Chapter Text
“Oh my God, where the hell is he?”
It was three weeks after Christmas and as the snow swirled around Toronto International Airport Miss Anne Shirley stood with one hand on her hip and the other one on the handle of her wheelie suitcase, her foot tapping in annoyance.
“If he misses this plane because he’s ‘too busy at work’ I’m actually going to throttle him!”
“Anne, he’s probably delivering triplets or something. You know how ridiculous Gilbert’s schedule is more than anyone” Diana muttered distractedly as she rummaged around in her handbag, checking that she had her passport for the hundredth time
Anne knew that Diana was right. She had lost count of the amount of times she had sat on a bar stool in a restaurant waiting for her best friend to turn up. Or sat in a theatre with an empty seat next to her for the first thirty minutes of a show. Only to be disturbed by a commotion half way along her aisle as he apologised profusely as he stumbled his way along the row of already seated theatre goers in order to join her.
“If I ever write another book about my life there will definitely be a very long chapter entitled “Waiting for Gilbert Blythe” in it”.
Diana smirked “He’ll be here, I’m fairly confident he’s not going to miss two weeks soaking up the sun at a luxury hotel and spa in the Caribbean with his best friends” or more likely she thought but didn’t say, the opportunity to spend two weeks with Anne - the woman she was sure he had been hopelessly in love with since the redhead had smacked him over the head with her world atlas in Geography 14 years ago - even if it was down a coal mine.
Anne paced back and forth craning her neck to see along the concourse to catch a glimpse of her best friend careering through the departure lounge. Beanie hat and a huge Canada Goose coat on.
“Finally!” Anne exclaimed “Where the hell have you been?”
“Sorry Carrots” he said, briefly embracing her and then turning to Di and her boyfriend Fred to greet them too. “But babies don’t have a care for my holiday plans I’m afraid” he grinned self-consciously pulling his coat down.
“Come on. We need to board, they have just made the last call” Di said collecting their bags, her long dark hair sweeping over her shoulder.
Gilbert’s phone began to ring and he glanced at the screen. “Sorry, I need to get this” he said as he passed his passport to the airline official. “Dr Blythe here, Are Mrs Montgomery’s results back? Great, proceed with the care plan I outlined. Do her observations every hour and I want a 24-hour trace on the baby’s heart rate….” He carried on discussing the case as he boarded the aircraft, Anne looked to Diana and rolled her eyes.
“That man is going to work himself into an early grave” Anne said.” ‘I’m seriously concerned about Gilbert’s work life balance. Well in fact it’s just a work balance! There is hardly any life involved…I had to threaten I’d dump him as my best friend and had to ring his boss just to get him to take this vacation”.
Di smiled at her “Does that mean I’d be promoted to the role of “best friend” then?”
Anne linked arms with her as they shuffled along the airplane aisle. “My Dearest Diana, you are my bosom friend, nobody could ever replace you”.
Diana winked at her and motioned towards Gilbert with her head. “I’m sure Dr Dreamboat over there would happily swap positions with me and be your “bosom pal” instead” she teased fondly.
Anne gave her the usual ‘Don’t push it’ glare that she had perfected over the years, but couldn’t hold her smile back for very long. They both watched and laughed as Gilbert struggled up the aisle with his hand luggage, thick winter coat, and beanie hat on with his phone balanced between his cheek and shoulder. He looked at them and frowned slightly realising he was the object of their amusement.
Anne reached over to help him with his luggage as he slid into the seat beside her. She placed her index finger and thumb between his knotted brows and smoothed out the furrows gently. He briefly closed his eyes and his shoulders visibly relaxed at her touch as he continued to discuss the patient’s case on his phone.
“I’m sorry sir, you need to end your call now, we are preparing for take-off” the flight attendant said to Gilbert, fluttering her lashes and leaning over him in a fashion that best displayed her ample cleavage to him. He nodded acknowledging her words but not her flirtations. Anne rolled her eyes again, this was a common occurrence. Wherever Dr Gilbert Blythe went, he unwittingly attracted a bevy of beautiful women’s attentions. “Dr Dreamboat” as Di aptly nicknamed him was an understatement. He was simply beautiful. Tall, handsome with a head of dark curls that had a mind of their own. Bewitching green and golden hazel eyes that seemingly changed colour depending on his mood, which were lined with long thick dark lashes. She glanced over at him as he was putting his phone back into his pocket, he was handsome alright, albeit an exhausted handsome, bags under said beautiful eyes and a five o’clock shadow blooming across his rather fabulous chin.
He glanced up at her and caught her staring at him and raised a questioning eyebrow.
“Gil, you look exhausted” she quickly covered “when did you last eat or sleep?
He sighed tiredly, “I came straight to the airport from the hospital after doing an 18-hour shift, and I only slept for about 4 hours the night before that, I can’t remember when I last ate, yesterday lunch time maybe” he said through a yawn and resting his head back on the head rest and closing his eyes.
“Well, we need to get some food into you and then you need to get some rest for goodness’ sake” Anne said as she started rummaging through the inflight information in the back pocket of the seat in front of her. “Here, let’s have a look at the menu, I’m sure the newest member of your fan club, Miss Air Canada over there can rush you something to eat”, Anne said referring to the air hostess. She flipped through the menu, looking at the options.
“Gil?” She twisted around to look at him only to see him fast asleep in the seat next to her, his brow relaxed his mouth slightly open and breathing evenly. She smiled affectionately at him. He had a talent for ‘falling asleep on the washing line’ as her adoptive mother Marilla called it. “Gilbert Blythe, honestly” she sighed quietly. She leaned over and removed his beanie hat, leaving the curls that had been curling adorably around the sides of it to bounce back to their preferred resting places.
Gilbert slept soundly for the entire flight, alternating between resting his head on Anne's shoulder and the back of his seat. Anne nudged him gently awake as the plane taxied to a standstill and restless passengers began to disembark.
He rubbed his eyes and blearily blinked at Anne, “Are we nearly there yet?” he quirked.
“Yes, thanks for the witty conversation and stimulating company for the last 5 hours.” She said sarcastically, but she couldn’t help thinking how cute he looked when he was all sleepy and had just woken up. Her heart did that peculiar little flutter thing that it often did when he looked at her. She swallowed thickly and looked away from him.
Gilbert yawned and stretched in his seat “You’re welcome, Carrots. Always a pleasure to keep you stimulated” he teased, fluttering his eyelashes at her comically.
“In your dreams Blythe” she bantered back.
Gilbert raised an eyebrow, if only she knew the extent of his dreams about her it would make her blush, or slap him on the head with her book again.
“Welcome to Antigua I hope you have a pleasant stay” Miss Air Canada gushed as Gilbert passed her on his way to disembark the plane. “This is my number if you need anyone to show you the Island” she whispered seductively trying to pass him a slip of paper.
“Thanks, can my beautiful wife come too?” he said draping his left arm around Anne's shoulder and gazing at her with adoring eyes. He squeezed Anne’s shoulder gently bringing both of the women’s attention to the gold wedding band on his fourth finger. Anne's frown was slight enough for the mortified flight attendant to miss.
Gilbert grabbed her hand and pulled her off the plane after him, chuckling to himself.
“What the heck Gil?” Anne said as soon as they had reached the safety of the transfer bus. “What’s with the ring? Is there something I’ve missed? Like the most magical day of my life?”
“Oh, don’t worry Miss Shirley, if you’d married me, you definitely remember it” he sighed and leaned forward and whispered closely into her ear, “especially the wedding night” he pulled back. eye’s dancing with mischief and looked into Anne’s unamused face, giving her his most charming and cheeky smile until eventually Anne couldn’t stop herself from smiling.
“You, Dr Blythe are an incorrigible flirt! No wonder you leave a trail of beautiful women in your wake! I feel sorry for all of those young ladies out there just waiting to have their hearts broken by Gilbert Blythe. You should have gone into cardiology not obstetrics, so you could perhaps mend a few hearts after you have finished with them. I sometimes think I am the only one immune to your charms”.
All of the teasing had left Gilbert’s face. “That’s not fair Anne, I know there was a time at college when I was a bit… you know….out of control, but I always made it clear to any of the women I spent the night with that It was just a casual arrangement. They ALL knew that. I never led anybody on!” he finished; his mouth set in a straight line.
Anne knew she had upset him but just raised her chin in defiance and wrinkled her nose up in distaste. Gilbert responded by slipping his sunglasses down from their resting place in his hair to cover his eyes. Anne knew this was how he often shut people out, to cover the emotions brewing in his expressive eyes.
“You look ridiculous in your Canada Goose winter coat and sunglasses in 90-degree heat”
“Yeah, well I have my reasons” he said tersely, shutting the conversation down.
Anne folded her arms and gazed out of the window, getting lost in the stunning tropical landscapes slipping past them as they made their way to the hotel.
xx
“I’m Sorry Dr Blythe, we don’t have any record of your booking” the puzzled hotel concierge explained for the second time.
“That’s just not possible. I booked months ago at the same time as my friends” he sighed and yawned tiredly. “Do you have any other rooms available please?"
“I’m sorry sir, we are fully booked. I can try to find you some other accommodation for the duration of your stay in the local area if you wish”
“I’m sure I’ve got the confirmation somewhere on my phone” Gilbert said as he started scanning through his emails.
“Shit” he said as he suddenly came to the realisation that his search was going to be fruitless. “Mrs Fords twins!” He groaned and ran his hands through his hair. remembering getting called away to surgery before he managed to completed the final stage of his booking.
He turned to Anne who was standing with her arms folded, already checked in with her key in her hand, his eyes wide like saucers, their earlier disagreement forgotten. “I’ll just have to catch the next flight home…I can’t believe I’ve been that stupid!” he said covering his face with his hands.
Anne rolled her eyes and smiled at him. “Look, you can just share with me until a room becomes available. It won’t be the first time we’ve had a best friend’s sleepover, I take it that’s acceptable if Dr Dopey here pays the difference?” She said addressing the hotel worker who nodded his consent with a twinkle in his eye.
“Are you sure Anne? I don’t want to cramp your style…." He tried hard to conceal the hope in his voice.
“I have no style to cramp…….and you can hardly share with Di and Fred or Ruby and Moody, you’d definitely be killing the passion there.” She smiled at him. “NO funny business though and no random women either! Agreed?”
“Agreed” He nodded, still slightly hurt that she had that low an opinion of him.
“One condition though, can you please take that damn coat of, you are making me sweat just looking at you”.
“Are you saying I look hot Carrots?”
“Oh My God. Please tell me murder is not a capital offense in Antigua” she laughed addressing the concierge. “The minute another room becomes available please let him know. Before I kill him” she laughed.
“Yes Ma’am”, the old man laughed, handing Gilbert a second key for her room.
Anne and Gilbert made their way through the hotel to her suite. Gilbert carried their cases whilst Anne unlocked the door and stepped into the room, immediately stopping short resulting in Gilbert crashing into her back, suitcases falling all over the floor.
“Anne!” he whined.
“Wow” she whispered reverently. She rushed forward through the room and gasped as she opened the doors to the wrap around veranda that led out onto a section of private beach. “Gil it’s just stunning” she said as she threw her arms wide and span around the luxury room she had treated herself to.
“Look at the view Gil, it is not the most beautiful thing you have ever seen?”
“Yes” he simply answered not looking at the white sandy beach or sparkling turquoise waters or the sun that was just sinking below the horizon, but at the beautiful red headed woman he had been devoted to for the last 14 years. She was truly beautiful, the most enchanting thing he had ever seen. She span around again, her red braid whipping around her shoulders, floaty dress flowing around her creamy legs. “Just stunning” was all he could comment.
“Gil come look, you can’t see the view standing in the doorway. Wait!” She said firmly “Coat off first”.
“Ok” Gilbert said “before I do though you may want to look away”. He blushed.
“Don’t tell me your half naked under that coat!”
“Err no I kind of wish that I was though, it’s a lot grosser than that I’m afraid”.
“Huh?” was Anne's only response wondering where on earth he was going with this.
He slowly started to unzip his massive winter coat. “You need to understand that I’ve had a very busy shift, then I had to rush straight from surgery to the airport”. He finished unzipping his coat and slipped it off his shoulders to reveal that he was still wearing the top half of his hospital scrubs that were splashed in amniotic fluid and blood. He looked down at his self and blushed.
“Sorry Carrots, I kind of stink”.
“Oh my God! I thought somebody had ordered bad fish on the plane….and it was you all the time!” She put her hand over her mouth and nose and flew to the closet, returning with the hotel laundry service bag.
“At least I can still pull Miss Air Canada whilst I stink like fish guts” He joked.
“Eww” Anne rolled her eyes and thrust the laundry bag into his hands “Get that off and get in the shower before you pollute another inch of my beautiful luxury hotel room Gilbert Blythe!”
He pulled the offending shirt off his back, placed it in the bag and deposited it on the other side of the door. Leaving him standing there half naked in front of her and blushing.
“What?” Anne asked.
“Well?” he gestured to his torso.
“Again, What?” Anne asked “It’s nothing I’ve not seen before”.
“I’ve been working out since you last saw me like this” he said proudly, flexing his pecks.
“Well like I said before “immune”” she enunciated whilst gesticulating with both hands from her head to her toes and back again. “Now shower. Please!”
He turned and headed for the en-suite bathroom grumbling under his breath as he went, making Anne smile to herself. She helped herself to a bottle of water out of the mini bar and returned to the balcony where she slipped her sandals off and reclined on one of the sun loungers there. She sighed deeply as she heard the water start running in the bathroom and the sound of Gilbert’s tuneless voice as he began to sing ‘Waiting for a girl like you’ in the shower.
“I've been waiting for a girl like you to come into my life
I've been waiting for a girl like you, your a love that will survive
I've been waiting for someone new to make me feel alive
Yeah, waiting for a girl like you to come into my life.”
She softly laughed to herself at hearing his terrible voice as he screeched the high notes. She was secretly thrilled that he was sharing a room with her. He was always so busy at the hospital these days. Even though they lived in the same city they never got to spend enough quality time together. She loved the life she currently led as a published author and journalist, but there were times when she felt deeply lonely and missed her curly haired mischief maker of a best friend. She smiled to herself as she recalled some of their college shenanigans. Gil dressed up in a frilly bonnet, corseted gown and lace apron as an initiation to his college fraternity. How vexed she was; that he managed to rock the frilly pink dress to perfection, when she could never get away with wearing a dress that colour due to her red hair. The night he got booed off stage at the Karaoke night as his singing was just that bad. She chuckled to herself at the memory of how they had laughed that night, until tears had coursed down their faces, her makeup wrecked. There were countless nights of drunken revelry and clubbing often resulting in him holding her hair back whilst she threw up. He would always insist that she should stay over at his place those nights as he hated to leave her drunk and alone in case she threw up and choked.
Although at the now grand old age of 27, she certainly didn’t miss the Sunday morning hangovers, she did miss that unspoken and simple intimacy that came with them. Of drinking huge mugs of coffee with him, curled up together under his blanket on his couch. Him in his pyjama pants and her wearing one of his old hoodies, reading together or just giggling over the antics of the night before and their crazy, loving friendship group. Or him crying at a soppy rom com and trying desperately to hide it from her. Anne knew she was a lucky woman, now surrounded by loving friends and family that she once thought could only ever be the stuff of her over active imagination.
She never wanted things to change.
Why did people have to change and grow up?
Fred and Di were due to be married in the autumn. Ruby was convinced Moody was on the verge of proposing. Before she knows it there will be a whole gaggle of baby Wrights and McPhersons running riot around them. Anne felt the familiar sting in her chest as her heart constricted slightly. She knew she would never be a mother; they had told her that at the hospital when she was 9 years old after the accident. Anne shook her head slightly to dispel the grey clouds that were beginning to creep into her thoughts and tried to focus on the island paradise before her.
She realised she could no longer hear the water running or the terrible singing and surmised that Gilbert must be out of the shower. She padded bare foot back into the bedroom to see him crashed out on the bed fast asleep. A towel wrapped around his waist, his dark curls were wet and flopping over his relaxed brow and his arms thrown out at 90 degrees to his chest. She thought he looked thinner, his face a little more drawn than it had been in their younger days.
“Gil” she said softly stroking a curl back from his forehead “Gil. You need to eat something”. Still asleep he lifted an arm across his closed eyes and muttered “Prepare Miss Edwards in bed 7 for her laparoscopy”. Anne laughed quietly and shook her head coming to the conclusion that he needed his sleep more than food at the moment. She had the next two weeks to make sure he was eating well. She opened her case and pulled out her nightdress, quickly slipping it on in the bathroom. She looked at herself in the mirror, still the same freckles dotted across her nose and cheeks, but she had come to accept them as part of whom she was now. She frowned suddenly when she realised that her nightdress was a bit on the skimpy side, she hadn’t anticipated having to share a room with Gilbert Blythe. Oh well, there wasn’t much she could do about it now. She tiptoed back into the bedroom and slipped into the other side of the bed. She flipped the light off and turned on her side to face her old school chum. How far they had come she thought. The journey had been a long and hard one. She had gone from hating him with a vengeance when the” iron had entered her soul”, to cherishing him as one of her dearest friends. She laughed quietly to herself and shook her head, thinking what a little fool she had been back then.
She looked at his profile in the moonlight and whispered “Goodnight Gil”. He suddenly turned in his sleep onto his side facing her and sighed heavily mumbling “Anne….sooo beautiful”. A strange unwarranted wave of affection for him blossomed in her chest. She was so proud of her best friend, he was so intelligent, caring and hard working. He totally deserved the fantastic career path that he was on. Yes, pride, surely that must be what she was feeling. She noticed as he had turned the towel around his waist had become untucked, revealing the smooth pale skin of his hip. Anne quickly closed her eyes to avoid getting an eyeful, but then reopened one to get a quick peek. She was a woman after all!
‘Anne Shirley! Have more respect!’ She heard a voice say in her head that sounded remarkably like Marilla’s. She sighed and got back out of bed and found a spare sheet in the closet and draped it over his sleeping figure. She got back into her side of the bed and lay down on her back and tried to erase the near indecent image of her best friend she had just seen from her mind, but she was suddenly very conscious that she was in bed with an Adonis of a man. She huffed in frustration. Gilbert Bloody Blythe! Perhaps she was a little less immune to his charms than she had previously thought.