Chapter Text
au where everyone can only see in black and white until a moment between them and their soulmate triggers colour gradually appearing into both of their worlds
Anne was told from a young age that she would never have a soulmate and that she would never see colour.
“Sickly little girls like you never see no colour. You ain’t made for anyone to love,” one of the orphanage matrons had spat at her.
She hadn’t understood it at the time – the idea of colour. She’d turned to books – romance novels filled with stories of brilliant young ladies who started to see colour after a special moment between them and a chivalrous gentleman. Colour was, as best as Anne could understand from books, seeing the world in the best possible way.
Anne had heard of rich blues, deep greens, soft yellows and bold reds, but she’d never experienced them for herself. And she’d need a soulmate for that.
Moving to Green Gables had given her hope. She’d come to learn the world was good and full of love and that maybe it was possible that girls like her could begin to see colour and that perhaps she was made to love... and be loved.
Matthew and Marilla saw colour, and while it hadn’t worked out with their soulmates, their world was richer for it. Anne was desperate for a rich and full world.
Anne would sometimes sit by the black and white flowers outside and will them to explode into colour. It never happened though. She had grown accustomed to her black and white world and was quite happy to wait.
Turns out she didn’t have to wait that long after her sixteenth birthday.
Anne’s black and white world was disrupted the day that Miss Stacey asked the boys to push the desks to the side of the room to make space for dance practice.
Anne stuck closely to Diana’s side, they were both shepherded by Miss Stacey to the other side of the room. She had hoped to avoid Charlie Sloane, especially today, but he had ended up by her side again; his hand outstretched and overly keen to take hers. With a forced a polite smile, she placed her hand in his with the lightest pressure and least contact possible.
Across from her, Gilbert raised an eyebrow. Great, even better, Anne thought.
She had formed her own opinion of Charlie long ago, and the idea of a courtship between them was definitely something far off from Anne’s ideas about her future, but Gilbert’s impression of the whole thing had affected her more than she liked to admit to herself.
Anne had come to realise recently that Gilbert Blythe’s opinions and judgements mattered to her. Often she would find herself looking to Gilbert for confirmation or just to see what he was thinking.
Anne had thought that their positions as co-editors of the school’s newspaper had forged this silent way of communicating – someone would read an article, Anne would look to Gilbert and he to her, and they would be able to tell if they both were happy to approve it just by expression alone.
It had begun in other ways too. Anne found herself looking to Gilbert to seek his wordless opinion in all matters. She found that they were mostly always thinking the same thing. When Paul mispronounced a word in one of their reading aloud classes, Anne had looked to Gilbert to see if he had caught the mistake as well… and he had looked to her at the same time and just by the slightest smile, Anne could tell that he had. In one of their private studies, Miss Stacey had been rushing through a very complicated mathematics equation, and one look to Gilbert prompted him to ask her to go back a few steps and re-explain when Anne was too afraid ask for help. She had sent him a silent look of thank-you and he had sent a silent look back of your welcome.
He understood her and she understood him, always, without ever having to say a single word to each other. She was grateful for it. It felt like a secret between them, nothing she shared with anyone else, not even Diana.
But the ability to read Gilbert, to see and understand what he was thinking and feeling at any given moment, had its troubles. Anne saw everything, and she felt it all as if it was her own. Worse had been when Mary had finally passed. Anne saw every flicker of pain and every moment of grief on his face. Seeing him that way – it was too much to bear.
Their connection also meant that she saw everything Gilbert disapproved of – which recently had become Charlie Sloane. Every time Charlie would interact with Anne, even in the smallest of ways, Anne would always find Gilbert’s eye and see his distaste. It had begun to annoy her because she couldn’t quite understand why. What was so bad that made Gilbert so disapproving?
It had been most inconvenient when Charlie’s first note had appeared. She’d been with Gilbert, talking of their family – Mary, Delphine and Bash – looking at each other in the way that they did, sharing their grief wordlessly, when Diana had run in announcing that Charlie had posted for Anne. One quick check of Gilbert’s face told Anne everything he was thinking – he turned away, raised his eyebrows, lips pursed with objection. Anne had taken Diana’s hand and pulled them away from Gilbert so she didn’t have to see his face anymore and feel more embarrassed than she already was.
But, now that they found themselves, stood across from each other locked into a dance formation, Anne could not avoid Gilbert’s clear feelings about Anne’s hand in Charlie’s. Her cheeks grew hot, she wished she could be stood next to anyone else – god, even Billy would be better, she thought, if it meant Gilbert wouldn’t look at her like this.
Anne raised her chin high and didn’t break eye contact with him, trying to tell him she didn’t care what he thought. He understood and smiled back, almost teasing her.
Then Mrs Lynde began to clap and Anne found herself tugged around in a circle, dancing. It took a moment for her to find the rhythm but eventually her feet caught up with her head and soon she was making the right steps to the beat of the clapping. Quickly, she began to enjoy herself, even start to have fun. With the music and the laughter from the others around her, she soon felt like a character out of one of her novels.
It helped that Gilbert seemed to be enjoying himself too. Smiling just as she was, still with that playful look in his eyes. As the circle broke and the partner dancing began, Anne found her eyes stuck on Gilbert. She lost sight of him briefly as she danced around Charlie but soon their eyes were reunited.
Gilbert wasn’t particularly graceful in the way he moved, or in the way that he spun Jane around, but Anne began to wish they were be dancing together instead. They seemed to do so much as a pair these days that it felt almost unfair that they’d been put in different sets for this. Anne knew she would be having much more fun if they were together, it wouldn’t feel as clumsy as dancing with Charlie or Mrs Lynde’s very-smiley son.
The dance lines bounced together and then away again. Anne, facing Gilbert straight-on again, caught a mischievous look in his eyes and saw his eyes dart down to Anne’s hand in Charlie’s. Immediately, Anne knew precisely what he was thinking and gave him a very tiny nod of consent. Yes, she said, yes I would like to dance with you.
And with that, Gilbert reached across and took Anne’s hand in his and twirled her over to his side of the line. To anyone else, a simple mistake, but to them a very deliberate choice. They shared a look at their joined hands and to each other.
The circle began to move around again but Anne barely noticed, with Gilbert’s hand guiding her, his arm bent pulling her closer into him, she didn’t have to think about the steps.
Anne knew what came next, a very brief moment of partner work. Everything else around her slipped away as Gilbert took her hands and spun her around. She felt herself gliding through the air, held gently in his arms up until the moment she floated away and around Charlie. She turned back to Gilbert and his expression had changed, still playful and teasing but with a powerful seriousness.
Something changed within her. She felt something overwhelming, nothing she’d felt before – flutters deep down in her stomach and goosebumps rising all over her body.
She felt like she was floating as he skated across the floor around him again. Their eyes never left one another. He outstretched his hand for her to take again, and she took it willingly as their dance lines bounced backwards and forwards again. His hand felt warm and strong in hers, but as she ducked under and over to the other side, she felt it slip away.
Back facing him again, she stared openly into his face – it was full warmth and fondness, she wondered if her own face was saying the same thing.
Moody gave one last strum on his banjo and the dance was over. The room filled with clapping and laughing. They all bowed to each other and broke apart – all except Anne and Gilbert who remained rooted to where they stood.
Anne searched his face, trying to read him but she couldn’t anymore. He was completely unreadable. There was an emotion on his face, but she’d never seen it before and didn’t know what it meant.
She stared and stared, dizzy from the dancing and sick with a feeling in the pit of her stomach that was so powerful, something she’d never felt before.
As she was looking at him… really looking at him… she noticed something. It was unmistakable. Gilbert’s eyes were hazel. Not black or white, or any shade in-between but hazel.
Huh, she thought. The more she looked, the more the colour grew. And then…
Oh, she thought, oh no.
Immediately, she bolted towards the cloakroom, back into her black and white world and away from any spec of colour that may or may not be in Gilbert Blythe’s eyes.
She pulled on her coat and scarf, trying desperately to calm down, to breathe normally again. She looked around her – still black and white, no colour. Across the cloakroom, she could sense that Gilbert was looking at her. She grabbed her hat and slid past Gilbert, avoiding looking at him.
She stepped out into the air and down the path home at the fastest speed she could manage.