” 

The look he gives is all but comforting; it looks nervous and hesitant, he leans closer to her and whispers back with a tinge of hopefulness, “I could help you.”

‘Okay, so that’s puzzling,’ she thinks, confused as to what he would help her with, and why Gilbert Blythe suddenly wanted to help her. 

“You know, with the study— I could be your boyfriend.”

The first thought to cross her mind was how bizarre it is that Gilbert wants to become a doctor when he so clearly has an affinity for stand-up comedy with an absolutely hilarious bit like that, and before she knows it something is bubbling in her chest and escapes as a boisterous laugh for the entire lecture hall— 100 people, mind you— to hear. 

Professor Stacey stares at the two of them with pursed lips and arms crossed into a tense fold across her chest. “If the two of you would like to leave the class to share a couple laughs, by all means, go ahead.” 

Gilbert speaks up first, “my apologies, Professor Stacey, it was my fault,” lightly clearing his throat under the scrutinizing looks from his professor, peers, and Anne herself. The older woman seems content with their obvious humiliation and remorse and turns her attention back to the lecture, but Anne remains slunk back in her chair— face as red as her hair, and eyes glossy with tears. She stays that way for the rest of the class, ignoring all of Gilbert’s apologetic looks and groveling notes. 

When the class is finally over, Anne shuffles her things quickly and scurries out of the room, trying, but failing to dodge Gilbert. 

“Anne!” He shouts, pushing his way through the rest of the students crowding around the door, nearly tripping over the stairs that led outside, and grabs her wrist. 

“Oh, just go away Gilbert, or was that not enough embarrassment for you?” She questions, nostrils flaring and cheeks puffing out excessively. 

Even though he lets go of her arm, she stays planted in her spot by her own stubbornness, stiffly taking her place on the top step, with him a couple of steps bellow as students move past them with questioning stares and whispers.

“I only meant that you need the money, right?” She nods slowly, still unsure if she even wants to give him the light of day, but allows him to continue with his floundering explanation, “well, you’re not the only one who could use that kind of cash right now, and honestly, how difficult could it be to casually show up to a study with people you don’t even know and say, ‘yeah, we’re totally in love and we have been for six months?’” 

Just the mention of love, and being in love with Gilbert of all people sets her heart racing, and she rationalizes that it is solely because he is the last person alive that she could convincingly pretend to love. He was — well, he was just so, Gilbert, and frustratingly so! He has a pretentious taste in music; he refuses to read anything fiction; he only drinks his coffee soullessly black, and perhaps the most abhorrent thing about him is that he’s too kind for his own good, and so she couldn’t properly hate him no matter how hard she tried. 

Romance just wasn’t built into the Anne and Gilbert equation.

Even now— he was offering to help her, however idiotic it was, so she smoothes her furrowed brow and sighs, pulling him out of the way of the spectators and towards the nearby benches to sit him down.

“Gilbert, I can’t ask you to do that— and I won’t,” he opens his mouth to protest, but is cut off when she raises her arm and continues, “and really, I’m not totally helpless; I almost have enough to get by, I’ll just take a couple more shifts at the library, and really, it’s not completely miserable over there— the Brontë sisters and Keats keep me company.” 

“Come on, Anne, what’s the worse that could happen?” Anything and everything. “We go to the initial session, make up some cheesy story about how we got together, go on with the online questionnaire for a couple of months, then we collect our check, never talk about it again, and no one’s the wiser.” 

Maybe his logic was more difficult to argue with than she’d originally thought. If one small white lie could bring her and Gilbert an equal $140, why shouldn’t she play pretend for a short while? Ruby had said once that Anne would make a great actress. 

She sits down next to him, and lets her legs swing to and fro to mimic the calming September breeze that graces them, tilting her head back to bask in the gleaming noon sun, and not because she was too shy to look at him when she speaks up and asks, “and you won’t make it weird? We just go in; fake it ’til we make it, get the money, and keep it between us?”  

He holds his hand out in front of her, “I promise that I won’t make it weird,” his voice is filled with entertainment and awe, as she reaches out to accept his hand— it’s softer than she expected it to be— “as long as you don’t make it weird.” 

She gives a faint laugh, “sure.” 

His impish smile turns to shock when she curls her pinky around his with a deliberate and slow determination, “I invoke the great power of the pinky swear to promise with the utmost seriousness that I will not make it weird.” 

Anne wasn’t entirely sure what you wear to a lab study with your fake-boyfriend as you both try to scam your university into giving you money based on false pretenses, but none of the many outfits she had tried on that morning really screamed that energy. 

The plan was foolproof, so she had full confidence that even Gilbert could handle it; today, they’d go to the hour-long lab session, and after that, they would be expected to separately fill out an online questionnaire once a week, for three months, and then once it was done they’d do another hour-long session. 

To ensure they were as convincing as possible, they sat together in Anne’s suite for hours the night before creating the perfect backstory for how they met, how they fell in love, and all the other ornamental details that made a relationship.                                                                                                                                                        

“It’s a beautiful first meeting, Anne, honestly, so endearing.” He argued, with his body stretched out across the couch and his head dangling off the side. This particular argument struck a chord in her, fuming from her place sitting on the counter. “I like to think this character— boyfriend-Gilbert, if you will— would use carrots as a cute pet name.” 

“We are not going to tell them that the first time we met was the actual first time we met,” she sighed, launching herself off the counter to open her fridge and scrounge when she knew quite well there was nothing of interest in there, “I smacked you upside the head and practically ignored you for a year, that isn’t very romantic.” 

It would also be too close to the truth for comfort, but she wouldn’t mention that. 

“Not all couples have the kind of first meetings you see in a rom-com, that would be unrealistic,” he reasoned and she plopped down next to him, nodding her head in thought. 

“Well, of course, love at first sight isn’t real,” she acknowledged, and he lifted his eyebrows in shock, “I know— I know what you’re thinking ‘Anne Shirley-Cuthbert has insane romantic tendencies so that means she must believe in love at first sight,’ I hate to surprise you, Gilbert, but I do not.” 

“I do.” He said quietly. 

“You just said that not all coup—” he cut her off quickly.

“And I do believe that, but I also believe in love at first sight, or at least that you certainly can get close to it.” His eyes raised towards her, and she felt trapped under his gaze. 

It was like there was a secret he wanted to share, but she wasn’t quite privy to. She was about to open her mouth to ask when the front door slammed open and her suitemates revealed themselves. 

“Anne!” Diana called, Ruby laughing hysterically behind her, “you won't believe it— and by that I mean, you’ll definitely believe it— Ruby says she’s in love with Mo— oh, Gilbert!” She stopped with a jolt, and poor Ruby behind her wasn’t paying attention as always and bumped into her back. The brief awkward bubble had been burst as Ruby and Diana sat next to Gilbert and began pestering that he and his roommates should throw a party soon.                                                                                                                                   

Anne breathes a sigh of relief at the memory, feeling somewhat saved by Diana and Ruby’s appearance. She and Gilbert decided that since they were only meeting with the study facilitators twice— and the questionnaires were online— they wouldn’t bother telling their friends in the meantime, and while Anne wanted to keep it that way to avoid the embarrassing teasing, she felt immensely guilty lying to her best friend. As if her thoughts magically called Diana, she appears leaning against her doorframe. 

“So, why was Gilbert here yesterday?” She asks with that famous coy smile of hers. 

Anne rolls her eyes, “don’t start with that again or I’ll projectile vomit, we were just studying for our midterm that’s in a couple of weeks.” 

Diana nods, seemingly unconvinced, “that’s funny, I didn’t see any papers or textbooks around,” as much as Anne would truly lay her life on the line for Diana, when it came to her and Gilbert she always became an amateur detective, “and he has nothing to do with the fact that you’ve changed your outfit several times, of course.” 

“Of course.” Anne says resolutely, raking through her disheveled hair and smugly deciding that two could play at that game, “by the way, don’t you have a friend you need to go see?” 

Diana, at the mention of her so-called friend that she’d been texting back and forth non-stop, blushes down to her neck and was distracted enough for Anne to slip out the door easily and escape, shooting Gilbert a quick text:

[anne] : If you’re not ready and outside your apartment in 10 minutes I’m quitting 

[gilbert] : I’m already waiting :p ur the one who’s late

[anne] : you’re the devil. 

Without fail, Gilbert is sitting at the steps of his apartment, looking down at whatever distraction his phone is providing. Anne was glad she didn’t have to step foot into his apartment because, well, suffice it to say that it’s a dump— unsurprising considering his roommates are Charlie and Moody, but she had seen it enough times during parties and study groups to know it wasn’t exactly her ideal location. 

He stands up rigidly and grins when he notices her standing there, with her hands settled at her hips. It hits her that besides a couple of family events, they’ve never spent time alone without their friend group outside of class. In high school, Ruby was as in love with him as a teenager could be and would burst into a fit of tears if any of the girls talked to him alone until they dated for a brief month and Ruby broke it off with a declaration that he was: “too wordy.” 

It’s silent as they walk to the psychology hall and her nervous energy festers in the form of grabbing clumps of her dress at her side. Marilla always said she knew when Anne was lying because her hands would become so hot and clammy that she would wipe them on the nearest surface. 

“What’s wrong with you?” Gilbert nods towards her hands, and dammit, he noticed! 

She keeps her eyes on the path in front of them, “if you really must know...” she drifts.

“Oh, now I’m interested,” he says excitedly and she sucks up her pride.

“Alright, my hands get sweaty when I’m lying.” 

Then, he has the audacity to laugh at her, and sputters out: “gross.” 

But it was as if he didn’t believe his own statement of disgust because he slips his hand into hers and continues innocently. At her clear confusion, he explains as if it were obvious: “we should go in like this anyways— people in relationships hold hands, or so I’ve been told.”  

“Or so you’ve been told…” she echos, and by the way he rubs his unoccupied hand against his neck and turns away from her, he wasn’t the only one affected by the newness and uncomfortableness of the situation. But she, being the merciful person she was, didn’t bring up his embarrassment and let him save face. 

She had never seen Gilbert Blythe unsure of himself and it was different. She might’ve been able to say she likes it. 

Once again she notices the softness of his hand, his grip was slightly tight as their fingers intertwine and she decides this is something else she might like. 

The lab office is large, but it's almost devoid of people when they get there. Usually, there was someone at the front desk, Anne liked her well enough but never quite caught her name, and in her place was a bright pink sign that read: ‘Gone to lunch!’ in elegant cursive writing. She pulls Gilbert over to the cheap plastic seats that lined the sidewall and they were about to sit down when Gilbert squeezes her hand a bit too hard, and she would have snapped at him, but when she follows his eyes she realizes Professor Stacey is standing in front of them at the door with a clipboard in hand and pencil resting on her ear. 

So, obviously, this was not part of the plan. 

“Anne and Gilbert, are you two ready?” Their professor asks with a bright smile, and the two conspirators— completely tongue-tied— nod wordlessly. She turns back, signaling with her hands for them to follow her down the hall and leads them into a small, isolated room. 

“I wasn’t entirely surprised to find out you two were on my list for this study, my two chatterboxes,” she chuckles, and Anne looks positively mortified at the call-back to her outburst a couple of days prior. Gilbert would have blamed himself for that once more if a knock on the door hadn’t interrupted, the beautiful girl–– no, woman–– who usually sat at the front desk peering through. 

Professor Stacey urges her in and she sits down across from them, and Anne notices how Gilbert’s demeanor changes instantly; his posture straightens out, his eyes perk up, but to make matters worse, the girl seems to recognize Gilbert as well and smiles sickeningly sweet. 

“Ah, Muriel, I know this one,” she laughs at Gilbert as if there was an inside joke that only they knew of, and he returns the laugh, more strained, and the tall blonde extends her hand to Anne, “I’m Winnie.” 

“Anne.” She says absently, still focused on Gilbert’s shift in mood, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that she had heard that name before. She lets the name roll around on the tip of her tongue, yet she can't come up with anything concrete except a tight feeling in her chest. Winnie seems amiable enough, and Gilbert begins to return to his normal manner, so Anne tries to ignore whatever that was to listen to Professor Stacey’s instructions. 

“Winifred and I are merely facilitators, she’ll be transcribing the session, while I ask the questions— in the study itself you’ll have no interactions with the researchers and they’ll be just as unaware of your identity. For now, we’ll briefly talk together here, and then we’ll do separate interviews for the remainder of our time here. After that, you two will complete individual questionnaires once a week for two months, and then complete a final interview which is when you’ll receive your payment. Do these terms work for the two of you?” 

Anne looks at Gilbert, slightly relieved at his steady smile, and they both respond, “yes.” 

“How long have you been in a committed relationship?” The question shouldn’t have struck Anne as it did, because it was the first one they had planned for, but it sunk in that holy shit they were doing this, and Gilbert quips up first, “it’ll be a year in January.” 

That catches Anne off guard.

The plan was they’d go for the high school sweetheart angle, saying they’d been dating for four years since that was technically when their relationship began, so it would involve the least amount of lying and improv, but here he was flipping the script!

Her growing heart rate stalls when Gilbert reaches his hand under the table and grabs hers with a silent message. Something that said, I’m sorry. Something that said, I’ll tell you later. 

“And how did you meet?” 

Anne, slowly gaining all her confidence back replies, “we sat next to each other in our European History class in high school, but it still took a couple of years for him to coerce me into a date.” She couldn’t resist an opening for a subtle jab at him after he had changed the timeline on her like that. 

What she didn’t expect was that he would just grin at her, and chuckle softly, “something like that,” and again, she felt like a secret had gone way above her head. 

The rest of the interview went on without major hiccups, despite the fact Gilbert made way too many comments that teetered into a dangerously sentimental territory, and in the individual interview, she was asked by Professor Stacey about her childhood upbringing and other wildly personal things she’d rather not discuss on a Wednesday afternoon. Not to mention there was a moment after she was dismissed that she saw Gilbert and Winnie across the hall; his hands shoved into his pockets, both looking as if someone had died as they spoke so softly that Anne couldn’t hear them clearly. Whatever Gilbert says next appears to please Winnie, because she smiles and pats his shoulder affectionately. 

What exactly does a shoulder pat mean? 

Anne continues watching, a bit creepily, as Gilbert manages to slip out of what seemed to be the most awkward conversation of this century and he wordlessly places his hand on the small of her back to lead her towards the door. He turns back one last time to give Winnie a thin smile and a small wave, and they exit the office.

There was rarely a moment to breathe after the door was shut before Gilbert grabs her hand and hurries them across the hall in haste, only letting go of her once they’re out of the building. 

She leans against the warm brick of the building and he braces his hands on his knees as they both take a moment to catch their breath, but once Anne’s lungs are at full breathing capacity she whisper-shouts. 

“Would you like to revise what you said to me just two days ago, Gilbert Blythe? You said that we’d be pretending, and I quote, ‘to people we don’t even know,’ when in fact we actually know two of those people— and by the way, are you going to explain to me who Winnie is and why she made you go all improv like that!” 

“In hindsight, how would I have known Professor Stacey and Winnie would be there,” he defends with his hands up. 

“In hindsight, I shouldn’t have done this with you,” she snaps. 

“Fair enough,” he concedes, buckling under her scrutinizing gaze, “Winnie is my… we dated for a bit my freshman year, so obviously I had to change our timeline or else it would have looked… incredibly terrible.” 

“Oh,” Anne says, shellshocked, and suddenly she remembers where she's heard that name before. 

Ruby had spilled that piece of gossip at lunch senior year, saying that she had called Gilbert to hear about college and badgered it out of him. Anne had laughed and said, “that poor girl,” but later that night she stayed up wondering if he was taking her on dates; would he take her to dinner and a movie? Drop her off at her dorm and kiss her cheek? Would he do all the cliche sort of things that you read and dream about— what sort of guy was Gilbert Blythe? But when he came to visit over winter break there was no word about this Winnie, no sign of her on the social media he reluctantly had, and later she overheard him tell Diana it just hadn’t worked out between them. 

“I know this wasn’t the original plan but I think we’re going to have to up the act, Anne, I mean— Winnie is my lab partner and she still talks to Moody and Charlie, and we see Professor Stacey multiple times a week.” 

“Okay,” she says, drawing out the syllables carefully, “what are you suggesting?”  

He steps closer to her, “we tell our friends we’re dating, and I don’t know, make it more of a thing with tasteful PDA, and— and you can’t act like you hate me all the time.” 

She scoffs, “like you don’t hate me too.” 

“That’s what you think,” he says, with a mysterious tone she doesn’t fully understand, his eyes dark and intense as they stare down at her and she begins the think that it isn’t her who’s an enigma but Gilbert. 

They’ve always been like this; rivals, frenemies, it was always a battle between them, so she can’t understand why stating the obvious upsets him so much. They continue to glare at each other for a brief moment before she turns her head and clears her throat. 

“So, what counts as tasteful PDA?” 

Gilbert thinks for a moment, “holding hands— and hey! We’ve done that already, we’re practically pros,” she snorts, and he looks more serious, more nervous, “I would be okay with kissing a couple of times if we needed to keep up the rouse.” 

“I mean this in the least possible offensive way, but you’d have to pay me,” she says with a straight-face. 

“You are being paid to do this.” 

Her face flushes with anger, and he grins, “it’s fine, I think we can manage to convince everyone with hand-holding and some googly eyes.” 

Anne smiles, but feels the need to explain, “I didn’t mean— I mean— I’m sure you’re a nice kisser, I just want to reserve that kind of thing for something real, you know? Cheek kisses are acceptable.” 

“Right,” he agrees, but he looks unconvinced, almost a little disappointed.

"And please don't tell Bash and Mary, I'd be completely humiliated if Matthew and Marilla found out. They don't even know I need the money, and... I don't want them to worry." 

"I wouldn't even want to subjugate myself to Bash's teasing like that," he grimaces in agreement. 

They begin walking back to his apartment, but she stops in her tracks when she recalls a small detail from the interview that was still bugging her. 

“Was there a specific reason you chose January as our anniversary?” She asks, and he stares back confusedly, “you told them that January is our first anniversary— was there a reason?” 

Gilbert shifts his feet, and his arms are stiff against his sides, but his eyes tell a different story; they’re more determined as he says, “do you remember the New Year’s party you and the girls threw last year? You wore that green dress and let Diana straighten your hair,” she shrugs, not knowing where he’s going with this but surprised he paid so much attention; she hadn’t even remembered she’d straightened her hair that night.

“We sat outside during the countdown because you didn’t want to watch Josie and her boyfriend make out, and you said you wanted company that—” 

“—that would purposefully argue with me,” she finishes for him. 

“Yes, that,” he confirms, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth, “you were ranting about how useless top sheets are—”

“They’re a waste of fabric,” she starts her impassioned argument she’s made many times before, and then she remembers what they’re actually doing here and that he’s trying to talk to her, “sorry, I won’t interrupt you again.” 

“You only stopped your rampage when the fireworks started going off across the lot, and I felt like we were genuinely friends, so when they asked me when we got together…” 

He breathes in deep, eyes closed for a moment, “if I was in love with you, that would have been a good time to tell you.” 

The things she knows about Gilbert are broken down in an instant and try as she might she can’t build them back up. This is the Gilbert that pulled her hair, the same Gilbert that would deconstruct all her well-thought-out arguments in class just to humiliate her, and he was the same Gilbert that could never possibly look at her that way. But she does remember that night, and she does remember when the fireworks went off and they were standing so close, so close that their arms were brushing against each other, and that he might have looked at her that way. 

And here he was, looking at her that way again and she thinks she doesn’t know who this person in front of her is, so she changes the conversation quickly, hoping this stranger catches on and returns to the boy she really wants to consider a friend. 

“You and Gilbert!” Ruby shrieks, grasping Josie’s shoulder excitedly to the point she’s practically white-knuckled. 

Josie pries the tight fingers off of her and chortles, “you said this so-called news would ‘shock us to our very core,’ and yet my core isn’t feeling very shocked.” 

Anne tilts her head and scrunches her face defiantly, hunching over to slurp through her straw aggressively at Josie’s usual snark, ignoring the sympathetic, yet cautious look Diana sends her from across the table. 

When Tillie had invited the girls over for drinks and a movie, Anne thought that would be the perfect time to tell them about her and Gilbert’s relationship, because they’d be tipsy and easier to convince. It turns out, however, they could have done this entirely sober because not even one of them needed an ounce of convincing.

Diana on the other hand, who knew the full truth, was not amused. Anne thought she’d get a total kick out of it, that the two of them would laugh and laugh over the absurdity of the situation and continue to laugh about it for years to come, but Diana did not laugh, in fact, she hated the whole thing. She wasn’t mad necessarily, but adamant that it could hurt someone’s feelings, to which Anne scoffed and said: ‘how could feelings be hurt when there are no feelings involved.’ 

“Oh, that one was coming a mile away,” Tillie bobs her head quickly. 

“Well,” Anne says, chin raised as if she had more cards to play, “what if I told you it’s been going on for a while and we weren’t telling anyone; wouldn’t that shock you?”

Josie shakes her head. 

“Confound you?” 

Jane yawns. 

“Stupefy you?” 

Diana sighs, “no.” 

Anne turns sharply towards her best friend and gasps, “et tu brute?” 

“Stop being so dramatic,” Josie snorts, “I saw you two a couple of months ago at the library and you were sitting so close— ugh, you were practically on top of him.”

Anne is about to object, but Tillie is faster, “that night we all hung out at Diana’s pool over the summer, Gilbert was staring at you the whole time, like he just wanted to get you alone,” she wiggles her eyebrows with a shrill giggle. 

That was not how Anne remembers that night. Instead, she remembers Gilbert pushing her into the pool, and the sweet revenge she got when she pulled him in with her. 

“He called you beautiful at Delphine’s birthday party,” Ruby gushes. 

“Oh, come on, that was a joke!” Anne cries, “I had just gotten princess face-paint put on.” 

“I got the same face-paint and was standing right next to you, and he said zilch to me,” Diana reasons. 

“Again?” Anne whispers, and the brunette just mouths: ‘not sorry.’

And then Ruby leans forward, with her chin settled on her hands and asks what changed between the two of them. Anne has to think for a minute, they hadn’t really prepared to answer a question like that for the study, as it seemed too intimate, maybe too real for such a clinical thing. She thinks back to the way Gilbert had talked about New Year’s, and how even if it was a total lie, it still seemed to be an extension of him.

“I think,” she starts, eyes drifting up to stare at the ceiling so she doesn’t have to see the watchful faces of her friends before her, “he’s always been something different to me; never quite a friend but always something more, and we had this moment a while back when I realized we had already changed and he was just waiting for me to catch up.” 

She doesn’t absorb what she’s said, and she can’t because Jane throws her crumpled napkin across the table which slaps her in the face lightly. 

“Ew, way too sappy,” she groans, and the other girls are in a fit of laughter before the conversation quickly moves into Moody’s recent uncomfortable interaction with Ruby’s father.

He texts her later that night when she’s already tucked into bed with only the sounds of the busy street below her window and Diana’s soft snores filling the silence. Her head is still swimming with the girls’ teasing and the less-than-pure questions about Gilbert they bombarded her with— or maybe it was just the alcohol. 

[gilbert]: how did the mission go 

[gilbert]: did they buy it

[anne]: they didn’t believe it :/ 

[anne]: something about me being smarter and funnier than you ??? idk

[gilbert]: :( 

[anne]: it took them less than 2 seconds. wbu? 

[gilbert]: charlie was not happy… moody on the other hand… think he might’ve cried tears of joy

[gilbert]: anne, I know what i’m about to say to you might be your worst nightmare but... I think we might be very predictable people

It’s strange to think other people have been observing something about yourself that you’ve never considered or seen before. That apparently there’s something about her that everyone believes to know is a fact, but her— like she’s left out of her own life. She wonders if their entire friend group all came to the same conclusion because they are entirely clueless or if it was she and Gilbert who were the clueless ones. 

She decides to go against basic statistical facts and say her friends were the clueless ones.     

Working at the library should have been Anne’s dream job. 

Being surrounded by thousands upon thousands of books of all genres that were just waiting to be read sounded eerily similar to Anne’s happy place––her own personal heaven–– and yet working at the library on campus was like her own personal hell. 

If she tried picking up a book to read during moments of peace and quiet during her shift, her supervisor— who was only a year older than her— would give her a scolding to rival that of even Marilla’s most terrifying reprimands. The students could be impatient, rude, and asked the same questions through every shift that she had been considering placing a FAQ board in front of the desk, but that was, of course, shot down by her supervisor. It was an insanely mundane cycle of stocking, checking out books, and waiting to be berated. 

Anne was restocking the political theory section when Gilbert appeared against the shelf, skimming through a beat-up copy of Hobbes’ Leviathan, trying to act like he wasn’t really there for her and failing horribly. 

The first week of their arrangement had gone by surprisingly smooth. She expertly answered Moody’s bizarre questions about their relationship at lunch on Monday; Gilbert whispered in her ear a few random comments during their social psych lecture on Tuesday in Professor Stacey’s line of sight; on Wednesday she texted him an abundance of memes throughout dinner and got him effectively kicked out of the kitchen by Charlie, and yesterday, Winnie told Gilbert during their lab that she thought Anne was ‘a very pretty girl.’ 

“I wouldn’t have seen you as a realist, Gilbert,” she notes, nodding towards the book in his hands. 

“Oh, I’m not,” he replies, setting the book back in her cart, “I’m more of a Locke guy myself.” 

“Very intellectual.” 

“I think so too,” he says, reaching into her cart to help her fill the next row. She should tell him to leave her alone, that she’ll get in trouble if she’s caught screwing around with a friend during her shift, but then he starts giving wildly absurd reviews for each book he picks up, even for the ones he had clearly never read, and she doesn’t want to care about the consequences. She isn't used to having a good time at work— her coworkers are remarkably quiet and she was starting to think they hated everything that was related to fun— twenty minutes sprawled out on the floor laughing with Gilbert over which books could get his seal of approval was the most fun she’s had in that dusty, dimly lit place. 

“Why are you here anyway?” She asks, just as he’s grabbing the next book off of the cart. 

Gilbert sits up and turns to face her, “I was wondering if you wanted to go out tonight?” It comes out haphazardly, and he pushes himself off the floor to avoid looking at her.

“Like a date?” she clarifies, voice more squeaky and uncontrolled than she intended. 

“Yeah, well, our first survey is due on Sunday so I thought we could hang out… it might make the questions easier to answer.” 

She’s skeptical and was planning on taking a long bath after her shift, then get into her favorite fuzzy socks and watch Planet Earth with Diana, but he’s looking at her with those stupid puppy dog eyes and she thinks it could be interesting to see what Gilbert Blythe does on a Friday night. 

“Okay.” 

“Okay?” He states with caution, clearly surprised like he didn’t expect to get that far, then that boyish smile returns and he reaffirms, “okay.” 

Anne waits for him to tell her what he has planned, or if he even has a plan, but he sort of just stands there for a couple of seconds with a ridiculously stupid expression plastered on his face that she thinks means he’s excited. In high school, whenever Gilbert’s family came over for dinner, they’d always start the evening peaceful enough and she’d honestly appreciate having him around— he always understood her weirdly obscure opinions— but by the end of the night, they’d be on opposite sides of the couch completely turned away from one another and fuming. She’s unsure why he thinks now is different but she’s willing to silently make that bet. 

“When does your shift end?” He asks, looking over her back and quickly focusing on a book when her supervisor walks past. 

“At five,” she says, but it comes out as a giggle when she notices he’s reading upside down. 

Gilbert made her giggle? Hell must’ve frozen over. 

“I’ll come to get you at six, is that alright?” He’s already walking backwards towards the door, and she gets this weird feeling that she doesn’t want him to leave quite yet, but she nods her head and watches him go with a small spring in his step. 

So, maybe she restocks the shelves wrong and points a student in the wrong direction on accident but she is not flustered. Anne is a sensible, responsible, independent young woman and if she decides to frantically spend the next hour and half of her shift imagining everything that could possibly go wrong during a night alone with Gilbert (someone might lose a limb, or worse! Someone might die!), then that’s because she wants to and has the agency to do so. 

And when Diana finds Anne at a quarter to six on the floor of her bedroom surrounded by what seems to be her entire wardrobe, that is also absolutely not, in any way, shape, or form about Gilbert. 

“Oh, God, you have that face,” Diana blanches, already in her pajamas and eating from a package of Twizzlers, “what did Gilbert do?” 

Anne looks up unamused, “why do you immediately assume it’s about Gilbert?” 

“Your face gets really red, and scrunched up when you’re mad at him— like this, see,” and Diana scrunches up her lips and cheeks and squints her eyes, “c’mon, get in your sweatpants and let’s start watching before Moody and Ruby get back and hog the TV.” 

“I can’t,” Anne groans, shoving her head into her hands, “Gilbert wants to go out tonight.” She’s expecting a gasp, or maybe some teasing, but she doesn’t expect the disconcerting silence that washes over them. Diana isn’t mad at Anne often, and when she is, it’s probably because she thinks her latest plot is insane— which is exactly the problem here. 

“Bad idea,” Diana warns. 

“And why is that?” Anne retorts, not in the mood for this conversation again. 

“Because Gilbert obviously likes you, and this isn’t fair to him,” she says simply as if she didn’t just say the most ludicrous thing. Anne, who’s been focusing on a specific blouse to avoid looking Diana in the eye, jumps up into the closet to change once more. 

“First of all,” Anne calls out, “I reject the laughable suggestion that Gilbert has any feelings for me besides animosity, detestation, and maybe the occasional lukewarm platonic feelings.” She won’t deny that they might be friends, after all, he is doing her a huge favor. 

“Secondly, Gilbert’s the one who suggested this, and he’s getting $140, so I’m pretty sure he’ll survive,” she refutes, exiting the closet and only briefly shooting a critical glance towards the mirror. 

“And what about you?” Diana asks, not convinced. 

Anne wants to be angry, she wants to be upset, but she’s quite literally saved by the bell when they hear two sharp knocks at the door and a muffled greeting. Diana moves out of the doorframe and murmurs a disingenuous, “have fun.”

Anne doesn’t respond and instead pushes past her with a passive-aggressive silence. 

When she opens the door, Gilbert is there holding two take-out containers from the Italian place across the street and beams at her, but his smile drops when he notices the hurt on her face, and she wonders if she really is a predictable person. 

"Are you okay?" he asks, concern flooding out of him, "we don't have to do this tonight if something's wro—“ 

She takes one of the bags away from him and continues walking down the hall, turning back at him only to make sure he's following her, "I want to." 

Gilbert doesn't press her to explain, instead, she learns about his day as they walk side by side. She learns that he wakes up at six every morning because Charlie has set the loudest alarm possible and refuses to change it because he claims it improves efficiency; She learns he takes the long way to his first lecture because he likes going through the alleyways between the buildings—something she does too; She learns that he only raises his hand if he knows without a doubt that he's right and he hates getting cold-called by his professors. 

Most of all she learns that maybe she never truly disliked him, but just didn't know him. That she'd been holding so desperately onto her pride and hurt ego after something silly he'd said to her six years ago and she didn't even understand why anymore. 

"Where are we going anyway?" she asks after about ten minutes of walking. 

"It's all about patience," he dismisses and looks down at the way she's breathing heavily as they trek up a hill, "and stamina." 

Anne thinks she's seen everything there is to see on campus but clearly, she hasn't, because if she had known of a place like this she would have spent every waking moment here—with a strong willow tree perched upon a hill looking down onto the city like a castle in a spectacular dominion—it’s like a place out of her stories. 

"Gilbert Blythe!" she exclaims, hitting his arm lightly before throwing herself down in the untrimmed grass, "how come you've never told me about this place?" 

"You've never asked," he says bluntly, joining her on the ground, and in an effort to not sound bitter about it, jokes: "also, this is my super-secret hideout that's on a need-to-know basis, but I think that can include fake-girlfriends."  

He's already opening the takeout bag in his hand, so she opens hers, and is surprised to see he remembered her favorite— pesto alfredo—but she chalks it up to an honest coincidence. 

"And what about real girlfriends? Has Winnie been up here?" she asks, immediately regretting the question because she shouldn't care and she shouldn't be asking, but she's genuinely curious. 

Gilbert drops his fork and leans back on both arms, "no, Winnie always wanted to do something, she was never just content hanging out and doing nothing." 

"And you think I'm okay with doing nothing?" she suggests, smugly trying to trip him up, but he doesn't take the bait. 

"This isn't nothing to you, Anne," he says candidly, perfectly honest and worst of all painfully correct because this place reminds her of home so it could never be nothing. 

But she's still perplexed by the whole thing, sitting there silently ontop of her knees and trying incredibly hard not to open her mouth again, wanting to ask if it's a compliment towards her, or a diss, and she thinks he can sense it because he's staring at her and the gears are obviously turning.

"Winnie was great; she's nice to everyone she meets, always had an easy sense of humor to get along with, and wasn't difficult to talk to, but ultimately, there wasn't any substance— I found myself hoping for something more." 

The question on what that something was, lingers in the air like the thick evening humidity, and she speculates that whatever that something is, she might want the same thing from love. 

"Gilbert, you can be quite the philosophical man when you try," she says, sticking a forkful of pasta into her mouth. 

"I have my moments," he says with a small smile.

Anne wants to tell him about the squabble she had with Diana, to put this philosophical side of him to the test, but she rules against it considering... the implications. So, she decides instead to tell him about the wild dream she had the night before; how she woke up in a cold sweat at three in the morning to write it all down somewhere so she could include it in her latest short story. He listens to her intently, every silly detail, and by the time the sun is settling below the hill— saturating the sky with red and purple— she realizes they're both laying down, imprinting the grass, and he's so close that her breathe hitches in her throat. 

Moments are so much easier to fall in love with than people, she thinks, as she starts to understand why he's the type of person that someone could fall in love with because right now he's someone she could fall in love with. But this is Gilbert Blythe, and she's Anne Shirley-Cuthbert, so it's simply the moment, the ambiance, the allure of this place that she's in love with. 

"I didn't know you write," he admits when she's finished explaining one of her intricate plotlines. 

"You never asked," she imitates him, and he gives a small pout and she knows what he's going to say before he even says it, "no, you cannot read it." 

"You strung me along and got me interested, Carrots, and now you won't even let me read it? Cruel," he says, hands on his chest. 

She would be mad at the use of that horrid nickname, but she's in a good mood so she sticks her tongue out at him and presses herself further into the grass, closes her eyes and listens to the Earth around them. 

"There's so little nature here—compared to Avonlea, at least," she complains, "I need a good, strong tree in my life, Gilbert, or else I don't think I could live." 

"Spoken like a true Islander," he says, and once again, she finds his expression unreadable, but the sentiment permeates through her causing her to shiver. She isn't sure if he knows just how much that means to her; the Island is her world despite it not being her birthplace and all she wants is to belong. 

"Are you cold?" he asks, "do you want my jacket?" 

"Am I witnessing one of your romantical moves, Gilbert?" she teases and shakes her head, "it's actually impossible for me to get cold, so, no—that won't work on me." 

He laughs at her gag and stands up, holding out his hand so he can pull her up and when she does, she stumbles onto him slightly. 

"Let's get you home," he says, voice barely above a whisper and she swears she can feel his breath on her cheek. 

Anne feels a tinge of sadness when they reach her door and he lingers for a moment, and she nearly asks him to come inside but remembers that's hardly required for a fake-date. 

"I'll be honest, this wasn't what I was expecting," she confesses, and he tilts his head to the side, his eyes shining under the dingy fluorescents. 

"And what were you expecting?" he asks. 

"I'm not sure exactly," she answers, and she doesn't miss the way he shifts between his heels and toes when she says it. 

"Is it a good or a bad thing?"

"Remains to be seen— the verdict's still out," she taunts, closing the door on him quickly, and then peaking out once last time before he can leave and says, "a good thing—I think." 

He smiles, it's wide and bright, and waves her goodbye as she watches him walk down the hall. 

Later, when she sits down at her desk and opens up the survey on her computer in the depths of the night, dimming the light so she doesn't wake Diana up, and sees the first question that reads:

On a scale of 1-10, how much do you agree with this statement: "I'm happy around my partner," 

she feels confident when she slides the bar to ten. 

After their not-date and the awkwardness surrounding her friendship with Diana, Anne and Gilbert spend practically every day together. 

It feels incredibly routine, eating lunch together in between classes, watching movies in his apartment, and doing their homework together—it’s almost domestic how in tune they become with one another over the last few weeks.

She's sitting on a bench outside the lecture hall, playing 8Ball on her phone with Ruby, when she sees Gilbert run up the hallway with two coffees in hand, book bag swinging wildly behind him. 

"I'm sorry I'm late," he says, handing her one of the cups and taking a sip out of the other, he grimaces and takes the cup out of her hand as it's inches away from her lips, "sorry, not that one," and switches them. 

"Are you trying to poison me, Gilbert?" she gasps.

He begins telling her about a fiasco at the coffee shop when Anne catches a glimpse of Professor Stacey coming down the hallway, and Anne immediately starts feeling guilty and short circuits, standing on her tippy toes to place a kiss on Gilbert's cheek. 

He stands there utterly dumbfounded, unaware of her reasoning, so she whispers: "code red." 

Gilbert appears to understand because he takes her hand in his and continues on with the story as Professor Stacey sends them a quick smile and heads into the lecture hall. Once the coast is clear, and Anne gets a good look at him, she sputters out a laugh, and his returning stare is wide-eyed and curious. He has a large, pink, lip gloss stain on his cheek and he looks ridiculous.  

"I'm so sorry, I really thought this only happened in movies," she laughs, reaching up to rub his cheek with her palm, and his own hand follows hers instinctively to brush where she made contact. 

She throws him a glace and nods towards the door and tries not to notice how Gilbert spends the entirety of the lecture in a total daze. 

 They fall into the habit of holding hands. 

It's the easiest form of intimacy, Anne decides, because it's a sort of physical touch that can appear so romantic but still feel safe within the confines of friendship. She can hold Gilbert's hand around school or near their friends to elicit the necessary reaction, yet place it in the mental box she labels: "things I can handle doing with Gilbert Blythe."

So, when she drags him to the fall carnival on campus (in all his three years at Redmond he'd never been—blasphemy!), she expertly laces their hands together and pulls him through the crowd to all the booths she wants to see. Last year, Anne went with Diana and the rest of the girls, and it was one of those times she felt like she was having a quintessential university experience. It's not as big of an event as the county fair held every year on the Island, but the excessively sugary treats and overtly rigged games still satiate her homesickness. 

Anne remembers the cake baking contest she entered in at the fair during high school, and how it ended in total disaster with all three judges coughing her creation up and complaining of a liniment taste; to make a long story short, never bake while congested. Gilbert had followed her out of the tent and comforted her awkwardly as she cried indistinct ramblings, and somehow his reassurance that everyone was laughing with her and not at her surprisingly helped. She wonders if he's thinking about that now too, and she thinks he is because he looks down at her and breathes a silent laugh. 

She stops in the middle of the sidewalk when she spots a ring toss game with giant teddy bears as the prize, "if you can't win me one of those, it would be fair grounds to break up with you." 

Gilbert gives her a sideways glance, already pulling her towards the game with a smirk, "you'll eat your words when I win you two." 

He barely wins her one. 

It takes him four tries and it's getting incredibly embarrassing for her as people start to line up behind them impatiently, so she takes the last ring he has left and finishes the job for him, smiling innocently at the slackjawed expression he has. Anne doesn't particularly care for carnival games, but she does like that dumbstruck look he gets on his face whenever she beats him at something—it is truly priceless— so she's willing to give in to her competitive streak. 

"You figured it out from studying my technique, though," he says as she grabs the gargantuan golden bear from the girl manning the booth. 

"Oh, yeah, obviously," she reassures him, lips quirked and crossing her heart playfully.

"I think we should take our newfound teamwork to the big leagues," he declares, spreading his hands in a wide arch as they continue walking down the main pathway. 

"The big leagues of ring toss?" she giggles, and he shakes his head, feigning solemnity. 

"This is very serious business, Anne, no laughing matter," but it's hard to take him seriously when he's laughing too, and she knows they must look insane in the middle of the pathway with a huge bear between them, laughing like fools, but she wants to do this. She wants to look silly with Gilbert and wants other people who aren't their friends, Professor Stacey, or Winnie to think they have something special, but maybe their friendship is already something special. 

"I like being your friend, Gilbert," she confesses, lowering the bear from her face so he can see just how sincere she is. 

He's a little shocked, no doubt he wasn't expecting a friendly sentiment like it to come out of her tonight, but his raised eyebrows lower and his parted lips soften into a fond smile.  

"I like being your friend too, Anne," he says, reciprocating her genuine tone. 

Maybe the moment is too charged, or maybe she's sick of the way people keep pushing past her aggressively, but she clears her throat and signals for them to keep walking.

"What do you want to do next?" she asks, but he's not walking with her, still planted in his spot from before, and she sends him a quizzical look. 

"Winnie," he says, looking off to the left. 

"Winnie?" she questions, turning to follow his eyes and she sees the tall blonde talking with a group of friends. Anne focuses on the older girl and she can see why Gilbert liked her; she's beautiful, with her long blonde hair that shines in the glimmering lights, clear, glowing skin, and elegant features you'd see in a magazine. Anne's just... Anne. Her hair is ruddy and unstyled, every corner of her face is adorned with stubborn freckles, and she could be critical about any, and all of her features if she tried. 

Winnie meets her gaze and her eyes light up, looking back at her friends and then walking towards Anne and Gilbert with a smile. 

By the time Anne turns back to Gilbert, however, he's already inches away from her face, and there's no time to duck before his lips press softly against hers. It only lasts for a brief second as he realizes his mistake, but she swears she can taste the blue cotton candy he had eaten earlier. 

When he pulls back his eyes are wide and apologetic, "I'm so sorry it's just last time— and I thought Winnie — and you just — on the cheek, and I meant to do it on the chee—“

He's flustered, with his hands moving wildly, and it's painful to watch him struggle to explain himself, and she would've put him out of his misery if Winnie's kind voice didn't first. 

"You two are a sight for sore eyes," she says pleasantly, pointing towards the bear between them, "I can't believe you actually got Gilbert out during midterm season Anne, you must be a miracle worker." 

Anne shakes her head and uses her free hand to cup against her mouth and whispers: "the secret is threatening to cut his power line so he can't do any more work." 

"Ah, a little foul play," she says with a wink, "I like it." 

"You act as though I lock myself in my room during midterms," he defends. 

"Oh, sure, you leave when you run out of food," Winnie teases.

"Or if Charlie has bothered you one too many times," Anne finishes.

Anne concludes that Winnie is something like a kindred spirit and she can really see why Gilbert liked her, but throughout the whole exchange his eyes dart back and forth between the two girls as if he's totally lost. After a couple of minutes of bullying Gilbert and smooth pleasantries, Winnie breathes in deep and smiles at the two of them, "I best be getting back, it was lovely to see you two." 

They bask in what just happened for a few seconds before she slips her hand into his once more and continues their pace down the rest of the carnival stalls. She doesn't want to talk about it though, because Winnie is a part of Gilbert's life that doesn't feel entirely her business, so she lets the topic drop to the floor and stay there. 

"I'm still sorry about before," he says, "I only intended to kiss your cheek." 

Anne gazes up at him and smiles at his sincere apology, she knows he'd never do anything untoward, and most of all she trusts him, so she squeezes his hand against hers. 

"It's okay, but—“ she starts, trying to hold back the smug look she so wants to plaster on her face “—first ring toss and now this? Gilbert your aim is terrible."   

Gilbert and the other boys throw a party mid-November, claiming it's to celebrate National Homemade Bread Day, but Anne's sure that's just an excuse to get heavily wasted because when she asks Charlie excitedly if they're baking bread for the occasion and he laughs and says: "absolutely not, we bought beer which is close enough." 

She has to complain for another five minutes for him to even consider buying one of those party trays with the vegetables and ranch, so that's where she finds herself now, munching on veggies and watching Tillie dance with both—yes, both— of the guys she invited, Diana skirt around the guy following her around like a lost puppy, which Anne can only assume is Fred, Charlie laying on the ground, and Ruby, Moody, and Josie playing quarters. 

Gilbert comes up behind her as she chomps aggressively on a carrot, which he points and laughs at, "it's cannibalism!" 

He's a bit sweaty from being forced to dance with Jane, it sticks in his curls and she wants to touch them to see if they're as soft as they look, but instead, she keeps her voice impassive and cool— totally cool. 

"Very funny, Gil," she says 

"You get it, right?" he asks, already tipsy, "carrots, eating a carrot." 

"No, yeah, it was pretty obvious," she laughs, deciding he's cute like this and takes a mental picture for her to keep for later. 

"Are you drinking?" 

Before she can answer, Josie jumps up on the counter behind her— probably farther gone than Gilbert— and giggles. 

"Anne I have a question," she declares loudly into her ear, "you and Gilbert always argue so passionately, does that help in your se—“ 

“—Alright!" Anne shouts, slamming her hands down forcefully on the counter, letting the rest of the carrots spill everywhere, "I changed my mind, I'd love a drink" 

Though it seems like the rest of the gang has the same idea, because for the rest of the night she and Gilbert suffer ruthless teasing at the hands of their friends, even innocent, kind-hearted Ruby joins in, but when she takes a shot with Tillie, she doesn't even feel the need to care anymore. 

It comes to a head when she and Gilbert are dancing, and he goes from swinging her arms around in excited motions to twirling her slowly as if they weren't in a crowded, rowdy college apartment, but something far more fancier, more regal. She's starting to feel wobbly in her knees and a cloud in her mind, so in the heat of the moment, she reaches on her tiptoes and shakes Gilbert's hair like she'd wanted to earlier, laughing at the boyish grin he gives her in response. It's odd, not very romantic, but her heart picks up nonetheless when his hazel eyes darken at her proximity and she thinks it might be time for a breather. 

"I need a minute," she says, and he lets go of her hands and nods carefully. 

After a while, Gilbert finds Anne sitting with her knees bent against her chest and drink clutched in her hand on the small fire escape outside his room and he ducks through the window to join her. As shy and embarrassed as she was after the immense teasing from their friends and her weird attractions—she doesn’t mind Gilbert’s company at all— and actually feels some sort of a comfort that always seems to radiate off of him. 

“Welcome to my super-secret hideout, can I get you anything to drink? I have—” she peaks into her cup, “—about a hundred milliliters of something God awful Moody made me.” 

“Ah,” he nods knowingly, knees brushing against hers softly as he sits down, “Moody’s special mix, very disgusting, but very effective.”

Their lazy laughter turns back into a thick silence, and Anne was never bothered much by silence— sometimes it was necessary to complete all the running thoughts she had on a day to day basis, but now—their silence feels unfinished, incomplete. She leans back further, letting the cool metal bars press into her back as she watches the cars below them whirl past. 

“This was my super-secret hideout before it was yours by the way,” he says quietly, and she looks back at him, nearly forgetting what he was referring to in the first place, “I mean this is right outside my window,” he grins as he points his thumb at the window behind him.

"Don't you think it's a little selfish to have two super-secret hideouts?" she asks, thinking about his place on the hill.

"it's all relative."

“And what does the great Gilbert Blythe need to hide from?” she laughs, but her voice is serious; she wants to know. 

Anne knows he’s had his trials, but he always seems to bare them with a grace she can’t, she doesn’t think she’s ever seen him legitimately mad or lose his temper when he had every right to. Even when she smacked him so wickedly that first meeting, he just smiled at her and took the blame gallantly, and she hated him for it because she knew that if the roles were reversed she would have screamed and yelled and cried. 

“When you live with Charlie Sloane, there’s a lot to hide from.” He jokes dryly and breathes out a laugh through his nose at her exasperated expression. 

“Do you see those tracks over there?” She looks a little lost at that, so he lifts her empty hand, brushing against her finger with a feather-light touch and points it towards the distant train tracks along the side of the highway. She turns her attention back to him after a moment as he continues to stare down at the tracks. 

“My dad really loved trains,” Gilbert says, voice slightly cracked and she nods in understanding; nothing else was needed. He comes out here when he misses his dad, and Anne feels like she encroached on some holy ground that wasn’t there for her— but he wraps his hand around her finger (how did she not realize he hadn’t let go?), and his crooked smile told her that it was a place he had actually wanted to share with her. 

Wanted.

Was it wrong for her to suddenly want to be wanted? For her to want someone to seek her out on purpose, and desire her presence? 

The glare of the moon and the flashing red lights of the cars below them frame the profile of his face so enticingly with his head still turned towards the tracks. Their feet are entangled in the small space, and maybe it was some sort of spell cast upon her, or maybe it was the excessive liquid courage she had ingested, either way, she pushes herself on her knees to reach over to him, and when he turns to face her at her sudden closeness, she kisses him. 

Anne kisses him with no word of warning, and in the depths of her mind she feels wrong— guilty—but then he reaches behind her and settles his hands firmly against her waist and kisses her back. The fire safety expert inside of her knows that it is entirely too dangerous to be engaging in such activities on a fire escape, but the hopeless romantic inside of her banishes the logic as she presses further into the kiss. 

It was the feeling that she had been chasing in her daydreams since the accidental brush of lips they shared at the carnival, with the rush and the warmth now tenfold. Instead of the faint taste of cotton candy, he tastes like the alcohol that flows through her just as ferociously, and usually, this would sour the mood for her but coming from him it only emboldens her further. 

Unwillingly, she thinks back on a night in high school when a 16-year-old Ruby shoved her diary in Anne’s face because she was, ‘too embarrassed to say it out loud!’ And the small, pink book had an overly-excited passage about how Gilbert had kissed her chastely and gentlemanly outside of her house after their second date. Anne has to swallow back a laugh because his kisses now were neither chaste—they were long, slow, and attentive—nor could she describe them as entirely gentlemanly— one hand grips her tighter, while the other moves higher, and higher still. 

And in that pale moonlight, he made her feel something that tightened against her chest and beat through her veins and she might have described it as wanted. He pulls back, eyes traveling from her lips, and up to her own blue eyes, and he looks wrecked. 

“I thought you said you needed to be paid to kiss me,” he quips, entirely too pleased with himself. 

“I am getting paid, aren’t I?” She whispers, echoing his words from back then, leaning in to kiss him again.

The one traveling hand stops at a precarious place on her ribcage, leaving her shivering— which could have been explained by the cool November night, but she can’t deny it’s simply his effect on her. Quickly, she launches herself up, ducks towards the window, and turns back to see his face— his dejected and lorn face that was desperately confused at her leaving—she makes herself plain before he misunderstands any further. 

“Let’s say that hypothetically I was cold and wanted to go into your room,” she says, calculated. 

He nods slowly, voice rasp when he says, “clearly hypothetical since you never get cold,” and her heart aches at the way he always seems to remember every conversation they’ve ever had.

“Yes, clearly hypothetical,” she confirms impatiently, “if I were cold, I would go to your room, and if you wanted to join me… I would be okay— more than okay— with that.” 

He must’ve understood her hypothetical because by the time she fully enters his room—only hitting her head against the window lightly—he is right behind her, perhaps too enthusiastically, tripping over his feet and stumbling at the edge of his bed. 

Anne sits down on the bed and lets her feet dangle as he sits next to her. The music from the party filters into the room but she can’t place what song it is, yet she can still feel the loud bass reverberating through her body and it slows her rapid heartbeat enough that she can take in her surroundings. 

His room is cleaner than any part of the house, with his sheets made up, and desk organized almost obsessively. She sees a picture of the two of them that Bash took at Gilbert’s high school graduation on his nightstand; he’s smiling down at her, and she has her arms crossed and her tongue is sticking out at the camera. 

Suddenly, she’s more hyperaware of what’s happening, or what could happen and it feels different, new. He reaches up to brush her cheek, slowly, carefully, as if she’d run away and she might have if it were anyone else. His thumb lowers across her cheek and faintly brushes against her bottom lip, and he's so close to her now, leaning further in, then he stops. 

Her eyes open back up to see what’s wrong, a small part of her thinks he might be ashamed now, regretting her, what she finds isn’t regret but desire and she wants him to act on it but instead, he just sighs and lets his hand drop. 

“I know you said you didn’t want to do this if it wasn’t real and I just wanted to tell you— I need you to know— that it is real for me, but I want it to be real for you, too,” he says in earnest. The hand that had been caressing her cheek only seconds before has joined the other hand on his lap, folding over each other nervously. 

“What do you mean?” She asks, already knowing the answer but hoping desperately she’s wrong, “real for you how?” 

“I love you,” he says, swallowing harshly. 

She doesn’t know what to do. 

These words aren’t meant for her. They’re something eternal, all-knowing, and all-consuming. She’s heard these words come from Matthew and Marilla— the warmth and protection of maternal and paternal love that she had always craved as a child. She’s heard these words from Diana— the gratitude, respect, and care from a friend. She was able to grasp that kind of love, it was easier to understand especially as time went on, but this love doesn’t make sense. The Anne and Gilbert equation she’s created to make sense of their relationship has been disproven; the theorem has been refuted by the unceremonious and ungraceful words tumbling out of his nervous mouth. 

He doesn’t mean it. 

How could he mean it when he doesn’t even know who he loves; they’ve only been playing at love, playing up to this false idea of love and she doesn’t know where the line is anymore, and neither must he but he’s just crossed it. 

She stands up off of the bed and looks at him eye-level. 

Until now, she’s never noticed how much taller he is than her because she wants to fix her eyes higher but he’s staring at her from an equal distance at his place on the bed. Even in the dark light, she can see how pale he looks, and she doesn’t blame him because she feels like she’s going to be sick as well and she almost wishes she was so there could be some sort of a distraction. 

“You don’t mean that,” she assures, hoping he’ll just forget about it in the morning. 

“How do you know what I mean?” He snaps and looks more hurt than before— if that was possible. He’s standing now, and her eyes follow his instantly; it’s a return to normal, except nothing about this is normal. 

"Anne, I've loved you since the day we met."

“You don’t even know me,” she says, trying to come up with every excuse for this situation that she’s ever read in a book, or seen in a movie, and it’s like he sees right through her because he doesn’t even try to entertain this notion at all, and he just scoffs. 

“If you don’t love me back, or even like me in that way I can understand, but if that’s how you really feel then just say it— don’t tell me I don’t know you because you know that I do, and don’t tell me that I don’t mean it because you know I wouldn’t lie about this.” 

He might not be a liar but she is, and her hands are starting to become clammy and in desperate need of a surface to wipe them on already.

“I— I can’t—” she starts, heavy tears are forming in her eyes and threaten to fall, but Moody slams the door open, letting the multi-colored lights from hall flutter into the room, dancing across the two sulking figures. 

Luckily, Moody is too drunk to care because he immediately yells: “Anne, help! Ruby yacked all over the couch and you knew what to do last time,” he ends with a whine, practically begging. 

Anne doesn’t care that the interruption is a demand to clean up vomit, she’s okay with that, because somehow, that’s infinitely better than what she’s dealing with in here. As she starts to leave, Gilbert softly grabs her hand, thumb stroking slowly, pleadingly, and she looks back at him once more before peeling away and leaving him there alone. 

Her and Moody walk down the hallway quietly, before he comments, “weird energy in there.” 

“Yeah, weird.” She agrees. 

Anne spends the entire morning laying in bed trying to decide whether the throbbing headache she has is due to being hungover or the fact she cried the entire night. 

It probably doesn't matter, either way, it's most likely a dangerous mix of both that could be helped by copious amounts of water and a couple painkillers, but she doesn't want to get out of bed. Instead, she wants to lay there, sulk, continue listening to her 'depressing songs to cry to' playlist, and thank the powers that be that Diana stayed over at Tillie and Jane's last night. 

She does not need that 'I told you so' right now. 

Gilbert never came out of his room after she left to clean up after Ruby and she was glad for it. She couldn't look at his sad eyes and colorless face again, and she was sure that he didn't want her to either, and that was fine by her. 

He had ruined everything between them with his artificial feelings and romantic declarations that weren't meant for her to hear. Her first confession of love was supposed to be from the dashing hero of her dreams with poetry dripping from his lips and deep, melancholy eyes that serve a window to the equally profound soul. Gilbert was blunt and honest, never expressing himself with the flourishing she so craved, but still, she couldn't deny his confession was ingrained into her mind, playing on repeat over and over again. 

Or, had she ruined it, by acting on her wants and even hoping carelessly he did too. But could she honestly say that she didn't cherish the feeling of being someone's—of being his— person for just one brief time? 

Her mind was wracked between regretting what she had done and scrutinizing herself for not doing it sooner. 

Who was she kidding; she had thoughtlessly and thoroughly messed it up with her drunken kisses and cruelty, and that's how she knew he didn't love her like he thought he did. There wasn't a single measure of logic that could explain it. 

Time seems to move much faster and she can't catch up, as she stares at the lower corner of her bed where that golden bear they'd won—who she affectionately named Pilbert— sits, and when she finally gains enough consciousness to get out of bed, the sun already tinting her curtains with its sunset glow. 

Diana charges through the door then, throwing herself onto Anne's bed and ignoring the groans that come from under the blanket. 

"I've been called in as reinforcement for Ruby," Diana explains, leaning down to peak at Anne under the covers, "she called me when your playlist repeated for the third time." 

Anne responds with a muffled grunt, which Diana doesn't even entertain for a moment, pulling up the covers to get a good look and she recoils when she sees Anne's red, puffy eyes with last nights mascara staining underneath and her blotchy nose and cheeks. 

"Oh, honey, what happened?" 

"You know what happened," Anne says, knowing what Diana wants to say. 

"I'm not here to say 'I told you so' if that's what you think," she swears, laying down to get at Anne's level, "I'm here to listen." 

Anne tells her everything, from the dates to the carnival, from Winnie to arguments. She tells her of love confessions and kisses, and how she just wants everything to go back to normal.

"My world has tumbled into pieces. I want to reconstruct it." 

"Without any Gilbert in it?" *

Anne winces at the thought. After the last two months, she can't imagine not having him around anymore, even if he's just bugging her she'd rather him next to her more than anything, than for her to never speak to him again and have to repeat the last conversation they'd had as a punishment. 

"If he would only take it back," she says, unable to finish what they could be if he did. 

"Anne, you've built this image of you and him up so high that you can hardly even see what you're doing anymore. It's like you're still trying to compete with him by seeing who can stay the same the longest." 

"But he's not staying the same— he's changing." 

"Remember what you said to the others? How you realized he'd changed and was just waiting for you to catch up? Anne, you have caught up but you can't even see it. If this isn't love, what is?" 

Realizing you love someone is relief and terror all at once. 

It's the relief that there is someone out there for you, and it's this incredible person that sees you in every way and still chooses to love you, but the terror is when you realize how fragile it could be, and how you might've already messed it up. 

Anne feels the rush of relief and terror all at once and shoots out from under the covers. 

"I'm in love with Gilbert Blythe." 

The waiting room is cold and lonely as she and Gilbert sit in complete silence before their last interview for the study before their commitment to each other is over. 

Something is missing and she feels it in the way he didn't even greet her, and she feels it in the way his eyes barely make contact with hers for the entire time they've sat there. It's been two weeks since she last saw him, and every day has been more empty and banal than the last. She knows he continued to do the surveys because they were still called in to complete the study, and she wonders what made him stay.

It's a deep pain in her heart to know that something is missing and it's sitting right next to her but she still can't get it back.  

Professor Stacey peaks out of the door to call them through, and Gilbert smiles at Anne, but she knows it's fake and only to be convincing because his eyes don't crinkle like they do when he genuinely smiles. 

They're immediately separated this time, with Gilbert following Winnie begrudgingly down the hall, and she doesn't want to leave him so soon when it's been too long already, but Professor Stacey is waiting patiently at the door so Anne follows. 

"Alright, so you're at the final stretch," she says, shuffling a couple papers around. 

"Gilbert and I have really enjoyed it," Anne replies, and she hates the way it sounds coming out. 

"Well, these questions today are mostly repeats of what you answered in September, but first I'll ask: how was your communication during the study? Would you say it was more, less, or the same as before?" 

Anne's too exhausted to lie, so she keeps it as simple as she can, "I would say more." 

"Can you expand on that?" 

She takes a second to think, and her throat starts constricting because she wants to cry but she knows she can't, so she sucks her breath in, "the questions made us talk more— about things we hadn't considered or the things we just hadn't said out loud and I liked hearing that from him— sometimes I think he holds back for my sake." 

Professor Stacey gives her a small smile as if she wasn't expecting such an insightful answer and she takes a moment to scribble something on her notebook. 

The rest of the questions truly were repeats, so Anne finds herself barely registering them and throwing out her answers based on memory, and in the end, when Professor Stacey finally gives her an envelope with her name spelled out in neat cursive, Anne can't even feel excited about it. 

It's what she's here for. This $140 is the only reason she and Gilbert started this whole thing and yet when she looks down at it she feels nothing. 

"And Anne," Professor Stacey starts, a little hesitant, "perhaps if you're afraid he's holding back for you, you should open up to him first— he'll take your lead." 

"Thank you," Anne says, and she begins to think she can still fix this, that she's been wanting to take his lead on this and wait for him to come back to her, but he's already put himself out there and now it's her turn.  

When she exits the room, Gilbert's already out of the office with his envelope in hand and back turned towards her. 

He doesn't answer her half-hearted calls— she's doesn't want to make a scene in the hallway— and by the time she catches up to him they're outside of the building and she's out of breath, internally laughing at the irony that she must always leave this building out of breath. 

He turns to stare at her when he realizes she's right behind him, standing up straight with his hands in his pockets and she can't get a read on him so she just starts talking. 

"Gilbert, I've treated you terribly," she admits, eyes trained on the ground. 

"No, Anne you haven't," he says, but he doesn't seem so very convincing with his heavy mood suffocating the air around them. 

"Please, for once let me wallow and beg for forgiveness?" she pleads, and his expression is blank for a moment, and then he turns away slightly and laughs—actually laughs. It's quiet and reserved, but it's still there and it's him. 

Gilbert’s laugh brings memories of the taste of tart apples while they walked barefoot through his father’s orchard; memories of their entire friend group piled into Moody’s old, beat-up Volvo that he lovingly called Caroline and they would beg him not to let Charlie take charge of the AUX cord, while Anne would try to ignore the way her hand brushed against Gilbert’s; memories of a soft and sentimental voice which she now knew he reserved for the moments he had worked up the courage to express his feelings for her; so open, so vulnerable, and she always treated it like a platonic declaration rather than romantic. His laugh had made her wonder just how long she had been holding him in her heart, tucked so far down where she had locked him in and thrown the key. 

The words force their way up her throat, demanding release—they burn all the way up her throat and across her tongue until she can't hold them in any longer. 

"I love you," she says, it's plain, and not the flowery version she practiced with Diana, or in the mirror to herself, but it's the undeniable truth. 

"You love me," he repeats deliberately, taking his time with the syllables and letting them linger. 

“Yes."

There is no grand orchestra, no swelling music, no cinematic rain pounding down on them, or dew filled fields. It's just him and her, Anne and Gilbert, but the overwhelming romanticism is there nonetheless when he crosses the distance to cup her face gently, then comes down to crash into her. 

Despite actually being sober this time, the kiss is more frantic and fervent than it was at the party, but she still soaks it up as if this is the last time—and hope and prays it isn’t—wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him down closer to her. One hand remains on her cheek while the other buries itself in her hair, tangling and anchoring as if he never wants to leave and she believes he'd stay there forever if he could. 

He pulls back first, and she wants to chase after him —unashamedly wanting more—but he's gaping down at her with a wistful and awestruck smile, and she greedily wants to see where this takes her. 

"It's always been you, Anne," he says, with none of the nerves and tumbling of the first time, but just as open and honest, "I don't want you to think I just got caught up in this." 

"I don't think that at all, Gilbert, and I was such a little fool," she admonishes herself, "though you can't blame me for not believing that you fell in love with me when I still wore twin braids and hit you violently over the head." 

"Don't be harsh on that Anne, maybe she was a tad unusual, but she's very dear to me," he defends.

"I was unusual? Who pulls some girls’ hair the first time they've ever met?" She says mischievously.   

Gilbert pretends to be offended, "I never said I was perfect!"

All fears of change have faded because she sees that all the things she loves the most about them haven't changed at all and yet everything that has changed is for the better. She no longer has to wish to be closer, no longer has to use volatile words to express herself to him, and so she extends herself up on her toes and presses her forehead onto his. 

"I kinda want to go back in there and ask them to null our data," she jokes. 

"Why?" he asks, wholly amused. 

"I want to do it again—for real this time."