An (Un)Fortunate Lily Maid
A/N: Still working on the modern AU, but since I’m all up in my feels over season three still, I wanted to write a little post S3 one shot. Takes place four months after the 3.10 finale.
Characters: Anne Shirley Cuthbert; Gilbert Blythe
Relationship: Anne Shirley Cuthbert/Gilbert Blythe
Nearly four months after she first stepped into the next chapter of her life, Anne Shirley-Cuthbert was finally back home. Even though it was only for a few short weeks, she was grateful that would be able to spend more than one or two fleeting nights in her dear gable room. Charlottetown was only a short train ride away, a fact that she was continuously grateful for because whenever missing her dear family simply became too much to bear, she’d use some of her travel fund to return home.
Not that she didn’t love Queen’s and all it afforded her.
In fact, she enjoyed it far more than she imagined she would. Her homesickness was curbed for the most part due to the fact that most of her former classmates were there as well. Most of the time, she could imagine that they were all back in the old schoolhouse, learning about things well outside the standardized curriculum from one of her greatest inspirations: her dear, Miss Stacy.
Inadvertently, she’d be pulled from her reverie by the ramblings of one professor or another. It wasn’t that she didn’t like her teachers. They were all well-esteemed in their own right, but what she wouldn’t give to turn the clock back a year—if only for a day.
The girls had flourished during those first few months in Charlottetown. There had been a few minor tiffs amongst them over the last few months, which was natural given the fact that they were suddenly living with one another. Whenever an argument popped up, Anne found herself grateful that she and Diana had yet to have any sort of conflict. Perhaps their separation last spring afforded them the opportunity to see the bigger picture. Anne was pleasantly surprised that Diana wasn’t bothered at all by her desire to ‘burn the midnight oil’, so to speak. Anne spent most of her nights studying, reading, or—whenever the inspiration struck—writing. Diana told her that she felt an odd sense of comfort in the soft glow of Anne’s lamp.
As much as she didn’t want to admit it, being back at Green Gables was strange. She was so used to sharing her room with her best friend that the last few nights without her were a little too quiet. She was used to the girls’ raucous giggling and constant plotting on ways to skirt around Mrs. Blackmore’s rules. To her credit, Anne abstained from most of their antics. She had changed. She wasn’t the same girl who snuck out in the middle of the night to dance around a fire or drink moonshine with the rest of her class. No, she was too preoccupied with making the best marks she could so that, hopefully, she’d earn a scholarship and alleviate the financial burden of her education from her adopted parents.
Not to mention the fact that staying busy also helped her to miss him less.
Toronto wasn’t nearly as far away as Paris, but it might as well have been.
